If someone were to keep track of how many times Tim has come home to something unexpected, whether it was after work and coming back to Twilight Sparkle dressed in the pony version of bondage, or coming back from dropping off Spike and finding his mares temporarily human. That person would very likely be forgiven if they thought that Tim dreaded coming home. Such would definitely not be the case when it comes to the lone human in Equestria. Coming home from being sent out by his mares has quite often been a very pleasant adventure. Tim whistles softly as he walks down the hallway heading towards his apartment door. He takes a moment to breathe before opening his door.

“Oh, Tim!” Cayenne gallops from the kitchen. She takes a flying leap and lands in his arms, hugging him tightly.

“How did the healer appointment go?”

Her response is to kiss him deeply. “How many?”

She shrugs. “Just one it looks like, still early. We won’t know tribe or sex until later. But it is definitely confirmed.”

“Have you told Silver?”

She frowns. “I have told Silver, but you are the lead stallion of the herd, love. For all intents and purposes, this foal is legally yours.”

He cocks his head to the side. “I know that Twilight has explained how this works in Equestria, but I’m human. I can’t be the foal’s father.”

She giggles and snuggles into his chest. “Oh, don’t worry, we know that Silver is the sire. But both of you are going to be daddies, and for legal purposes, you are head stallion, so you will be the sire of record. Either way, we are bringing a new life into the world. Silver is over the moon happy.” She stops, her ears flattening back a bit. “Are you happy too?”

He hugs her tighter. “Cayenne, I could not be happier. A new little one. This is going to be fun.”

She sighs softly as she traces a hoof along his chest. “Thank you, Love.”

The clop of hooves on the marble flooring announces two ponies, Citrus Blush smiles at Tim. “I see Cayenne’s told ya.”

He nods and offers a fist towards the pegasus standing next to Citrus. “One down.”

Silver taps the fist with a hoof. “Three more to go, right?”

Citrus rolls her eyes. “I want foals, but I want to wait a couple of years. Cayenne might have a whole herd of foals by the time I decide I want my own.”

“Can you do that, Cayenne, what if you get well, uh, too old?”

“What makes you say that, Tim? Why, do your human mares have that problem”

“Well, yeah, actually…” Tim never gets to explain as he is glomped by Cayenne.

Cayenne huffs from Tim’s chest, squirming a bit to be let down. As she gets her hooves on the floor, she shakes her body. “One is fine for me. Or twins would be great. But I don’t know how I’m going to handle being pregnant.” She looks up at Tim, then moves over and runs her body along Silver’s, getting the pegasus’ wings to snap to attention. “They are going to be beautiful, no matter what.”

They are all silenced at a vigorous knocking on the door. The ponies and the human all look around at each other. “Did you bring somepony home with you, Tim?” At his shaking of his head, he finds himself being gently but firmly pushed back with Silver while the mares step a bit towards the door. The knock repeats and Citrus lights her horn, opening the door.

“Galileah!” Tim calls out, seeing the griffon sitting at the door.

She smiles briefly at him before bowing her head at the mare standing before her. “I humbly apologize for my actions at the Grand Galloping Gala, Citrus Blush.”

Citrus glances back at Tim before clearing her throat. “You really caught me at a bad time, so I may have overreacted. For that…” She stumbles to a stop at the raised claw of the griffon.

“No, you didn’t overreact, I announced intention to steal your stallion from you. Was willing to fight you for him. And you trussed me up like a chicken. I was letting my hormones overtake my good sense. There was no excuse for my actions. I humbly beg your forgiveness.” She lowers herself to where she’s bowing as low as she can.

Citrus Blush takes a step back. “As I tried to say, my anger was directed at another…”

“Please!” The griffon interrupts.

Twilight Sparkle trots into the entryway, skidding to a stop. “Galileah!” She exclaims. “What is Celestia’s name are you doing here?”

The griffon’s head pops up, and she takes a couple of steps backwards. “Last I saw, your brother and your herd’s junior stallion were fighting to regain your herd’s honor. Now you are living with the herd? What’s going on?”

Twilight’s face is red. “The problems between our families were resolved at the Gala, we have since worked to build our herd as strong as we can. That doesn’t explain why you are here.” She glances at Citrus. “What’s going on?”

The griffon moves to speak up, only to subside at a glare from Citrus. She again prostrates herself before Citrus as the yellow mare looks back at Twilight. “I don’t know if you were aware, but Galileah here tried more directly to poach our stallion the night of the Gala. She offered one on one combat.” She blushes and her ears flick back and forth. “I…kinda overreacted, ripped some curtains and bound her rather unceremoniously on the floor.”

