With one of the guard's horns lighting up, the doors opened, allowing us to enter the dining hall. Which was MASSIVE when compared to the one at the college I attended after I left high school in 1999.

And I thought THAT one was big compared to the one at school!

As the door opened, there were various ponies there, mainly maids who were doing their jobs and guards who were on break. All of them turned towards the door... and their jaws dropped in shock, mainly at me and my friends appearances, but soon they regained their composure, and some nearer to the door who could bowed accordingly.

"Please rise, everypony," Cadence said in her usual sweet tone.

After hearing this, everypony rose and returned to whatever they were doing before. Cadence turned her head to us and asked, "Well, shall we?"

"Yes, let's," Thomas replies in a slightly enthusiastic way.

At least all of us aren't doing it this time, I thought.

And with that, we went to a table with seven seats and sat. I was confused at first as to why 7 if only 5 were here, but then I remembered that Cadence had sent a letter to her aunts and thought they would probably be joining us. Cadence sat at one end of the table, while Shining sat next to Nathan, with Thomas and I sitting opposite them.

"So, tell us more about yourselves," Shining Armor inquired, not particularly aimed at any one of us.

Thomas cleared his throat. "My name's Thomas. I'm thirty-four years old. Born on the 22nd of January, 1983, although I'm not quite sure how calendars work here so I don't know if that means anything to you. I work as an electrical engineer at SSE, a Scottish electrical company at the moment."

Shining nodded, then turned to me. Taking this as my cue, I answered in a similar way. "I'm Jack, although you already know that. I'm the oldest of the three, I'm thirty-six years old. I was born on the 28th of May, 1981. I work as a software testing engineer, although I originally aspired to go into computer games development."

"And I'm Nathan, the youngest in the group. I was born on the 5th of June, 1984, making me thirty-three. I work as a maintenance manager for a housing company in Glasgow."

"What is life like in this Scotland?" Cadence asks.

I let out a chuckle, then answered. "It wasn't anything too unusual. Glasgow's a bit of a dull place to be honest. It's good to live there, but nothing really happens. We held the Commonwealth Games back almost 4 years ago, but that's really it."

Cadence smiled. "It doesn't seem all that bad. You just have to think about it in a more positive light."

Just as well I didn't tell them about the neds.

"I know, but its hard for us to do that. We're Scottish," Thomas pointed out.

"And?"

"And we usually have to put up with a lot of criticism. Not to mention we're never happy," Thomas said bluntly.

Cadence was about to say something else, but a unicorn waiter came over to the table with seven menus, a notepad and quill in his magic. He bowed to the princess, then rose again.

"Can I get any of you anything to drink just now?" he asked, giving out our menus, as well as laying out two menus in the empty chairs, thus confirming that the other two princesses were going to be eating as well.

Cadence was first to order. "Can I get a glass of white wine, please?"

The waiter wrote down the order. "Yes, of course, Princess. What of yourself, Prince Armor?"

"I'd like a glass of beer, please," he responded.

Again, the order was written down. He then turned to Nathan, taking in account his appearance. "...uhhh, what would you like, sir?"

Nathan replied, though shocking me and Thomas with his choice. "Can I have a gin and tonic, please?"

The waiter hesitated for a second, then started writing his order down. "Of course sir, we can have that arranged." He then turned his head to Thomas.

"I'll have a glass of beer as well, please." Thomas said, looking up from the menu.

The waiter wrote this down, then looked at me.

"Can I get a glass of whiskey, please?" I asked, knowing they probably don't have my beloved Scotch.

"Certainly, sir," he replied. "What type would you like? Bourbon or Rye?"

"Rye, please. On the rocks," I said, managing to hide my disappointment from the lack of Scotch.

He wrote this down, saying: "Thank you, Princess," then bowed again and turned around and walked off. There's one thing that was really bugging me.

"Gin and tonic? That's not like you, Nathan," I asked, confused since I don't remember him ever ordering gin and tonic, even when we were on holiday in France.

"I like gin and tonic. Didn't you know?" Nathan replied, making me raise my eyebrow in confusion at his answer.

"No. You never ordered it around us," Thomas pointed out. "And we go out for drinks often enough."

