My discharge from the hospital was, for the most part, an orderly, anticlimactic affair. There were, however, three oddities about the situation that stood out in my mind. The first of which was the cost of my hospitalization. There were no bills to pay ‒ fortunate for me, since I was decidedly lacking in the local currency, and I doubted I’d be able to exchange dollars for said currency anytime soon. There also was a distinct lack of drama over copays, pre-existing conditions, and general insurance company shenanigans. All of it suggested that Equestria had some sort of universal health care system, most likely paid for by taxes.

It also summoned an amusing image of a pony Rush Limbaugh spinning Oxycontin-fueled conspiracy theories about the tax dollars being “wasted” on an “undocumented immigrant” like me.

Speaking of which, it seemed as though the princesses had anticipated the issue of my immigration status being raised, as a form to start the process of applying for Equestrian citizenship had been included among the hospital discharge papers that I had to sign. While I found it somewhat disconcerting that the princesses were already pushing Equestrian citizenship on me, I ultimately wrote it off as them covering their bases in case the portal never opened again in my lifetime.

The final oddity involved the forms themselves. Even though the spoken variety of Standard Equestrian was virtually identical to spoken English (as far as I knew), the written version may as well have been Hindi, for all that I could read of it. But that wasn’t the truly weird part.

Upon plucking the first document from the telekinetic “grasp” of the unicorn working the front desk, the seemingly random collection of squiggles and glyphs gradually contorted themselves into more familiar A’s, P’s, Q’s, and suchlike. My bug-eyed stare at the trippy dance of the ink before me must have been rather comical to the mare at the desk, for she giggled demurely for a moment before explaining that the forms were printed on enchanted paper with special ink, the combination of which allowed it to be read and understood by anyone, no matter the language barrier.

With a skeptical grunt of acknowledgement, I plowed into the pile of papers before me. As I worked, the novelty of the “psychic paper” ‒ for lack of a better term ‒ and the shape-shifting ink gradually wore off. By the time I was finishing the last form a half-hour later, Silverclaw had arrived to see me off, handing me a schedule of my checkups for the rest of the week, which I promptly pocketed.

Twilight and her friends were waiting for me in the foyer when I emerged moments later, fully clothed in my new winter apparel. The moment they heard the doors open, they rose to their hooves and turned to face me with warm, friendly smiles adorning their muzzles. Spike had climbed onto Twilight’s back as she got up, and was now looking at me with slight awe. A moment’s reflection reminded me why: while both Celestia and Luna were taller than me, the average non-alicorn only came up to about my sternum. To a little guy like Spike, I must have seemed like a giant in the playground.

Rarity, meanwhile, was appraising me with a critical eye ‒ or rather, she was appraising my clothes with a critical eye. After a minute of careful study, her expression suddenly brightened, and she looked me in the eye.

“Well, Derren,” she gushed, “I must say that Ruby Weave did an excellent job of replicating your old attire. I’d have expected nothing less from the royal seamstress.” She pulled her head back slightly and raised a quizzical eyebrow. “I must confess, however, that I’m not entirely sure why you would choose to dress so ‒” she grimaced “‒ plainly. No offense.”

I gave her a wry smile. “None taken. This” ‒ I waved my right hand over my clothes ‒ “is a more casual, everyday set of clothes. If I were going somewhere fancy, then of course I’d wear a suit and tie ‒ perhaps even a tuxedo, if the occasion demanded it. But all things being equal, I much prefer functional over flashy. No offense.”

Rarity tittered into her left forehoof. “None taken, darling.”

“Well,” Twilight said, drawing everyone’s attention, “I hope you’re up for a little walking. Princess Celestia said that she and Princess Luna wanted to meet with all of us at two this afternoon to discuss living arrangements for the duration of your stay in Equestria. We have a few hours to kill before then, so I thought you might like to get an insider’s tour of the castle.”

With a nonchalant shrug and shit-eating grin, I said, “Sure, why not? I’ve got nothing better to do.”

Pinkie giggled at this. “I like him!” she declared gaily. “He’s silly!”

That… was the sort of endorsement that I wasn’t quite sure I wanted. Though Pinkie was likeable enough, I was quickly learning that she could start to grate on one’s nerves after a while. In an effort to stave off the oncoming Pinkie-induced headache, I returned my attention to Twilight.

“So, Twilight” ‒ I could just make out my reflection in her purple irises ‒ “how about we get this show on the road?”

Twilight’s smile was that of a cat that had cornered a mouse. “Eager to get started, are we?”

I gave her a wan smile in reply. “No comment.”

Rainbow Dash snorted derisively at that. “Oh please, Derren,” she grumbled, “You sound like Mayor Mare when you say that.”

A knowing chuckle escaped my mouth as we left the medical wing. “Politicians are all the same, no matter the world, eh?”

“You can say that again,” Dash groaned as she took to the air not far from me. The downdrafts from her wingbeats caused my shirt to undulate in azure waves across my right shoulder.

I smirked evilly at Dash. “Politic‒” the joke died aborning as I suddenly found my mouth clogged by a sky blue hoof.

“Not. Funny.” The unamused glare that Rainbow Dash was aiming at me could’ve depopulated Waco, Texas if weaponized.

I was undeterred by the threat posed in that heated gaze, mainly because I wanted to dislodge her hoof from my mouth. After all, that sort of thing can spread disease.

My evil smirk returned moments before I put my plan in motion. Though the base of my tongue protested mightily at what was being asked of it, I had just enough reach to run my tongue slowly along the softer underside of Dash’s hoof.

She jerked her hoof back as if stung, then began vigorously wiping the offended appendage off on my shirt. “Eww,” she said, her scratchy voice taking on a whiny undertone, “Why’d you go and lick my hoof? I don’t like ponies ‒ or humans ‒ touching my hooves. And I especially don’t want them licking my hooves!”

“Really, Rainbow Dash? Do tell,” Rarity snarked, aiming an arch look at the pegasus in question. “Could you possibly be… sensitive in that area?”

Dash sputtered incoherently in response, and we all paused as she raced over to confront the unicorn, nearly bowling me over with the wake that her wings kicked up.

“Th-That’s none of your business, Rarity,” Rainbow Dash said in an ominous tone, cheeks flushed.

In that moment, I found myself happy beyond belief that I was not the target of Rainbow’s ire. The moment passed, and my happiness was shattered by the polychromatic mare rounding on me, rose-colored eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Anyway, Derren,” she said, “you never answered my question. Why did you lick my hoof?”

“I figured it was the fastest way to get you to withdraw it from my mouth,” I retorted, my expression equally as hard as hers. I held it for a few seconds before my face softened, and I adopted a sheepish grin. “Besides, I figured it might be funny to see your reaction.”

Rainbow sputtered indignantly for a moment. “A-a prank?" she squawked. "You played a prank on me?”

I nodded, my smile faltering a little.

A malicious grin grew on Dash’s muzzle as she flew up next to me ‒ invading my personal space much as Pinkie had done back in the hospital ward. “Well, Derren,” she intoned ominously, her warm breath dancing across my ear, “I don’t think you quite realize who you’re dealing with. Pinkie and I just happen to be Ponyville’s resident master pranksters, and believe me: nopony, and no human, pranks Rainbow Dash and gets away with it. You’ve just called down the thunder, big guy. Better hope you can handle it!”

A cold weight settled into my gut at Rainbow’s pronouncement. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the earlier whirlwind I’d reaped in stroking her ego was but a gentle breeze compared to what was coming: a full-on F5 in the middle of an Arkansas trailer park... and that was before one factored in the added threat of Dash bringing Pinkie in on the pranking “fun.”

“Um,” Fluttershy’s soft, demure voice was just as timid as the rest of her demeanor, “I hate to interrupt you two, but perhaps it would be best if we got back to the tour.”

“I’m with Fluttershy,” Applejack drawled, her emerald eyes gazing meaningfully at the group’s de facto lavender leader, “We’d best be moseyin’ along if we wanna hit everything on your list before we meet with the princesses, Twi.”

“You have a checklist for this tour?” I inquired of Twilight.

“Are you kidding?” Spike grumbled, “Twilight makes checklists for everything ‒ even for making checklists.”

I stared at him incredulously. “Really?”

At his nod of confirmation, a rictus of absolute terror dawned on my face. I’d heard about people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, of course. But if what Spike had just told me was true, Twilight’s condition was to a level where she would prefer to call it “CDO,” because the letters were in proper alphabetical order.

Great, I thought, I’m doing armchair psychological diagnosis of an alien mare I only met a couple of hours ago. I must be going crazy.

Twilight chuckled sheepishly. “I’m not that bad.”

Spike stared at her skeptically. “Most of the time, anyway,” she hastily amended. Spike merely raised his eyebrow further.

Twilight lifted her eyes heavenward, grumbling what were likely very impolite things about her draconic assistant under her breath as she levitated him onto her back. As soon as he was secure, we set off down the castle corridor once more. Twilight and I were up front, flanked by Fluttershy to Twilight’s left, and Rainbow Dash to my right, with Pinkie, Applejack, and Rarity bringing up the rear. Both pegasi were airborne, and while most of the earthbound ponies were content with the steady walking pace that Twilight had set, Pinkie’s preferred form of locomotion seemed to be excessively energetic bouncing.

Twilight eagerly took up the role of tour guide, explaining that the dark colored tiles were both an aesthetic choice and an informal guide ‒ this was the part of the castle where Princess Luna resided. Twilight also took great delight in discussing each of the busts we passed in excruciating detail.

Unfortunately, at this early stage in my education about pony society, the information was just a jumble of names and dates with no context ‒ in an entirely different calendar system, no less, if all the mentions of AC, AEC, and STG were anything to go by ‒ so it was all just meaningless white noise to me.

I wasn’t the only one demonstrating pointed disinterest, either. Rainbow Dash was practically sleep-flying. Somehow, it was hardly a surprise to see her in that state, given how loudly she had been complaining about Twilight’s “egghead” tendencies earlier.

Applejack was resolutely focused on the corridor ahead. Both of her ears were pointed in Twilight’s direction, but the expression on her face told me that she’d much rather be back on her farm doing chores. Any chores. I caught her staring at me in my peripheral vision a couple of times: in both instances, she quickly looked away and tried to pretend that she’d been listening intently to Twilight’s lecture.

She wasn’t fooling anyone, not even the freaky bipedal alien who just found himself here less than twenty-four hours ago.

Pinkie, meanwhile, seemed content to be bouncing obliviously along to the beat of her own drummer. The mare was a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: half of me desperately wanted to know what color the sky was in her world, and the other half of me was deathly afraid to find out.

The only ones who seemed to be even pretending to politely listen to our self-appointed tour guide were Fluttershy and Rarity.

When I looked back at Twilight, I saw that she had stopped playing museum docent, and was glaring at most of the group, though it seemed that I was being singled out as the primary target of her disgruntlement. I had seen enough of Twilight’s professorial tendencies to surmise where this was going, so in order to forestall a lecture about the importance of listening to her lectures, I decided to ask a question of my own.

“I’m sure this is all very interesting to you, Twilight,” I said, holding my hands up in a placating gesture, “but I’m still a newbie when it comes to a lot of things in this world.”

“What do you suggest?” Her tone was curious, with a hint of hidden warning.

I cringed, both mentally and physically, at what I was about to propose. “Well, in terms of general knowledge of this place, I’m more like a child, so why don’t we start with the basics?”

“I’m assuming you have a subject in mind already,” she said with a neutral expression as we resumed our previous course.

I nodded. “Well, judging from your voices, I can be reasonably sure that the six of you are mares. Unfortunately, it’s not a completely foolproof method, and I’m pretty sure that the only reliable means I know of for telling mares apart from stallions would ‘earn me a buck in the face,’ as Nurse Faran put it.” I openly ogled her flank to make sure she got my meaning. A deliberate slowing of her gait coupled with a slight hardening of her gaze showed me that she’d understood all too well.

“Yeah, it would,” she deadpanned.

“All the more reason for me to learn a better way,” I replied.

Two maids who had obviously overheard our conversation passed by us to our left. I returned their shocked expressions with a sheepish one of my own as I waved a greeting to them. When I returned my attention to Twilight, I could feel their eyes boring into the back of my head. I couldn’t tell if they were surprised by my appearance, or judging me for my apparent perversion.

