Half-remembered lyrics to a half-remembered hymn. It was not the way I expected to wake up on this particular morning. Or any given morning, for that matter. After all, I’ve never been much of a spiritual man – “debates” with my parents over why I should go to church on many a Sunday morning when I was growing up served as a testament to that. Then again, it may not have been a hymn at all – perhaps something from the last play I’d seen with my folks.

Either way, the song’s origin was a mystery to me. Moreover, something about the way this song came to me struck me as strange. While I have occasionally woken up with at least part of a song in my heart – or head, as the case may be – this felt very different. It was a very odd sensation – if I had to describe it, I’d say that it was as if someone had suddenly turned on a radio inside my head.

And that wasn’t the most confusing thing about it, either. It had an unearthly, ethereal quality to it that defied explanation. The closest I could come to defining it was the word “supernatural” – a notion that I quickly rejected out of both sheer skepticism and a complete lack of experience with such matters.

The conundrum would have to be pushed to the back burner, however, as reality began to reassert itself via a steady, rhythmic beeping noise that had just invaded the edge of my consciousness. Apparently, my body had decided that I’d been out long enough and had reached for the proverbial smelling salts.

With a decidedly groggy groan of protest, I slowly opened my eyes to the waking world. It didn’t take long to discover what that infernal beeping noise was: I was lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to a bunch of medical monitors. And while the heart monitor was the only machine in the room that was going “bing,” there was one other device in the cluster of equipment on the left side of the bed that drew my attention. I couldn’t discern its purpose – especially since I was without my glasses – but I was fairly certain that it was the most expensive machine in the hospital.

I idly wondered if a visit from the hospital administrator was next on the agenda.

Shaking the thought off, I tried to think of how I could have possibly ended up in the hospital. Images swam in my head – dinner; cake and ice cream; a sign on the stairs to the upper level of my parents’ home that read, “Party Like There’s No To-Maya.” A feminine face with auburn hair and blonde highlights that lit like fire in the morning sun.

It was all a jumble, and when I tried to piece together a coherent recollection of the last time I was fully conscious, a sudden wave of nausea swept over me. Clutching around desperately for the bedpan on the nearby nightstand, I barely had enough time to grab it and raise it to my chin before my body violently voided itself of whatever I’d had to eat in the last day or so.

With ragged breaths, I placed the bedpan back where I’d found it. I tried again to focus on my last memories, and again the nausea returned. This time, however, I paused my recollection before I could fill the bedpan any further.

As my breathing returned to normal and my stomach settled down, an oddly-cadenced pair of footfalls drew my attention to the door. I cursed myself for tempting fate. Apparently, the aforementioned stuffy bureaucrat really was coming to see me – presumably alongside either the doctor or the nurse. At the click of the door handle turning, I braced myself for a tete-a-tete with an easily impressed, functionally illiterate drone – even as the more rational part of my brain screamed at me that I wasn’t important enough to merit the attention of someone who was probably buddy-buddy with one of those Cigna bean counters who presumes to know better than my doctor what treatment I need.

Nothing on Earth could have adequately prepared me for what actually walked through the door, however.

The lone figure that crossed the threshold was definitely not human – that much was clear, despite my astigmatism-dulled vision. Judging from its quadrupedal stance, hooved feet, mane, and tail, there was no doubt in my mind that some sort of horse-like being stood before me – though this was quite unlike any equine I’d ever seen. Even though the chestnut roan coat and scraggly, dirty blonde mane and tail might have been more at home on the horses I was familiar with, the facial features were much more human-like than I was expecting.

Two other things stood out about the creature before me: the first was that it was wearing clothing – specifically, a nurse’s cap. The other was that it had a rather unusual marking on its flank. I’d been around a few horses in my day, and for the life of me, I can’t recall one that had a flank brand of a red cross with a particularly murderous-looking axe layered on top of it like I noticed on this one when it came close enough for me to make out fine details.

And in that moment, these fatal words slipped out of my mouth before my brain-to-mouth filter could register them: “Well, that’s unexpected.”

My mysterious visitor looked at me as if sizing me up before blandly stating, “I see you've finally decided to make our toil worthwhile.” It eyed the bedpan and the acrid contents therein. “And it looks like you’ve had a bit of a rough start, as well,” it said with clinical detachment.

It took me a few moments to process what the… horse had said. The task was made harder by the fact that the words were spoken in an Irish dialect so thick that it was practically a foreign language. In the time that it had taken to do the mental translation, my brain finally caught up to the fact that a horse-like being had spoken to me.

“Am I high, or something?” Incredulity permeated every word I spoke. “I’m pretty sure that horses aren’t supposed to be able to talk.”

This earned me a snort from the “nurse” that sounded strangely derisive. “Well, I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to exist, Sasquatch.” As the alien equine spoke, I noticed a lilting, feminine quality to the voice. Presumably, this was a female of the species, then. “And I’d keep that ‘horse’ talk to yourself, if I were you. That’ll earn you a buck in the face. I’m a pony.”

I stared flatly at her. “That’s kind of a distinction without a difference, isn’t it?”

“Only if you’re a stark-raving bigot,” she replied flatly, ears pinned back in cat-like agitation.

Ouch. That hit me personally. If there was one thing I prided myself on, it’s not being a stark-raving bigot.

Taking my silence as an expression of remorse, the pony continued, “Now that that’s out of the way, we can get to why I’m here. I’m Nurse Faran, and I’m going to be taking your vitals one last time before the Princesses meet with you.”

“Do what now?” I replied, eyes bulging in shock at the double whammy. If I’d been drinking right then, I would’ve spit it out. If I’m not on drugs, in a coma, or dreaming, then where the hell am I?

“I said that the Princesses are coming to meet you. Got wax in those pie tins you call ears, have ya?”

“N-no!” I was clearly on the defensive here, and this nurse seemed intent on keeping me off balance. Desperately seeking some sort of counter in this verbal fencing match, I decided to divert her attention by bringing up something that had been bothering me.

“You said your name was Nurse Faran, right?”

She rolled her eyes. “I did. It’s a good, solid Saddle Arabian name.”

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “Yeah, sure. Saddle Arabia. Next thing you’ll be telling me is that there’s a –” I waved my right hand in a figure-eight as I desperately cast about for a suitably punny name, “– Canterlot around here, or something.”

“I wasn’t aware that you’d been told where we are.”

I buried my head in the palm of my hand. “I just had to open my piehole and stick my foot in it, didn’t I?”

Sadly, my muttering didn’t go unnoticed by the mare, who was rapidly establishing herself as the pony version of Nurse Ratched. Directing a sly smile at me, she replied, “You do seem to have a special talent for it.”

Something about the way she said “special talent” bugged me, even beyond its use in impugning my character. Choosing to ignore it for the moment – it was one more item on the “press for information later” agenda – I tried to get back to my original question.

“Anyway, Nurse Faran, I do have one more thing I’d like to ask.” She waved a hoof for me to continue – despite the different equipment, the motion was oddly familiar. “No offense, but do you bite people?”

Nurse Faran’s evil smirk returned. “Only if I think you deserve it.” She punctuated this by rapidly chomping at the air in front of me a few times.

I leaned back in bed as far as I could without rolling off the other side. “Okay, I get the picture.”

This pony seriously unnerved me. I mean, she had an uncomfortably familiar name, all the bedside manner of Gregory House, and sounded so stereotypically Irish that she was practically farting shamrocks?

I was beginning to wish that I was dealing with the empty suit running the place.

“Now then,” the nurse said primly, as if she hadn’t just threatened me with bodily harm, “I do believe we’ve faffed about long enough, Mister…” she trailed off, gazing at me expectantly.

“Knox. Derren Knox,” I said sullenly. “So, what do you need me to do?”

With an air of nonchalance, Faran fully resumed her professional demeanor. “Well, the first thing I need for you to do is get out of that bed and go to the bathroom. You’ve been lazing about for three days, and we need to make sure your excretory functions are working properly.”