Nathan just shrugged his shoulders at this. I knew he had never ordered it around us, but he was making it out as if he had.

Cadence spoke again. "Anyway..." she levitated her glass up with her magic. "What are all of those jobs you listed? I understood Nathan's, as we have a fair few in Equestria, but I don't understand what a computer games developer is, or an electrical engineer or software engineer for that matter."

Thomas answered. "My job involves making sure various customers have working electricity, and fixing these power systems when they go wrong, overhead or underground."

Cadence looked away in thought for a few seconds, then turned round again. "What about you, Jack?"

"I test software for a company regarding cloud storage systems," I replied while opening my menu and having a look at the choices of food they have there. There's several types of what I presume is meat, but there's only two types there I could recognise, one being haddock and the other being salmon. Haddock it is, then.

"What's a cloud storage system?" Cadence asked.

"It's a type of system that allows the storage of computer data in a remote location, and not on the hard drives."

"Oh, so nothing to do with actual clouds?"

I laughed at this. It's kind of difficult to explain your job to someone who has never seen technology as advanced as yours before. I suppose it would be like trying to explain the concept of an iPad to Neville Chamberlain. "No, not really."

"I see," Shining commented. "Have you all decided on what you'd like to order?"

"I'm having the salmon," Thomas replied.

"Same here," Nathan responded.

"I think I'll have the haddock," I said.

"You like fish, I take it?" Cadence asked us.

"We have a popular type of fast food in the UK called fish and chips," Nathan explains. "It's usually a fish like cod or haddock battered in either simply flour and water or sometimes beer, served with potato chips."

"Is it quite popular in your world?"

"No," I replied. "Unfortunately, it's only really served in a few countries. I think it's popular in the UK, New Zealand, Ireland and some places in the United States, but that's it. What are you having?"

"I think I'll be having the pasta of the day," Cadence replied.

"I'm having the same," Shining added.

Soon enough, the waiter from before returned with the glasses that we requested and handed them to us. Well, it would make more sense to say levitated, but whatever.

"Have you decided what to order yet?" he asked us all, levitating his quill and notepad, ready to write our orders down. We all then listed what we wanted, in the same order as before. He didn't become as nervous as he got round to Nathan this time around. After he took our orders he bowed and left again.

I then took a sip from my whiskey. It's not exactly Scotch, but still pretty good. I then looked around the place, admiring everything about how the place was built. "Nice place, by the way," I complimented.

"Thank you, this castle was built over a thousand years ago, but was lost over the course of a thousand years, along with the empire itself," Cadence replied.

If a website could represent me right at that very moment, I'm pretty sure it would be confused.com. I raised my eyebrows and turned my head slightly. "How'd that happen?"

Cadence cleared her throat. "The Crystal Empire was once taken over by an evil unicorn by the name of King Sombra, who ruled over the Empire with an iron hoof." I'm presuming at this point she would say hand if she was human. "He practically enslaved the ponies who lived there, making their lives a living hell. He was turned into shadow and was banished to the Frozen North, but not before he put a curse on the Empire that caused it to literally vanish into thin air. There were no traces of its existence, but almost two years ago, the Empire returned, along with an uninvited guest."

I knew who Cadence was referring to. "Sombra."

"He tried to take over the Empire shortly after its return, but thankfully, Shining and myself, especially with the help of Twilight and her friends, managed to replace the Crystal Heart to its place and restore the powerful magic that protects the empire from all sorts of dangers, and defeated Sombra."

"So that's what we saw at the entrance to the castle..." Thomas murmured, obviously referring to the crystal heart that was spinning at the entrance.

"So, was it suspended in time elsewhere? If it returned, I assume that nothing aged," I asked, still sceptical about the 1,000 year gap.

"We still aren't quite sure. That's the best idea that Princess Celestia could come up with," Shining said.

"That's something scientists on our planet would say is IMPOSSIBLE," Thomas commented. "They would go nuts trying to get their heads round that one, especially the physicists."

I laughed quite a fair bit. I could just imagine my Standard Grade Physics teacher being told this and trying to use every physics equation known to even work out how this is possible. He went absolutely nuts one time when I wrote "Computing > Physics" on the board (after my friend dared me and offered me a fiver if I did it) while he was speaking to another pupil outside of the classroom, and reran through everything he did for five minutes to even work out how someone could have done it, because he had a view into the classroom from the door. He knew from me failing to control my laughter after he retraced his steps from the tenth time that it was me, and I got a detention. Still managed to get a B pass for my final exam, though.