“You did WHAT?! with the daughter of the griffonian ambassador?” Twilight shouts, before she sees the look on Citrus’ face. She takes a step back and blushes. “Sorry, Citrus.”

Citrus moves over and nuzzles Twilight before turning back towards Galileah. “So, I accept your apology. Is that it?”

The griffon stands up, glancing briefly at Tim before continuing. “My father sent me back home while you ponies were in heat.” Her face reddens a bit, truly a surprise for Tim considering her feather covered face. “He said he didn’t want me getting caught up in the mating habits of the ponies. He wants me to settle down with a nice griff back home. Figures he’d stay through estrus, of course… I’m never allowed to have fun!” She clicks her beak a few times. “But I want to enjoy my status, get to meet different creatures.” Her blush intensifies. “And maybe a little more.” She bows to Citrus. “With your permission.”

Citrus’ voice could freeze a lake. “You are still wanting to poach our stallion, even after apologizing for the attempt?”

Galileah takes a step back into the closed door. “Oh, no, no, no, no.” She glances at Tim, then looks levelly at Citrus. “I would like to play with him, with your permission.” She looks around. “Well, all of you.” She scuffs a claw on the floor. “I had to understand that you ponies are very tightly knit when it came to your herds. I can’t be a huntress, maneuver out the one I want, then bring them down. I’d have to play by your rules. I’d have to think like a herdsmare, join the whole herd, for the benefits to be had by all.”

Citrus shifts a bit. “As you probably know, heat is over. While we have no plans on being truly celibate for the next few months, we are not really looking to expand our herd at the moment, and it’ll be a while before we put our kettles on the fire again.”

“That’s just fine. You don’t have to accept me as a full-fledged herd member.” She stops and gulps. “I’m sorry, but griffs don’t really talk this frankly about this subject. Please forgive me if I am not versed in all the correct ceremonies when it comes to pony herds. I wouldn’t object to joining your herd fully. But that truly isn’t my goal.” She looks levelly at Citrus. “When your herd decides they want those activities, I would appreciate an invite.” She shrugs off her messenger bag. “I’ve got gold that I can offer. I can get you ponies to visit my hometown anytime. I do have some really good connections that we can…” She stumbles to a stop at a raised hoof from Citrus.

“North isn’t here, and while I would normally get all of your input for such a decision.” She looks over at Cayenne, then at Twilight. Then she turns to Tim. “Silver Wing, Tim, I am seeking your input on this decision here. An eligible mare is offering herself. We are not looking to expand our herd right now.” She huffs softly. “I think our herd is big enough, to be honest, but she wants to join in on bedroom activities. I have no objection in that respect. So it falls on you, Tim.”

Tim looks at Citrus, fighting hard to keep his jaw from falling on the floor. “Hold up,” he says before taking a few breathes, “you were pissed that she tried to poach me, but now she’s coming to you, you have no objection?”

That gets a giggle from Citrus. “I will admit, tying her up was pretty cathartic. I was in a bad mood when she landed in front of me and challenged me for you. Now she wants to play, not as a full fledged herd member, but to join us when we have sex.” She cocks her head to the side. “Never had the opportunity to sex up a griffon, might be fun.” She moves over to Tim, she rears up and brings herself close to speak softly. “She’s offering herself the right way. Your mare has approved. What is your decision?”

Tim gulps, glancing from Citrus to Galileah, to the other mares before settling on Silver. The stallion has a smile on his face. Tim focuses on the stallion’s ears. They are perked forward in interest, with the occasional flick of alertness. Silver subtly nods. Tim smiles at him, and Silver’s smile widens a bit, only marred by the scar stretching from the side of his mouth across his cheek. He looks back at Citrus. “I don’t know what to say, Citrus.”

Citrus giggles. Silver zips up next to the human, whapping him on the shoulder with a hoof. “He says yes, Galileah.”

Citrus turns back to the griffon before sitting down on her haunches. “Well, you’ve stunned our stallion into silence.” She glances back at Tim before continuing. “I think Silver said it correctly. I’ll have a message sent to you when we decide we are going to have some planned family time.”

The griffon reaches into her bag, pulling out a small card. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Citrus gestures towards the kitchen, “Would you like to join us for a meal? We have a pegasus and a human, so we have meat always on the menu.”

Galileah shakes her head. “No, I didn’t have all that much time today. Daddy’s got me running all over Canterlot, some kind of ball he’s preparing to celebrate something or other from back home.” She rolls her eyes. “He loves all that formal crap.” She reaches and opens the door. “Let me know, and I’ll drop everything to get over here.” The door slams as she streaks off. Though Tim would have to guess she was blushing even more at that point.

