Once again, I found myself on the beach. Once again, I was in Yang’s body. Everything was the same as before. The sand, the chair, the waves, the umbrella, even the chilled strawberry drink. This time felt different though, more relaxing. I guess Pinkie Promises are powerful indeed.

With some warning, the area began to darken around me. I looked up and saw a cloud floating in front of the sun. The shade brought with it a pleasant coolness that would make the sun feel even better when the cloud moved away.

I heard a disturbance in the sand coming my way. “Back again, Yang?” It was Luna.

“Yeah” I said. “Are you really visiting me in my dreams, or are you just a figment of my imagination and the whole new body thing is messing with my head?”

“I assure you, I am very real. If you doubt it, come to Canterlot for the night court.” Luna showed up next to me by the umbrella, conjured a beach towel, and lay down on it in the shade. “You don’t seem as troubled as before. What happened?”

I told Luna everything that happened between my screaming from the earlier nightmare to coming back to the bed. I still was afraid of Pinkie, and probably would be for a while, but at least I could operate more normally now.

“A good turn of events” Luna observed.

“Yeah” I lazily agreed. “So, if I’m not having any nightmares, why are you here?”

“Because of a prophecy I saw. A human female would be brought over from another world, and be made a warrior. She would be the key to defeating ten great evils and preserving the peace of the land. All I could see was a black silhouette of her body, her long hair of burning gold, yellow gauntlets, and violet eyes.”

“Sounds like Yang to me. Also sounds like me, now.”

“The prophecy also said she would fall from the sky and land in Canterlot castle. You landed in the Ponyville castle, and so the prophecy isn’t entirely correct.”

I thought back to the merchant I saw, the man in the tan jacket with his impossible number of deerskin briefcases. I remember Sandra giving me the compacted Ember Celica, and the negative vibe I was getting from the man when I put them on. With this new information, things made a bit more sense. It still didn’t amount to much, but it was something.

“So, am I going to be brought to this Canterlot place?” I asked Luna.

“For now, no. Celestia would immediately send a chariot to get you once she got word of your location though. My prophecies may not always be entirely correct, but they’re accurate enough that she follows them very closely.”

“Interesting.” The cloud left from its spot between me and the sun, letting its rays warm me back up. It felt really good.

Luna and I just sat there in silence for a while before she spoke up. “If I recall correctly, you said you were unable to read anything here, right?”

“Yeah” I warily answered. “What are you getting at?”

“I could fix that problem for you with a single spell, but I would also have you learn how to fight in exchange.”

I liked the literacy option, but I didn’t like the fighting part. “I’ll pass on your offer.”

“Yang, you will learn how to fight one way or another. You can learn how to fight here in the safety of the dream realm, or on the very real training grounds of my sister’s guards.”

“I’ll find a way to avoid both."

“You can’t run from the fights forever. You should at least get some exercise while you’re here. If not for staying healthy, then to find your limits. Consider what I have told you. Ms. Rarity will be waking you soon, so I must leave again.”

Luna vanished in a wisp of smoke and the beach started to fade away to darkness while the sun’s light became more intense. Off in the distance, I could hear hooves coming closer.

I was in the process of waking up and opening my eyes when Rarity came in, her excitement contained, but quite clear. I could tell by her voice. “Wakey wakey, Yang. I have the rest of your new clothes ready for you to try on.” I grumbled a bit as I woke up. “I’ll leave them on the foot of the bed for you.” I felt a soft impact by my feet and saw Rarity leave the room just as I finished sitting up. I looked down at my feet and saw a pile of clothes sitting there. I picked the pile up and sifted through it. I saw undergarments, a pair of black socks that looked like they would come up to my knees, and black denim jeans.

After admiring the craftsmanship (craftsmareship?) of the clothes, I got out of the bed and promptly changed out of the robe and its skirt to the new clothes. Once again, as with the shirt, it all fit perfectly. The jeans were a tad loose, but not so loose that they’d slip off. They were also soft and comfortable, something I did not expect based on my various experiences with denim in the past.