I stopped laughing after about five seconds, and then added on to Thomas' statement. "I feel like a lot of the things here would probably make us be sent to a mental institution if we told people about them."

Cadence looked slightly annoyed about that comment, but Shining understood what we were talking about, as he chuckles as well. "I guess the same thing could be said about your technology. If you showed Twilight your phones and then told her that no magic exists in your world, she'd go completely bezerk as well."

"So it's probably best we hide them if we meet her?" I joked.

"Probably."

Just then, Flash Sentry opened the door to the dining hall and walked over in a hurried pace towards the Princess and Prince before bowing. "Your Highnesses, I am here to inform you that Princess Celestia and Luna have arrived and will be here in a couple of minutes."

"Thank you Sergeant, return to your post," Shining replied.

"Yes, Sir."

With that, he saluted and walked briskly back to where he'd been stationed previously. Taking another sip of whiskey, I looked at my watch. 7:34. I'm usually accustomed to having my food at around six-ish, but I've had my dinner as late as 10 one before, so I suppose it's not too bad. I can just imagine how pissed the restaurant owner is going to be at us, though. I know the guy personally, so when he finds out that we haven't arrived now... he's probably going to be angry as our bosses when we get back.

The doors opened again after a few minutes, with two large... unipegs (I still didn't know what their type was called, okay?) at the door. One was a ghost white colour and when I stood to full height, was about the same size as me, about an inch shorter than me (not including the horn on her head, which made her even taller) and had a mane that was coloured in pink, light blue and turquoise. Which also flowed in the middle of the air. How the fuck is that even possible?

The other was the exact opposite of her sister. She had a dark blue coat, with a sapphire-like mane and tail, which had white specks in them, with me assuming these were representing the stars of the night. This mane was also floating as well. Judging from the appearances, I deduced that the blue one was Luna, with the whole "Princess of the Night" theme in how she looked, and by that metric I guessed the white one was Celestia.

All three of us stood up from where we were sitting, as I remembered that you should stand when royalty enters a room from some WikiHow article. Yeah, don't ask. Battlefield Hardline was extremely boring when it was around, so I didn't play that much of it after it came out. I'm really into FPS games, but only really play them if they are really good.

Cadence got out of her seat and walked over to her aunts. "Auntie Celestia, Auntie Luna, it's good to see you both again. Thank you for coming tonight."

Celestia then replied to Cadence in a voice so sweet, it made my mum's sound like the devil in comparison. "That's not a problem, Cadence. After all, it's not often a never-seen-before species comes into Equestria." She then looked over at us for a good few seconds, almost certainly trying to take in our appearances.

She then walked over to me and extended her hoof, with a motherly smile upon her muzzle. "My name is Princess Celestia, the co-ruler of Equestria, and Princess of the Day, but you can call me Celestia if you prefer. And you are...?"

I realised that she was wanting to shake hands/hoofs, and took a light hold of her hoof. "I'm Jack Luss, but let's stick with Jack, shall we?"

I let go, and she turned to Thomas and Nathan and greeted each of them in a similar manner, while Luna did the same with me and my friends.

"Please sit, everypony," Celestia said to all of us. I assume she means us as well, so I did so, as did the other two. Celestia sat to my left, while Luna sat opposite her, next to Nathan.

"What can you tell us of your arrival, Jack?" Celestia asked, as she opened the menu.

And so I recounted the story for the third time, telling her about the incident at the bar, the race, and the portal. As I did so, I noticed her smiling in the way that she thought this rather funny, but her expression dampened upon hearing of the portal, specifically when I mentioned the fact that the portal was onyx. I mentioned the portal closing before we could react, leaving us stranded.

"I see..." she said, looking to the table again. looking back up, she asks, "This is the way that you all got here?"

Thomas replied this time. "Yes, that's correct."

She thought for a few moments, and then turned to Luna who gave a small nod, then to Cadence, who did the same, before turning back to myself.