“What was that all about?” He asks.

Citrus guides them through the kitchen and into the living room. Tim sits down on the sofa and immediately gains a passenger on his lap. Citrus snuggles up close to him, Twilight crowds in on the other side, he runs a hand along her mane, enjoying touching her. Citrus nuzzles his cheek. “That was how things are done correctly. She’s interested in you. She can’t claim heat, I don’t know if griffon’s go into heat like ponies.”

“They don’t.” Twilight murmurs softly, nearly asleep. “They are similar to how you said humans do it.”

“Okay. But what was right about it?”

Citrus snuggles closer. “Since she can’t claim heat, and the stress associated with that. She mared up and asked the entire herd, starting with the lead mare, to join all of us. She knew that if all of us get to play with her, she’d be more likely to get a positive response.”

“Has anypony here had any sex with a griffon?”

Cayenne raises a hoof. “Yeah, he wasn’t too bad in the sack. Not really big back there, but he was pretty skilled with using it. Not hurting me, yet some pain is common for griffon mating. It wasn’t much more than a fling, not really looking to get serious. I think we dated a couple of weeks before his duties pulled him out of town. Just some advice, don’t kiss her on the beak, you’ll just get cut bad.”

Tim looks around, though Silver looks rather proud, his chest puffed out a bit. Cayenne and him are fairly well intertwined at the moment.

Tim briefly considers picking back up the book he was reading before he had gone out. Twilight has been drilling him on reading the pony language. He’s starting to get the hang of it. It’s some weird cursive thing with clusters that writes with diacritics and semi complex read direction. The herd has been enjoying a lazy morning, though North Point had headed out quite early on a mission she’s been following. Her newest work, an amazingly detailed sketch of Ponyville, is hanging from the wall in the living room. He does briefly reflect how he did things back at home, a day like this would typically either be on his phone or watching some TV show he’s watched a hundred times before. He does kinda like the ponies emphasis on reading, and the little hobbies all of the herd has. Silver and his metalwork, Twilight and her research. Cayenne always loves to cook, quite often their lazy day would include taste testing the newest creation of the spicy mare. Though she’s pretty considerate and usually has cups of milk ready to go to quench the fire some of her meals have lit. Though occasionally they will be good enough to be added to the menu at her restaurant. Tim really doesn’t find all that much desire to have a phone in his hand all the time when he’s not driving. One thing the ponies do have that he enjoys, though. “Hey, anypony up for a movie?”

***

Tim handles the slab of glass and metal that Twilight had floated over to him. He inspects the bottom of the device. It looks like the USB-C connection of his phone. Though the device is a good twenty percent bigger than the Note device that was in his pocket on his arrival in Ponyville. The heft of the device is pretty nice, enough to know it’s there, even in a pocket, but not so heavy that it’s distracting.

“Go ahead, turn it on!”

He looks up at the alicorn, then feels along the side, three buttons, just like a lot of human phones. He pushes and holds the smallest of the three buttons. After a few seconds the screen flashes and shapes appear.

“There is a lot of tech in it, much like how your phone worked. But my team has been busy. This is five months of fourteen hour or longer days, fabrication delays, trying to get the chip yield up to something where building them would be profitable. Memory production, and most of all, fine tuning the battery crystal.” She makes a sour face, sticking out her tongue. “You humans do amazing things when it comes to the microarchitecture, when it comes to the memory design, and so much more. But your way of powering things is so icky and tingly.”

Tim laughs, “Yeah, Twilight, I know. We don’t have magic to power things.”

The home screen finally appears. “Wow, that looks a lot like the operating system of my phone.” A few icons are on the screen, familiar phone, text messaging, settings, and a few others. He looks up at the top of the screen. “It has service?”

“In my castle, in Canterlot Castle. And throughout most of the city of Canterlot. The tall buildings are more conducive to building the necessary infrastructure for data transmission. Ponyville will have full service within six months, and we are working on getting relay towers built along all the major rail routes. We will expand out from there. I’ve gotten half a billion bit investment contracts with several new startups to build and maintain the data infrastructure.”

“That’s a hell of a lot of money.”

She giggles, blushing slightly. “Oh, Tim, the profit potential is many times what the initial investment will be. Just the profits off of selling this service to the ponies all over Equestria will be enormous.”

“What about competition?”

