So I was walking up the steps to the castle, albeit trying to hide my nerves, as ponies were looking at our general direction. As we went further up the steps and closer to the entrance, I could see these ponies who were standing there with what looked like trumpets or some other form of brass instruments. These ponies tensed up at the sight of Cadence and Shining, and started to play the instruments.

After they had stopped their announcement tune, the pony on the left (as we came in) spoke. "Fillies and Gentlecolts, please welcome the monarchs of the Crystal Empire, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza-"

"Princess Cadence is OK," Cadence interrupted.

"Very well, your highness. Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor, and their guests, the first humans in Equestria; Messers Thomas Cooper, Nathan Lang and Jack Luss!"

As this was said, Cadence and Shining stepped forward, waving regally as ponies cheered and bowed in respect to them.

"Thank you, everypony," Cadence said happily. "It's a pleasure to be here tonight."

"Yeah, we're glad we could make it," Shining added, looking back at us and smirking. "And I'm sure our guests here will agree."

Gee, thanks for putting us on the spot, Shining.

"Yeah," Thomas spoke out, looking up at the various ponies on the steps (who had all risen from bowing by now), particularly Princess Celestia and Twilight. "It's an honour to be here, very different to the events we normally go to. We have to thank Princess Celestia for inviting us."

"Not a problem, Thomas," Celestia called down to us. "It's a pleasure to see you three again."

"Thank you."

After that, we proceeded up the stairs and met with Celestia.

"So, how have you three been settling in?" Celestia asked.

"Good so far," Nathan replied.

"There's not been any major issues so far, has there?"

"Well," Cadence cut off Nathan, and all three prepared ourselves, as we had a pretty good idea of what Cadence was going to tell her aunt. "There was one issue at a surprise party that Pinkie Pie threw a couple of days ago."

"Yes, Pinkie was telling Twilight and myself about it. What happened?"

"Well," I replied, ignoring Thomas' fake coughing. "Thomas managed to get himself drunk. Like, really really drunk."

"Did he?"

"Princess," Thomas interrupted, in an effort to make himself look better. "I don't normally do things like that."

"That's naw what I heard from the folks around the corner when you went to Easterhouse," Nathan commented as the next guest came in.

Thomas' eyes went as wide as the universe itself. "Shut up, Nathan, ya bloody tool! At least I went out with my mates after school instead of being a wee asocial rocket!"

"I DID go out with my mates after school as well! Just cause I wisnae hanging wae the nuggets you call mates!"

"Naw all of ma friends were nuggets, ya numpty!"

At this point, I just facepalmed and ignored the conversation at hand. Instead, I looked up at Twilight and Celestia. The former was kind of annoyed, and was giving me this look that was saying something along the lines of 'can you get them to stop, please'. The latter, however, wasn't unhappy in the slightest; if anything, she actually found the situation of two Scots arguing somewhat amusing.

This argument could literally have gone on forever, but it was interrupted when a snobbish voice could be heard.

"What are those FOUL creatures doing here?"

We all turned to the bottom of the stairs to see a white coated unicorn, with blonde mane and tail and wearing what I guessed was a pony equivalent of a suit.

Forty bits says that guy is-

"Blueblood? Is something the matter?" Celestia said in a diplomatic tone of voice.

"I'm just wondering what those foul creatures are doing here at the castle!" Blueblood shouted up to us.

"Well, we're-" Thomas began, but was quickly cut off by Blueblood again.

"Silence, you ape!"

Gasps could be heard all around from various ponies, with a few harsh glares going Blueblood's way.

"What is your problem, Blueblood?" Cadence snapped angrily. "Why can't you just stop being narcissistic for one night?"

"I am just voicing my opinion for keeping the royal family's reputation intact. And I personally believe that it would be best to not be seen with these creatures!"

"You are aware that they DO have names?" Rarity interrupted.

"Silence, you filthy commoner! You're lucky I didn't have you put in the dungeons the last time we met for ruining my coat!"

At this comment, and due to the fact that Rarity looked a little hurt by this statement, I stepped in. Albeit, now that I look back on it, I probably went a bit too far.

