Pinkie Pie always knew when a new pony entered town. Whether they were just passing through or moving in, Pinkie knew, and was ready for a party. Pinkie Pie always knew when a new pony entered town. Until she missed one. Did she know she missed somepony? Obviously not. The larger question it begs is how Pinkie missed that pony, considering she simply walked right in, straight down the main road. This pony was completely fine with that. Of course, she had no idea that visitors were supposed to get a party, much less even know of the party pony’s existence. To her, it was a regular day in Equestria, with pegasi setting more clouds in the sky, and Cloudsdale increasing the wind chill to the region. She hated every second of it. This mare was simply on her way through Ponyville, heading to her destination, which she was told was somewhere in the small village. The storm grey unicorn mare decided that the best place to start would be the gigantic eyesore of a castle. Somepony important obviously lived there, so why not begin inquiring there? Pulling her brown cloak tighter to her frame, she trekked onwards, straight through Ponyville.

Princesses Celestia, Twilight, and Luna, along with the Cutie Mark Crusaders all stood still as they continued looking at the figure in front of them, cloak still obscuring any view of it. Several minutes had passed since the creature before them had placed the mask into the gaping hole that was its hood.

“Creature?” Luna started, “Art thou alright? We wish to hear what you have to say.”

“Send the children away,” came the voice from the hood.

“C’mon girls, let’s go git back to the clubhouse. I got tons of new ideas for cutie marks!” Applebloom said.

With the cheer of assent from the other two fillies, they quickly galloped out of the room, presumably on their way back to the Crusader’s treehouse.

Luna turned her head back to the creature from watching the filly trio leave the room. “Now may we hear thine proposal, creature?”

“One sec.” The voice that came from the creature sounded much different from what it had previously. In comparison to the voice heard previously, this one was quite a lot less ominous and sounded quite normal.

The grey-cloaked being reached up and gripped the edge of the hood, slowly drawing it back. The face that was revealed was quite a shock to the three princesses. What stood there was most definitely not a diamond dog, nor was it a minotaur, as may have been suspected at some point. Its facial features were rather flat, when compared to a pony’s, with a short nose instead of a muzzle, and oval-shaped head. It had small eyes with green irises and outward-facing ears on either side of its head. The only hair visible was a very light blonde, short wavy crop on top of its head and there was no fur covering its deeply tanned skin.

As soon as the creature looked at the three princesses, he immediately flinched backwards, bringing a hand up to his eyes, blocking his view of them. “GAH! Turn down the auras! God, that’s bright. Painful, really.” Whilst saying this, it reached into the robe once more and withdrew a pair of sunglasses, putting them on. Having done this, the creature straightened back up, and turned his gaze back to the three alicorns. “There. All better. Now, I’m sure you got a bunch of questions, and I’ll answer. Most of ‘em, anyways.”

Twilight, being the ever inquisitive pony she was, spoke first. “Yes, we do have many questions. Now, I’m sure tha-”

“My name is Josephi; I’m a human; no, I’m not originally from Equestria; I’m not a threat to law-abiding ponies; yes, I’ll help with the oncoming threat; and no, you may not study me.”

“ . . .” Twilight was speechless. Despite interrupting her, Josephi managed to answer almost all of her primary questions that she had planned. “How did you . . . ?”

“I have been asked the same questions countless times over many years. I figured you wouldn’t be much different from the rest of the people that ask me stuff.” Josephi waved dismissively.

“You sound different from before, Mister Josephi,” Celestia said.

“What, ya’ mean not spooky, cryptic, and third person plural? Yeah, I get that often,” Josephi responded.

“What happened to change that just now?” Was the reply.

“Wrong question. Wrong questions get wrong answers.”

Twilight joined in again. “Would you please tell us what the source of the magical disturbance was now?”

“Fine. Just let me-” Josephi trailed off as he began removing the large cumbersome cloak that was still around his body. Upon removing it, it could be seen that the human was wearing a white hoodie with a pair of black feathered wings embroidered on the back. He wore a pair of dark denim jeans, each trouser leg going over the black, military-style boots he wore. To the ponies, however, he was just wearing some odd looking clothing, nothing like the formal clothing that was always worn by the noble class. Looking around the study for a chair and finding none that he would fit in, Josephi chose to simply sit on the ground, slouching against a wall with his hand in his pockets and legs propped up. “So. I gotta hear it again. Whadda ya’ want?”

“We wish to know of the magical disturbance and this great threat that you have spoken of,” Luna said.