If Bill Cosby were here, he’d be having a laugh at this, I’m sure. Still, I figured it’d be safer to humor her. Lifting the sheets, I immediately noticed a problem: although the hospital gown I’d been given fit just fine in the torso area, it was severely lacking in the length department. If I got out of bed, I’d be letting my freak flag fly. “Umm,” I muttered, face flaming as I pointedly directed my gaze southward.

The nurse followed the trail my eyes made with her own, her face quickly lighting up in recognition. I had to give her credit – she was quick on the uptake. Unfortunately, this worked to my disadvantage.

“What?” she asked, nonplussed. “Do you have a problem with being naked? Ponies go around au naturel all the time. One’s body is nothing to be ashamed of –” the evil grin returned with reinforcements this time “– unless you have insecurities, Tiny.”

“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, fuzzball,” I said with gritted teeth. “Let’s just get this over with.” Bracing myself mentally, I threw the sheets off and covered myself as best I could with the diminutive hospital gown. I then planted my feet firmly on the ground to the right of the bed and raised myself to my full height… only to fall on my face moments later.

Cursing my legs for their sudden but inevitable betrayal, I turned to the nurse for assistance – only to find that she was no assistance at all, as she was too busy laughing her ass off at my plight. It was as she was rolling around in mirth that her tail flopped limply to the ground, giving me very stark visual confirmation that she was indeed all mare. Quickly averting my eyes in an effort to keep any disturbing images from sticking, I pointedly cleared my throat. “A little help here, please?”

With a sigh, my torturer stood up and walked over to me, offering a hoof to help me up. Reluctantly, I took her up on her offer, only to regret it moments later as she nearly yanked my arm out of its socket in the process of pulling me to my feet.

“Apparently, this is going to be one of those days,” I growled as Nurse Faran led me to the bathroom, a very smug smirk on her lips.

Surely, Murphy was done kicking me in the balls by now, right?

Two hours later, I was lying in bed once more. Physically, I was fine, but mentally, my head was still spinning from all that I had been exposed to in that time. I still had a few minutes before the Princesses were due to arrive, so I decided to take advantage of the momentary respite to engage in some (hopefully) productive navel-gazing.

Thanks to the pain from my earlier faceplant, I could pretty well infer that what was going on around me was real – for the most part. The battery of tests I underwent served as final confirmation that I could trust my five senses to give me an accurate representation of the world around me. This was a bit of a mixed blessing, for although it meant that I wasn’t going nuts, some of the things I saw and heard kind of made me wish I was bound for the Funny Farm.

It had started with Nurse Faran’s lament – muffled by the bathroom door as I was taking my pee test – about being denied the amusement that would’ve likely come from my having to attempt to use pony-style toilets. Apparently, the hospital ward I’d awoken in had been designed with minotaurs in mind, which was why the proportions of the bedroom and the amenities in the bathroom were so familiar.

My loud skepticism regarding the existence of such creatures that had long been relegated to mythology back home had been met with derisive laughter. Further insult was added to injury a few minutes later when a guard arrived in the middle of Nurse Faran’s final checkup. In a deep, rumbling basso, he announced that he was there to escort me to the main medical lab once I was ready. However, it wasn’t his voice, nor was it the gold-plated armor that were remarkable. It was the fact that he had wings. Snow white, feathery wings.

I’d found myself unable to tear my eyes away from the wings. I suppressed mirthless laughter at the thought I’d had at the time. Oh, joy. An honest-to-zombie-Jesus pegasus. And for his next trick, Wings here will be taking me to see a real, live unicorn!

Sure enough, once the guard had finished escorting me to the lab, I walked in to find myself face-to-furry-face with not one, but three unicorns. I was beginning to wonder if Mr. Murphy took a sadistic pleasure in feeding me my own foot.

It was rapidly becoming clear to me that I’d found myself in a first contact situation. Despite being a sci-fi geek, I always figured that this sort of thing would happen to others. I don’t have the training, and I’m just not that lucky.

Despite the difficulty, I did my best to take it in stride. After all, I’d been in and out of hospitals enough in my youth that I’d become pretty inured to being poked and prodded. The fact that the ones doing the poking and prodding were ungulate quadrupeds wasn’t going to make that much of a difference, in my mind.

Of course, had it been happening to anyone else, I probably would’ve laughed at the role reversal involved in the visiting ET being the one getting probed.

My ruminations were brought up short as the sound of two sets of hooves approached the door to my room. Perhaps the royals have finally decided to put in an appearance, as Nurse Faran promised, I thought as the door handle took on an almost divine golden glow. I was still struggling to accept the existence of magic, even though the three unicorns I’d met earlier were blatantly using it in front of me to telekinetically scribble down notes during my examination. With all I’d seen in the scant hours since I’d woken up, I decided it was safer for my sanity if I just went with the flow and accepted any new information at face value until proven otherwise.

Scrambling to adopt the best ambassadorial pose I could for a bedridden alien biped, I watched the door open on its own, followed shortly by two rather tall unicorns walking in at a regal pace. Despite the fuzziness of my vision, I could tell that they also had wings because said appendages were flared like a peacock’s tail. I couldn’t resist staring in surprise, since none of the human legends I could recall mentioned anything about winged unicorns.

The two stood as stoically before me as the pegasus guard had earlier, sizing me up with eyes that may have seen far too many things in their lifetimes. I noticed two things at this point. One was that the white one seemed to be about a head and a half taller than the dark blue one. Granted, I’ve never been very good at estimating things like height and weight, but I’m fairly sure that the midnight-colored pony before me could easily look me in the eyes – if not look down her muzzle a little at me.

The other thing I noticed was that their manes and tails seemed to flow as if being blown by a breeze, even though we were indoors… and I certainly didn’t see any windows in the room. I’d blame magic, but that would be too easy an answer, even if it was a logical one here.

Just as the silent staredown was starting to get awkward, the white one spoke in a calm, motherly tone. “Greetings, human. I am Princess Celestia, and this” – she turned her head to indicate the smaller winged unicorn next to her – “is my dear sister, Princess Luna. As co-rulers of Equestria, we wanted to personally welcome you to our humble nation. I hope your awakening wasn’t too traumatic.”

I shook myself from my reverie as I realized they were waiting for me to respond. “Sorry about that. Where I’m from, half the things I’ve seen in the last hour or so are mere myths.”

Celestia and Luna exchanged a meaningful glance at that. When they returned their attention to me, I gave them as respectful a bow as I could, given my condition, and with a wan smile, I continued.

“I think my brain’s still a bit fried from all the information that’s been thrown at me in such a short time, Your Majesty, but I’ll manage. My name is Derren Knox.” I glanced downward and then looked back at the princesses. “I apologize for being a bit lax on protocol. I’ve never really had the opportunity to meet with a foreign head-of-state, and given my current state of dress, if I tried for a more formal bow, I’d be trading one faux pas for another.”

Princess Celestia blinked owlishly for a moment in response, a rather nonplussed expression settling onto her muzzle. Princess Luna cleared her throat before explaining.

“I believe that he is referring to his species’ taboo against public nudity, sister.”

The white princess gave a start in sudden realization, cheeks tingeing red even through her fur. “Ah, I see,” she replied, conspicuously regaining control of her composure. “Well, just be aware that ponies don’t share in that taboo. Try not to be too shocked if you accidentally catch a glimpse of something… unexpected.”

I rolled my eyes. “Believe me, Your Highness, I’m well aware. A certain highly unprofessional nurse took much glee in informing me of that.” I pointedly avoided mentioning that said unprofessional nurse had also given me that accidental glimpse. Despite my best efforts, it had been enough to last a lifetime.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what I had been expecting alien pony vaginas to look like – presumably something that H. R. Giger would’ve made out of Play-Doh and bacon. My relief that my presumption had been way off was muted by the fact that Faran’s genitals were distinctly equine in structure – a fact that I only recognized because of my one (very brief) foray into the weirder parts of the Internet.