I thought back on my discussion with Luna about exercising to find my physical limits. I couldn’t find any problems with that, especially since I had nothing else to do, and reading was still off the table. With that in mind, I went through a series of stretches to test the limits of the clothes, especially the jeans.

After almost ten minutes of moving through all manner of stretches (and discovering that I was way more flexible than before), I came to the conclusion that what repeatedly stopped me from stretching even just a little bit further was not the clothes, but my own body. I was able to do the splits, and even go beyond that without the denim even beginning to stress. I’m sure Chuck Norris himself would have been proud of the work in these jeans.

After finishing my stretches, I remembered that I had to talk to Rarity, even if only to praise her work. Before I left, I looked back and saw the Ember Celica on the nightstand, along with the bag of cookies. After a moment’s thought, I went over and put the Ember Celica on. They just felt right. I also opened the bag of cookies and saw, much to my delight, snickerdoodle cookies. I grabbed one and ate it in one bite. The flavor was spectacular, but simple. Its texture was in that sweet spot between crumbly and sticky, and it made me smile like an idiot. I wanted more, but I forced myself to stop at one. I’d save the rest for later.

I made my way out the door and down the steps, where I found Rarity working. I also caught sight of a white cat laying in a windowsill. I couldn’t remember the cat’s name at the moment. I cleared my throat to get Rarity’s attention, and it worked.

She looked me over before speaking. “I never thought I’d say this, but I like the simple look. More importantly, how does it fit?”

“This is only the first outfit you’ve made for me and I’ve already decided to swear off retail clothes forever” I stated. “I even stretched at all kinds of angles and nothing ever felt uncomfortable.”

“That’s wonderful to hear, darling. It’s about five o'clock, so I’ll be starting supper soon. Do you like casseroles?”

“Depends on the ingredients” I said as I looked at the cat, and the cat looked back at me.

“I was thinking of a basic veggie casserole. Are there any ingredients you don’t want?”

I thought back to the salad options. “Hmm. No hay, and no grass. I can’t eat those things. And no onions. I hate those.” I started making my way over to the cat, slowly.

“There goes two big ingredients. I will not let this deter me though. I will make a good, grassless casserole.”

I left Rarity to her dramatics as I came within arm’s distance of the cat. The cat didn’t move as I reached out to pet her. I started with simple strokes along the back and slowly working my way up to the head. Once I was stroking her head, I unleashed the ultimate in cat petting techniques: I scratched her behind the ears. She quickly became cat-shaped putty under my hands. I picked her up and continued scratching her, moving on to the chin and watching as she rolled belly up in my arm.

I turned back to Rarity and saw her slack-jawed expression. I walked over to her, and as much as I wanted to take a hand and close her mouth for her, both of my arms were occupied with a cat. I did the next best thing and balanced on one foot, using the other one to gently close Rarity’s mouth. “Words. Use them.”

After a few seconds, she did. “How did you do that? Opalescence doesn’t warm up to anyone that quickly, and I’ve never seen her on her back like that for anyone.”

“I scratched her behind her ears and on her chin. No biggie.” I then realized my advantage and a smirk came across my face. “After all, I have flexible hands with fingernails on them. You have blocky hooves.” And then Rarity’s horn glowed, a fainting couch appeared from somewhere, and she fell back onto it. I snapped out of smirk mode right there. “Rarity? Are you okay?”

“Just fine, just fine” she dramatically cried out. “Just go have fun with Opal while I prepare us a supper unworthy of even the poorest of ponies.”

“If you say so.” I left Rarity and went upstairs. Just as I reached the top of the stairs, Sweetie Belle came out of her room.

“Hey, Yang?” she said. “Do you think you could help me with some homework?”

“I’ll take a look.” Sweetie went back in her room and I went down the hall, Opal continuing to absorb the scratches and strokes from my hands, which had practically gone on autopilot. Darn cats and their mind control powers.

I went in Sweetie Belle’s room and immediately noticed the three paint colors. The bottom half of the walls were white, the top quarter was a pastel violet, and in between was a pastel pink. They matched Sweetie Belle’s colors perfectly. Speaking of her, she was on her bed with a few pieces of paper in front of her. Homework. Homework never changes.

