"Son of a..." I mumble as my eyes slowly open, my ears being filled with the sound of my phone ringing next to me. I quickly sit up to turn it off, only to end up nearly kicking Rainbow out of the bed in the process.

"Hey, watch it." She mumbles quietly, still somewhat asleep. I ignore her remark and turn the alarm off, and head straight for the shower. I had promised Twilight that I would help her clean up and reorganize her giant collection of books. Why I had agreed to such a task was beyond me.

Once the shower is on, I start taking my shirt off, only for something to bump into my leg. I look down to see a very groggy Rainbow swaying around and yawning.

"Um, hi? Do you mind?" I ask as I move over to take back my personal space.

"I... I need to... shower too." Rainbow says between yawns, looking like she's about to pass out.

"Jesus, how long were you up last night?" I ask as I toss my shirt onto the sink. I grab a towel and toss it over by the shower to use when I'm done.

"I don't know, just let me in the shower already." She says as she passes by me, heading straight for the water I had just turned on.

"Uh, Rainbow I wouldn't do-" I start to say as she steps in. I'm cut off by a high pitched scream as Rainbow quickly jumps back out, soaking me and everything else in the room as she does.

"W-Whoa." She says shivering, trying to shake the freezing cold water off. "You didn't tell me it was that cold!" She says defensively like this is my fault for some unknown reason.

"Hey, I never told you to get in. Besides, you didn't even ask if it was cold or not." I say with a laugh as I step into the shower, having removed my pajamas. "Look, it isn't that bad." I say with a smile as I stand under the stream of water.

"Yeah yeah, it's probably warm by now..." She mumbles as she steps in behind me, letting out a sigh at the fact that the water has indeed warmed up a bit. "Y'know, we haven't visited Alex or your family or anyone in a while... Should we go today? I have the day off."

"Well, I'd like to, but like I said last night, I'm helping Twilight today to clean up her place. You can come if you want, and maybe we can visit them afterward. Say, do you think Fluttershy would mind watching Star again today? I wanna do something with Alex that I haven't done in forever, but it would be hard if she was there."

"Oh yeah, she loves Star..." Rainbow says with a smile, closing her eyes as the water rushes down her face.

"Alright, that's cool then... Alex mentioned to me he had some news last time we visited, you remember that?" I ask Rainbow as I start washing my hair.

"Yeah, but he said it was too early to tell you what it was. What do you think that means?" Rainbow asks as she bumps into the back of my leg.

"Hell if I know. It just better be good, because he had me in suspense for like a week after that wondering what it was and why he couldn't tell me. I mean, who the fuck does that right?"

The rest of the shower is spent in silence, taking in the peace for as long as it would last. Eventually we get out, and I get changed while Rainbow heads to the door to wait for me. I meet her there, and we head out into the town, though internally I'm dreading the chore I'm about to face.

As we walk down the road, we get smiles and waves from just about everyone we pass. News spread really fast about, well, everything within days of my permanent arrival here. Low and behold, they actually accepted me like I belonged here, which surprised me mostly due to the fact I was comparing what their reactions might be to the reactions of what people from Earth would probably do. It was really nice to see that practically everyone was accepting of me.

"Hey, dork." Rainbow says, snapping me out of my trance. I look down to my right to see her looking up at me.

"What?" I ask as I run my hand through my hair, realizing I'm going to need to get it cut soon.

"When do kids normally start school?" She asks, completely out of the blue.

"Uh... like, when they turn five or six, why?" I respond with a confused look.

"Why haven't we enrolled Star yet? Don't you think it's time that we-"

"Rainbow calm down." I say with a chuckle. "She's five, and the rules here aren't the same as the rules back home. You guys start school at around eight or nine years old. There's still plenty of time until we have to enroll her."

"But... I mean, she's not like other fillies." She says in a quiet tone. "The way she acts, I mean."

"What's wrong with the way she acts?" I ask with yet, another confused look.