Thankfully, I didn’t have the chance to reflect on the discovery further, as Celestia dragged me back to reality with a sigh and a long-suffering smile. “Ah, I believe you are referring to Nurse Faran. She’s quite skilled in nursing non-pony patients back to health, though her bedside manner leaves much to be desired. I apologize if anything she’s said or done has ruffled any feathers.”

I waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t trouble yourself on my account, Princess. I’ll probably be out of her hair before too much longer, anyways.” A polite chuckle escaped me at that point – a cover for my true feelings. Once I am free to leave, it might be a good idea to look into a restraining order: she seemed to enjoy that hammer-to-the-knee reflex test a little too much, I mentally groused.

Celestia gave a polite nod in return. “I am glad to hear that there are no hard feelings between the two of you. Now then –” her tone turned slightly more serious at this point “– I’m sure you have many questions about your circumstances. Luna and I would be more than happy to answer anything you might wish to ask.”

I thought about that for a moment. “In that case,” I said, “let’s start with the two biggest ones. Firstly, why am I here instead of back in the States where I belong? And secondly – pardon my French – how the hell are any of you speaking English?”

Princess Luna looked at me as if I’d suddenly sprouted a second head. “You’ve spoken nothing but Standard Equestrian since we walked in here,” she replied. “Why would you need to apologize for using another language?”

I slapped a palm to my forehead at that. “It’s a human expression, Your Highness,” I said in an exasperated tone. “I was apologizing in advance for using vulgar language.”

Luna at least had the decency to look sheepish about her remark. “Oh,” she said. “That’s different, then. Never mind.”

“Perhaps you should get back to answering his question, Luna,” Celestia interjected with a small smile.

“O-of course, sister.” Suitably chastened, Luna returned her attention to me. “I’ll start with the language similarities, then, since the answer is –” her brow furrowed in concentration, as if she were casting about for suitable words “– more straightforward. Have you ever heard of Clover the Clever’s theory of the multiverse?”

Placing a hand on my chin, I adopted a contemplative expression of my own. “Can’t say that I’ve heard of any scientifically rigorous theories of the sort, but the concept has cropped up from time to time in science fiction.” I frowned, realizing a problem with this. “Even so, the odds of two parallel civilizations developing nearly identical languages has got to be astronomically small.”

“Perhaps,” Celestia politely retorted, “but I’m afraid you’ve forgotten one important implication of the theory – the number of parallel worlds that exist is potentially limitless.”

“And with an infinite sample size, you’re bound to get plenty of hits sooner or later,” I added.

“Exactly,” Celestia said with a smile and a nod. “I see you’re no slouch when it comes to statistics.”

I chuckled a bit at that. “I may have taken a class or two when I was in college, but I really only know enough to be dangerous to myself. Besides, I’ve probably forgotten most of what I learned.”

Celestia’s smile lost none of its warmth. “Nevertheless, I can tell you have a keen mind. It reminds me a bit of one of my students.”

I blanched at that. “You’re not only the head of government here, but a teacher as well?”

She nodded. “There’s a school for gifted unicorns here in Canterlot. Technically, I’m the headmistress of the school, but with all of my other duties, I have to delegate a lot of the actual day-to-day operations to my assistant there – a wonderful mare named Star Riser.”

Princess Luna pointedly cleared her throat at that moment. “Oh, my apologies, dear sister,” Princess Celestia said, an embarrassed chuckle accompanying her words. “Please, continue.”

Luna rolled her eyes. “Yes, of course. Anyway, Mister Knox, as far as why you are here, that requires a longer explanation, and a bit of a… ‘field trip,’ as I believe you call it. When you’re ready, we can summon the doctor to disconnect you from the monitoring equipment for a little while.”

“Umm… okay,” I said, a raised eyebrow matching the uncertain tone in my voice. “Can you at least get me something to cover up with, as well? I wouldn’t want to make a bad impression on everyone on my first day here by mentally scarring them with images of my dangly bits.”

Luna buried her face in her hoof at my remark and shuddered briefly, while Celestia presented me with the slightest of smiles. Luna turned to look at the door, which suddenly started glowing a deep shade of blue that was almost purple, matching the glow around her horn. Only a few seconds passed before said door disgorged a rather large towel, by human standards.

“There,” Luna huffed imperiously. “Put that on while my sister and I go fetch the doctor.”

Nodding, I grabbed the towel out of mid-air when Luna’s telekinesis brought it within range. The princesses gave me a polite bow, which I returned as best I could from my bed before turning to contemplate how best to make myself decent with just a hospital gown and minotaur-sized towel.

My attention was drawn back to the door by Luna’s voice. “Oh, and one more thing,” she said as her horn lit up. Less than a second later, the air cracked as if a vacuum had been spontaneously created and filled in that fraction of a second. When it was over, a pair of glasses floated in the air in front of me, glowing with the deep blue that I was beginning to recognize as Luna’s magical aura.

“I believe these are yours,” she said, letting the spectacles drop into my waiting hands. Without waiting for a reply, she and Celestia trotted through the hospital door, leaving me to my thoughts.

The lenses were scratched in places, and the frames had obviously been through a somewhat hasty repair job, but they still seemed to be serviceable. I put them on, and my world suddenly became a lot clearer – for the most part.

Seeing the glasses triggered a memory – or at least, it seemed like a memory. It flashed by too quickly for me to consciously register, but it was enough to set my stomach churning. Barely managing to avoid eating breakfast in reverse again, I stared incredulously at the open door.

What in the name of all that’s holy is going on here?

Ten minutes later, I was free of the prison of electrodes and sensors and unchained from the IV pump – at least for the moment. I had only been wearing the towel for a few minutes when the two princesses returned with Doctor Silverclaw – a middle-aged griffon who I was told was working at the castle under the auspices of some sort of interspecies medical exchange program. The good doctor’s silver coat and brown head feathers had taken on a grayish tinge from age, and while his eyes had the beginnings of crow’s feet, they still shone brightly with a youthful fire and fierce intelligence. All in all, he made for an impressive, if somewhat intimidating, presence to be around.

As soon as he had set me loose – a process that took all of two minutes – I found myself in need of readjusting my towel, as it had come loose in the flurry of taloned activity that showed no regard for my personal space. The princesses politely, but hurriedly, excused themselves to let me recover my dignity. Having wrapped myself in the towel once more as if it were an American flag, I carefully tied it off so that it wouldn’t slip or come apart – if I’d ever bothered to learn, I would’ve done it toga-style.

Once I was no longer in danger of experiencing a wardrobe malfunction, I turned to my caretaker. “So, Doc,” I said, “When can I expect to get out of here?”

“Doc” smiled before draping a talon over my shoulder while gesturing grandly towards the top of the bedroom wall with the other.

“Ah, my good little human patient,” he said in an extravagant tone, “I have good news for you. We should be able to release you tomorrow morning. You’ll have to stay in the castle for the rest of the week for physical therapy and general observation, but after that, you can go wherever the wind takes you. Just try not to wind up back here so soon. One predator to another, these ponies can be pretty crazy, yes?”

He spoke in a ridiculous-sounding Eastern European accent that made me think he was going to regale me with tales of the grand old days of the Griffon Republic, when hundreds of servants would change thousands of light bulbs at their slightest whim. Although I seriously feared getting trapped in an elevator with him, I found him to be likable enough. He might make for an interesting drinking buddy.

“I take it you know Nurse Faran, then?” I quipped, earning me a knowing guffaw and a hearty clap on the shoulder from the slightly crazy griffon.

“I’m not saying anything, Mister Knox,” Doctor Silverclaw replied with a conspiratorial wink. “I didn’t say anything then, and I’m not saying anything now.” He took a few steps towards the heavy mahogany door, then turned to look back over his shoulder at me. “Come, the princesses are waiting for us.”