"Would you excuse us for a moment," she said, before getting up, with Luna and Cadence doing the same. They walked a few meters, then stopped as Celestia cast a yellow shield around them and they began to discuss something, but the shield. From the rather sad expressions on their faces, and the discussion seeming to go on for quite a while, I already knew what they were talking about. I knew what was happening.

They couldn't find a way for us to return, or they didn't know how to.

I put my hands over my face and leaned forward towards the table, groaning in annoyance as I did so. Goodbye, Knockhill tickets. Goodbye everything, really.

Shining noticed this and asked if I was OK. I told him I was fine and was just really stressed over what has just transpired.

"You can tell me about anything that's bothering you," Shining said. "We're friends, at least I consider us to be."

"Thanks, Shining, but I'm honestly OK."

After another minute or so, the shield/bubble dissipates, with the Princesses walking over to the table, but not sitting down again, at least not immediately.

"Our apologies. We've discussed the issue in private and we've come to a conclusion," Luna said. They all sat back in their seats, with all of them having a rather sorrow expression on their faces. "We think we know how you got here."

"How?" Thomas asked.

"We think the portal you came through," Celestia began. "was conjured up by a powerful, dark magician. In order to reach another word, or dimension for that matter, they would require a level of magic that only highly skilled unicorns or alicorns like myself could conjure up a portal like that, and the onyx colour means that you were brought here by a magician who's power are more often than not used for the worse. We'll have to tell the Royal Institute of Magic about this, and have them check to be absolutely sure.

"However, this kind of magic has only been a theory. Most of the well regarded unicorns today have decided that such a spell was impossible. Your arrival throws all of that into doubt, however. We have no idea of how to recreate such a spell, or know anypony who could at this moment in time."

The next few words, I had already worked out for myself, but hit Thomas and Nathan like a bus.

"For the time being, you're stranded here."

I gulped, already knowing this was probably the outcome, but Thomas stopped drinking and nearly chocked upon processing this, while Nathan rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration.

"I apologise for what has happened. We will do our best to help you integrate into our society for the time being," Celestia said in a more optimistic tone.

I looked towards Nathan, who I could sense was feeling a bit annoyed at this, but had lightened up a little bit. Thomas looked the same way as Nathan did, albeit hiding his annoyance to the best of his abilities.

I turned back and looked at the princess, who was giving us a consoling smile. "Thank you, Princess."

"That's not a problem. It wouldn't be fair for us to turn our backs on you when you need help," Celestia replied. "Besides, from what Cadence has told us, some of your technology could revolutionize Equestria."

I took a sip of my whiskey. "What kind of technology do you have?"

"Canterlot University have started work on a new device they have called a computer, which they say will allow storage of data digitally, and small hoofheld devices are being sold that can calculate various mathematic problems, but we mainly use magic to solve a lot of our problems."

I thought for a few seconds. The computer sounds awfully similar to the first computers being made by IBM in the fifties, and the other thing she mentioned is essentially a calculator. "It seems our kind is a bit ahead in terms of technology, although there is no such thing as magic in our world," I commented, turning back to Celestia and Luna. "We have devices called smartphones that can do multiple different tasks."

"Yes, Cadence were telling me about those. What do they do?"

"Well, for starters," I pulled my phone out of my pocket. "It can allow you to call anyone you want anywhere in our world, so long as you know the phone number of the person you're calling, and both the users have a network connection."

"Calling?" Luna raised an eyebrow at this in confusion.

"Where did you come from to get here?" I asked.

"Canterlot, the capital city of Equestria. Why?" Luna replied.

"How long does it take you to get here from Canterlot?"

"About four hours on the train."

"You know how we're talking face to face right now?"

"Yesss...?" Luna still isn't getting what I'm trying to say.

"What if I told you that you can do that from Canterlot?" I said with a smirk on my face.

"WHAT???" Luna practically yelled.

"Yep. You can call that person, and as long as both have connection to a cellular network, then as long as the receiver of the call answers the call, you can talk to them as if they were in the same room. We don't have a cellular connection at the moment, so we can't demonstrate that."

"Wow... That is..."

"Clever?" I finished.

"That is one way of putting it."

"You can also 'text', which is a bit like sending a letter, except it's instant and you don't have to put it in an envelope. E-mailing is similar to texting but that uses email addresses rather than a phone number," I added.