She cocks her head to the side. “If somepony wants to compete, let them. I’ve seen how much capability one phone can do, both when it comes to data usage, and transmission speed. We are overbuilding the technology here. If they want to pay usage rates for the network and set up their own competition, or if they want to build their own network from scratch, I’ll be happy to share the basic communication protocols so it’s possible. Healthy competition means more for all.”

Tim shakes his head. “Back home they’d be talking about freezing out the competition and limiting how many can develop the technology.”

Her ears flatten back, “You humans are weird.”

“How so?”

She cocks her head to the side. “You’ve told me some of what your economy is like…”

“You know, I told you I really didn’t pay attention.”

She nods. “I know that, but from what I could piece together from what you told me, from cache information on your phone and computer, and everything else I could glean. Your economy, especially the one of your nation, is a crazy hodgepodge of every economic theory I’ve ever heard of. And a few ideas I haven’t.”

He shrugs. “Well, it works pretty well.”

She nods. “But you have so many things holding it back. Total debt that would make the worst gambler blush. Ponies do things far more efficiently. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna don’t really do much more than organize the various parts of the nation. I mean, they do have the Guard corps, which patrol and guard our borders. And fight wars, but we haven’t had any war to speak of in quite a long time.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard. Humans like to kill other humans.”

She nods. “I’ve read enough on that. Your species is crazy at times.” She flattens her ears for a moment before leaning forward and running her head along his chest. “You aren’t like that, though.”

“But I know you have taxes, your government does more than do defense, right?”

“Not at the Princess level. The princesses don’t levy taxes on the ponies. We get tax income from the mid-level royals, and we also supervise them. Make sure they aren’t taxing the ponies too hard. More than once has Celestia had to call a noble to heel for either not doing their duties to their subjects or demanding too much of the ponies. We don’t have a huge debt to deal with. We just don’t need all that much governance because we’re mostly pretty harmonious. You’ve seen how we solve problems by befriending them. We learned long ago that cooperation is the essence of life.”

“Back home, the government has a lot more to do; kinda needs to, given how we can’t quite seem to stay out of trouble. Well, most of us can, but somebody has to pick a fight, somebody else wants what isn’t there, somebody else ends up on the losing end of life, somebody else takes advantages of the powerless… In short, governing humans is really difficult because we didn’t evolve as herds but as individualists. What about ponies that can’t take care of themselves?”

Twilight flicks her ears as she looks at him. “They are taken care of. Ponies take care of each other. We don’t expect the nobles or the princesses to take care of ponies in need. We help each other.”

“Well, I think my world would be a lot better off if we had that attitude. We’re too good at being apathetic.” She nods. Tim looks at the device in his hand. “So, what all can this do?”

She floats up a second identical device. “Well, the camera technology in your phone is amazing. That little image sensor is something I’ve never dreamed of. So, you’ll be able to take and share pictures. The encoding for video was in the firmware on your phone, so a little work has our own encoding working as well. I decided to use the same basic terms you humans have for the data. A bit is either on or off. Eight of them is a byte. One thousand twenty four of them is a kilobyte, and so on and so forth. Solid state storage is fascinating, so is the spinning disk hard drive that your computer had, though your phone won’t have those. Just so much that joined you from your world when you landed here. You have no idea how many uses your computer has inspired here. Tim, all of this means a true technological revolution for Equestria.”

She runs her hoof along the screen. “I was able to figure out how to make it usable for earth ponies and pegasi. So, it will respond to a hoof as readily as to a magical touch. Just poke with edge of a hoof, or a styles, or even your snout. We can make calls, we can send little text messages, and data services. We don’t really have much of a true internet.” She flicks her ears a bit. “Well, we have the data infrastructure being built. We don’t know much about the other programs, but we’re figuring it.” She brings over his phone, lighting the screen. “You mentioned social networks, Facebook, Twitter, and all of that. I think we will eventually invent our own versions of them. As it is, the pony phones are in their infancy. So most ponies will use them to talk to one another. But I think that will expand fairly quickly.” She sets down both devices gently then moves over to crawl into the human’s lap. “And it’s all because of you,” She purrs, nuzzling his neck.

He reflexively puts his arms around her, holding her close. “So, what are you going to do with all this newfound income?”

She giggles into his chest. “You mean, what are you going to do with all of this income? You are the primary owner in all of this that I’ve set up. You might end up richer than my family at this rate.”

“Twilight…”

She pulls back, looking him in the eyes. “Tim, it’s already set up. I’m not changing it. You brought this technology to our world, it’s only just that you should benefit by the engineering and development from what you brought here. I’m a minority shareholder simply because I’m helping build the financing for all of this. You’ll have whatever debt incurred here taken care of quickly. Your species has created some wonderful things. You can profit by that.” She stops, blushing. “You should profit by that. I’m just trying to help.”