“What do you need help with?” I asked. Once again, I faced the problem of illiteracy. However, I would try to help as best I could.

“Math” Sweetie stated. “Why can’t it solve its own problems?"

“Because math on its own is dumb” I answered as I sat on my knees as Sweetie giggled a bit. “What’s the problematic problem?”

“Variables. Y= something something X something else. They give us Y and want us to find X. But I want to know just where this will be used in the real world.”

“I actually used some math like that before I got pulled to this world.” Sweetie’s attention was firmly on me now. “The only difference is that I knew X and had to figure out Y.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You got any friends?”

“Applebloom and Scootaloo.”

“So let’s say you’re going to a big event somewhere in. . .” and I can’t think of any cities. There was one Luna mentioned, but I can’t remember it.

“Manehattan?”

“Sure. There’s an event there, and you go with your friends. Just throw me a number here: how many days will you three stay at the hotel?”

“Mmmm… four.”

“And how much does the hotel charge per pony per night?”

“Seven bits.”

“And let’s say you have some luggage that you let them take to your room and it costs six bits for that. The equation you have here actually has two variables in it.”

“Eh? But that’s even worse than what I already have” Sweetie complained.

“But I’ve given you a real situation. At least it’s not just plain numbers.”

Sweetie pulled out a blank piece of paper and wrote down the situation I described. I think. I already knew the answer, but I kept quiet and pet Opal. If it wasn’t for her purring, I’d swear she looked almost dead.

After a brief while, Sweetie got back to me. “I’ve got ninety bits for the hotel trip.”

“And that is correct. Rarity might say something about it not being so bad, but let me tell you, I wish it was that easy back home.”

“Hm? This was easy?”

“Back home, prices go up and down for various reasons with no obvious pattern, different regions have different tax rates, and the money went out to two decimal places. And if you’re going to another country, there’s the exchange rate to consider as well, which fluctuates a lot, even from hour to hour at times. Really, it’s a pain in the brain."

“What kind of world did you come from?”

Now that was an unexpected question. “The planet was good, as were a lot of things on it. The biggest problem was the government and the people running it. It was too big and the people in it were often greedy, putting their pockets and power ahead of the citizens’ wellbeing. They used math and language to their own ends.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“Ignorance is bliss. But at least now you know that it can be worse than the numbers in front of you."

Sweetie looked down at her paper that had a bunch of stuff on it I couldn’t read, but was arranged like math homework I'd had before. “Thanks, Yang. I think I can handle these now.”

“You’re welcome.” I stood up and left the room to go to my own. However, there were two problems in front of me, and the second one was the easy one: Rarity sitting in the hallway and the door handle. “Can I help you, Rarity?”

“What were you doing in my sister’s room?” I swear I felt the hidden edge in her voice. However, I fully intended to get out of this unscathed, and using the truth at that.

“Helping with math homework. I gave her a simple hotel scenario with some variables, then told her how it’s so much worse back home.”

And now she was curious. “It’s worse back where you’re from?”

“Details later. For now, I have a cat to spoil.”

As Rarity let me pass her, she said “Supper’s cooking. I’ll let you know when it’s done.”

I nodded in acknowledgement and went into my room, sitting on a random spot on the floor and letting Opal spill onto my lap. Seriously, I’ve never seen a cat that relaxed before.

I can’t help but wonder if I went a bit overboard on the ear scratching. I also realized that I had just pinned myself to this spot on the floor by putting Opal on my lap. Darn.

I’m not sure exactly how long I was sitting there, but I was really beginning to feel some pressure in my bladder. In the back of my mind, I was trying to figure out just how I knew how to hold it back, but in the forefront of my mind was the urgency of needing to go and the problem of a cat on my lap. If a cat is sitting on you, you don’t disturb the cat.

I was saved when I heard a ringing bell and Rarity calling “Dinner, everyone!”. Opal crawled her way out of my lap, enabling me to stand up and make a mad dash for the bathroom, where I didn’t care that I somehow knew how to properly relieve myself. I was just glad to let it out.