"It seems you're rather knowledgeable on the matter," Celestia said.

I chuckled at this. "I have a Higher in Computing, so I should be."

"How does the actual calling work?" Luna asked.

"The best way I can explain it is that the phone converts your voice or anything else the microphone here," I explained, pointing to the microphone. "picks up into an electrical signal. This then gets converted again into radio waves which are transmitted to a telephone mast, which gets sent to artificial satellites in space which boost the signal, which has lost strength in the process, 'amplifies' it, and sends it back to Earth to whoever you happen to be talking to."

"Well, the University could always develop something like that for the rest of Equestria to maybe use if it's successful," Celestia mentions. "Can it do other things?"

"This device has thousands of functions," Nathan said. "Calculating equations, playing games, listening to music, accessing the Internet, set calendar reminders and access social media, just to name a few."

"What's the Internet?" Celestia and Luna said at the time. Not you too with this synchronising shite!

And so we had to explain what the Internet was, and what it did. They weren't overly happy with the vague answer we gave Cadence and Shining Armor earlier, so we had to go over it in more detail. As we were explaining, a waiter and waitress, both unicorns, came to the table and offered us the food we ordered earlier. They then got the orders for Princess Celestia and Luna. Celestia ordered a salad, while, surprisingly to me at least, Luna ordered roast hydra, which I'm assuming is meat. The waiter and waitress then leave. Thomas was just as surprised as I was.

"I thought ponies were herbivores?"

Luna turned to Thomas. "Not all are. In fact, most ponies can eat meat, but chose not to. They tend to get a bit squeamish about the thought of eating other animals. Some don't, however, and a griffon's diet usually requires meat."

The response that Tommy gave was, "Ah."

I continued to explain some of the sites that you could use - Facebook, YouTube, Twitter - all of that sort of thing. They were impressed with being able for you to post something online for others to see, as I pointed out that world leaders use Twitter to communicate with the people in their nation.

Soon enough, the food Princess Celestia and Luna ordered has arrived. We then proceeded eating and discussing other things that happen in both of our worlds, Celestia, Cadence and Luna discussing politics in Canterlot, particularly some noble's demands in day court, while Shining and Nathan are talking about their work as well. I looked over to Thomas, and I saw he was looking preoccupied. "You OK, Tom? You don't look so well," I asked, concerned because he was genuinely worried about something.

"I'm fine, Jack. I'm just... a bit worried," he replied, fidgeting with his fingers.

It took me a few seconds to work out what he was referring to. I put my hand onto his. "Tom, she'll be okay. Cassie will work a way around this."

"It's not that. We've only been engaged a week... and then when she finds out I've gone missing, she's gonna be upset... and if we get back, she might be mad and cancel the wedding. I don't want her to leave me..." he said, stopping after reaching this point. I know how much Cassie means to him, and he would be really upset if something happened between them.

"Cassie would understand, I'm sure," I said reassuringly. "If she did actually act like that, then I'd support you if she really felt that bad about it. She's a lot more understanding that Emily, that's for sure."

"I should hope so," he replied with a smirk on his face. "What she did was unforgiveable."

"Don't worry about it, Tom. Cassie will be fine. Hopefully, we'll be back in time for a possible marriage date."

His nerves were definitely easing up. I turned back round to everyone else and saw that nobody else had noticed this. Thankfully, it wasn't too much of a scene, so we wouldn't have to explain everything. Not that that was a bad thing right enough, but it was good for me if I didn't have to talk about HER.

We discussed a lot of things over the course of dinner, including Celestia asking about my job and why I didn't get into computer games development like I wanted to. During this time, I asked a waitress to get me a refill of whisky, although I don't ask for ice this time. After we've finished all finished our food, I decided to ask. "What happens now?"

"You can stay in the guest rooms for the time being," Cadence replied. "There's three that are relatively close to each other that are empty at the moment."

"Thanks Princess," I said. "Me and my friends will need to get stuff from out of our cars, and then we'll need to park them somewhere so they can't be damaged or stolen."

Celestia, Luna and Shining Armor were confused. "What are cars?" Luna asked.