With an uncertain smile, I followed him out into the hallway, and this time, I gave a proper bow to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, which they returned with a brief nod of their heads. Wordlessly, they turned and led the way through the maze of corridors that made up the medical facility I was being held in. At some point along the way, a small cadre of unicorn guards joined us (a good half dozen by my count), pouring out of two antechambers – one on each side of the room we were in.

Our numbers thus bolstered, we moved through the remaining door towards our destination. As we walked in silence, I took the opportunity to glance around at my surroundings. The plush burgundy carpet was bordered by dark marble tiles, while white Corinthian columns buttressed the similarly-tiled walls. Every so often, a marble statue of an armored pony filled the space between the columns.

After a few moments, it dawned on me that we were no longer in the hospital. In fact, I hadn’t been convalescing in a hospital at all – up until now, we’d merely been in the medical wing of the royal palace. For a mere “medical wing,” however, it was about as well-equipped as any research hospital back home.

I’m no slouch when it comes to navigation. Given enough time to familiarize myself with an area, I can get from Point A to Point B ninety-nine times out of one-hundred. In unfamiliar areas, I’d need at least a map to get around reliably. But even with a compass, a map, and a Boy Scout manual, I’m not sure I could’ve recreated the convoluted path we followed without needing to ask for directions from one of the castle staff we passed by every so often. Hell, I’m pretty sure that my brother, the nearest thing to a human GPS that I know of, would’ve fared about as well as Ryoga Hibiki. I was starting to get a little restless from frustration and boredom.

Silverclaw must’ve noticed my increasingly agitated state, as he decided to engage me in conversation. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Mister Knox: what did you think of the xeno-psychological field study you went through earlier?”

With a confused frown, I said, “Xeno-what now?”

He pulled his head back, and a skeptical look crossed his features. “You know, that meeting you had with Doctor Hozho, Doctor Saddleton, and Doctor Strangehooves earlier today.”

“Ah, that.” I thought back to my “interview” with the unicorn trio I’d met after finishing up with Nurse Faran. “To be honest, Doctor, it felt like a cross between a medical exam and a pretrial competency hearing,” I grumbled.

This earned a knowing laugh from my companion. “Ahhh, yeeees,” he drawled. “You know, I had to undergo one of those myself when I applied for the Medical Exchange Program four years ago. I felt much the same way as you.”

My eyebrow started crawling up my forehead at that. “Wow. Four years?”

He nodded as the hoofbeats of our escort echoed along the corridor, along with my footfalls. “It wasn’t easy, though. It took two whole years for my application to be approved.” He leaned in uncomfortably close and whispered, “I can’t say for certain, but I have a feeling that it was one of those thrice-damned pegasi on the committee that was responsible for my approval being held up for so long. For all the princesses’ talk of ‘improving pony-griffon relations’ with this exchange program, their subjects haven’t exactly been forthcoming on the execution.”

My brow furrowed in confusion. “Why would you suspect the pegasi?”

Silverclaw made a rude noise. “Please, Mister Knox. Ponies and griffons have always had – how you say – an uneasy relationship. And even though we lost contact with them around the time that the three tribes unified and founded Equestria, the pegasi have long memories. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them thought my ultimate grandfather farted in their ancestor’s general direction, and the intervening years inflated the incident into a full-on atrocity in their minds. So, yes, forgive me if I am not particularly sanguine about the program.”

Something about that made even less sense. “Then why join the program if you have such doubts about it?”

He waved with a talon as if wafting away a bad smell. “The griffon ambassador owed me a favor, and he figured this would allow him to fulfill the debt and get me out of his feathers.” A harsh laugh followed. “Imagine his surprise when he ran into me here in Canterlot not two months later.”

His laughter turned slightly maniacal as he savored the memory. Taking a moment to settle himself, he continued, “As for why I’m still here? Who knows? Maybe some part of me still believes that I can change some minds.” He chuckled again, but this time, there was no humor in it. “Perhaps my mind is the one that needs changing.”

“Well, given all the troubles you’ve had, do you think you’ll continue with the program?”

He smirked. “Maybe if I come across something worth staying in the program for.”

I bleated out a flustered laugh at that as a sudden warmth flooded my cheeks. “I’m flattered, but no. I don’t swing that way, and I’m too new here to even consider that kind of interspecies relations even if I did.”

Another hearty laugh answered me. “Please, Mister Knox. I wouldn’t be interested in you if you were the last sapient being in the multiverse. Besides, I’ve got a wife and fledglings back home. I’m pretty sure Giselle would tan my hide if she found out my talons had been wandering in places they shouldn’t be.”

The dark marble tiles on the floor and walls were gradually giving way to grayer hues at this point. Silverclaw gazed at me out of the corner of his eye as the ensuing silence stretched on. After a long moment, he spoke.

“Is it true what Doctor Saddleton was telling me earlier about your species’ lack of magical ability?”

Frowning, I gave a disappointed grunt. “Unfortunately. Beyond garden-variety parlor tricks involving smoke and mirrors or sleight-of-hand, humans don’t have a drop of magic in them. Probably explains why I reacted the way I did the first time I saw one of them using their telekinesis.”

Silverclaw raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And how did you react, if you don’t mind me asking?”

My mouth scrunched up sheepishly, and I looked at him from beneath my eyebrows. “About as well as Locke Cole and Edgar Figaro upon seeing Terra Branford set magitek armor on fire.”

“What?”

I shook my head. “Never mind. Human cultural thing. Let’s just say that I reacted… poorly.”

Despite nodding in understanding, he looked at me as if I’d sprouted a second head for a moment. I waved my hand as if to dismiss the tangent like an annoying insect.

“Anyway, they then hooked me up to that expensive-looking paperweight-”

“It’s called an arcano-psychrometer,” one of the normally-stoic guards supplied.

I nodded at the guard, absently noting the continued lightening of the tiles as we walked. “Right. That thing,” I replied.

Turning back to Silverclaw as if I hadn’t been interrupted, I continued, “They even told me to ‘perform any spell I desired.’ So, I turned to the damn thing and shouted, ‘STRUN BAH QO!’ at it. Surprise, surprise, nothing happened. Didn’t even move the needle.” A small pocket of air left my lungs in a surprisingly equine chuffing noise, and I smiled ruefully. “On the upside, if I’d tried to cast Dragon Slave, the only thing that would’ve been destroyed would’ve been my dignity.”

“A fortuitous turn of events, indeed,” Silverclaw murmured skeptically.

“Doctor Strangehooves didn’t seem to share your sentiment,” I retorted with a mirthless chuckle. “He seemed to be ready to leap to his hooves, only I doubt it was to say, ‘Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!’”

Silverclaw responded with another rude noise. “I’m going to assume that’s another reference to something from your world.” At my nod, he continued, “A word of advice, Mister Knox. Try to tone down those references around these ponies. They won’t understand the vast majority of them, and you’ll only make yourself look even more alien than you already are, even to an oddball like Strangehooves. Trust me, these ponies have a habit of rejecting anything too strange, and you want to fit in, yes?”

I glared sullenly at him. “Well, that’s unfair, don’t you think? They’ll be making references I don’t understand all over the place, and I can’t do the same?” Seeing his austere, unwavering expression, I sighed heavily. “I suppose you’re right. There’s a saying from my world: ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do.’ It basically means that if you find yourself in a foreign land, you should do your best to fit in, no matter how strange the local customs may seem.”

Silverclaw smiled at that. “Sounds like sage advice to me.”

Appropriately enough for a walk-and-talk worthy of Aaron Sorkin, our journey ended in an expansive hallway worthy of the royals who resided here. The walls were bordered with lavish gold finery, and adorned by rather expensive-looking tapestries. The burgundy carpet we’d been walking on joined another one that ascended a grand staircase leading off into another part of the castle. An expertly-embroidered golden star marked the intersection of the two carpets. About the only concession to plainness that I could see was that the tiles had changed from the varying marble patterns of the corridors that provided access to this room to a simple purple-and-white checkerboard array.