"Is that how you speak to everybody who isn't a prince or princess, ya fucking knob?"

The gasps from the assembled ponies may possibly have sucked all the oxygen from the room, and the nearby areas to boot.

"What did you just say to me, you APE?!"

"You heard me," I replied, unfazed whatsoever by the 'ape' and 'creature' comments.

"Don't you know who I am?" he asked, increasing the volume in his voice. "Do you know WHO YOU'RE TALKING TO?!"

"Prince Blueblood, prince of Equestria. Yeah, I know. That doesn't make anything different. Here's some advice for you," I said calmly, leaning down to his eye level.

"Where I come from, respect is earned, not given away like a bloody token. I won't respect you when you go out of your way to make all of these snarky comments at ponies who haven't done anything wrong, or say something that irks you and is inconvenient to you. I won't respect you when you speak about us as if were not even here, either, and, quite frankly, I don't think anyone else would."

Blueblood was stunned into silence, as was everypony else.

"Now, if you've stopped with your petty little insults and your threats of throwing people into the dungeons, which I frankly think is hot air anyway, I'd like you to take your measly hide elsewhere and stop ruining this night for everybody else!"

There was a few tense seconds of silence, as nobody in the room whatsoever - not even the princesses - even whispered a word. Anger clearly flashed in his eyes, which may have been an indication that I had messed up. Eventually, the snob turned his back on me and spoke.

"Fine. But this is not over you foul creature! We will meet again!" he shouted as he walked off in the direction of the main hall.

"I'm SO looking forward to it," I replied sarcastically as he slammed the doors behind him.

I turned around to see a stunned Thomas, Nathan, Celestia, Cadence, Luna (who I was not aware of coming in), Twilight and the rest of the Mane Six. All of who were looking at me as if they were seeing a nebula.

"Too far?" I asked with a sheepish grin.

"Perhaps maybe a little, but don't worry about it too much," Celestia replied, being the first to come back to her senses, with the others following suit shortly after. "His attitude was beginning to annoy me as well, but you can always apologise if you feel guilty."

"I'll keep that in mind."

With that whole situation out of the way, the party returned to normal. After this I met the three Cutie Mark Crusaders, who were quite enthusiastic about their cutie marks and asked us to help them in getting them. I replied that I wouldn't even know where to begin because humans can't get cutie marks. They were initially disappointed, but once I explained the reasoning, they understood.

Eventually, the group split, with Cadence and Shining going somewhere else in the castle (which I forgot to mention was MASSIVE), Celestia and Twilight staying at the top of the steps, while Thomas, Nathan, myself, Applejack and Rainbow Dash were hanging around on the bottom floor discussing things that had happened recently.

Just then, the trumpets blew again, and everybody turned to the door again.

"Announcing the spirit of chaos, Discord, and his guest, the, uh..." the pony began, but stopped short, for some reason.

Then this weird creature, that was basically a mix of a dragon and all sorts of other things put into one animal, popped his head over and whispered something into the announcer's ear. This was the Discord that I was told about, or at least I assumed it was.

"...The Smooze!" the announcer finished.

Just then, Discord walked in wearing this orange suit, which, if I'm honest, made him look even more ridiculous than he already was. I mean, I don't care for the fact he was taller than me, or anybody else for that matter... I would have mocked him for it all day, and I had plenty of material.

That wasn't what everyone was concerned about, however. I was more to do with this "Smooze".

What was it?

Well, put simply, do you remember watching the first Ghostbusters and seeing that stupid looking green slime monster thingy-ma-jig? If so, it was kind of like that, except it only had a mouth. Which created a freaky smile upon its entrance. I could hear gasps all around at the sight of this slime thing.

But I didn't dwell on this too much because...

"Good evening, everypony!" he called out to everyone in the hall. "What a glorious affair!"

No. Fucking. Way. He sounds kind of like John De Lancie!

The Smooze decided, for some reason, to grab one of the trumpets from the announcers with his mouth and eat it.