“Well, it’s simple, really. You guys, and by that I mean your entire country, are royally screwed,” Josephi began. “The magic was a very large gr-” whatever he was about to say had been cut off by a very loud and incessant pounding on the doors of the castle.

Josephi stood back up and made his way out of the room, towards the castle entrance, talking to himself the whole time. “Man, that’s fine. It’s not like I was trying to say something. I most definitely didn’t want to finish talking to the head honchos around here. Inconsiderate jerk.” The three princesses had been following him the whole time, trying to see what he would do. They noticed, to their horror, that their newest guest was headed for the door.

“No, wait!” Twilight yelled, “Don’t-” She was too late though, as Josephi was already at the doors, opening one inwards.

Once the door had been opened, Josephi stopped and looked down, noticing a storm grey pegasus mare standing in front of him with a very unamused look on her face.

“Well, shit,” Josephi said calmly, still looking at the pony in front of him.

Celestia, Luna, and Twilight all gasped at the vulgar language just used, and the fact that it was said right in front of a pony, coupled with the fact that the being that answered the door was more than likely to scare the ever-living daylights out of any pony who met him.

However, this was not the case. The mare in front of Josephi didn’t even bat an eyelash at the the being in front of her, much less flinch from the language. What she did instead was something that the princesses had never expected. Shifting her gaze upward, the pegasus kept her deadpan stare focused on the face of the human, and spoke directly to him.

“You owe me a fuckin’ beer, you goddamn asshole.”

Luna frowned even more, whilst Celestia and Twilight’s eyes nearly bulged out of their skulls. This mare had used more profanity in one sentence than most ponies used in entire years. Ponies weren’t known to swear or curse outside of a few questionable phrases, ones that were rarely ever heard. Sure, they knew what it meant, but ponies knew better than to use such words. Not even Diamond Dogs and Yaks used such profanity. And this pony used plenty.

All Josephi did was pause, back up, then fall to the ground laughing. Not missing a beat, the upset pegasus mare continued speaking to Josephi, oblivious to the three alicorns not four metres away.

“Do you have ANY idea just how far I’ve had to walk? You never mentioned where the nearest goddamn port was. You didn’t tell me you’d be in the middle of the fucking country. I ended up in Croland. Do you know how far away Croland is? It’s a port town on the northeast part of Equestria. THREE THOUSAND FUCKING KILOMETRES AWAY!!! I have walked, trotted, and galloped. For one. And a half. MONTHS!!!”

Celestia had managed to regain some semblance of balance to her mind, which had been spent spinning after hearing the pegasus speak. “Now, now, my little pony, I’m sure-”

“Yeah yeah, gimme a sec, ‘kay? Kinda busy here dealing with this little shit.” The mare interrupted and brushed off Celestia’s attempts to speak. The princess, once again, went into shock. “Where was I? Oh yeah! Then - get this - then, I had to actually go through the towns and cities of this fucking country. This country is un-fucking-believable. The racist-as-hell language just grates on my ears, the naivete of the citizens is laughable, and everything is always bright, cheerful, and happy! This place is the absolute fucking worst! Don’t even get me started on the songs. You know they start randomly singing during big events? Call ‘em ‘heart songs’ or some bullshit. I managed not to get pulled in to any, but they go on for fucking ever! Never mind the ridiculous attitudes of these people, it’s all condoned by their rulers! From what I’ve heard, it sounds like the bitch who runs this place created her own little utopia and everyone in it is a sheltered moron! They don’t have a lick of common sense, or even knowledge of the world around them. No one I’ve talked to has ever been outside of Equestria. None of them even know that there’s more than one continent on this whole fucking planet! This is supposed to be the land that ponies come from? I’d rather not recognise this place as a motherland. That would suck. I have put up with fifty-two days of hell. I would rather spend a year in the Oceania Desert than do this again. You, you uninformative motherfucker, owe me a fucking drink. Hardest shit you can find, and you can be sure I’ll drink plenty. NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

During the entire tirade of the irate pegasus, Josephi had kept laughing, finding the entire scene absolutely hilarious. The princesses . . . not so much. Luna looked like she was having a conniption, Celestia appeared ready to faint, and Twilight looked normal. That was however, until one noticed the golden aura of magic surrounding Twilight’s ears and Celestia’s horn. To say that what had happened was a surprise would have been an understatement. Drastically.

Josephi finally managed to calm down, stand back up, and regain his composure. Looking back at the grey pegasus, he said, “So, Electra, did you drag any of the rest of the sorry bastards with you? I imagine it would have made this whole ordeal much better.”