Between taking in the scenery and my conversation with the griffon doctor, I almost didn’t notice that we’d stopped, narrowly avoiding walking into the princesses by mere millimeters. With everything else I’d already been through, I didn’t need a night in the hoosgow for molesting the royal rumps added to the list.

I figured I was getting off light with the hair’s breadth by which I missed seeing what was beneath their tails.

Our ultimate destination was a rather large set of double doors at the top of the stairs. Upon reaching the landing, those doors lit up in the charcoal gray hues of our escorts’ telekinetic fields and opened automatically. What was behind those doors nearly floored me.

Beyond the doors lay a lavish throne room that would’ve put Buckingham Palace to shame. The burgundy carpet from earlier now covered every inch of the floor, with the exception of a small, inset series of sluices leading away from a moderate-sized, moat-like fountain surrounding the dual thrones in the back of the room. Many of the decorative objects in the room were gold plated, and exquisite crystalline chandeliers hung from the ceiling at regular intervals.

All in all, the decor managed to project a veneer of artistically ostentatious opulence without tipping over into being merely gaudy.

Princess Celestia chuckled as she noticed me struggling to pick my jaw up off the floor. “Impressive, isn’t it?” she murmured in my ear.

It took me a moment to find my voice. “Indeed.”

“However, that’s not the reason we’re here,” Luna stated in a businesslike manner. And so, with the dark princess leading the way, we soon stood before a mirror hidden in a back corner of the throne room. The reflective portion had to be at least as tall as Princess Celestia (who, indeed, was about half a foot taller than me), with a somewhat narrow, horseshoe-shaped purple rim studded with pink gems at regular intervals. The top flared upward into a decorative seal bearing a stylized silhouette of a pony rearing up on its hind legs.

“This is no ordinary mirror,” Luna portentously intoned as I came to a stop next to her. “It is a gateway to another world.” She gazed pointedly at me. “Your world.”

Tentatively, I reached out and tapped the glass a couple of times. As expected, nothing happened. “You sure about that, Your Majesty?” I asked.

Luna rolled her eyes. “It is not active right now. And unfortunately, it’s activation cycles are… rather unpredictable. We do not know when it will open again.”

I blanched at that. “You mean I’m stuck here?” I shouted incredulously.

Luna nodded sadly. “I am afraid so, at least for the immediate future.”

I stared at her, shock clearly written on my face. Several attempts to speak only resulted in my jaw flapping uselessly. Finally, after several long moments, I found my voice. It all came out in a tumble of words.

“Then why? What about my home? What about the life I had back there? What about my friends, my family? They must be worried sick about me! How did I get here? Why am I even here?”

Luna sighed. “To answer your last question, it was necessary to save your life.”

“Come again?”

The princess fixed me with a level stare, her blue eyes tempered steel. “I said that it was necessary to save your life.”

To save your life…

To save your life…

To save your life…

As if being run through a film reel at extremely fast speeds, a long montage of images flashed before my eyes, too quickly to make any sense of. In the split second it took to run through them all, I found myself hit with a double dose of pain – the first was a headache that had the force of a sledgehammer, driving me to my knees. The second was a familiar churning in my abdomen, this time with the force of a xenomorph hatchling trying to burst out of a different part of my body.

The last thing I could recall before losing consciousness was violently retching into the nearby fountain.

–n hear m–… –ter Knox, please sq–… –oof.

If you ca–… –Mister Kn–… –ueeze my h–

If you can hear me, Mister Knox, please squeeze my hoof.

Sure enough, I could sense a warmth about where my right hand was. With a concerted effort, I willed the hand to clamp down on the warmth.

He’s coming around.

My eyes fluttered open, and the first thing I noticed was that I was back in the cold, sterile confines of my hospital room. A familiar group of three ponies and one griffon surrounded my bed. While Doctor Silverclaw and the princesses were welcome sights, the last pony in question was not.

And here I was, squeezing her hoof like my life depended on it.

I let loose with an exasperated sigh as I sharply withdrew my hand from Nurse Faran’s hoof. “Where’s Randle Patrick McMurphy when you need him?”

A cluster of bemused expressions met my outburst, though Silverclaw’s changed to an admonishing stare after a few moments. It was surprising how quickly he picked up on the fact that I had made another reference to human pop culture. Surprising... and a bit unnerving.

Forestalling the inevitable questions, I waved the non sequitur away with a sweeping hand gesture. “Never mind. It’s a human thing.”

“Anyway,” Celestia interjected, “Luna and I would like to apologize for what happened in the throne room. We weren’t expecting you to have a reaction like that.”

I grimaced. “Neither was I, Your Majesty. However...” I paused. Should I tell them?

“However…” Luna parroted, giving the word an interrogative lilt as a similarly quizzical expression settled on her muzzle.

I suppose they have a right to know, I thought. Especially the medical staff. It wouldn’t be fair to leave them in the dark and suddenly drop dead from some sort of magic radiation sickness, or something.

“Well…” I hesitated, searching for the right words. “This wouldn’t be the first time I’d… reacted poorly to something related to my arrival here.”

“Go on,” Luna said.

“When I first woke up, I tried to recall how I ended up in the hospital.” I gave Nurse Faran a meaningful look. “It didn’t end well.”

“Ah,” Nurse Faran said blandly. “That explains the mess in the bedpan earlier.” She smiled knowingly.

The two princesses shared what seemed to be a meaningful look before turning back to me.

“That’s… interesting, Derren,” Celestia said, “Luna and I will have to consult privately on the matter, but for now, it’s probably safest for you if we simply explain to you what happened to the best of our knowledge.”

“Please, do so,” I said with a grateful nod.

“Before I do,” Luna stated, fixing everyone with a deadly serious gaze, “I must advise you that what I am about to tell you must not leave this room, for reasons that will become obvious shortly.”

“O-okay,” I replied after taking a long moment to process her warning. Silverclaw and Faran quickly followed suit with nods of assent.

Princess Luna drew a deep breath and began her explanation. It turned out that she and Princess Celestia had been aware of humanity for some time, but it had only been in the last couple of years that they decided to study us and see if we were ready for official first contact with another world. When I’d asked her how she managed to stay off of the NSA’s radar, she’d slyly smiled and lit her horn, saying that she had ways of making herself undetectable by any means.

On her most recent trip through the portal, she’d quite literally stumbled upon me, or rather, my body. I had been attacked, and was pretty much clinically dead when she found me. My soul had already started to leave my body for the journey to “the realm that lies beyond the veil of death,” as she’d put it. Saving me had turned out to be difficult, due to the need to put my soul in stasis for a while. It was also an ethically murky issue, as the process required the use of forbidden magic to generate a new body for me using a small DNA sample from my corpse.

It was more than a little unnerving to think of my body in terms more suitable for a police procedural show, but I had to force myself to shunt that aside for the moment. I needed a fuller picture of what was going on before I could begin to deal with the grisly details. Frustratingly, there wasn’t much left for the princesses to tell.

Ultimately, it was Princess Celestia herself who had granted permission to “rebuild my body,” citing “special circumstances.” Unfortunately for me, both princesses were being very tight-lipped about what those circumstances were.

All of it raised a few questions about my status. Was I a clone? No, they had definitively told me. A clone was highly flawed, and those flaws most clearly came out in the personality expressed. If I had to summarize their explanation in my own words, it would be this: in a clone, the original soul was Flanderized to the point of not really being a soul at all.

Was I a zombie, or some other form of undead? Once more, the answer was a decisive no. In the undead, the soul was completely gone, and there was something else animating the corpse – something much darker.

In every way that mattered, I was still me. The only thing that was new was the body. In short, I was living a transhumanist’s dream.