"She's basically you with wings. She acts more like a human that a pegasus, and I-"

"What's wrong with that?" I ask, raising an eyebrow at her statement.

"Nothing! It's just that... I don't want her to be bullied like I was for being different." She says, her voice becoming pretty quiet. I step in front of her and hold up my hands.

"Whoa whoa whoa. She's not going to get bullied for 'being different'." I say with finger quotes. "Being different is a good thing. I mean, she gets along with Scootaloo and them just fine, and hell they're almost three times her age."

"Well they've known her practically forever, and they know you, and... Do you think she'll be okay, y'know, when she does go to school?"

"I'm positive of it. Everyone loves her, even Fluttershy, and she can be difficult to make a good impression with." I say with a smile as I ruffle up her hair. "Now, can we get to the castle now?"

"Yeah, sure." She says with somewhat of a genuine smile. We start walking again until we reach Twilight's castle. We make our way up the stairs to the front door, and as I'm about to knock, the door slams open, scraping the edge of the wood against my knuckles.

"Ah fuck!" I yell as I grab my hand and bend over, pressing it into my stomach.

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" A voice says with a gasp. I look up for a second to see a little purple and green dragon look at me with a worried look.

"It's... fine. Thanks Spike." I say, trying to force a smile through the pain. I sigh as pull my hand away to see a little bit of blood trickling down the back of my other hand.

"I didn't mean to!" He says as he opens the door a little wider. Rainbow just looks at my hand, her mouth hanging open a bit. She's always been a bit squeamish about blood apparently, but after she was shot at the warehouse, she's become deadly afraid of it, even if it isn't her's. I quickly hide my hand from her, looking back at Spike.

"It's fine, really. I've been stabbed with glass before, this is nothing." I say with an involuntary hiss as my shirt rubs against the open wound. "Can we come in?" I say as I stand back up straight.

"Y-Yeah, Twilight's been waiting for you." He says as he fully opens the door and stepping to the side to let us in. We walk past him, giving him a wave as he heads out the door and into the town. He yells back one last apology before closing the door behind us.

"You okay?" Rainbow says, regaining her composure.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Takes more than a scraped knuckle to take me down." I say with a laugh as I keep my hand out of her sight. We approach the main room where Twilight keeps all of her books and records and God knows what else. I push the door open and look around the room, but no Twilight. I do however spot Starlight moving around the room, dusting books on the shelves.

"Hey, Starlight." I say as we both enter the room.

"Oh, hey Matt. I didn't know you were coming Rainbow." She says as she puts the duster down and walks over to us.

"He dragged me along." She says as she points her head towards me, to which I respond with an eye roll.

"Hey, do you know where Twilight is?" I ask as I look around the room again.

"Oh she's in the bathroom, over there." She says as she points to a door down the hall. I quickly walk over to it, leaving Rainbow with Starlight in the library. I wait by the closed door until I hear it open. A startled Twilight jumps as I jump out in front of her.

"Matt!" She yells in both shock and probably annoyance. I laugh at her surprised look, and she glares at me until she notices my hand. Her face suddenly contorts into one of a different kind of shock. "What happened!?" She asks frantically, overreaction to the small scrape.

"Oh, I scraped it on a door... Yeah." I say, trying to keep Spike out of trouble. "Do you have any-"

"There are bandages and gauze under the sink, some alcohol too. Clean that up." She says like an overprotective mother. Her magic grabs my shirt and practically drags me into the bathroom. I give her a confused look, and she only stares me down, again, looking a little more worried than she should.

I spend the next minute or two cleaning up the wound, swearing a bit as I run the alcohol over it. Once I've wrapped up my hand, I follow Twilight back into the study.

We enter to see Rainbow and Starlight sitting around, I guess waiting for us to get back. Twilight's face lights up as I close the doors behind us, and she pulls a giant ass list out of nowhere, supposedly with her magic.

"Okay, let's get to work!" She says with an all too peppy attitude. Everyone lets out a collective sigh as she starts passing around different cleaning tools.

Why the hell did I agree to this?