“No, I didn’t. Because you didn’t specify where you’d be, we each took a different edge of the country, and worked our way in. I don’t see the rest of the crew, so I’m assuming I’m the first one here. Which is great. Now I get to collect three-hundred drachmae from Ete. Not that this country even accepts drachma, dammit. Oh yeah, who’re they?” The mare now identified as Electra pointed at the three princesses.

“Oh, them?” Josephi looked over his shoulder at the three alicorns. “Yeah, you’ll love this. That’s the three princesses that rule this country.”

“The one I just insulted?”

“Pretty damn loud, too.”

“Well. Shit.”

“Great way to open negotiations with another country, Lec. Insult the country indirectly to its rulers.”

Electra turned towards Luna, Celestia, and Twilight, making a quick bow. “Your highnesses, I wish to apologize for insulting your country, and by extension, you, so callously. As such, I wish to formally - and believe me when I say this is heartfelt -”

“Well, my little pony, it’s-” Celestia began, only to be cut off once again.

“Your country sucks.”

“ . . .” For the fourth time that day, Celestia’s brain entered shutdown mode.

Luna, however, was not of the same mindset. “Now listen here, foul pony, I -”

“I’m just a regular pony, not a fowl pony. Those freaks live in the western part of The Echo. No relation,” Electra interrupted.

That managed to get Luna to enter reboot mode, just like her sister. Twilight, though, stayed silent throughout the whole exchange. Then again, she didn’t hear a word of it, due to Celestia’s silencing spell cast on her ears. All she saw was a grey pegasus mare animatedly moving about: flailing her hooves, shifting her wings, and shaking her head. Until Celestia removed the spell, that is. Once that was done, Twilight was greeted with a silence that came from nopony having anything to say. Except for their non-pony guest, that was.

“Well now. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get back to what we were doing when we left off. I need some fuckin’ sleep.” Josephi wandered back to the study, where the group had originally come from, Electra close behind.

The three princesses stayed where they were, each one trying to process all the new information given to them in such a short amount of time, and all of the new questions it brought up.

Back in the study, Josephi had already found the nearest wall and resumed his sitting position, closing his eyes in boredom, whilst Electra went to the nearest chair and flung herself over it in an attempt to be comfortable.

“Ya’ know, Lec, you just made my job a shit-ton harder,” Josephi said, “I hadn’t even managed to answer their first real questions when you came along and threw everything to hell. Now they’re gonna be asking questions for hours.”

“Well, after the shit you pulled, I say you deserve it,” came the response from the chair. “Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“. . .”

“Yeah, forget I said that. Let’s just hope we can finish up here and get back home. I really don’t want to have to put up with any more of this Equestria bullshit,” Electra said.

“Meh. I don’t really see what’s wrong with it; seems like a nice place to me,” Josephi said.

“And how long have you spent observing Equestrian society? A day? Less? You can’t really judge.” Electra was clearly displeased with having to talk about what she’d observed. To her, it didn’t feel natural. Too much . . . naiveté.

Josephi looked up at the grey pegasus mare, sighing as he responded. “Electra, we’re here, and, from what you said rather enthusiastically a bit ago, the rest are on their way. Obviously things are going to change for these ponies.”

“Yeah, yeah. Lecture me about our job at a later time. For now, I just wanna sleep,” Electra said.

“Alright then. Let me get all my answers ready for these ponies. I have a feeling that I’ll be doing a lot of talking in the next few hours.” Josephi shifted himself to a more comfortable position on the floor, using the wall for support. It was certainly going to be an interesting few days.

“Sister, do you think that this “Josephi” can be trusted to tell us what we need to know?” asked a rather upset Luna.

“We’ve gone over this, Luna,” responded Celestia. “We do need to know what happened, and what’s coming, if what he said is accurate.”

At this point, Twilight was a little more than confused. It was already promising to be a rather stressful day. “I still don’t quite know what’s going on. Who is that pony? Why are the two of them here? What could be so bad it changes Equestria forever? I just . . . Why . . . “ Twilight started to peter off into half-formed questions, her mind trying to cope with all of the new information.

“Take a deep breath, Twilight,” her mentor said. “Perhaps if we go back to the study, and ask some questions calmly, we might be able to make sense of this whole situation.”

Seeing some merit to the idea, the trio of Alicorns returned to the small room where the two guests were biding their time.

“Ready to start, then?” came the question from Josephi, still slouched against the wall. “Where should we begin?”