Perhaps most conveniently, Luna had been able to grab my glasses and a sample of my clothes to bring back as well before the portal had closed. The clothes had gone to the royal seamstress so that she could work up some replicas that would fit my new body. That process would take about a day, so until then, I was limited to the hospital gown, my clothes, and the glasses that I’d been fidgeting with every fifteen seconds in a vain attempt to buff out the scratches.

I sat in sober contemplation for a minute once the princesses had finished their explanation. I could easily forgive the princesses, as they hadn’t planned on, nor had they intended to leave me stranded on this side of a now-closed Einstein-Rosen Bridge. And they did save my life – that kind of thing tends to elevate one’s opinion of a person… or pony, in this case.

Then, the rather unfortunate implications of my situation hit me: if what Luna said was true, then my corpse was still somewhere back on Earth, waiting to be found and reported to the authorities. Once that happened, it was just a matter of time before my family and friends were notified of my “death,” and here I was, with no way to tell them that I was indeed still alive.

At that moment, it was as if a dam had burst inside me, and all of the sorrow I had unknowingly been holding back spilled over in a torrential deluge. I couldn’t say how long I cried, or even if I managed to get all the grief out in one burst, but for the entire duration, I was fully aware of four warm bodies pressed tightly against me. Three sets of wings enveloped me, as well as three hooves and a talon.

As we broke the five-way hug, I sniffled a few times, clearing away the last of the mucus from my nostrils as I gazed upon my companions with a much calmer expression. Even Nurse Faran’s usual brusque demeanor was in abeyance as she looked back at me.

I may be stuck on an alien world in a parallel universe, with my loved ones erroneously thinking me dead, but at least I’m not completely alone here. I’m not some stranger in a strange land. Some of the locals have accepted me as a friend, and will support me when I’m at my lowest. Perhaps I can build upon this, at least until the portal opens again...

“Now then,” Luna said, bringing me back to the present, “you’ve had a long day, Mister Knox. Perhaps it is best if you sleep for now.”

I nodded in response, absently noting a tugging sensation in my left arm. I glanced at the appendage in question in time to see Doctor Silverclaw pulling the last of the medical probes out of my arm and bandaging the affected area.

“You won’t be needing these any more,” he said with a sad smile. “As I said, we’re releasing you tomorrow.”

I nodded a wordless thanks to him and settled back down in bed. After a minute, my eyelids grew heavy, and sleep was not far away. Before unconsciousness claimed me, however, I heard Princess Celestia beginning to dictate a letter.

“Dear Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student…”

I was much calmer the next morning. My grief at being stranded in Equestria had mostly abated for the moment. Granted, little things would remind me of what I had lost – overheard conversations about family and home, mostly. When it happened, I would always feel my throat constricting and my eyes watering, but I fought back the feelings each time.

Such considerations would have to be put aside for the moment, since I had awakened (with “help” from Doctor Silverclaw, Nurse Faran, and a bucket of water) to find a note from the princesses informing me that I was due to have some special visitors later that morning, and that I would be officially discharged after meeting with them.

According to the clock on the wall, I had been roused from my bed at about nine in the morning. By the time Silverclaw was done with me, it was a quarter past nine. My “guests” were due to arrive at nine-thirty, so I had about fifteen minutes to shower and get ready. A fast shower left me with about ten minutes to spare, so as I went about my morning hygiene routine, I took the opportunity to examine my new body more closely in the bathroom mirror.

I’d caught a glimpse of myself in the Mirror Portal the previous day, but this was the first time I’d gotten a chance to really look at myself. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t shocked at my appearance. The last thing I was able to safely recall of my life on Earth was celebrating my thirty-third birthday with my parents and my brother. We’d had it a day early because my grandfather had died the week before, and the funeral was scheduled for that Saturday. I couldn’t go because I’d had work obligations. Thus, the early birthday.

Now, when I looked at myself, it was as if I was looking into the past. Eleven years of aging had melted away in an instant. I had a full head of light brown hair again, the bags under my eyes had mostly disappeared, and I looked more svelte than I had in years. As flattering as all this was, it was also rather disconcerting. I was not looking forward to going partially bald again.

Shaking myself from my reverie, I quickly left the bathroom. Glancing at the clock again, I still had two minutes left on the countdown. Unfortunately, my new clothes hadn’t arrived yet, so I decided to forego putting on the towel and just get straight into bed.

A few moments before the appointed time, I heard voices outside my door. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but it sounded like serious business. Bracing myself for whatever was to come, I watched as the clock turned round once more.

Sure enough, right as nine-thirty arrived, the handle of the door began to glow again – this time, it was a bright magenta. I didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to realize that this meant one of the new ponies was a unicorn.

The door opened to admit eight ponies and a strange, bipedal reptile. They all wore curious expressions as they looked me over, and I got the distinct impression that they’d never seen a human before. The party consisted of three unicorns, two pegasi, and two of the ponies that – like Nurse Faran – possessed neither horn nor wings, which Silverclaw had informed me were called “earth ponies.” The last pony, however, had both wings and a horn, like the princesses. Silverclaw referred to them as “alicorns.”

This particular alicorn had a pink coat, with a mane and tail that consisted of three colors – pink, purple and cream. She – I was running on assumptions here, as I still had no earthly idea how to tell mares and stallions apart without looking like a pervert – was wearing a crown and chestpiece, much like the princesses. I idly wondered if all alicorns were considered royalty by default, ultimately deciding to file it in the “Ask Silverclaw Later” folder.

As the ponies crowded around my bed, I worried that the room might not be big enough to hold my guests. Once everyone was inside, however, it was readily apparent that I needn’t have worried.

I looked around to take stock of who was where. The alicorn and a white unicorn with a two-tone blue mane and tail were hanging back behind the rest. A pink earth pony with an even pinker mane and tail was to my immediate left, forelegs on the bed and already blatantly disregarding my personal space. The more I pulled away from “her,” the more “she” moved to keep up with me, the manic grin never leaving her face.

I could tell already that this one would be trouble.

Next to the borderline insane pink pony was another white unicorn with a royal purple mane and tail that were done up in voluminous curls. “She” exuded both refined elegance and carnal sensuality. I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of “her,” and judging from her expression, she was just as unsure about me. She hid it well, though, what with the way she was projecting an aura that said, “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.”

Further towards the foot of my bed, both pegasi were eyeing me warily. The nearer one had a sky blue coat and unruly rainbow-colored mane, and was sizing me up the way a dog sizes up a rattlesnake. “She” would likely be trouble as well, though not in the same way as the pink one.

The other pegasus had a butter yellow coat and long, flowing pink mane and tail. Unlike “her” cerulean counterpart, “she” seemed deathly afraid of me, preferring to hide behind a lock of “her” mane.

On the other side of the bed stood the two remaining ponies – a lavender unicorn with a dark blue mane and tail that each had a bright pink “skunk stripe” running down the middle who was eyeing me with barely restrained curiosity, and an orange earth pony with a blonde mane and tail whose expression was neutral, if somewhat guarded. Interestingly enough for a species with no nudity taboo, the orange one seemed to be wearing a Stetson hat.

One other thing I noticed was that, like the princesses and Nurse Faran, each pony seemed to have some sort of marking on his or her flank – a trio of balloons for the pink one, three diamonds for the intimidatingly sultry unicorn, a tricolor lightning bolt emerging from a cloud for the cyan pegasus, and three butterflies for the timid pegasus. The purple pony had a large magenta star surrounded by five smaller white stars on her flank, while the orange pony in the Stetson was sporting a trio of apples as her “personal brand.” I couldn’t make out the flank markings of the remaining two ponies due to the herd currently surrounding my bed. I would have to ask about it later – politely, of course, in case it was a sensitive subject.

It was at this point that the pink pony decided to break the ice in the most outlandish manner. “Ooooooh,” she cried, “So that’s a houyhnhnm!”

“Pinkie” – the lavender pony groused – “It’s pronounced, ‘human.’” She turned to me with a rueful grin on her muzzle. “I’m sorry about that. Pinkie Pie can be a bit… excitable.”