“So, anyway,” I said, nervously scratching the back of my neck, “how can I reliably distinguish mares from stallions at a glance, without committing a major party foul?”

Twilight opened her mouth to reply, but whatever she was going to say was drowned out by a shrill whistle right in my ear. Wincing in pain, and vigorously rubbing my ear as if that would return sensation, I angrily rounded on the source, only to falter at what I saw ‒ Pinkie Pie, looking every inch like a NFL referee, down to the zebra-striped uniform shirt, with a whistle of ear destruction attached to a lanyard slung around her neck.

My irritation dissipated in a whirlwind of confusion. Where on Earth could she have possibly gotten that outfit? I thought. And how in the name of zombie Jesus did she put it on without anyone noticing?

These questions would remain unanswered, as Pinkie was doing a good job of distracting me with even more zaniness worthy of a Saturday morning cartoon ‒ striking a pose that probably had some sort of meaning in whatever sports ponies played as she shouted, “Party foul! Bad touch! Fifteen bodylength penalty! Do not pass ‘Go!’ Do not collect two-hundred bits!”

My face fell, and I had trouble finding the words to express just how flabbergasted I was at Pinkie’s antics. Ultimately, my only recourse was to simply bury my forehead in the palm of my hand and shake my head in utter disbelief.

Thankfully, the whistle-induced tinnitus was only temporary, and my hearing had fully returned by the time Twilight had finished admonishing Pinkie for her outburst. The pink mare looked disheartened briefly before flashing back to her normal abnormally chipper self.

“Anyway,” Twilight said, casting a suspicious glance at Pinkie, “There is one way I can think of that’s reliable enough for your purposes. A lot of it has to do with the shape of the muzzle.”

She traced her jawline with a hoof in demonstration as she spoke. “A mare’s muzzle tends to be shorter and the lower jawline tends to have more of a curve to it, while stallions tend to be more square-jawed. Also, stallions tend to be a bit larger than mares. It’s not perfect, but it should help you avoid… unfortunate misunderstandings. I don’t know if you got a good look at him earlier, but my brother would be a reasonable basis for comparison.”

“The guards as well, I’d imagine,” I said, rubbing my chin in a contemplative manner. I dug through my memories of the guards ‒ especially the one who had identified the device used to measure my (very nonexistent) magical output. That one had both the deeper voice of a stallion and the square-jawed muzzle that Twilight had pointed out.

A shock of realization hit me, and my eyes widened momentarily. Sweet Zombie Jesus, she’s right!

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I muttered, before suddenly feeling a tingling sensation in my left earlobe and being yanked rather painfully to the ground by an invisible force acting on said earlobe.

“For Celestia’s sake, Derren!” Twilight hissed in my ear. “Watch your language around Spike.”

“Alright! I get it, Twilight!” I replied equally sharply. “No need to telekinetically manhandle me! Yeesh!”

Pushing off with my hands, I rose to my full height once more. As I was dusting myself off, I noticed Twilight out of the corner of my eye, looking curiously at me, as if seeing me for the first time. Mentally tracing her line of sight, I realized what had so enraptured her attention: my butt.

Frowning, I cleared my throat to get her attention. “What, do these jeans make my butt look fat, or something?” I deadpanned.

Twilight’s cheeks lit up with a rosy hue, and Rainbow Dash burst into raucous laughter. “Oooh, Twilight,” Rainbow cooed teasingly, “He caught you checking out his goods!”

Twilight glared at her friend. “I’ll have you know, I was actually conducting important research,” she said primly.

This only seemed to set Dash off further. “Yeah, sure you were, Twi,” she said between nasty cackles, “I’m sure seeing how his rump compares to stallions is so vitally important.” With those words and a couple of knowing nudges of Twilight’s side, the pegasus lost herself in laughter at our expense once more.

After a few moments of imitating a fish, Twilight finally settled on leveling her friend with a glare deadly enough to decimate the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. Sadly for the bookish mare, the only response from Miss Dash to her look of opprobrium was a few bars of decidedly not-innocent whistling.

Once again, Applejack proved to be the group’s voice of reason, pointedly clearing her throat and gesturing down the corridor with her head. After about a minute of walking, we turned a corner, and emerged once more into the grand hallway that lead to the throne room at one end.

“Huh,” I muttered, hands resting lightly on my hips, “I could’ve sworn it took twice as long to get here from the medical lab yesterday.” With a sidelong glance at Twilight, a sly smile slid across my lips, and I added, “I credit our amazingly astute leader with her superior orienteering skills.”

The target of my comment chuffed derisively, ears swinging back and forth somewhat chaotically. “Please,” she moaned, looking askance at me, “Princess Celestia’s lived here longer than I’ve been alive. I’m pretty sure she knows this castle like the underside of her hoof. In all the time I studied under her metaphorical wing, I never once beat her to one of our meeting places, and most of those times, I had the shorter distance to go.”

Maybe she cheated. Thankfully, the snarky retort failed to make it past my brain-to-mouth filter. “I suppose you’re right,” I replied instead. “Perhaps my memory of it from yesterday is faulty ‒ I had a lot going on then, after all.”

“I can imagine.” Surprise marked my features as I looked in the direction of the unexpected voice. Fluttershy was just as quiet as the previous time she’d spoken up, and she cringed at my sudden movement, but her tone ‒ once she had regained her composure ‒ was strangely sympathetic. “It must be horrible to not be able to remember certain events without your body rebelling against you like that.”

“I pray that you never find out, Fluttershy,” I replied with a wan smile.

With a dainty whooshing of air, the butter-yellow mare flew over and gently rested a hoof on my shoulder, softly smiling. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but Fluttershy seemed to exude a very calming presence. I couldn’t help but wonder if this influence extended to animals, as well. It would certainly be a useful talent, given that she works in animal care, according to Twilight.

Thinking of the word “talent” made me realize something. The phrase “special talent” had been thrown around casually several times by now. It was time to find out if it had a special meaning in pony society.

“Umm, Twilight?” My voice had an uncertain quality to it, and I was messing with my glasses again. She’d been about to lead us away from the throne room, but she paused when she heard me address her. She turned about, ears perked up expectantly.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something, and I suppose now’s as good a time as any.”

She smiled gently. “Go ahead, Derren. I’m always happy to impart knowledge to those willing to learn.”

Drawing a deep breath to calm myself, I replied, “I’ve heard the phrase ‘special talent’ bandied about a number of times in the last twenty-four hours like it has some sort of special meaning. Is it true, or am I just blowing smoke out of my butt?”

Twilight looked at my lower cheeks momentarily as if expecting to see some sort of reaction, which prompted another snigger from a certain sky blue mare who was turning out to be quite the pervert. I was tempted to ask Twilight if I’d farted, but it was all too likely that the joke would go over like a lead balloon.

“Never mind, Twilight. It’s a human expression,” I sighed with a hand on my face. She was rapidly demonstrating a tendency to be frustratingly literal-minded. I could relate, since I knew that I had a similar problem. Some past memories fluttered to mind at the thought, and with a grimace, I resolutely buried the regret that surfaced at the recollections before focusing on Twilight’s voice.

“It just so happens that you are absolutely correct. We use the phrase to refer to an area of endeavor that a pony excels at, sometimes to the point that it uniquely identifies the pony. When a pony discovers that talent, he or she earns what is known as a ‘cutie mark,’ a brand that magically appears on the pony’s flank at that time.” She punctuated this by wiggling her rump, emphasizing the magenta and white stars on her flank.

Intentional or not, the way she was shaking her backside had a very sensual ‒ if rather awkward and uncoordinated ‒ quality to it, and I had to fight down a lump that had formed in my throat. My reaction was not lost on her friends, as Rarity and Fluttershy quickly moved to stop her, and Pinkie and Rainbow both fell into peals of uncontrollable laughter at our expense.

I gave off a surprised and outraged grunt as Applejack shoved her Stetson in my face to blind me from the scene in front of me.

“It’s fer yer own good, sugarcube,” Applejack drawled in a deadpan tone.

“Are you quite done with the unseemly display, Twilight?” Rarity inquired somewhat sharply.

Twilight made some affirmative noise that I couldn’t quite make out from behind my makeshift blindfold, which smelled of hay and long-dried sweat, as well as an odor that I couldn’t quite place, but could reasonably assume was Applejack’s unique scent.

“I’ll grant that you smell nice, Applejack,” I said, “but I think it’s safe for me to have full use of my eyes now.”

Said accessory was quickly removed from my face at that point. The farm pony’s face had a salmon tint to it as she returned the hat to its proper place on her head.

I continued in a droll tone, “Well, that’s one bit of knowledge I’ll never be able to forget, no matter how hard I try.”

“I’m sure it is,” Twilight replied, cheeks flaming.

“Perhaps it’s best if we continued the tour,” Applejack suggested in an urgent tone.

As if we hadn’t just veered off into a wildly embarrassing tangent, we resumed our course away from the throne room. The sound of our steps echoing off the walls was the only ambient noise. Finally, after about two minutes, we reached the heavily guarded front gate. I gave as crisp a salute as I could manage to the guards, who stood stock still as they let us pass by without incident.

If only they’d warned me about what was waiting on the other side of the gate...

Beyond the castle gates lay my first true glimpse at the wonders this new world had to offer. I followed the girls listlessly, my eyes drinking in every detail of the scene before me, which managed to be strangely familiar and utterly alien at the same time.

Sunlight glinted off of the snow-covered ground, and I silently thanked Ruby Weave for her foresight in providing me with weather-appropriate clothing (for the most part – a stiff breeze could still penetrate my modest cotton “armor” like a snot rocket through tissue paper). The sun had not quite reached its zenith in the winter sky and was just peeking out over the mountains to my left, peeking through a hole in the gunmetal gray fluffy curtain obscuring the vault of heaven – though that wasn’t going to last long, as a whooshing noise overhead alerted me to a low-flying pegasus.

The pony passed almost directly above me, seafoam green mane streaming behind her as she flew by close enough that I could make out the lather of sweat on her teal coat. She was clearly directing a cloud; her hooves dug solidly into the allegedly insubstantial collection of water vapor as she pushed it on toward its destination, so engrossed in her task that she didn’t notice the strange biped below her.

Some things are more important than meeting the new alien, after all.

Still, I couldn’t help but be glued to the spot, mesmerized by what I was seeing. Rainbow and Twilight had mentioned that pegasi could manipulate the weather, but to actually see it with my own eyes was something else, entirely.

Eventually, I found my voice. “Well, I’ll be d–” I noticed Twilight glaring at me, horn lighting up preemptively, and decided to change my tune “–a monkey’s uncle.”

Twilight’s expression changed to a satisfied smile and she extinguished her horn, while I breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing I needed at that moment was for Miss Magic Pants to turn me into a newt. After all, I couldn’t exactly pull off a spontaneous recovery like John Cleese.

My attention was then drawn once more to the skies by multicolored blurs at the edges of my vision. More pegasi followed a similar path to the first, each carrying their own nubiferous burdens like hay-trussers going to market.

I stood there watching them for several more long moments, lamely wallowing in slack-jawed stupefaction. As I did so, the words of The Bard came unbidden to my lips (with some modification):

The others gave me strange looks. “Sorry,” I replied, “I didn’t mean to suddenly quote a famous play from my world. I’m honestly not even sure why I remembered those lines, other than the fact that they were referenced in the title of a famous dystopian novel.”

After taking a moment to regain her composure, Twilight flashed an impressed smile. “Educated and cultured, are we? Well, then you might like the place I have listed next on our itinerary.” She looked into her saddlebag, and a clipboard bathed in the light of her signature telekinetic field floated up into position in front of her as we started walking again. “We’re headed for the Canterlot Archives, see?”

She thrust the clipboard in my face. Sure enough, the gibberish before me was organized in a way that resembled a list, but a fundamental problem remained.

“Twilight,” I sighed, pushing the clipboard back to her, “I hate to admit it, but even though I can speak Standard Equestrian, against all odds, I can’t read it. We seem to have developed a very different writing system from you ponies.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, crestfallen. Her mood didn’t last, though. “Maybe I can teach you sometime,” she said with a bashful smile.

Returning her smile, I replied, “I’d appreciate that.”

