I stepped out of the shower much closer to feeling alive. Don't get me wrong though, I still felt awful. But at least I was mostly alive rather than mostly dead.

I levitated the wet towel I had used over the curtain rod, laying it flat so it could air dry. With no hairbrush, I made do by shaping my levitation into something that resembled a crude comb, running it through my mane and tail. I kept combing as I left the bathroom, more in an attempt to further dry my mane because it was still slightly wet.

Klink.

Oh right. Those.

I picked up a few of the obviously empty bottles, glancing around for a recycling or trash can. The best I saw was a simple grey plastic waste basket. And- Oh hey, the TV remote.

I filled up the small basket as best as I could, but that still left a plethora of empty glass bottles I needed to handle. I made do by setting up the empty bottles at the basket's base, taking care to keep them upright so they didn't roll around. However that still left the half full bottles. With no where really to put them, I set them on the counter next to the TV.

I looked over said TV. Hotels provided free TV right? Or at least that was generally supposed to be part of the standard package right? I mean really, how absurd would it be in this day and age for a hotel to not supply free TV? And any decent hotel would be sure to include at least a news channel... It wouldn't matter if it was restricted to local or national. While I would prefer a local news station, anything about... Her and what she was doing could be helpful. And that would be on national news.

Actually, that was probably the only thing any channel... How often do you discover you aren't alone in the universe really?

I hopped up onto a bed and levitated the remote over, clicking the power button.

"-so I says to her; Whatcha doin'?!"

Soaps. Click.

"The new Ford F-150!"

Commercial. Click.

"I don't want to be human! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear x-rays! And I wanna- I wanna smell dark matter!"

Mood. Click.

"-'m telling you Tucker! This is how mankind ends! This is how the liberals destroy Western society!"

Not news, but a good indicator for the opinion of the dumb and gullible.

On the TV, the look of a perpetually confused man stared at the camera.

"Not even 24 hours after the announcement and talk around Washington is abuzz about an embassy! We know nothing about these aliens, we know nothing about their goals. Hell, we don't even know how they got here!"

"That's exactly right Tucker!" the 'news' channel swapped to a different camera, this time to the face of an aging old man in a business suit. I looked away from the TV and began to preen, content to listen while doing something actually useful. "Something is very wrong here! Some of my colleagues with ties to the FBI have been commenting that the agency, the FBI that is, has been in a tizzy over something for weeks! And then we just 'happen' to have a giant horse walk onto the lawn of the White House and give a speech? What happened to the little grey man we've been told is an alien? Where did the horse come from? Heh, who ever heard of a horse from outer space?"

"No, I agree Senator. We've been spoon fed little grey men by Hollywood for decades now. And now the liberals bait and switch us with an animatronic horse? I'm not buying it either!"

Logical fallacies still abound in in the United Stupid of America. Cli-

"You know what I think? I think we should launch that Hollywood animatronic back into space where it 'came from'! Tear it part by drawing and quartering it with real horses and send it back! See what the liberals think about that!"

-RUNCH

... Opps. I forgot to put the remote down...

Wait, why did I react that way?

I stopped preening to look up, a newly destroyed plastic remote in my magic.

Why'd I do that?

Faux News kept babbling in the background, going on about sending Celestia away in increasingly creative yet insane ways.

Why does the thought of them doing anything to Celestia make me feel... Angry? Granted I held no love for their insipid incompetence to begin with... But it's not like I was on great terms with Celestia either. So why-?

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I froze.

Someone was at the door.

Fuck, did I break in? Or did I pay for the room in my drunken state? Had I been seen by the hotel staff? And I was just too drunk to care?

Damnit drunk Luna... What did you do?!

Preening now forgotten, I quietly hopped off the bed, slinking towards the door.

Oh right, the door had a chair underneath its handle. Maybe drunk Luna had quietly broken in? Did that mean the noise from the TV alerted one of the maids? I kept my hoofsteps quiet as I reared up towards the door's peep hole, closing one eye and peering through.