“I noticed,” I deadpanned, earning me a giggle from the lavender mare. My face crumpled into a frown as a thought occurred to me. “I wasn’t aware you’d been told about what I was.”

“Princess Celestia briefed us right before we came in. She didn’t have much to say beyond your species’ name, that you were vaguely similar to a minotaur, and that Princess Luna had saved your life.”

“I see,” I said dubiously.

“Well then,” she said in an attempt to lighten the mood, “why don’t we get the introductions out of the way? I’m Twilight Sparkle.” She indicated the pink pony with a hoof. “You’ve already met Pinkie Pie.” She then pointed at the unicorn next to Pinkie Pie. “That’s Rarity.” She continued on around the bed. “Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and to my left is Applejack.”

“What about the ponies in the back row?” I asked.

“Well,” Twilight said, “the white stallion is my brother, Shining Armor. He’s the Captain of the Royal Guard.”

I snapped a jaunty salute at the unicorn in question. “Honor to meet you, sir.”

He returned the salute with a bemused expression, which made me wonder how often he’d been saluted by a civilian. “Likewise,” he replied.

I let my gaze settle on the alicorn. “And who might you be, Your Highness?”

Said alicorn blinked a few times, clearly not expecting to be addressed. “Oh, well, I am Twilight’s sister-in-law by virtue of my marriage to Shining Armor. My name is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, but you can call me Cadance. I’m pleased to meet you.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, I’m sure,” I replied. “I suppose it’s my turn now. I’m Derren Knox, and I’m a human from a planet called Earth.”

Pinkie Pie responded first, getting even more in my face than before – if that were possible. “Hi Derren, I’m Pinkie Pie, but Twilight already told you about me, didn’t she? I’m Ponyville’s number one party planner, but I also work at Sugarcube Corner with Mr. and Mrs. Cake. Say, maybe when you get out of here I can throw you a party? Would you like that? Huh? Huh? Huh?” Somehow, she said all of that in one breath, at a rate that would make a veteran auctioneer turn green with envy.

“Umm, sure, Pinkie.” I scratched the back of my neck nervously. “I guess a party’s fine, assuming I end up staying in Ponyville a while.” I turned back to the others, only to be interrupted by someone pointedly clearing their throat. It took a moment to discern the source of the noise – the bipedal reptile.

“Forget somepony?” it asked in a long-suffering tone.

Twilight chuckled sheepishly. “I’m sorry, Spike. I guess we kind of did forget about you.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” came the disgruntled response.

“So, yeah,” Twilight said, awkwardly trying to defuse the situation. She pointed a hoof at the complaining reptile. “This is Spike, my number one assistant. He’s a baby dragon.”

I looked critically at the little guy. He had purple scales over most of his body, and green spines atop his head and down his back. “Huh,” I muttered, “No offense, Spike, but you don’t look anything like what I’d expect from a dragon.”

Spike folded his arms across his chest. “And just what were you expecting from a dragon?” he demanded sullenly.

Seeing that I had dug myself a bit of a hole, I rubbed the back of my head and chuckled nervously. “Oh, I don’t know. Skyscraper-sized; huge, leathery wings; breathes fire. And in one legend, their language, when shouted, can produce magical effects.”

“I don’t know about that last bit,” Twilight said sheepishly, “but large, winged dragons like you describe have been seen from time to time here in Equestria. We don’t know much about them because they’re not exactly what you’d call ‘neighborly.’”

“I can imagine,” I said blandly, before giving her a pointed look. “So, how did the two of you wind up together, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Twilight and Spike shared a look. At the mare’s nod, Spike answered, “I was hatched as an egg by Twilight.”

I shot Twilight a quizzical look. “It was part of my entrance exam for Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns,” she replied.

“That’s not an ordinary entrance exam,” I deadpanned.

“It’s not an ordinary school,” she shot back with a smile.

Letting out an amused grunt, I looked at Spike. “Look, Spike –” I fidgeted with my glasses nervously “– I’m sorry about my comments earlier. I didn’t mean to patronize you.”

Spike swept the apology away with a wave of his claw. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, before rolling his eyes and muttering, “I’m getting used to it.”

“Nevertheless,” I said, “You don’t deserve it, and for that, I’m sorry.”

Spike smiled, a new respect for me dancing in his reptilian eyes. “I appreciate it,” he said.

With that crisis averted, I turned back to the ponies. “So, what do the rest of you do for a living?”

Twilight spoke up first. “Well, primarily, I’m Princess Celestia’s protege, but I also run the library in Ponyville.”

“Ah,” I replied with a knowing nod. “So, you’re the one she spoke of when we were discussing statistics in regards to the multiverse.”

Twilight’s eyes lit up at that. “She told you about Clover’s theory?” When I nodded, she smiled, and her voice took on a conspiratorial tone. “You know, Clover’s not the one who actually came up with the theory. Her mentor, Starswirl the Bearded, actually developed it. She just got credit for it due to the prevailing attitudes of the times. She fought hard for him to get his rightful place in the academic journals of the day, but she was constantly overruled.”

I frowned at that. “Wow. Sexism exists here, too, huh?”

Twilight also looked crestfallen. “Yes, but it’s not as bad now as it was back then.”

Rainbow Dash stepped in at this point. “Okay, you two eggheads can geek out later. Let’s get to the important stuff.”

I rolled my eyes. “Alright, Miss Dash. I’m probably going to regret this, but what do you consider to be ‘important stuff?’”

Obviously relishing the opportunity, Dash took to the air and went into hover mode, puffing up her chest in pride. “Why, me, of course!”

Twilight and I shared a glance. Worryingly, the expression on her face told me everything I needed to know: I had sown the wind, and all that was left was to reap the whirlwind. Reluctantly, I locked eyes with the sky blue mare and proceeded to indulge her ego. “Okay, Miss Dash,” I said, “tell me what’s so special about you?”

“Who, little ol’ me?” Dash asked with false modesty. “Why I’m only Equestria’s fastest flyer, captain of Ponyville’s weather team, future Wonderbolt, and the only pony ever to perform the Sonic Rainboom!”

“Hold it!” I interjected, fighting the urge to epically point a finger filled with righteous justice at the mare. “There’s at least two things wrong with that statement. Firstly, ‘fastest flyer in Equestria?’ Sounds like unproven boasting to me. Secondly, when you say ‘Ponyville’s weather team,’ are you talking about controlling the weather? As in, actual weather control?”

“You got a problem with pegasi being able to control the weather?” Rainbow Dash demanded, looking as if I’d just questioned her… manliness, as it were.

“Not really,” I replied, raising my hands in a placating gesture. “I just find it hard to believe.” I would’ve said that I thought it was impossible, but the last twenty-four hours have shown me that this place has a looser definition of what’s impossible than I’m used to.

“It’s true,” Twilight replied. “Although the other two tribes can’t directly channel magic the way unicorns can, they have their own passive abilities. For instance, pegasi have the ability to fly and control the weather, while earth ponies have enhanced strength and a natural affinity for tending the land and taking care of animals.” She pointed at Fluttershy, who cringed and ducked behind Rainbow Dash for comfort – much to the tomboyish mare’s obvious annoyance. “Fluttershy’s kind of an exception, since her special talent involves caring for animals.”

There was that phrase again – “special talent.” It seemed like an important part of pony culture, but I also sensed I was missing some vital information on what that was. I decided to file it away until after I’d gotten acquainted with everyone in the room.

“Huh. That’s interesting,” I mused. “Where I’m from, the weather controls itself. The kind of thing you’re talking about only exists in science fiction novels there.”

“Kind of like the Everfree Forest?” Applejack supplied. Judging by her accent, if she’d been born in another time and place, she’d be literally whistling “Dixie.”

“What’s the Everfree Forest?”

“It’s a dangerous forest outside of Ponyville,” Twilight answered. “Most ponies don’t go in there because of all the horrific monsters that live there. It’s also an area where normal things don’t happen very often.”