“Geez, get a room, you two,” Rainbow Dash groused. It was very hard to resist rolling our eyes at that, but somehow, Twilight and I managed, settling for shooting the intrusive pegasus a “shut up” glare.

We fell into a somewhat awkward silence after Dash’s outburst, and I took the opportunity to do a little sightseeing. The palace seemed to be constructed of sturdy bricks that looked to have been polished to a gleaming white sheen. Several buildings were strewn about the palace grounds in seemingly haphazard configurations, many of which had tall towers topped with gold-and-purple onion domes, as if such gilded accoutrements had been the order of the day when the palace was designed. All in all, Canterlot Palace wouldn’t have been entirely out of place if it had suddenly been dropped down next to Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square.

This architectural theme naturally extended to the pair of buildings we were approaching. One – which Twilight had indicated was the main archive building – was built around a formidable edifice, seeming more like a guard barracks than a repository of pony knowledge. The other building lay across an irrigation ditch that fed a koi pond in the distance, not far from the Fortress of Books. This second building was little more than a simple ivory tower with a spiral staircase crawling up the sides like a boa constrictor, leading to a balcony high above the ground.

As if to complete the aesthetic theme of weaponized literature, two unicorn guards were stationed outside the main entrance to the Archives. Noticing that they were the same gray color as all the other unicorn guards I’d seen thus far, I pulled Twilight aside while we were still out of earshot.

“Twilight,” I whispered, “is it just me, or do all the guards look alike?”

“Your eyes aren’t deceiving you, if that’s what you’re asking,” she whispered back. “The reason they look alike is a special enchantment placed on the armor. For ponies with darker coats, it turns their coats gray, while those with lighter colored coats turn white.”

“Why?”

Twilight shrugged. “I think it serves the purpose of a uniform. You’d have to ask Shining Armor for a better explanation.”

I let loose an amused grunt. “Your brother would know, wouldn’t he?” I said with a wry smile.

“Maybe you can ask him if you see him again,” Twilight helpfully suggested.

“No, thanks. I’m not that curious about it. I just wanted to make sure the princesses weren’t employing clone troopers. That never ends well in the stories I’ve read.”

Twilight gave me a strange look, then shook her head in disbelief before leading us over to the stoic-looking guards. One of them seemed to recognize her, as he perked up immediately upon seeing us approach.

“Oh, hey there, Twilight,” he said in a genial tone, “Your brother said you might be by some time today with the princesses’ guest.” He turned to me. Though his gaze was professional and polite, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was sizing me up the way a cop looks over a drunk driver that he’s pulled over. “Are you him?”

At my nod, he looked back at Twilight. “Well, go on ahead. Just be aware that we’ve beefed up security around the Starswirl the Bearded wing. Only the resident archivist has access, and even then, only with express written permission from the princesses.” His horn lit up, and the door, glowing in a matching shade, swung open automatically.

“I’ll… keep that in mind. Thanks, Bruised Bulwark,” Twilight said sheepishly, looking down at the ground with her ears folded back, as if in shame. Seemingly oblivious to Twilight’s anguish, the stallion politely inclined his head.

“Glad to have helped,” he replied helpfully.

As if eager to keep embarrassing history secret, Twilight hurriedly led us inside the archive. Once the guards had shut the door, however, Spike chose that moment to pipe up.

“Well, Twilight, I guess you won’t be sneaking into the Archives looking for a time-stopping spell to stop a non-existent disaster anytime soon.” Smugness was dripping from every word the infant dragon spoke.

“Umm, time-stopping spell?” Clearly, I was missing something here.

“Long story,” Twilight replied with a heavy sigh and a glare at the pint-sized creature on her back. He let loose with a sheepish smile of his own, which somehow managed to be cute in a way that only a child could manage, despite revealing a full set of reptilian teeth.

With that, we began our tour of the Archives in earnest. Between my inability to read the ponies’ written language, and the restrictions on our movement – the latter apparently the result of some shenanigans on Twilight’s part that predated my arrival – the tour was necessarily brief. I did learn that the building in question mostly housed important historical documents, along with the collected academic and personal papers of just about every major pony scholar, mystic, scribe, and hero of note. And even though we weren’t allowed in, what I could see of the Starswirl the Bearded wing suggested this his works were far and away the most impressive – an impression further cemented by the giant hourglass that dominated the center of the archive.

If it weren’t for the fact that I had yet to see anything resembling modern electronics outside of the medical lab, it would’ve reminded me of the time I went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum with my family when I was about ten years old. It was an odd sensation: the same childlike wonder I’d felt at seeing exhibits of America’s past and promised future aerospace glories filled me at seeing pony history on display, even if I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Nevertheless, I made a mental note to ask Twilight if we could come back once I’d learned to read the local variant of English.

In the meantime, I would settle for a primer from Twilight about how Equestrian magic worked, once my living situation was settled. If the little bit that Spike had let slip was any indication, I was willing to bet that her time as Princess Celestia’s protege was filled with both astounding tales of her triumphs and amusing anecdotes of her pratfalls.

Emerging into the bitter cold once more, we moved quickly across the bridge towards the tower that Twilight had indicated earlier – which she called the “Clover the Clever Annex.”

“So, Starswirl only merited a wing of the archives, and Clover got an entire annex named for her? Seems legit,” I quipped.

Twilight clearly heard the sarcasm in my tone, judging by the wry smile on her muzzle. “I didn’t decide what part of the archives would be dedicated to whom. I was just the resident archivist until I moved to Ponyville almost two years ago.”

Pinkie Pie let loose with an almost comedic gasp at that. “Has it been that long already?” At Twilight’s nod, she gasped again. “Ohmigosh! We should totally have an anniversary party for you, Twilight! I gotta get back to Ponyville to make preparations!”

She started to dash off, but Twilight quickly nabbed her in a telekinetic snare. “It won’t be until this summer, Pinkie,” Twilight said blandly. “You’ve got plenty of time to prepare.”

Twilight looked back at all of us as we ascended the tower. “Even though I’m no longer the resident archivist, I thought I’d share with you one of my favorite views in all of Canterlot.”

It didn’t take long to reach the balcony we’d seen from the ground. With the exception of the landing, it encircled the entirety of the tower. A chest-high railing was there to ensure that non-pegasi didn’t suddenly fall to a rather ignominious end, whether by accident or by design. A highly decorative door from the annex proper opened out onto the balcony, presumably to allow access to the balcony from the inside.

“So, where does the door lead?” I asked.

“The archivist’s private residence. Spike and I lived here before we moved to Ponyville. I used to love coming out onto this balcony because it had such an incredible view.”

“Um, Twi?” Applejack interjected, “Are you sure it’s okay for us to be up here? You ain’t exactly the ‘resident archivist’ anymore, sugarcube.”

Twilight smiled gently. “It’s alright, Applejack. I cleared it with Rose Window, the current archivist, while we were waiting for Derren to get discharged from the medical ward.” She turned to me and said, “Go ahead, Derren. Have a look.”

And so I walked out to the railing and got my first full glimpse of this brave new world. If I were honest with myself, it was quite a magnificent view, as Twilight had hinted. The protective railing did little to obstruct the view, at least from my height. As a chill wind blew past, reminding us all that the land was still firmly ensconced in winter’s icy embrace, I gazed across the panorama before me.

Judging from the scene before me, Canterlot was situated at or near the top of a mountain. From where I stood, I had a clear view of the valley below. At the foot of the mountain sat a small village. A line of trees spread past the village towards the horizon, beyond which another, somewhat larger village lay in all its bucolic glory. I couldn’t make out too many details, but what I could see led me to believe that this more distant village was relatively prosperous for its size. At the edge of visual range, not far from the second settlement, a dense forest stood. Even from this distance, it seemed unusually dark and foreboding.

Looking a little closer to “home,” I beheld a particularly ritzy district of Canterlot, which was dominated by the same gold-and-purple minarets as the castle proper.

“Hey, Twilight,” I called out, indicating the gaudy facsimile of the castle’s opulence with a wave of my hand, “What’s with the overly-fancy buildings?”

Twilight scrunched up her muzzle in obvious distaste, though whether it was at my words or the architectural plagiarism before me was an unanswerable question. “Oh,” she said, “That’s the Platinum District. Most of the nobles have a summer home there.”

“Ah. That explains the copycat nature of the buildings, then. Do they have someone from the ministry of tourism standing out in front to greet ponies in a suitably over-the-top manner?”

Twilight frowned. “No, why would they? And what would such a pony say, anyway?”

A ferret-like grin tugged at my lips as I cleared my throat. "Behold!" I intoned quite formally in a near-perfect parody of a minor protagonist from my favorite fantasy series as a teenager. "Behold the seat of beauty and truth! Behold the home of wisdom and power! Behold gilt-domed Canterlot, the center of the world!"

Sadly, the reference seemed to have gone over everyone’s head, if the variety of bemused expressions I was seeing were any indication. The only hint that I’d been understood came from Twilight herself, and she was once more pressing a forehoof to her head.

“Please tell me that didn’t come from a cheesy young adult fantasy novel,” she pleaded with an exasperated groan.

“Hey! David Eddings didn’t write cheesy young adult fantasy novels,” I replied, putting as much semi-serious outrage as I could muster into the sentence. When Twilight raised a skeptical eyebrow, I added in a mock-haughty tone, “He wrote awesome cheesy young adult fantasy novels.”

A round of hooves – and one clawed hand – smacking foreheads greeted my statement, with the notable exception of a butter yellow hoof and a bright pink hoof. Fluttershy was blinking owlishly at me, while Pinkie, after a few brief chuckles, settled for smiling politely at my attempt at humor.

We were struck by another arctic blast of air, which allowed Applejack to recover her wits. “Do y’all think we could move it along with the tour, now?” she asked. “It’s gettin’ a might chilly for civilized folks to be out ‘n about.”

She was right, of course. Even with the denim jeans and long-sleeved blue cotton sweater that Ruby Weave had provided, I only had limited protection from the frigid air. “I’m with Applejack,” I said. “Let’s get back inside before I turn into a human popsicle.”

And with those words, we began our descent back down the tower. Amusingly, like the Magi of the Epiphany story, we returned to the castle by another route.

The walk back to the castle was lively and full of conversation. Twilight’s friends had started to open up to me more – especially Fluttershy, once I mentioned my love of cats. The normally-timid mare brightened considerably, and started babbling on about how she could help me find a suitable pet if I ever found myself in Ponyville. Her sudden change in attitude made me worry that I’d said something wrong, but I was assured – by Rainbow Dash, of all ponies – that it was just Fluttershy being Fluttershy.

Speaking of Dash…

“How could you not know who the Wonderbolts are?” she squawked indignantly as we made our way through a hedge garden lined with various statues. She’d been gushing about her aspirations to join them for the last minute. From the way she was gesticulating wildly in midair, one would think that I’d just told her Santa Claus wasn’t real.

“I only just woke up here for the first time yesterday, Rainbow, so forgive me for not instantly knowing everything about this place.” My reply was filled with an exasperation equal to that of the rainbow-maned pegasus. It seemed that my earlier prediction of her being a thorn in my side was proving frighteningly prescient.

Though Dash was already establishing a pattern of impulsiveness, she thankfully managed to rein it in long enough to think about what I’d said. When she realized I had a point, she buried her face in a hoof, letting out horse noises that even an untrained ear like mine could tell carried a distinct note of frustration. The gesture had such obvious parallels to a human “facepalm” that I was kicking myself for not seeing it earlier. Fortunately for me, this particular “facehoof” seemed more directed at Dash herself than at me.

“Alright then, Derren,” Dash said in the same tone one would use to explain simple arithmetic to a slow child, “Here’s how it is: the Wonderbolts Equestria’s premiere aerobatics squadron.” As she spoke, an air of fangirlish excitement crept into her voice. “They perform in shows all around Equestria – and sometimes even outside of Equestria – doing all kinds of awesome stunts and maneuvers. They’re also supposed to be part of Equestria’s guards, or something.”

“The Protective Pony Platoons, Rainbow,” Twilight replied, seemingly nursing a growing headache. “They’re a special unit of Equestria’s military.”

More horse noises issued forth from Dash, these somehow sounding more irritated than frustrated. “Whatever. Doesn’t stop them from being the most awesome flying group in the history of Equestria.”

“Actually, Rainbow, th–” Twilight started to say, but was interrupted by an orange hoof jamming her mouth.