“I have all I’ll ever need, between you, and Citrus, and Cayenne, and North. And I contribute to the family, with my work. I know I work for Cayenne, but she’s paying me for actual work that I’m doing. I don’t plan on buying a fancy car, or a big home. We have a nice home, and ponies would probably flee if I bought a brand new human car. So, what do I need the money for? I have no head for finances, the numbers you’ve mentioned, they are just numbers, I can’t fathom that kind of value.”

She boops him on the nose gently with a hoof. “My family made it big well before Shining and I were born. If we wanted to, we could have simply lived a life of luxury for as long as we lived. But that’s not our nature. Shining wanted to join the Guard. I wanted to learn magic. Our herd made sure that we were taken care of financially, but our drive kept us going. You’ve mentioned to Citrus and Cayenne that you wanted to feel useful, you have that same drive. Having more bits won’t do anything to that drive. But maybe you can expand what you do. You’ve proven to be good at repairing things. Maybe you could open a shop, fix whatever your heart desires.” She stands up and stretches like a cat. “Don’t worry about making the decisions on this. I’ll be there to help you in the decision making process. I’ll give you ideas on how to proceed in the future, what direction to take the company. You aren’t going to be a figurehead, just making money off the company like some trust fund lush. You’ll be an active part, but not full time, there are ponies hired to make the day to day decisions as things go forward.”

“I wash dishes most of the time, Twilight.”

That gets a loving nuzzle. “I hate doing dishes, I usually have Spike do it.”

“Or me.”

She giggles, “Or you to do the dishes at home. But that’s the thing, with this income, you don’t have to work for the money, you can do what you want for the passion of what you do. You may not have a cutie mark. But you have the same passion to do things that us ponies do. Now, with this money, you can do exactly as you please, feel useful, and you won’t have to feel like a burden on anypony no matter what you do. You will have to spend some time, though, learning what’s going on. And making decisions on how to go forward. And you’ll have me by your side. So no worries, right?”

Tim looks thoughtful. Twilight watches him for a moment before darting her face forward and licking his cheek gently. “Love, you are going to be rich in your own right. Just enjoy it.”

Tim sighs, “Just feels weird.”

She looks at him seriously. “So, there’s really one more thing to do. We have to name the device. We can’t just call them phones. We have to come up with a name.”

Tim frowns. “What makes you think I can come up with something?”

“Just think on it. You’ve got a few days before we start letting the ponies know they exist and that they’ll be able to buy them soon.”

That gets a sigh from the human. “You know, everyone having those devices really changed how humanity acted. We used to have to learn from books, or TV. Then with these devices, and the information accessible through them, we didn’t even remember phone numbers anymore. Nor the name of a favorite band. We’d just look them up. It is kinda weird. I remember when things like them but more primitive were stuff of fiction set centuries ahead, lo and behold they’re a fact of life now.”

That gets a full throated laugh from Twilight. “Oh, Tim. Ponies will adjust, just as humans adjusted.”

***

Citrus Blush walks slowly towards Canterlot Castle on a secret mission. The last several months have been almost idyllic, Tim is happy, Silver is happy, Cayenne is pregnant, and the other mares of the herd have been happy. She has noticed their social standing since Twilight has been spending more time with them has upgraded. Some of the nobles of Canterlot have been dropping hints that her herd should be spending more times among the elite of Canterlot. While her mom has really stayed away from the noble scene in Canterlot, her sire has not. While she has a strong distaste for anything that Rotten Apple holds dear, being in a herd with an alicorn princess does have responsibilities.

One of those responsibilities has prompted her to head to visit with Princess Celestia this afternoon. Tim is in Ponyville with Twilight, more prep work for the new technology from Tim’s world being rolled out for the ponies. At Twilight’s insistence, work is being done all throughout their apartment building, as well as in buildings all over Canterlot for this new internet thing. Computers are starting to be advertised, and when it comes to many businesses, it’s a lot easier for a lot of business tasks like record keeping, inventory, and more. She can understand why humans are so enamored of the devices.

But today is going to be interesting for Citrus. She’s here to talk to Princess Celestia about a personal subject, and she hopes her request will be granted. She looks up at the spires and domes of the castle on the mountain. Part of her is looking forward to this talk, part of her dreads it. She sighs softly. Time to mare up and do what must be done. She walks into the castle, the large doors closing magically behind her, controlled by a unicorn guard.

Next Chapter: Chapter 39. Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours, 48 Minutes