After a good, mellow handwashing, I went downstairs and followed my nose to the dining room. I found Rarity and Sweetie Belle already there, sitting around a cozy round glass table with three cushions on the floor. The cushions Rarity and Sweetie Belle were sitting on matched their mane colors, and the last one, a bright yellow, matched my hair. I sat down at my spot by the table, which currently only had empty plates and clean silverware.

“Yang, why are you five minutes late to dinner?” Rarity asked me.

“Opal was using her feline gravity powers to keep me sitting down with her on my lap and I really had to pee when she got off” I explained with a straight face.

“Opalescence? Gravity powers?”

“It’s a thing people said back home about cats. They lay down in sunny spots to charge their gravity powers, then walk over to you and sit on you, immobilizing you. Phone’s ringing in the other room? Too bad, you’re stuck. Bad TV show and the remote’s just out of reach? You’re not getting it. Need to use the bathroom? Hope you can hold it in.”

“That sounds. . . interesting. But for now, we dine.” Rarity lit her horn and floated out of the kitchen a fancy dish with a casserole in it. It smelled like a bunch of vegetables, which normally wouldn’t have appealed to me, but this actually smelled fairly good.

Sweetie Belle was also sniffing the air. “There’s something different about this casserole” she observed.

“You are correct, Sweetie. Yang can’t eat grass or hay, so I had to cut those out. I hope it’s still to your liking though.” With her magic, Rarity picked up a serving spoon and our plates, putting a bit of casserole from the still floating serving dish on the plates, then returning the plates to their rightful spots in front of each of us.

Rarity and Sweetie each picked up their forks with their magic and started on their casserole portions. I picked mine up, looked at the casserole on my plate, and got some of it onto the fork. I looked at it and saw a variety of green stuff, some not-green stuff, some stuffing that had become both green and not green, and some sliced nuts. I quickly took a bite and was not disappointed. I found the flavors easily tolerable, even kind of enjoyable. I wasn’t the biggest fan of fruits and other healthy things, but this was alright.

Partway through, Rarity began talking to me. “Yang, there’s something I want you to do tomorrow.”

“Hm?” I said around some casserole.

“You should go visit Twilight and have her teach you how to read.”

“Wait, Yang can’t read?” Sweetie asked.

“At least not your writing” I said.

“What’s wrong with my writing?” Sweetie sounded kind of defensive.

“What Yang meant is that she can’t read anything at all” Rarity countered. “I’m sure she can read her writing just fine, but we wouldn’t be able to read it at all.”

“Oh. I see. Sorry for jumping to conclusions, Yang.”

“No harm done. By the way, this casserole is better than I thought it would be.”

“Why, thank you darling. But if I may ask, what were you expecting?”

“Based on my experience, a warm, bready, soggy salad with subpar flavor.”

“Is there nobody where you’re from that can make a decent vegetable casserole?”

“There probably are lots of people who can make superb vegetable casseroles. I just never met any of them.” I took another bite, but realized my fork had come up empty. I looked down and saw all that was left of the first helping was some streaks of the stuff. “Can I have some more?”

“Of course.” Rarity floated the serving spoon into the casserole and put some more onto my plate. I thanked her and continued eating. The casserole’s flavor was really growing on me.

The casserole lasted through the end of supper. Or rather, supper ended when the last of the casserole was eaten. It was quite satisfying.

“Who wants dessert?” Rarity asked Sweetie Belle and me. I declined and went up to my room. The casserole was a good way to end what had been a hectic day for me. The sun still had yet to go down, but I changed to the robe and its skirt and lay down on the bed anyway.

It was then I came upon a sudden, drastic realization: I had nothing to do before going to sleep. My phone was no longer with me. I sighed. Boredom. Boredom never changes.

Author's Notes:

This chapter brought to you by the SERIOUS need for format editing and around 30 minutes of using the Backspace key on my tablet. There were bold and italic code bits EVERYWHERE for no discernible reason.

And so Yang's first day in Equestria is brought to a close. Since I'm curious, what are you all hoping to see in the future of this story?