“Twilight, I think it’s best not to start anythin’ along that line of thinkin’ when it comes to Rainbow,” Applejack interjected.

“Ah,” I added lamely, “So, they’re kind of like the Navy’s Blue Angels or the Air Force’s Thunderbirds back home.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow at that. “Are you saying there are humans with wings?”

I stared at her flatly. “Of course not. That’s ridiculous.” Looking at the whole group, I continued, “Humans can’t fly naturally, nor do they have magic. We’ve had to… improvise a bit with the help of technology.”

“You mean like that ‘aerial screw’ thing that Cherry Berry’s been working on for the last year or so, or that crazy contraption Pinkie was using when Gilda came to town?” Dash replied.

“I guess,” I replied dubiously. “I’d have to have a look at the ‘contraptions’ you’re talking about to be sure, though.”

Something about the names Dash mentioned struck me at that point. I had a feeling that this “Cherry Berry” was another pony that Rainbow knew, but that left me with one unanswered question: “Who’s Gilda?”

Dash lowered her head and her ears travelled downwards of their own accord, giving me the impression that it wasn’t a pleasant memory. “She’s a griffon that I was friends with back when I was a filly at the Junior Speedsters Summer Flight Camp,” she said in a disheartened tone.

“I take it this story doesn’t end well,” I said, sympathetically.

She shook her head. “No, it doesn’t. She came to Ponyville last year, and I thought we’d be able to pick up where we left off. Unfortunately, she’d changed for the worst in the years since I last saw her.” Rainbow’s expression hardened. “She was a total bully to Fluttershy, and nearly ruined the party Pinkie had thrown for her in an attempt to get her to change her attitude.”

I winced at that. “I’m sorry to hear that, Rainbow. I know all too well what that can be like.” I placed a comforting hand on the joint where her foreleg met the rest of her body. To my surprise and consternation, she actually leaned into the contact for the briefest of moments.

Thankfully, the awkward moment didn’t last, as she suddenly jolted away slightly, struck by a thought. “But enough about the past,” she declared emphatically, “Let’s talk about my future and how awesome it’s going to be once I join the ‘Bolts!”

Dash’s display of bravado prompted a round of facehoofing from Twilight and Applejack, and a facepalm from me. “So, how do you plan on joining these ‘Wonderbolts,’ Rainbow?” I asked.

“Well, I’ve met their captain, a mare named Spitfire, a few times – I even saved her and Rarity’s life at the Best Young Flyer Competition about four months after Twilight arrived in Ponyville. I still think it was the best day ever, because that was the second time I’d managed to pull off a Sonic Rainboom.”

“Sonic Rainboom?”

Pinkie intervened at that point. “Oh, the Sonic Rainboom is legendary! I’ve only actually seen it twice, but it’s like, the most coolest thing ever! When a pegasus like Rainbow Dash gets going super-duper fast, BOOM! A sonic boom and a rainbow can happen all at once!”

I turned to Dash, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “So, if what you and Pinkie are saying is true, you can create a sonic boom that somehow breaks the light spectrum as well?”

When Rainbow nodded in confirmation, quite pleased with herself, I spluttered in near apoplectic incredulity, “B- Wh- But, that’s impossible! Even Hollywood would laugh it off as unrealistic!”

Dash’s face darkened like a thundercloud for a moment before settling into a challenging, almost smug, grin. “Oh, really?” she demanded, “Well, just watch me!”

So saying, with a brief pause to stretch her legs and wings, Rainbow Dash zoomed off into the wild blue yonder, leaving a rainbow trail in her wake. Moments later, an explosion rocked the sky, and a circular plane of rainbow light rapidly spread outward from the point where the boastful pegasus had indeed broken Mach one.

“Still think it’s impossible, Derren?” Smugness dripped from every silken word she whispered in my ear upon her return. She'd barely even broken a sweat from the effort.

“Not really,” I deadpanned. “Still, I can’t help but wonder how you managed to pull it off, even with pegasus magic.” I gently poked at a wing joint on the end of said wing’s upswing. She seemed to tremble at the touch. Curious, I decided to test the reaction, running my hand through the feathers along the appendage and associated joint. “I wouldn’t expect such soft, gentle-looking things to have such power behind the–”

Whatever else I was going to say died in my throat the next instant. I staggered back with a grunt as the air whooshed from my lungs, courtesy of a pair of cyan hooves solidly striking me in the solar plexus. Once I stopped coughing my lungs out, I looked up to see everyone glaring at me with matching blushes… Everyone except Pinkie, that is. She was still giving me the blindly cheerful grin she always seemed to wear.

Under the withering glare of five mares, all of whom were currently grounded, a moment of revelation struck me, and I facepalmed in response. “I just committed a party foul, didn’t I?”

“YES!” came the outraged clarion call of five female voices in unison.

I was getting tired of metaphorically tasting my own feet at this point. “Ugh. Sorry. I was just curious. I didn’t realize that pegasus wings were… sensitive.”

“Y-yeah, well, d-don’t do that ever again. At least, not without getting my permission, first!” Rainbow Dash said, her words trembling with a mix of outrage and… desire?

Applejack raised an eyebrow at that. “First?” A smug smirk crawled onto her muzzle. “You really liked it that much, eh, Dash?”

Rainbow rounded on Applejack, her face the color of a ripened tomato and wings stiffly erect for the first time since my silly song back in the medical ward. “That’s none of your business, AJ!”

“Never mind,” Applejack replied, her smug expression deepening, “I think your wings answered for me.”

I took Dash’s incoherent, indignant sputtering as an opportunity for introspection. Did I just… trigger an arousal response in Rainbow Dash?

Pinkie chose that moment to chime in. “Oh! Oh! That looked like fun! Me next! Me next!”

I stared at Pinkie for a few moments, dumbstruck. Once my brain rebooted, I buried my face in my palm as my cheeks heated up.

“Goddammit, Pinkie Pie,” I muttered at a volume that I hoped neither Twilight nor Spike could hear.

For her part, Twilight pointedly cleared her throat as if I hadn’t said anything. When I looked over at her, she was just as red-faced as me. “Perhaps we should just continue the tour,” she said primly.

I was grateful for the change of subject. “Yes, let’s.”

Returning to the castle from the courtyard, I noticed a peculiar statue overlooking the whole scene. The creature depicted in stone – in startlingly lifelike detail – consisted of a hodgepodge of various animal parts as if it were an escapee from the island of Doctor Moreau. When I inquired what that statue was supposed to represent, Twilight merely said, “Discord,” with such distaste that she practically spat the word out. Witnessing her reaction, I decided not to press her any further on the matter.

On our way inside, the guards cheerfully greeted Twilight and her friends, and after a moment of running their searching eyes over me, gave me a polite nod. The extra scrutiny was unfortunate, but not unexpected. After all, I was still an unknown quantity, even to the castle staff who presumably would’ve had more exposure to me.

“So, Twilight, where are we going next?” I asked.

“Since you so astutely pointed out that you are new here,” Twilight said, “I figured a good place to start getting you up to speed would be a brief look at Equestria’s history. And there are few better places for a more visual primer than Canterlot Tower. It’s just up the hallway here.”

With that, we set out once more for greener pastures. I was following behind Twilight, resolutely keeping my head pointed anywhere but at her rump. During our journey, I looked back on several occasions and caught Rainbow Dash stealing glances at my hands. Even more mysteriously, unlike much of the past hour or so, she’d been walking along with the rest of us, wings still spread wide. I shook my head in disbelief at the notion that my hands had had such an effect on her. And judging from the way she was looking at me, she couldn’t believe it, either.

We eventually reached a long hallway filled with large stained glass murals. At the far end was a decorative door studded with gemstones that gleamed even in the wan winter sunlight streaming in from beyond the windows. Judging from the seam in the door itself, it was apparent that the door opened in a manner reminiscent of an elevator.

Beneath each window, a commemorative plaque etched in bronze was set into the wall, containing what I could only assume was a brief description and a date. The latter I could work out because, surprisingly, the dates were written in Latin script instead of Standard Equestrian. As I looked along the wall, I noticed that all the dates had either the AC or AEC designations, two numbers, and in most cases, an even briefer burst of Equestrian text. My earlier suspicions that ponies used a different calendar system had just been confirmed in solid metal before my eyes.

“Twilight?” I was unable to keep the nervous quaver out of my voice. “It seems I can understand some of your writing system after all.”

I pointed at the relevant text, and Twilight followed with her eyes. “You mean the calendar dates?” At my nod, she frowned in concentration. “But those dates are in Ancient Equestrian. How could you read that, but not Standard Equestrian?”

I leveled her with a serious gaze. “I think Ancient Equestrian may have a parallel in my world ‒ an ancient language known as Latin. Hell, modern English ‒ my world’s version of Standard Equestrian ‒ is based on Latin, at least in terms of the written language.” She looked at me with a stunned expression, as if having trouble accepting the coincidence. Truth be told, I was having a hard time with it as well.

And yet, there it was, staring us both in the face.

“Twilight, what do AC and AEC stand for?”

Twilight’s muzzle scrunched up in concentration for a moment and she started chewing her mane. If it weren’t for the fact that I was weirded out by recent revelations, I would’ve found it adorable.

“They stand for Anno Coniunctionis and Ab Equestria Condita, respectively.”

I frowned, furrowing my brow in thought. “The second one ‒ ‘From the Founding of Equestria’ ‒ is easy, because it’s nearly a perfect match for an ancient calendar system back home.” At Twilight’s surprised look, I replied, “I studied Latin for a few years near the end of my compulsory education period. It’s been a while, so I’m rather rusty, but I still remember some of it.”

“Ah,” she said with a smile. “So, how about Anno Coniunctionis then, Mr. Ancient Language Expert?”

“‘In the Year of… Conjunction?’”

Her smile took on a triumphant undertone. “Close. It’s ‘In the Year of Unification.’”

“What about that STG designation you were using earlier?”

Twilight’s smile turned smug. “You sure you’re up to that one? It’s a bit trickier.”

I stared flatly at her. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly, “I was just teasing you. STG stands for Saeclum Trium Gentium.”

Scratching the back of my head, I grimaced. “And here’s where my rustiness starts to show. Saeclum… I think that one means… ‘Era?’” She nodded, and I smiled weakly before continuing, “Trium obviously either means or is related to ‘three,’ but…” A long pause and my frown returned with reinforcements. “I’m drawing a blank on Gentium.”

“Tribes,” Twilight supplied.

Putting it all together, I frowned once more. “‘Era of the Three Tribes?’”

Twilight nodded. “There was once a time when ponykind was not united, and the three tribes ‒ earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns ‒ fought amongst one another for supremacy. Granted there were periods of peace, but they didn’t last long. The strife among the tribes came to a head about twelve-hundred years ago.”

“What happened?”

Twilight gestured to the first window’s image with a hoof. Six ponies appeared to be singing before a heart-shaped flame, while a trio of ethereal equines cowered in fear above the flame.

“The conflict got so bad that an unnatural winter set in. All three tribes had to leave their homes in Dream Valley. Though they set out in different directions during their exodus, all three ended up in the land we now know as Equestria at about the same time. It wasn’t until the strange winter caught up to them, forcing them to take shelter in a cave, that the true source of the problem was discovered.”

“Does it have something to do with those… distinguished gentlemen in the top part of the picture there?” I asked, pointing at the ethereal equines in question.

“I believe you mean ‘gentlecolts,’ dear,” Rarity supplied helpfully. “But yes, those beastly creatures are known as windigos.”

“Windigos? I’ve heard references to them in human legends, but I never bothered to learn any of the details. I’m guessing they actually exist here.” Twilight’s confirming nod prompted my next question: “What are they?”

“They’re evil creatures that feed off of negativity and distrust,” said Fluttershy, with no small amount of trepidation. “They sowed hatred and discord among our three tribes, until the leaders of each tribe – Princess Platinum of the unicorns, Commander Hurricane of the pegasi, and Chancellor Puddinghead of the earth ponies – along with their trusted assistants – Clover the Clever, Private Pansy, and Smart Cookie – set aside their differences and came together in friendship.”

“They totally kicked the windigos’ sorry flanks with the power of their friendship, and saved Equestria!” Rainbow Dash added, punching the air with her forehooves to emphasize her point.