“The beginning?” opted Twilight, already levitating out a quill and scroll.

“Yeah, no. We’d be here way too long, and most of it isn’t important anyways. How about the important stuff?”

“That works, I guess.”

“Good.” Electra decided to jump in. “I’d probably end up putting a dagger through this fucker’s eyeball if I have to listen to him prattle on again.”

To say that the statement disturbed the regal figures of the room would have been yet another understatement. Deciding they’d had enough interruptions, they decided to ignore it for the time being.

“Well, I’ll get straight to the point, then. The large magical disturbance you felt wasn’t me. That would be my brother. Where he is, I have no idea, and you won’t be able to find him until he wants you to. Now, I’m not going to sugarcoat anything; I really don’t like doing that. Basically, you guys both screwed and saved yourselves as soon as you chose me. When you chose me, the other became my brother. Should you have chosen him, the other would have been me. It’s a rather complex issue, but the point is that I’m here, and he’s there, not the other way around. Which is good; it means we get to prepare.

“Anyways, I rule a kingdom quite a ways off, all the way across the sea, in the northern part of the continent of Ondelloth, known as the Celicarnan Empire. My brother rules over the Galireon Provinces, to the south of my kingdom. Yeah, I’m technically a foreign dignitary, no I’m not here in that capacity, and you shouldn’t act like I am. I’m here to help your sorry asses. The two empires have had a stalemate for the past forty years after yet another war. Of course, you’d know this, Celestia and Luna, if you would have shown up to the centennial meeting of world leaders at some point in the past two-thousand years. Seriously, we still use those old titles of yours because we don’t have any others. Most places have been treating you like a giant empty spot on the map, not to be touched, because of the amount of isolation you keep putting your country through. Not good.

“I am a being who’s been doing shit for the past ten thousand years because I can, and I’ve been getting bored lately. I was kinda hoping I could talk with your mom and pops; it’s been a while. They around?”

This was, as expected, quite a bit to process all at once. The question at the end, though, snapped them out of their reverie a bit, with Celestia the first one to answer.

“You knew our parents?”

“Eeyup. They were a pretty amusing couple. Know where I could find ‘em?”

“Alas,” Luna piped in, “they perished shortly after we closed our borders. They were assassinated by a foul shade and left the kingdom solely to the two of us.”

“Damn. I was hoping for some . . . familiar . . . company,” said Josephi.

Twilight was still in the middle of processing quite a bit of this. Other continents? A meeting of world leaders? Celestia and Luna’s parents? All of these concepts were quite new to her, and they only raised more questions. What of this brother that Josephi mentioned? Was the kingdom going to be at war? What would happen to the citizens?

“-ilight. Twilight!”

The purple alicorn was snapped from her thoughts by Luna. “Hmm? Oh, yes, do continue.”

“Actually, I’m finished. I don’t know what else to tell you. I could probably answer more questions once I’ve had some sleep, but I’ve given you most of the important stuff. We’re mostly waiting for my brother to make his move. Trust me: it’ll be something big. Anywho, is there anywhere I can sleep? I’m still rather tired and magically exhausted, so I’ll be needing somewhere to recover a bit. Don’t worry about Lec; she’s capable enough to find her own place.” This earned Josephi a glare from the pegasus across the room, but she made no attempt to argue.

“Well, I’ve got a few guest rooms that you could choose from, I guess. However, it isn’t exactly meant for non-ponies. Will that be okay?” Twilight piped up.

“Meh. Good enough. Lead the way, purple.”

Twilight trotted out of the room, Josephi following close behind. As soon as they were gone, Luna turned to Celestia.

“Sister, this doesn’t seem good. I don’t know where he’s from, or who he is, even if he claims to have told us so. I cannot trust him.”

Celestia sighed before responding. “I know, Luna. I have to agree with you, but we cannot judge somepony-”

“Someone,” sounded the grey mare across the room.

“ . . . Yes. Ahem. Someone until you really know them. It wouldn’t be fair. For now, let us simply monitor him, maybe put up a few detection and scrying spells around the place just to be safe.”

“Let us do just that. Come, sister.” With that, the two alicorns walked out of the room to enact their plan. As they did so, Electra leaned back further in the chair, closing her eyes and smiling to herself.

“I told you, Josephi. Naïve.”

Author's Notes:

I'm working on the map. It'll be big, comprehensive, and colorful. It will, however, take a little bit of time. Let us continue, and see how this story develops. Onwards!

Edit (20/6/16): changed the name of the continent to match the map.