“Maybe for your definition of normal, Twilight,” I replied. “Sounds kind of like home to me.”

Twilight rolled her eyes at that. “Anyway,” she said, “Applejack and her family run an apple orchard, Fluttershy runs an animal adoption shelter out of her home and sometimes assists the local veterinarian, and Rarity is a seamstress.”

I looked at Rarity. “Is that so?”

Rarity nodded. “Oh yes, darling. I do so enjoy coming up with ideas for dresses.” She looked up wistfully. “Not all of them get made, though.”

“Think you’d be up to designing something for someone like me? I mean, I know the princesses have the royal seamstress making me at least one set of clothes, but I’m going to need more to get through the week.”

Rarity’s demeanor took on a mixture of interest and confusion at that. “Whatever do you mean, darling?”

Applejack also piped up in response. “She’s got a point, sugarcube. We don’t normally wear clothes. Why should you?”

I stared flatly at Applejack. “Unlike ponies, humans don’t exactly have a fur coat to protect us from the elements. Furthermore, we don’t like to be naked for reasons of modesty.”

“Um, why is that?” Twilight asked.

Something about the unexpected opportunity struck a chord in me, and I felt inspired to dredge up a memory from church camp that I’d long forgotten. “Well, here’s how it is,” I said. And with that, I began to sing:

If the reactions I was getting were anything to go by, the simple song had somehow managed to transcend cultural barriers.

Twilight had pressed a forehoof to her head, and was muttering, “Sorry I asked.”

Fluttershy, who had started to come out of hiding from behind Rainbow Dash, blushed, and with an uttered “Oh my” worthy of George Takei, went back into hiding.

Rarity settled for rolling her eyes.

Rainbow Dash and Princess Cadance both had their muzzles scrunched up and eyes widened in a mixture of shock and amusement. In the princess’s case, it was more amusement than shock, whereas the opposite was true of Dash. Furthermore, for some strange reason, Rainbow’s wings started standing stiffly erect about halfway through.

Though Shining Armor, like Twilight, had his head buried in a forehoof, he was shaking his head and giving me a somewhat goofy smile. If I had to guess, I’d say that while his duties as Captain of the Royal Guard required him to disapprove of my behavior, especially around minors and his sister, he was secretly wishing that he’d thought of it first.

Speaking of minors, if his bemused expression was anything to go by, the song seemed to have gone over Spike’s head, and for that, I was grateful.

Then there was Pinkie Pie, who, after a mighty struggle, simply burst out laughing as she dropped to the floor and rolled around. As with Nurse Faran the previous day, thanks to Pinkie’s mirthful outburst, I was able to see everything. I could feel a headache coming on, and I promptly massaged my temples in a vain effort to stave off the dull throbbing that had already begun.

Relative to Twilight and Rarity, Applejack was the only one who seemed to have a particularly negative reaction to my antics. Even so, she limited herself to giving me a highly unamused glare.

Fortunately, the awkward moment was interrupted by a knock at the door. The ponies moved aside to make room for the newcomer – a yellow unicorn bearing a lime green mane and tail, with the image of a spool of rainbow thread tied to a needle adorning her flanks. Her horn was lit in an orange glow that matched her eyes, a glow which also extended to the telekinetic field being used to levitate several articles of clothing.

“Good morning, Mister Knox,” she said cheerfully, “I’m Ruby Weave, the royal seamstress. I’ve got your first round of new clothes here for you.”

I looked through the assorted items as Ruby Weave dropped them into my lap. On the surface, at least, they appeared to be fairly good quality – better than the finest Cambodian sweatshop products ever to grace Wal-Mart’s shelves, at least. There was one thing wrong, however. “No shoes?”

Ruby shook her head with a regretful expression that included pinned back ears. “I’m sorry, sir. Those are going to take a bit longer. I’ll bring them by the guest room that’s being prepared for you when I’m done, though.”

I sighed, chafing slightly at the lack of footwear. Realizing that there was no help for it, I replied, “I suppose that’ll have to do for now, then.”

Ruby chewed her lip in thought for a moment. “I am done with shoes I used as a template, though. They still seem to be wearable, so I can run back and get them right now, if you wish.”

Smiling, I nodded at her. “That would be great, thanks.” And with that, she was off like a shot. Once we were alone again, Rarity cleared her throat to get my attention.

“So, let me make sure I’ve got this straight,” she said. “If that ridiculous song you sang was any indication, human males don’t have a sheath?”

I nodded. “Yep. It all just dangles, even when we’re not looking for a good time.” Noticing the flurry of reddened cheeks, I couldn’t help but smirk – especially when I saw Twilight covering up Spike’s head, presumably the part where his ears were. “There’s one other major difference between humans and ponies in that regard, as well. Human females have their mammaries up here.” On the word “here,” I cupped my hands over my chest.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Really? Why is that?”

“We’re primates,” I replied simply. “From an evolutionary perspective, our closest cousins are apes, gorillas, and chimpanzees.”

“Primates?” Twilight parroted, surprise and curiosity marking her tone. She looked at me again, excitement playing about her face – an excitement that left me visibly uncomfortable. “Well, now I have a whole bunch of other questions I should ask you.” She levitated a prodigiously long scroll out of a saddlebag that she had laid in a corner when she came in.

Sitting on her haunches, she cleared her throat and began. “Question number one: Do y–”

“Perhaps another time, Twilight,” I interrupted. While I couldn’t help but chuckle when she pouted in response, I was also shocked to find myself regarding the expression as adorable on her equine features. I’d never been particularly interested in horses – the ones back home were remarkably unattractive brutes – but these ponies were something else entirely. Just how alien were they?

It was something I would have to ponder when I got a free moment. In the meantime, I clamped down on my confused emotions and buried them as deeply as possible for the time being.

Regaining my composure, I continued, “I’m not exactly in the right frame of mind to answer any questions right now, especially when I’m not fully dressed.”

“Oh,” Twilight replied. She had her ears swept back and head lowered with a nervous smile, as if chagrined. “I suppose you would like to put on your new clothes, wouldn’t you? I can just send Spike out and then you can change.”

“Twilight, darling,” Rarity interjected, “perhaps Derren didn’t make himself clear. His nudity taboo applies to adults like us, as well. The least we can do is give him some privacy.”

Throwing an appreciative glance at Rarity, I added, “Don’t worry. I’ll meet you in the lobby once I’m discharged. It shouldn’t take too long for me to get dressed and fill out the paperwork.”

Reluctantly, they all got up and started to leave. They stopped in their tracks when I called out again. “Pinkie, I’d like my pants back.”

They all looked over to see that Pinkie was wearing my new pants on her head.

“Aww,” she moaned, clearly disappointed at having her fun ruined. Nevertheless, she complied with my request, and they all exited the room.

Author's Notes:

So, yeah. As mentioned in an earlier blog post, this chapter's changed slightly in its structure from what I originally had planned.

The opening bit of this chapter has a bit of an interesting history. Last year, the day the Season 4 finale aired was also the day I went to see War Horse with my father and a couple of friends of the family. I ran with the inspiration that came from an equine fiction-filled day, and this was the result.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEa4zueeAoo

Also, the "particularly murderous-looking axe" that forms part of Nurse Faran's cutie mark:

And another thing: the Play-Doh and bacon bit came from a right-wing blogger's description of human vaginas that was thoroughly mocked around the Intertrons at the time, so take that for what you will.

As for Doctor Silverclaw, imagine the griffon version of this fine fellow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTJ6KDJSma0

Here's a question: will anyone notice that I "borrowed" an example sentence from Ezn's guide to ponyfiction?

Finally, you kind of have to wonder what kind of church camp our protagonist attended to come up with a song like that...

5/17/2015: Revised to improve narrative flow, and to address complaints about characterization. I've done my best to hammer any perceived Gary Stu-ness out of the MC.

Derren (dazed and confused): Ow. Did someone get the license number of that hammer?