“In fact,” Twilight said, bringing my gaze back to her, “The event is so central to Equestria’s history that we’ve not only made it a national holiday complete with pageants, carols, and gift-giving, but we’ve also made it the index year of our calendar.”

“Hence, Anno Coniunctionis, am I right?” I asked.

Twilight smiled warmly. “You’re catching on quickly.”

“Great, the two eggheads are geeking out again,” Rainbow Dash grumbled, before receiving a “shut-up” nudge from Applejack.

“Which would you prefer, Rainbow,” I inquired, not bothering to look in her direction, “the geeking out, or the handling you got earlier?”

That shut her up.

“Anyway,” Twilight continued, as if she hadn’t been rudely interrupted, “Before the ice and snow had finished thawing, the Equestrian Accords were drafted and signed, uniting the three tribes into one country, technically known as the Commonwealth of Equestrian States, or Equestria, for short.”

“All of ponykind united under one banner,” I noted. “That’s impressive. In our six-thousand years of recorded history, not once have humans managed such a feat.”

“Yes, well, having an existential threat will tend to do that,” Twilight said slyly.

I grunted in wry amusement. “So it does.”

Twilight’s smile quickly melted into a frown as she led us to the next window in the sequence. This one showed the strange chimera from out in the courtyard, apparently lording it over stylized images of an earth pony, a pegasus, and a unicorn – much in the way a marionettist lords it over his puppets.

“Unfortunately,” she said in a somber tone, “good intentions and words on paper only go so far, for old hatreds die hard. In 35 AEC, Discord, a nearly-omnipotent entity wielding chaos-based magic, took advantage of a historically low point in inter-tribal relations, and overthrew the government, instituting a fifteen-year reign of chaos.”

“Why fifteen years?”

“Nopony was powerful enough to challenge him, and the situation kept getting worse the longer it went on,” Twilight intoned ominously. “Even when the princesses appeared in 50 AEC – out of nowhere, according to the legends – they were no match for him. They had to discover for themselves the most powerful magical artifacts known to ponykind – the Elements of Harmony.”

“And these ‘Elements of Armory’ w–”

“Harmony,” Twilight corrected automatically.

“Right, sorry. I meant ‘Harmony,’ but somehow it came out as ‘Armory.’”

“Sure you did,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes.

I stuck my tongue out at her. “Anyway, these ‘Elements of Harmony’ were powerful enough to stop this ‘Discord?’”

“Take a look for yourself,” Twilight said smugly, pointing to the next bit of window art, depicting two alicorns – one white, the other a blue so dark as to be almost black – surrounding the petrified chimera.

“Jesus,” I breathed, “they turned him to stone?”

Twilight nodded.

“Boy, talk about being taken for granite,” I quipped. Almost everyone found the pun to be incredibly lame, judging from the near-unanimous round of facehoofing. Only Fluttershy managed to crack a slight smile at my attempt at humor. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” I added with an evil smirk.

My smirk faltered suddenly as I remembered the statue in the courtyard. Wait a minute…

“So, Twilight…” I trailed off, struggling to frame my question.

“Something wrong, Derren?”

“Yeah. That statue out in the courtyard that you said was Discord?” She nodded in response, and I continued, “That really was him, in the flesh – so to speak – wasn’t it?”

When she nodded again, I stood numbly in mute horror. The first word that eventually came to mind was most definitely not clean. With Spike still perched on Twilight’s back, I didn’t want to suffer the repercussions of dropping the f-bomb on his poor virgin ears, so I settled for the nearest family-friendly equivalent that came to mind.

“Fahrvergnügen.”

Everyone looked at me strangely, though Twilight’s gaze was more suspicious than merely befuddled.

“Never mind,” I replied with a wave of my hand. “Please, continue.”

Twilight adopted the expression of one delivering unsettling news to someone who may not take it well. “I need to preface this next bit with a bit of background about the princesses – and seeing as how you’ve said that humans don’t have magic, you may find this hard to believe.”

“Well, I’ve already heard you talk about them casually turning a god of chaos into stone, so I’m prepared to keep an open mind – if for no other reason than to preserve my sanity,” I replied.

“I appreciate your vote of confidence,” Twilight deadpanned, ears folded flat against her head. “For the longest time, we’ve had to use magic to raise the sun and moon. At first, the spell to do so was so mana-intensive that it required teams of up to five-hundred unicorns combining their efforts to cast. Once the princesses appeared, they were able to handle it on their own, since the relevant spells are within the purview of their special talents as stewards of the day and night, respectively.”

“You’re right. That does sound a bit hard to believe.”

“Perhaps this will make it easier to digest. When we invented telescopes, we were able to take a closer look at the night sky, and we discovered why this was so. Something – to this day, we still aren’t sure exactly what – was affecting the orbit of our world, which we call Equis, requiring daily corrections to the orbital path and rotation of both the planet and its moon. That’s what the spells were designed for.”

I let out a low whistle. The things pony magic could do… adjusting the orbit of a planet and its attendant moon – and on a daily basis, no less. Niven and Pournelle would eat their hearts out in jealousy – if they didn’t tear their hair out at the flagrant disregard for physics first.

“Well, somepony’s impressed,” Applejack said with a chortle as we continued our walk down Equestria’s history lane.

Our little tour group stopped in front of another window, this one showing the white alicorn – presumably, Princess Celestia – wearing a tiara and firing a conic beam of pastel rainbow at a jet black alicorn with feline eyes that was rearing up in an aggressive posture.

“For a century and a half,” Twilight said, resuming her narration, “Princess Celestia would ‘raise the sun’ at dawn and ‘lower’ it at dusk, when Princess Luna would take over and do the same for the moon. But as time went on, Princess Luna noticed that ponies weren’t as appreciative of the night as she felt they should be. Disgruntlement eventually led to jealousy, then to bitterness and hatred. The hatred consumed her, and she was transformed by it into a wicked mare of darkness named Nightmare Moon.”

Twilight’s demeanor turned melancholy as she continued the tale. “Princess Celestia had long suspected that something might be wrong, but ultimately dismissed it as the product of an overactive imagination. When she finally decided to take Princess Luna’s concerns seriously, it was already too late.

“Princess Luna was beyond reason, and attacked Princess Celestia. The two fought to a standstill, and in desperation, Princess Celestia used the Elements of Harmony against her own sister, banishing her to the moon for a thousand years.”

I shuddered at the implications. It seemed that the Elements of Harmony were a sort of “instant win button” that, when pressed, made problems go away in a puff of rainbow smoke. Still, to turn Discord to stone and banish Luna to the moon… That implied things about the Elements – things that I didn’t want to think about, especially not when I’d only been here for little more than a day.

Twilight looked up at me then, sadness and empathy for her mentor radiating off of her in waves. “Princess Celestia once told me that ignoring Luna’s plight was one of her deepest regrets in her thousand-plus years of ruling Equestria, and that if she had to do it all over again, she would’ve intervened sooner.”

“Nobody’s perfect, Twilight,” I replied with a rueful smile, “Not even inexplicably long-lived pony princesses.”

“I never suggested they were,” Twilight said with a slight scowl. She then led us across the hall, where Nightmare Moon dominated the center of another scene, this one containing some very familiar ponies.

“I’m afraid to say that the intervening millennium was relatively quiet,” Twilight said. “The only other event of major import was the re-establishment of contact with the Griffon Kingdom in 1123 AEC.” She suddenly brightened as a thought struck her. “I’m not quite done with it yet, but I’ve got a book on griffon history I’d be willing to let you borrow once you learn how to read Standard Equestrian, if you’d like.”

I thought about it for a moment. “That might be interesting,” I said with a smile. “Sure.”

“I just hope for Derren’s sake that it’s not as boring as you’re making our history sound, Twi,” Dash grumbled.

“Hey!”

Unperturbed, Dash continued, “What? I’m just saying you could make jousting sound as exciting as watching paint dry.”

Pausing only to fix Rainbow with a glare that could’ve wiped out all of Texas, Twilight continued, “Anyway, an old prophecy predicted that Nightmare Moon’s banishment was not as permanent as everypony was led to believe, and that it would only last a thousand years. When I read about it in a book I’d found in the depths of the Canterlot Archives, I did my due diligence, and immediately reported it to Princess Celestia.”

“I’m not questioning your judgement or your commitment to doing what’s right,” I replied, “but a wise woman once said that prophecy is a poor guide to the future. You only understand it when the events are already upon you.”

Twilight couldn’t resist a giggle at that. “You know, that’s what I thought Princess Celestia was telling me when she sent me to Ponyville in response to my report. But it turned out that I was at least partially right – Nightmare Moon was indeed returning, but in order to defeat her, I had to make friends.”

Twilight’s expression turned deadly serious. “You have to understand, Derren. Before Princess Celestia sent me to Ponyville to make friends, the only ponies I allowed to get close to me were Spike and my brother.”

She choked up a bit, and her next words came out in a rush. “I didn’t know where to begin, and my books could only tell me so much. I was fighting back nausea the whole way when Spike and I left Canterlot, and all I wanted to do was just get through the Summer Sun Celebration as quickly as possible and go back to Canterlot.”

Twilight was near tears at this point, as she recalled how terrified she had been at the prospect of getting out and socializing. It was kind of awkward watching her so close to a breakdown, so I stood there like an idiot for a few seconds. Once my brain rebooted, an odd compulsion took hold of me, and I dropped into a squatting position next to her, gently reaching out with what I hoped would be considered a comforting hand.

To my eternal surprise, Twilight accepted the proffered hand, sagging against me like a sack of potatoes as her friends and I gathered around for a spontaneous group hug. Like Nurse Faran and the princesses, her fur felt like very soft velvet, while the warmth of her body was amazingly comfortable.

I wasn’t sure how long the eight of us stayed in that pile of human, dragon, and pony flesh, my shirt dampening with Twilight’s tears, but it couldn’t have been more than a minute. When the moment passed, Twilight pulled away, her purple eyes red-rimmed and puffy.

“Thanks, Derren,” she said as she sniffed away the last of her liquid sadness. “I’m not sure why I felt compelled to share that with you, since we’ve only known each other a few hours ‒ no offense.”

“None taken,” I replied with a small smile.

“Nevertheless, it felt… good to share it with you, for some reason.” She turned to the others. “And thank you, girls. I can’t express just how lucky I am to have you five as my friends.”

“We wouldn’t have it any other way, darling,” Rarity replied with a warm smile. Her mascara had smudged a little during the group hug, leading me to suspect that Twilight wasn’t the only one who’d gotten emotional just then.

Seeing Twilight with her friends like that sent a wave of nostalgia through me. I found myself looking at a particularly interesting point on the ceiling as I reflected on the twists and turns my life had taken, and the folks that had shared parts of my journey with me.

An orange hoof on my shoulder drew me from my reverie. “You okay there, sugarcube?” Applejack asked as I blinked owlishly at her. “You looked like you were on another world just then.” Despite her soft smile, her emerald eyes radiated concern for my well being.

I shook my head. “I’m fine, Applejack. I was just thinking about things.” I turned to Twilight. “You really are lucky, you know that, Twilight? Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had plenty of friends until now. But I’ve always had a bit of a problem with… keeping them.”

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked, one brow raised in confusion.

I sighed. It seemed today was going to be a day of tough revelations for everyone. “Thankfully, most of the friends I lost were due to the natural decay that happens when two people’s lives take different paths. Friends would move away because their parents got a job in a different city, or we’d find ourselves with two completely different circles of friends with no overlap except each other. That sort of thing. Ultimately, we’d lose touch with one another, and that’d be the end of it.

“One of my closest friendships actually ended up meeting that fate, unfortunately. His family and mine had been friends since before either of us were born, so it was only natural that the two of us became as thick as thieves in a very short time. I have many fond memories of our time together.”

I couldn’t help but lower my head as sadness wrote itself on my features. “This time, it was I who did the leaving. Around the time I turned eleven, my father got a new job in another city. I did my best to keep in touch at first, but as time went on, I kind of resigned myself to the long-distance nature of our friendship, and the correspondence became less and less frequent.

“Ironically, we moved back to my hometown after only two and a half years. My friend and I tried to pick up where we left off, but it just wasn’t the same. Anyone could see that our lives were already headed in different directions. We even ended up going to different colleges later on.”