That's disgusting, I thought to myself.

I decided to nudge Nathan. "Listen to him talk again, take his personality into account and see who he reminds you of."

He looked back at me with a raised eyebrow, but did not object. "Okay."

"He does have a yen for shiny things, the rascal," he explained before putting his arm round him, and getting his hand stuck in the goo, before wiping it off on the other announcer's chest.

I turned back to Nathan, whose expression was similar to that of when I heard him speak for the first time. "See what I mean?"

Nathan stood there with his half-shocked, half-happy face for a few seconds before he started to snicker.

"He's a bit like Q from Star Trek!" he exclaimed, before bursting into laughter, with Thomas following suit seconds later, all the while AJ and Rainbow were confused as to what we were laughing at, and just walked off.

As Discord was walking up the red carpet, Twilight flew over to Discord and separated him from the Smooze thing. I was just close enough to hear the conversation that occurred between them.

"What are you doing here with...that?!" Twilight whispered in a quiet tone to Discord.

"Now, now, now," Discord replied in a not-as-quiet-voice. "The Smooze may be an "it", but it's an it with a heart of, well, blob."

Both looked on to the Smooze, who had now gone to chasing ponies, in particular Lyra and another mare, but darker green than Lyra, with Celestia watching on in shock. Twilight flew in front of Discord, with an negative look on her face.

"This night is extremely important to me, Discord," she stressed, before turning back to Celestia and waving again to her with a forced smile, before turning her eye back to Discord. "Keep it under control."

Discord just seemed to ignore this. I think it's just his attitude. "Yes, yes, yes, of course," he said before walking away. "Tell me, have you seen Fluttershy anywhere?"

After that, Nathan, Thomas and I decided to split up and go our own way. Thomas went looking for the buffet (imagine my shock), whilst Nathan and I went off to the VIP section.

As we did so, a posh voice could be heard. "Excuse me?"

Both of us turned to see two white unicorns; one was a mare with pink mane and tail which had several fleurs-de-lis in them and looked very similar to Luna in shape and size. The other was a blue/grey maned stallion who was wearing a suit and had a moustache. In addition to this, he was wearing a monocle.

Don't laugh, Jack. Don't laugh.

"Yes?" Nathan asked politely. "Is something the matter?"

"No, not at all," he replied, the mare shaking her head in agreement. The stallion stuck out his right hoof. "I just thought to introduce myself. My name's Fancy Pants-"

DO NOT FUCKING LAUGH, JACK!

"-but just Fancy's fine as well, and this here is my marefriend, Fleur Dis Lee."

"A pleasure," I replied, taking his hoof and shaking it. "Jack Luss."

"I know. I've heard a lot about you in the papers."

"You have?" I asked, slightly apprehensive that he may have been reading the Canterlot Chronicle.

"Oh, yes," he replied. "All about you and your arrival in Equestria. Most of the papers were quite positive or fairly neutral about you, but there was one paper that was clearly biased against you."

"The Canterlot Chronicle," Nathan answered.

"Yes. How did you know?"

"Well, we read that article about us a couple of days ago."

"I suspect that the owner of the paper, who's a member of the royal family, of all ponies, was biased against you three. Speaking of which, where's the other one?"

"Oh, Thomas is away to stuff his face at the buffet," Nathan answered. "He is nuts when there's a lot of food on offer."

"Ah, I see."

"Would I be right in assuming that this member of the royal family that you were speaking of is Prince Blueblood?" I asked.

"Yes, it is," he replied, raising his eyebrow at my correct answer. "How did you guess?"

I sighed before answering. "His reputation proceeds him."

"What do you mean?"

"Princess Cadence told us about him yesterday," I replied. “I thought at first she was exaggerating, but we met him earlier and we found out the hard way that she wasn't.”

“What happened?”

“Well, he made a few comments about us, and when Rarity got involved, he started to talk to her in a condescending manner.”

“Oh, no, that doesn't sound very pleasant. And I know her personally as well.”

“You do?”

“I bumped into her a few years ago here, in Canterlot, and we’ve become good friends ever since.”