"They're kind of like carriages that power themselves, if that makes sense," I explained. "Our cars all run on petrol, which is obtained from a substance called petroleum, by refining it into lots of different things; petrol, which is used for some car engines, diesel, which is used for other car engines, and paraffin, which is used to create candles. I don't know the availability of petroleum here, though, so I don't know what we'll do if our fuel runs out here."

Cadence thought for a moment. "There's an old bay that used to be used for chariots," she said. "I'm sure you can park them there for the time being."

"Thanks, Princess," I said happily. Hopefully we'll be able park the cars there for the time being, and maybe test drive them somewhere. Maybe they have a racetrack here that we can use to drive on... you know, do some driving for.

"These cars..." Luna began. "They don't need anypony pulling them to go somewhere?"

"Nope," I replied.

"Would it be possible for ponies to take the designs for these cars and us them as bases for their own?" Luna asked.

I pondered over this. I mean, sure, Equestria has a new mode of transport for them to use, but there are complications there that I'm not sure about - you know, what type of fuel it will run from, the whole redesigning for pony anatomy, who'll make which cars (because there is no way something is being branded Toyota here if there is eventually a way for us to go back) etc.

"I'm not quite sure," I said flatly.

"Why not?" Celestia asked.

"Well, there's a variety of problems," I began to explain. "First, us humans don't quite know what the best type of fuel is at the moment. You see, most cars use either diesel or petrol, which is sometimes called gasoline in the USA and Canada. Over the years, though, we've found that burning petrol and diesel harms the environment, so catalytic converters were invented to help combat this, but even so, they are still quite harmful when there are a lot of cars that use petrol or diesel."

Thomas continued. "Car manufacturers are now looking for the best type alternative fuel. There are two types of fuel in the running at the moment - electric cars and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, but both have their ups and downs. Electric cars are much more efficient and green than hydrogen cars at the moment, and are more readily available, but if you run down the battery down to 1/4 of its energy and recharge it - which is a painfully long time compared to hydrogen and petrol or diesel - you'll have to replace the battery every 8 years or so."

Nathan added on to this. "And hydrogen only produces water as a waste product and tend to have a larger range than most electric cars, but it's fiddly and really expensive at the moment. One example is the Toyota Mirai, which costs round about £60,000, which is way more expensive than the Ford Mondeo, VW Jetta and Vauxhall Insignia, which are petrol/diesel cars that do basically the same thing for round about the third of the price."

"Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous," I said. "But we don't know which fuel will be the best at the moment. I suppose we would just have to wait and see. Not only that, there's the whole redesigning the cars thing for pony anatomy, since you seem to sit differently to the way we do, so you probably wouldn't be able to reach the pedals."

Celestia thought about these things for a while. She eventually turns back. "I'm sure somepony will come up with something if you present the opportunity to them."

"Maybe," Thomas said, in a way that sort of meant "I'm not really sure" under the surface.

"Well, it was nice meeting you all," Celestia started, while getting up out of her seat again, as did Luna. "But I'm afraid that we must return to Canterlot. Night court for Luna starts at 9 and lasts until 11. Luna made court shorter today by starting it later, as not many come to court on a Sunday, but she needs to get back in time for it to start, and I would like to rest easy tonight."

"Thanks for coming, Aunty Celestia and Aunty Luna," Cadence said, also getting out of her seat. "It was nice speaking to you again."

"Goodbye, Cadence," Celestia said. They walked up to each other, and the rubbed the side of their muzzles together. I guessed it was affectionate, but then I've never seen anything like that before.

"Goodbye, everypony... or is it everybody as you humans would say?" Celestia laughed as we got out of our seats and bow down again. "Anyway we must be leaving now. Hopefully we'll see you all again soon." And with that, they turn to the door and walk out again. I can't help but notice that he pace was slightly more hurried than before. I looked at my watch and found the time to be 8:29. Just about half an hour to fly back to Canterlot. I grabbed my napkin and wiped my mouth to get rid of anything that was near my mouth.

"Right then," I began. "Shall we go back to the cars and park them, then get the stuff we need?"

"Yes, I'd like to see these cars that you were talking about," Cadence replied.

And with that we began to walk back to the main entrance of the castle, with Shining leading the way and Cadence, Nathan, Thomas and I following suit.