I sighed again. “In hindsight, I suppose I could see the end coming as easily as anyone else, but when I was in the thick of it, I just didn’t want to believe it. The last time I saw him was a couple of months before his first child was born. He and his wife had successful careers ahead of them, and I was struggling in a dead-end job with few prospects.”

I turned to Twilight, gazing deeply into her purple irises. “But that was the tail end of a long journey, and in the meantime, I had not one, but two people I called ‘friends’ turn out to be unworthy of the name. They betrayed me and used me, and the worst thing about it was that their betrayals came at a particularly bad time in my life.”

Looking around at all of them, I realized I’d gotten a bit emotional, as they were all looking at me funny. I took a moment to calm myself, then concluded my tale: “So, you can kind of see why I got to be rather cynical about friendship. I felt like it just wasn’t worth the effort I had put into it.” With a mirthless laugh, I added, “Cherish what you have. There’s no telling how long it’ll last.”

Rainbow Dash let loose with a barrage of horse noises that sounded flatly dismissive of what I’d just said. “Puh-lease, Derren,” she retorted, “you sound like my Aunt Prism Flash. I’d never let anything come between me and my friends, and becoming a Wonderbolt won’t change that one bit!”

With a sad smile, I replied, “I wish I had your confidence in that regard, Rainbow.”

“Well,” Twilight chimed in with a hopeful smile on her muzzle, “then perhaps you just need new friends who will never desert you, no matter what happens.”

“Maybe,” I said, unable to keep the dubious tone out of my voice.

Suddenly, Twilight’s eyes snapped wide open, as if she’d just realized something. She muttered to herself, “Tailless… primate… needs friends…” A few hairs suddenly sprung out of place on her carefully groomed mane and tail, and her left eyelid developed a dangerous tic as she glared at Pinkie, who was obliviously admiring the image of Princess Cadance and Shining Armor bent into a heart-shaped formation that looked like it should’ve been very uncomfortable on their equine bodies.

“Something wrong, Twilight?” I asked, concerned.

Twilight shook her head, somehow straightening her mane and tail in the process. “Never mind,” she said. “It’s not important.”

I could feel my eyebrow climbing my forehead. “Okay. If you say so.”

In the wake of all the expended emotion, Twilight didn’t seem to feel the need to explicate either of the newest additions to the “Hall of History,” as I’d come to call it. Not that I particularly needed it at this point. One of the recent bits of glasswork showed Twilight and her friends battling Discord, much as they had done with Nightmare Moon. What I could read of the date on the plaque ‒ 1201 AEC ‒ indicated that the incident took place about a year after Twilight moved to Ponyville.

The one with Princess Cadance and Shining Armor in what appeared to be a protective bubble above a silhouetted Canterlot was even more recent. On our way back from the archives, Twilight had mentioned that her brother and the princess had gotten married a few months before I arrived, and that there had been a few… complications. She’d avoided mentioning what those complications were, and I’d assumed she didn’t want to talk about it.

What little I’d learned of the story, coupled with the presence of the stained glass window, suggested that hearing it might be important, but for the moment, I decided to let it go in favor of something else that the three images brought to mind. I figured that even if Twilight wouldn’t tell me, I could always drag it out of one of her friends later.

“So, if these commemorative windows are any indication,” I said, addressing the group, “you girls are national heroes at least twice over.”

Twilight smiled. “You’re right about that.”

“Indeed,” Applejack chimed in, “but we don’t like to brag about it ‒” she glared pointedly at a certain cerulean mare “‒do we, Rainbow Dash?”

Dash snorted derisively at that. “As if we’d ever get any recognition for it, anyway. You remember that one time when we moved Twilight’s birthday party here because Rarity was trying to kiss up to those snooty upper crust ponies?”

Rarity, face like a thundercloud, looked like she was about to interject, but I held up a hand to stop her. “Fortune and glory ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, Rainbow. That’s why a real hero is humble about their accomplishments.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Dash groaned. “Believe me, I’ve had that lesson drilled into me once already.”

“Anyway, if I could get back to my original point,” I said, “in addition to being national heroes, I’m sure you girls have your own lives that keep you busy in this ‘Ponyville’ you’ve mentioned a few times. Why would the princesses take you away from that to shepherd some freaky alien?”

“Well,” Twilight replied in mock-seriousness, pointing a lavender hoof at the window art in front of me, “as you can see, we’ve managed to defeat some mighty foes with the power of our friendship. The princesses felt that our ‘friendship resume,’ as it were, more than qualified us for ‘shepherding some freaky alien’ and helping him adjust to life in Equestria.”

Life in Equestria…

In that moment, a sudden rush of confusing emotions consumed me. Fear. Grief. Emptiness. Loneliness. Alienation. There was a sudden tightness in my throat, strangely coupled with a throbbing headache as my vision blurred.

Fighting to reclaim my voice, I managed to croak out, “Excuse me, girls. I think I need a moment alone…”

With that, I rushed out of the room, leaving a gaggle of confused mares in my wake.

Departing from my new “friends,” I blindly roamed the halls of Canterlot Castle, not really paying attention to anything. As I walked, I thought about the strange sideways spiral my life had taken lately, and what it meant for me. The determination I’d had to make a new life here had waned upon recalling the life I’d led up to now. It was one thing to say you were going to change ‒ following through was another thing entirely, and all too often, I’d fallen down in that regard.

That, coupled with all the recent craziness, had finally driven home just how drastically my life had changed in so short a time. Even with the support of the princesses, Dr. Silverclaw, Twilight and her friends, and even Nurse Faran, I still had to face the fact that I was the only one of my kind in a world filled with beings that I’d thought were mere legend until now. Worse, I had to do it while confronted with the very real possibility of never being able to go home again in my lifetime.

It was a sobering thought. So, to clear my head, I did what I’d always do in such situations: wander aimlessly, thinking of nothing at all.

That was how I found myself seated at a grand piano on the stage of an even grander ballroom some indeterminate amount of time later. I wasn’t in the mood to question this bit of multiversal parallelism, so I just chalked it up to being an instrument that unicorns played ‒ presumably via telekinesis.

Nevertheless, it was here in all its exquisite mahogany glory, and I was here in all my exquisite humanly glory, so I did what I do best when sitting at a piano in a peculiar mood.

I started randomly mashing keys.

It didn’t take long for me to get bored of banging out a cacophonic racket, however. Between that and a desire to avoid a citation for violating local noise ordinances, I moved on to playing actual music. I started out with the most classic of pieces: Chopsticks.

It didn’t help my mood, so I moved on to other pieces. I must have tried at least a good half dozen songs and scads more bits and pieces of music scattered about the recesses of my memory, including two variants on the Final Fantasy victory fanfare. None of it worked.

Finally, in a fit of mad desperation, my mind seized on a ridiculous gag from an old point-and-click adventure game about a hard-boiled detective eking out a meager existence on the mean streets of post-World War Three San Francisco. After an impromptu arpeggio riff, my hands sought the familiar rhythm of the bass line for Heart and Soul of their own accord, and I began to sing:

Oh, the hell with it… Even the piano isn’t helping my mood.

And so, with a discordant glissando, I yanked my hands from the keys. Fuming, I thought about what was wrong. Playing the piano had quite frequently helped lift my spirits in the past. It was one of the reasons why I had even bothered to take lessons. Why wasn’t it working now?

Just when I thought my mood couldn’t sink any lower, inspiration struck once more, and I decided that I needed to play something that was more fitting to what I was actually feeling: a slight undertone of sadness, but mostly confusion and uncertainty about the world I’d awakened to.

Awakened… That’s it!

I’d be the first to admit that I had never fully mastered the piece before suddenly finding myself flung across the multiverse, and it showed. I’d had to restart it several times because of how badly I botched the intro.

Eventually, though, I got it right, and managed to get through a couple of loops with only a half dozen minor finger slips and rhythm issues that could easily be hidden from the untrained ear. Pulling my hands from the keys once more, I turned from the bench to find that I had a rather familiar audience of seven. Strangely, with the exception of Applejack and Rainbow Dash, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

“Uh… Hey, girls,” I said, running a hand along the back of my head nervously. “What’re–”

The rest of my sentence died a lonely death in my throat as for the second time that day, I was buried in a rather substantial pony pile. It seemed that despite myself, I had earned the trust of these mares – enough for them to casually disregard my personal space, I noted with some trepidation. I would’ve figured that beings evolved from a prey species would be a bit more… cautious, but either these mares truly were special, or Equestria’s ponies in general tended to extend trust more easily than humans.

Whatever the case, the press of warm, furry bodies against me had an unusually palliative effect, and for the first time since my arrival in Equestria, nearly all of my inner turmoil had left me. Though I wasn’t fully ready to place any significant amount of trust in them, it seemed that I had finally found a group of folks that were worth the effort friendship required.

“I must say, Derren,” Rarity spoke up as our group hug broke apart, “that was a lovely song you were playing just now, but it was kind of sad in a way, too.”

I shrugged. “It seemed fitting at the time.”

“Do you, by any chance, happen to know some more –” Rarity cleared her throat in a show of excessive politeness “– uplifting music?”

Sitting back at the bench, I shot her an amused grin. “Sure, I guess. Mind you, my repertoire is currently limited to what I can remember, and most of that is music from various video games. But I might be able to whip up some classical music, as well.”

“I’m not sure about these ‘video games,’ so why not something classical?”

I thought about that for a moment. “Alright. I think I can accommodate you. This one’s pretty famous where I’m from, mostly because the chord progression gets reused in just about everything. It’s by a guy named Johann Pachelbel.” And with that, I set my hands and began to play.

Minutes later, I had exhausted my musical bag of tricks, and stepped away from the piano to the enthusiastic stomping of hooves from Twilight and her friends. It amazed me that even Applejack and Rainbow Dash were impressed by my performance – they didn’t seem like the types to enjoy that kind of music. Perhaps they were just being polite, I thought.

“Oh my,” Rarity gushed, looking at me admiringly, “I must say, that was quite the masterful performance. By any chance, are you a professional?”

I snorted derisively. “Hardly. More like a hobbyist. Those were the pieces that I practiced the most, just because I liked them so much.”

At that moment, my stomach took the opportunity to issue forth a rather loud gurgle of protest at the lack of attention it had received in the last few hours.

“Umm, perhaps now would be a good time for lunch,” Twilight said, embarrassment on my behalf causing the fur of her cheeks to inexplicably shift in hue to a pinker tone.

We were all of one accord on the matter of food, and thus exited the ballroom, bound for the castle’s dining facilities with the eagerness of schoolchildren.

The brisk pace we set ‒ a fast trot for the girls that bordered on a canter ‒ had me on the verge of running just to keep up. Canterlot’s apparent altitude wasn’t helping matters, either. By the time we reached the mess hall, I was gasping for breath.

“What’s the matter, big guy,” Rainbow Dash teased, sharing a devilish grin with Applejack, “out of shape?”

Once I managed to stop sounding like overworked bellows, I gave Dash and Applejack a look that clearly communicated just how unamused I was at their schadenfreude.

“Well, round is a shape, Dash,” I deadpanned, which just further added to the duo’s amusement. “Anyway, I blame the altitude. I spent most of my life below ten thousand feet, so forgive me if I get winded easily up here.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dash replied with a hint of smug superiority, “All I’m hearing is a lot of excuses from some egghead who probably hasn’t set hoof on a racetrack in his whole life.”

The note of challenge in her statement was a little too blatant there. “Yeah, not happening, Dash,” I replied. “That had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Face it, you’re not a master baiter.”

There were varying responses to my quip. Despite all of her resistance, Applejack couldn’t keep a snicker and an accompanying whinny from slipping out of her muzzle. Pinkie didn’t even bother with resisting. Twilight and Rarity had their faces buried in their hooves, while Fluttershy and Spike were staring blankly at me.

As for the target of the joke, Rainbow looked torn between Applejack and Twilight as her models for reaction. After several long moments of indecision, she took a third option. Her eyelids lowered partially in a smoldering sideways glance at me, while a sly smile wormed its way onto her muzzle.

“Don’t be so sure about that, big guy,” Dash said in a husky, heavily flirtatious tone that I wasn’t expecting from her. “You only met me this morning, after all.”