“Yeah, well, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's people being cheeky or condescending. I was irritated by his attitude so I gave him a lecture in front of everypony about respect.”

“That takes some courage to do,” Fancy commented. “He didn't take kindly to that, did he?”

“No he didn't, but surprisingly, neither Princess Celestia or Luna, or Cadence for that matter, said anything about it.”

“I see,” he commented. “Anyway, I saw rumours circling the papers that you have these chariot-like vehicles that propel themselves. Is that right?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “They're called cars. We have them here, actually. If you want to see them, I'll be more than happy to show you.”

“I will do,” Fancy replied. “I was also wondering if you would like to meet with some of my associates.”

“Sounds good to me. What about you, Nathan?”

“Sure,” he replied.

“Splendid.”

And with that, we walked off with Fancy and Fleur, and walked over to an area in the VIP section where several ponies were talking amongst themselves.

Even after all these years, I will never truly understand why they were taking to each other with their eyes closed. Or why they talk with their eyes closed in the first place.

Fancy approached the group, all of whom stopped talking as they saw him approach. After they had all stopped, Fancy spoke.

"Fillies and Gentlecolts, may I introduce you all to Jack Luss and Nathan Lang. Jack, Nathan, meet some of my fellow associates."

Fancy then listed all of those present one by one: this included Media Frenzy, who owned shares in various newspapers and magazines, Jet Set and his wife, Upper Crust, who had some connection with various businesses across Equestria, from confectioneries to a new oil company that had been set up, and Sonic Blaze, who told me he was inspired by the rumours of our cars, and was inspired to make his own.

Him and I became really good friends, but that's besides the point.

We all shook hands (or hooves) and started to discuss our world and what it was like to live there. Jet Set actually had this "I superior to you" look on his face as I explained that Glasgow is now a shadow of its former self, but one glare from Fancy Pants was more than enough to shut him up.

While we started to discuss the cars, Sonic spoke up. "Jack?"

"Yes, Mr. Blaze?"

"Just Sonic's fine," he said. "But I was just going to ask a question. Would it be possible for you three and I to do a business venture together with making cars?"

I paused for a second, initially unsure of how to answer this. "Err... I'm not sure. While it would be a good idea, I'm just not sure we should try and make a car based on this. Especially if there IS a way back, and word gets to any of the car manufacturers... let's just say lawsuits WILL be involved.

"There's other complications which I won't go into at the moment, but if we would work around those, then I don't see why not."

"That makes sense," he replied. "But you would say yes if these issues could be avoided?"

"Yes."

"What are these issues that you're talking about?"

"There's quite a few," Nathan replied. "But they're all very complex, and it would probably be for the better if we discussed them at a later date. We could talk about it whenever you have spare time?"

"How about next Wednesday?"

"Sounds good," Nathan replied. "What about you, Jack?"

"Sure, we'll need to tell Thomas about it. Speaking of which, where is he?"

"He went off to the buffet, remember?"

"Aye, I know he likes food, but he usually doesn't spend 20 minutes trying to get something to eat!"

Nathan turned back to the group of ponies. "Sorry, could you excuse us for a while? We just need to find our other friend and make sure he doesn't keep all the food for himself."

Fancy laughed. "No, I don't mind. Just make sure there's some for the rest of us!"

And with that, Nathan and I set off again to find Thomas, and hopefully stop him from hoarding all the cakes/other items of food to himself.

Pretty soon, though, we found out food wasn't the only reason he was taking so long, which became apparent as we went to the main hall and saw Celestia and Twilight talking, while Discord, Fluttershy and some other green Earth pony mare were having this argument intense conversation with each other, particularly Discord and the other pony, who gave off this idea that she was interested in animals and nature in general.

Would be hilarious if her name was Tree Hugger, I thought to myself.

Everything was interrupted when I heard a somewhat familiar voice scream from behind one of the doors.

"LET ME IN!"

What the bloody hell's going on now?

Author's Notes:

Next chapter might take a little longer to get out, as I plan to make it longer than this one.