The first thing I noticed was her shockingly red hair with yellow highlights, less ginger and more straight up crimson. The second, was her pale face was looking downward at her phone, but the phone looked like it had some handmade peripheral attached. Like someone had made something from Ghostbusters and hooked it to an Android through the charging port. The girl reached up as I watched.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Nightmare Moon?" the girl called.

Nightmare Moon? What was she talking about? Who or what is Nightmare Moon? Was she just a crazy who had run away from the psych ward and just happened to come to the room I was hiding in? I suppose stranger things have happ-

"Princess Luna?" her voice cut through my thoughts like a sword.

Time seemed to screech to a sudden halt as someone decided to pour freezing water down my spine.

How did she know?! Why was she here?! Is she alone?! Is she working for the feds?! Did anyone hear her?!

There could be no question as for my course of action. Crazy or not, whoever this was on the opposite side of this door, she knew far too much specific information for her visit to be a coincidence. Regardless if drunk Luna had somehow slipped up or not, I needed to know how she knew.

I ripped open the door with a hoof, grabbing the girl with my levitation, pulling her inside the room, concentrating specifically to hold her mouth shut.

"Princ- Hmmmmf?!"

I slammed the door shut when she was fully inside. I turned aggressively towards the girl, who I now saw couldn't be older than 17 or 18.

"You better start talking right fucking now about how you know who I am, how you know I'm here, and why you're here!" I growled, approaching with an aggressively lit horn. The girl turned onto her back, resting on her elbows as she started to crawl backwards.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" she clambered, still backing up. "I'm from Equestria! I ran away from Princess Celestia!"

"How stupid do you think I am?!" I growled. "You're human! Last I checked, as of less than 24 hours ago, Equestria has never encountered humanity! So at least give me the common fucking courtesy of a believable lie!"

"No no it's true!" the girl fell off her elbows as she put her hands up. "I was Celetia's personal student! But she didn't teach me what I wanted to know so I ran away through a mirror portal! The portal turned me into a human when I came out this side!"

Mirror portal? Mirror portal? Why did that sound familiar? Mirror port-

It hit me like a slap across the face.

Starswirl! The old fool! This was where he was dumping his magical radioactive waste?!

If what this girl was saying was true, what were the odds that I had somehow found my way to the exact planet Starswirl dumped his shit onto? Astronomical to say the least. Or the Universe thought itself as a comedian and I was the punchline.

Yeah, I wasvery "amused" right at that moment.

"Tell me something that only a pony would know." I murmured.

"Something a pony-? Oh!" she perked up excitably. "Canterlot is Equestria's capital, Baltimare and Fillydephia are our main trading hubs, Manehatten-"

Some of those names sounded familiar, even if they were horse puns of Human cities, although I didn't know what this "Canterlot" was. Was that supposed to be a play on Camelot? Was it that mining settlement on Mount Canter? What happened to the Castle Everfree? Was that not the seat of our power? Why would Celestia move?

"Don't talk to me about geography. If you know who I am, you'd know I'm not up to date with the Equestria you're familiar with." I pressed.

"Ah, right." she relented. "Um... Equestria was founded after the three tribes of ponies needed to band together against the Windegos, you and Princess Celestia fought and defeated Discord, and then-"

"Enough. I believe you." I stopped the girl before she started listing off things that were still raw in my mind. But the mention of Discord was enough. I would've been surprised if Celestia had even mentioned Discord to the United States. They likely wouldn't have as good a working relationship if Celestia mentioned she could take down a near god of Chaos. Especially if she was dealing with the xenophobes in power.

No, not only was he ancient history, but Celestia had enough tact to not mention she was a walking nuke capable of stopping a god. It just wouldn't make sense to mention him at all. So this girl's knowledge of Discord was proof enough that she was at least familiar with Equestrian history. And the only way she could've known about that was an Equestrian history book, or being there herself.

And I doubted she had been present during Discord's reign or that Celestia had brought a history book with her to Earth.

I levitated the girl back onto her feet, now a little more amiable.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Oh, uh..." she stammered "I've been using the name 'Sarah' amongst Humans, but my real name is Sunset Shimmer."