With that, she turned so that her backside was facing me, and after flashing a shit-eating grin at me, wiggled her rump in a far more seductive manner than Twilight had managed earlier.

She finished with a decidedly unladylike flick of her tail, and for the third time in two days, I got a full-on view of what makes a mare… well… a mare.

“Good Jesus, Rainbow,” I cried, throwing my arms up defensively and averting my eyes from the unseemly display, “I didn’t need to see that right before lunch!”

“Why? Is the Dash too much for you, big guy?” she demanded, her voice dripping with sensuality and excessive self-satisfaction at the same time. Even if I were emotionally ready to date a pony, she seemed to be pushing all the wrong buttons with her attitude.

“Let’s just go get our food,” I grumbled.

Rainbow led the way with a triumphant grin firmly ensconced on her lips, wings flared out, and a deliberate sway in her hips.

Shaking my head, I leaned in to whisper to Twilight, “Is she always like this?”

With a giggle, Twilight replied in equally hushed tones, “Most of the time. But she’s a good pony at heart. I’m sure she’ll grow on you.”

“If so, it won’t be anytime soon,” I muttered, to which Twilight’s only reply was a knowing smile. Rainbow’s ears twitched, and the swaying of her hips ground to a deliberate halt as she fixed me with a weird look.

The rest of us caught up to Rainbow, and we all entered the dining hall together. The moment we set foot (and hoof) into the room, our eyes widened in surprise to see the room already occupied by a lone figure ‒ one with whom I was already acquainted.

“Great,” Rainbow grumped, “A griffon. Just what I don’t need.”

The griffon stood from his seat. “I was unaware of any signs saying that this dining hall was for ponies and humans only. I thought Equestria was more enlightened than that, but I guess I was wrong. My apologies, I’ll be leaving now.” Thus, he made to push past me, only to be stopped by my outstretched hand.

I sighed. It seemed my griffon friend hadn’t been kidding when he’d mentioned bad blood between pegasi and griffons. Dash’s history with Gilda couldn’t entirely explain her reaction to the doctor. Even Fluttershy seemed a little wary of him. Then again, from what I’d seen and had been told, Fluttershy was wary of everyone.

“No, Dr. Silverclaw,” I said, “You may stay. You’re obviously here for a reason.” With a sideways glance to my left, I murmured, “Dash, play nice.”

“You’re not the boss of me, you know,” Dash hissed at me.

“Even so, for the sake of pony-griffon relations, just try to be civil.”

Dash made a series of rude-sounding horse noises, but ultimately acquiesced to my request. With a gesture from Twilight, we all took our places at the long table which dominated the center of the room. While most of the seats seemed designed with equine ergonomics in mind, there was one chair that I figured I could use without trouble, so I took it.

Twilight and Rarity sat on either side of me, with Spike on Twilight’s left and Fluttershy on Rarity’s right. Across the table, Silverclaw sat in the middle with a one-seat buffer on either side between him and Applejack on one side and Pinkie Pie on the other. As for the problematic prismatic pegasus, she was seated to Applejack’s left ‒ as far from Silverclaw as physically possible while still maintaining some of her tomboyish dignity.

After a few moments of awkward silence, one of the palace staff came in to take our orders. When the mare got to me, Silverclaw spoke up.

“Don’t worry about him,” he said, “I’ve got our orders taken care of.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Silverclaw massaged his temples with a talon. “While we were waiting for you to wake up yesterday, I took the liberty of getting some tissue samples and ran some tests on them, in order to learn a bit about your biology.”

“Makes sense,” I replied evenly, “I’m a virtual unknown.”

Silverclaw nodded. “We couldn’t feed you intravenously forever, so we had to know about your diet. Thankfully, between an examination of your teeth, analysis of the tissue samples, and what information Princess Luna was generous enough to provide” ‒ he practically spat the word “generous,” as if he’d had to pull teeth to get the information ‒ “we were able to confirm what you told the doctors in the xeno-psychological field study yesterday – that you are indeed an omnivore.”

“Brilliant deduction, Einstein,” I said, loading as much sarcasm as I could into the sentence.

Silverclaw gave me a hard stare, both because he recognized my tone, and because of the reference to my world. He opened his beak to retort, when Rainbow Dash interjected.

“What do you mean, ‘omnivore?’”

“It means he doesn’t just eat plants, Rainbow,” Twilight responded in a deadpan tone. She raised a hoof to her chin in thought. “It’s not too surprising, I suppose. Some primates have been known to feed on insects.”

“Except that the development of brains sophisticated enough to use tools and create civilized society came with increased energy requirements,” I added. “We can’t rely on just insects for the animal proteins we need for optimal health.”

“You’re like us griffons in that regard,” Silverclaw added. “Capable of eating both plants and animals, but mostly relying on meat for the nutrients needed.” He turned to face me. “That is why I took the liberty of ordering for you earlier.”

The silence around the table was palpable. At first, I was worried that Silverclaw’s revelation would alienate me from my new friends, but after a moment, the friendly smiles came back, if a bit forced.

“Well, I s’pose it’s no different from Winona,” Applejack said.

“Or Opalescence,” Rarity said, her smile starting to become more genuine.

“Or Harry the bear and many of my animal friends,” Fluttershy intoned quietly.

“Or Gummy!” Pinkie enthused. I was beginning to suspect that very little could keep her down for long.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking,” Twilight asked curiously, but with a hint of worry, “what kinds of meat do humans eat?”

I sighed. This could be a bit touchy, seeing as how my hosts evolved from a prey species. “Well, we basically stick to four sources of meat: pigs, chickens, fish, and… cows.”

The ponies at the table winced. “Fish are perfectly fine, since pegasi consume them on a fairly regular basis ‒ especially those who work on the various weather teams around Equestria,” Twilight noted, pointing at Rainbow Dash. “Pigs and chickens generally aren’t too objectionable ‒ especially since we use chicken eggs for the dough used in our baked goods. That said, you may get the occasional pony who will take offense to you eating it in their presence. That last one might be a bit of trouble, however, since cows are also sapient here.”

“Duly noted,” I replied, chastened. “I’ll stick to fish as much as possible, then.” A thought struck me, and I grimaced in response. “It’s not my first choice, but for the sake of human-pony relations, I suppose I could get used to it.”

At that point, our meals arrived. Most of the girls had ordered various salads ‒ some with flowers, and even a couple with hay. When Spike’s meal was placed before him, I couldn’t contain my surprise at the realization that Twilight hadn’t been joking when she’d ordered a plate of turquoise gemstones for him. I couldn’t help being a bit jealous of Spike: though his dietary needs were unconventional, at least they weren’t potentially controversial.

At last, my plate arrived: a mixed green salad with seared ahi tuna drenched in a wasabi vinaigrette dressing. As enticing as it looked, the meal appeared to reinforce the earlier conversation, and I could see the girls giving me more than a few awkward looks, completely ignoring Silverclaw as he dug into his fish tacos.

“Well,” I declared with false joviality, “who’s hungry?”

“He is,” Rainbow said, pointing a hoof at Silverclaw.

Lunch was a fairly quiet, sober affair. Everyone was too intently focused on their own meals for words. By the time we had finished eating, however, it was as if the last fifteen minutes hadn’t even happened. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be on the back of the girls’ minds every time we sat down to eat together.

Such considerations probably explained why I grabbed as many breath mints as I could reasonably hold when offered.

Silverclaw had excused himself, citing a previously scheduled meeting with the princesses. With the dining hall to ourselves, we filled the time with idle chatter. I regaled the girls and Spike with tales from what I remembered of human history. I was a little worried that some of the darker parts would make humans look bad in the ponies’ eyes. However, Twilight reassured me that pre-unification history wasn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows, either ‒ an assessment that was confirmed by her friends, though they were also quick to point out that Twilight had studied history more in-depth than the rest of them.

In return for learning a little bit about Earth, Twilight and her friends told me a little bit more about the Elements of Harmony. It was pretty enlightening. Five of the elements represented the virtues associated with strong, lasting friendships: Honesty ‒ held by Applejack; Loyalty ‒ held by Rainbow Dash; Kindness ‒ held by Fluttershy; Laughter ‒ held by Pinkie Pie; and Generosity ‒ held by Rarity. From what I’d seen of their interactions so far, each pony seemed a near perfect match to her Element.

Twilight’s Element ‒ Magic ‒ was a more interesting case. From what she told me, it seemed that her Element worked mostly as a sort of magical focus for the Elements’ power. Meanwhile, Twilight herself, in addition to being the group’s de facto leader, also seemed to exhibit elements of the five virtues of friendship ‒ though not to nearly the same degree as her friends. The whole thing seemed to suggest that there was some sort of equivalency between friendship and magic, but how exactly it worked was beyond me.

The Elements weren’t the only things Twilight and her friends mentioned during our downtime. They also took the time to tell me about some of the adventures they’d had.

Some seemed facepalm-worthy, such as the time Dash got an even bigger head than usual about her heroism, and had to be brought back down to earth by her friends. It certainly explained her comment in response to my “fortune and glory” speech.

Other tales were more heartwarming. I’m pretty sure I was risking an attack of diabetes when Rarity told me about the time she’d conspired with Applejack to get back into her younger sister’s good graces after a “particularly difficult week,” as she’d put it. The fact that Rarity ‒ who had a reputation for fastidiousness, according to her friends ‒ was willing to get dirty for the sake of sibling relations made the tale all the more saccharine.

And some of their recollections just flat out defied logic and stretched credulity beyond even this world’s rather generous limits. I mean, what were the odds that all six of them would earn their cutie marks from the same event ‒ Dash’s first Sonic Rainboom?

The tales went on for nearly an hour. At that point, we had just gotten to the circumstances surrounding Princess Cadance and Shining Armor’s wedding. To hear her tell it, it was pretty easy to see why she was reluctant to discuss the matter.

Nevertheless, she talked about it anyway.

“It was the first time that Shining Armor and I had had a serious argument, and it nearly tore the two of us apart,” Twilight said mournfully. “He basically disinvited me from the wedding, and I hadn’t gotten any support from my friends when I was accusing ‘Cadance’ of being evil.”

“To be fair to your friends, Twilight,” I said, “You hadn’t exactly given them anything more solid than circumstantial evidence.”

“I know,” Twilight moped, “but it didn’t stop me from feeling more alone than I’d ever been, even before I moved to Ponyville. It hurt not to have their support when I needed it. When it turned out that I was right all along – though not in the way I thought – they were more than willing to apologize and make amends once the crisis had passed.”

“Sounds like you have some wonderful friends,” I replied with a smile.

Twilight’s smile was tinged with sadness. “They are.” Her expression brightened suddenly. “But as much as we might like to take credit for saving Canterlot from the changeling invasion, I’m afraid that honor goes to Cadance and my brother.”

“Hence the commemorative window art back in the Hall of History, eh?” I replied.

Despite her obvious disgruntlement at my casual term for the place, Twilight nodded. “We tried to get to the Elements of Harmony, but we were overwhelmed by the sheer size of the changeling raiding party. Despite being recaptured, I was able to take advantage of a distraction and free the two of them.”

A sly smirk slid onto my face. “I’m guessing that the ‘distraction’ was the changeling queen monologuing in a really hammy manner.”

Applejack gave a hearty chuckle. “As corny as it sounds, that’s exactly what happened.”

“Princess Cadance and Shining Armor took care of the rest.” Rarity added. “Oh, it was simply amazing the way the power of their love expelled those dreadful changelings from Equestria! I’ve never seen its like in my entire life!”

The way Rarity was gushing over the tale’s climax, it seemed she really had a flair for the dramatic that was rather infectious. I couldn’t help but chuckle at her antics. Still, one thing about the story worried me…

“I can’t help but wonder about that changeling queen, though,” I said. “Just how powerful is she? And what happens to the emotions that are drained? Are they permanently gone?”

Twilight gave a soft hum as she seemed to consider how to phrase her reply. “Well, she had been draining Shining Armor for nearly a week at the time, and as much as I hate to admit it, it gave her enough power to defeat Princess Celestia in a one-on-one duel.” Twilight made a sour face at recalling her mentor – a pony she obviously admired greatly – so humbled by a hostile force.

She quickly recovered, however, and continued her explanation. “As for your other point, emotions don’t work that way. Strong emotions – such as love, or the warm feelings engendered by a strong friendship – serve to enhance our magical abilities, making any spells cast in that manner much more powerful than they would otherwise be. Changelings can apparently tap those emotions both to feed, and to enhance their own magical abilities. However, the emotions don’t go away.”

“And it’s a good thing, too,” a new, masculine voice said – a voice that was very familiar and welcome, judging from Twilight’s reaction. “Otherwise, there wouldn’t have been a redo on the wedding.”

Shining Armor and Princess Cadance had appeared in the dining hall’s doorway at some point during our discussion, and the stallion had chosen precisely that moment to speak up. He braced himself as Twilight raced over to consume him as enthusiastic a hug as she could muster. A slight grunt escaped his lips as the adoring mare slammed into him, wrapping her forelegs around his barrel with a force that could shatter stone.

“Well, hello again, Twily,” Shining Armor said, favoring his sister with a good-humored smile. “You and the girls getting along well enough with our guest?”

“For the most part,” Twilight replied happily as she separated from her brother.

“For the most part?” Shining Armor’s eyebrow rose and a bemused expression settled on his muzzle.

“That’s a long story, filled with embarrassing pratfalls on my part, Captain,” I replied, wiping specks from my glasses that only I could see. For his part, Shining favored me with a knowing smile while his wife shook her head and let loose with a long-suffering sigh before a slight smile wormed its way onto her lips. “So, what brings you here?” I asked.

“Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are ready to see you and the girls about your living arrangements,” Princess Cadance replied. “They asked us to escort you to the throne room.”

“Wow,” I muttered dryly, “What did I ever do to merit having a Princess and the Captain of the Royal Guard usher me around?”

The royal couple chuckled at my response. “Well,” Princess Cadance said, “As the first of your kind here in Equestria, you’ve been accorded a sort of VIP status on par with foreign ambassadors. Essentially, you’re to be extended every courtesy as a sign of goodwill and hope for peaceful relations between our cultures. That includes having my dear husband, his sister and her friends, and myself accompany you around the palace.”

“Really? I’m basically an ambassador in everything but name?” I asked. When Princess Cadance nodded, I added with a nervous chuckle, “Wow, no pressure, eh?”

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” the pink alicorn said, putting comforting gold-shod hoof on my arm.

“We’ll be right beside you to support you,” Twilight added cheerfully.

If you say so… I thought with an uncertain, but hopeful, glance at her.

“For the moment, though,” Shining added, “the princesses are requesting your presence in the throne room, so that’s where we’re headed next.”

So saying, we left the dining hall. Shining Armor proved to be as capable a navigator as Twilight, seeming to have a sixth sense about which corridors were least populated while still getting us to the throne room efficiently. As we walked, I wound up getting some background on the good Captain. As could be expected of a high-ranking military officer, he’d had dreams of joining the Guard from an early age. He even got his cutie mark from an incident where he saved his fellow Colt Scouts from a manticore attack with one of the force field spells for which he became known.

Of course, Twilight and Princess Cadance were both more than happy to let me know what a totally awkward dork he’d been as a colt. Granted, Cadance had found his goofball nature to be rather endearing, and the two had started dating shortly after she became Twilight’s foalsitter. Interestingly, the lovable goofiness had never fully left him, even during his rapid rise through the ranks of the Royal Guard.

Ultimately, this led to the events of the wedding. After an anonymous threat against the wedding caused Shining Armor to spend more and more time stepping up security, Cadance suddenly found herself forced to shoulder most of the burden of planning the wedding, which naturally resulted in increased stress. A trip to the local spa for relaxation turned out to be a trap set up by the changeling queen, who imprisoned her in an abandoned gem mine beneath Canterlot. At that point, the queen was free to replace Cadance and feast on Shining Armor’s love for the princess.

Talk about identity theft…

“If you don’t mind me asking,” I said, interrupting Cadance’s narration, “how exactly do changelings ‘feed on emotion?’”

I almost immediately regretted asking the question, based on the reactions it was generating in the royal couple. Shining Armor’s ears sagged as guilt mixed with shame on his muzzle, while Cadance’s expression became highly outraged. Strangely enough, it seemed as though her ire was not directed at her husband, but something else. The implications set my stomach churning.

“Well,” Cadance replied with a deadly calm tone, “according to what the queen told me when she first imprisoned me, it’s not the only, or even the most effective means of draining a pony’s love.” Here, her resolve started to break down. “She would drain poor Shiny by–”

“No need to explain,” I interjected, holding a hand up defensively, “I think I can see where this is going.” I shuddered. Rape by deception is a very ugly thing. Even worse, it was not done just to fulfill a biological function, but more as an act of dominance and intimidation. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the psychological trauma that the two were likely still dealing with as a result. If they were willing to go through with a wedding and the attendant honeymoon after all of that, their love must truly be strong.

It was a little disconcerting to discover that I envied them for it.

I was pulled from my ruminations by Shining Armor announcing that we had arrived at the throne room. The captain himself opened the door with his telekinesis, which I noted was marked by a magenta glow that was similar to his sister’s. Come to think of it, every unicorn that I’d seen using magic so far had their own telltale signature color. I’d have to ask Twilight about it later, as we crossed the threshold and once more entered the domain of the two most powerful ponies in the world.

A surprise was waiting for us inside the gilded expanse of the throne room. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were not alone – they were flanked by Doctor Silverclaw on Celestia’s right and Nurse Faran on Luna’s left.

“Good morning, Derren.” Princess Celestia’s warm, motherly voice projected easily in the wide open space of the throne room. “I trust you slept well?”

With as respectful a bow as I could manage, I said, “About as well as could be expected, Your Majesty.” A rueful chuckle left me at the memory. “Yesterday was pretty eventful, after all.”

“As eventful as today, I’d presume,” Celestia murmured with a knowing smile.

“You could say that,” I replied with a weak smile.

Princess Luna cleared her throat, drawing everyone’s attention. “While it is heartening to hear that you seem to be adjusting to your situation remarkably well,” she said, “that is not the reason we asked you to come here today.”

She paused to collect her thoughts, looking me straight in the eyes. “We summoned you because we would like to discuss your living arrangements for the duration of your stay in our fair land.”

With a solemn nod, I said, “Makes sense. Can’t exactly have the only human in Equestria living on the streets like a bum, can you?”

Luna’s gaze hardened slightly, before apparently deciding that I hadn’t meant any slight against her or her sister by it. “Indeed,” she intoned formally.

Celestia picked up the conversation from there. “Since you seem to be getting along with Twilight and her friends, we have decided that the best thing for you to do is to live with them in Ponyville.”

“Ponyville?” I parroted skeptically. “With all due respect, Your Highness, is that wise? Twilight told me about the incident with that zebra.”

“Zecora,” Twilight prompted, “And the town’s actually gotten to be more cosmopolitan since then. You shouldn’t have too many problems fitting in.”

“All the same,” Celestia added, “we’re going to take some precautions in that regard. Luna and I are coordinating with Ponyville’s mayor to make arrangements for a special arrival ceremony to introduce you to the town. Twilight and her friends will be returning to Ponyville tomorrow to help get everything organized, but they’ll come back to Canterlot once everything’s ready, so that they can accompany you to your new home.”

“Okay, but who’s going to be hosting me?” I asked.

Nobody spoke up for a moment. Finally, Twilight said, “I will. We’ve got a spare bedroom in the library, and it has the resources necessary to help you learn everything you need to know in order to function in Equestria.”

“Besides,” she added with a coy smile, “it’d give me a great opportunity to learn about you and where you come from.”

“Just as long as you’re genuinely interested in learning about me as a person, and not as some science experiment,” I replied.

“O-of course!” Twilight sputtered, eyes going wide and ears folding back defensively. “I wouldn’t dream of treating you with anything less than the dignity you deserve.”

“Besides,” Dash added with an arch look, “With the way you two have been geeking out over each other, I don’t think Twilight could ‘study’ you for long without becoming unprofessional.”

“Says the mare who lifted her tail for me in the presence of a minor,” I whispered so that only she could hear. She visibly cringed in response.

“As amusing as this conversation is,” Doctor Silverclaw said, cutting into the awkward atmosphere, “we have business to attend to. Namely, why Nurse Faran and I are here.”

“Indeed,” Princess Luna said. “Nurse Faran will be joining the staff at Ponyville General Hospital as your primary care nurse practitioner. She will be your main point of contact for any medical care you need, while Doctor Silverclaw will come to Ponyville on occasion for periodic checkups and any additional care you might need.”

“Great,” I muttered, “just what I didn’t need.”

“I’ve been completely professional the whole time, Mr. Knox,” Nurse Faran said primly. “It’s not my fault the princesses stuck me with such a troublesome patient.”

“Yeah, right,” I countered. “And I’m Discord’s uncle.”

“Really?” she sneered. “That would explain a lot.”

The other ponies – especially the princesses – stared at us with bemused expressions throughout our spat. Finally, Princess Celestia spoke up. “I would hope that the two of you would take this as an opportunity: if you can’t be friends, at the very least you could learn to be civil to one another.”

“Unless this is foreplay for them,” Dash replied snidely with just a hint of amusement. She was hovering with her forelegs crossed over her chest and had a strange expression on her muzzle.

Her remark had the expected effect on both Nurse Faran and I. We immediately stopped our petty bickering as her face developed a rosy tint, and my cheeks suddenly felt several degrees warmer than they were moments ago.

“Perhaps it would be best if we got back on topic,” Luna chided.

“What’s left to discuss?” I asked. “I know that I’m going to be moving to Ponyville to live with Twilight and Spike – at least until I can get on my feet again, as it were. I also know I’m going to be talking about myself – something I should point out I don’t do particularly well – to a bunch of ponies who have never seen a human before. That’s going to go well.” I looked at Twilight. “Not to discount your organization and leadership skills.”

“Of course not,” she muttered dryly with a roll of her eyes.

“So, what else is there?” I repeated.

“There is the date that you will be moving to Ponyville,” Celestia replied. “We’ve already exchanged some correspondence with the mayor, and the earliest we could manage is the thirty-first of Last Light, which is next Monday.”

“Why then?”

“It’s New Year’s Eve,” Twilight replied. “Most ponies get at least half the day off to prepare for the giant end-of-year parties that take place that evening. That way, we can be sure the most ponies possible know who and what you are.”

“Not everypony gets the day off, though,” Rainbow Dash grumbled, prompting a knowing, if somewhat sympathetic, smile from Twilight and her friends.

“If you think it would help you prepare,” Celestia said, getting things back on track, “I can see about scheduling some time to meet with Equestria’s leading lights in various academic fields. Maybe you can find some common ground with them.”

I thought about it for a moment. “It couldn’t hurt, I suppose,” I said with some uncertainty.

“Excellent,” Celestia said. “I’ll make the arrangements and let you know later today.” She and Luna began to lead the rest of us to the massive throne room doors. “As always, my door is open if you need anything else.”

And with that we were summarily dismissed. After saying our goodbyes to one another, Twilight and her friends left to make arrangements for their return to Ponyville, while Shining Armor and Princess Cadance escorted me to the room that I’d be staying in for the remainder of the week.

Once I was alone with my thoughts, several questions arose. What did the future hold for me? Would these ponies truly accept me for who and what I was? What sort of surprises awaited for me once I truly settled in?

These questions and many others would be answered in due time, and it was almost certain that I wouldn’t like some of those answers. I could only hope that I had it within me to do what humans do best.

Adapt.

Author's Notes:

I know I promised that this chapter by the time episode 100 came out, and then again by last Wednesday. It's now here, nearly two weeks late. I'm sorry.

If anyone's interested, here are the scene titles:
1) Starting Off With a Gaffe (Start of chapter - covers Derren's release from the hospital through the discussion about cutie marks)
2) Mirabile Visu (covers most of the tour of the exterior castle grounds)
3) Goosed Rainbows (I think you can guess what happens here. )
4) History 101 (covers Twilight's history lecture)
5) Piano Man (covers Derren moping at the piano and entertaining the girls)
6) It's Not Salisbury Steak Day, Children! (covers the discussion about human and pony diets)
7) Laying the Ground Rules (End of chapter - covers discussion of Cadance's marriage to Shining Armor through meeting with diarchs about living arrangements for Derren)

7/6/15: Revised to address a couple of complaints about narrative and plot points.