I woke up, my eyelids as wide as I could physically make them without wanting to. I was panting heavily, trying to regain a hold of myself. Seeing the ceiling, I was confused as to what the hell had just happened to me. I slowly rose my head up from where I was, and was met with the room I was sleeping in before.

Must've been a nightmare. It had to have been.

Feeling like a bit of a pillock, I grabbed my phone from the bedside cabinet and pressed the lock button. The time it was saying on the screen was 04:16. I turned over to the window, and despite me closing the curtains over earlier but leaving the window open (because I prefer to sleep in a cool room rather than a hot stuffy one), I looked at the small gap I left open, and sure enough, it was relatively dark outside.

I groaned and turned back over again, half-glad, half-annoyed. I was glad that it was just a nightmare, but I was slightly more pissed off at the subject of said dream. Of all the dreams in the world that I could have had, I just had to have that one, didn't I?

Usually, if I wake up after half three at night, then chances are I'm not going to sleep again, thus adding to my annoyance. Therefore, I decided to go on my phone and play some Dictator 2, which for me is always stress relieving - looking at the oligarchs' ridiculous demands, seeing the oligarchs cause an uprising when I say no, watching Australia try to invade Madagascar, or Tyrania as it's called in game, watching the police lose their shit for being exposed for tax fraud by me, the army peeved at me for not making a cover-up story for an accident, and the cycle continues in a similar fashion for about ten minutes or so.

Eventually, I decided enough was enough and put members of the mafia in jail before turning my phone off. I yawned and put the phone back on the bedside cabinet again, before trying the trick that usually works most of the time. Trying to stay awake.

Seriously, if you can't get to sleep, try to stay awake for as long as you can if you haven't tried it already. Reverse psychology will help you get to sleep. As I found out at my brother's music concert the hard way.

Yep, that was pretty embarrassing.

It didn't take that long for me to drift off again, with me hoping this sort of incident did not happen again.

I woke up rather groggily later on, with that feeling of "I DON'T WANNA GET OUT OF BED!" screaming in my head. With that in mind, I turned back to the bedside cabinet and had a glance at my watch. 08:04, or so it claimed the time to be. You never know, it could be completely off by a country mile.

I decided to get up and have breakfast early, because despite being in another world full of talking ponies and the possibility of not going back, it was still a Monday. I hate Mondays, as you probably do, but at least I didn't have to be at the office for 9 today, as I would normally do. So, I got out of bed, as much as I didn't want to. Going into the bathroom had a shower, put the pair of clothes I had put on yesterday back on (which weren't too bad considering I only got dressed at 1 in the afternoon), and went into the bathroom to comb my hair so it was at least somewhat presentable. As I would do every other mundane Monday morning.

I looked in the mirror before leaving again, satisfied with my appearance being acceptable for being in a castle. Walking out the door of my room and locking it again as I left with my phone, I walked down to the end of the corridor, hearing that Nathan was also up and about, while it sounded like Thomas was still in his deep sleep mode he has, if the snoring was anything to go by. I looked at my watch, and saw the time now was 8:15. Lazy bastard. And he always seems to work on the other side of Glasgow!

Heading back down the stairs, I then realised that I was going to be lost again. I didn't know the way to the dining hall from where we were, so I'd have to ask for directions. Normally, I can work my round this type of situation, but this place was huge, and it didn't exactly help that all of the corridors looked the same, at least to me. Luckily, I saw a maid who was walking down the corridor.

"Excuse me," I called out as I walked over to the maid. She turned and faced me and was a bit startled of me - probably to do with my height. "How do I get to the dining hall from here?"

She looked at me with an open mouth, but she got back to her senses and managed to get a response out. "Uhhh... it's that... way, sir," she stammered, pointing her hoof towards the door. She then told me that I needed to walk down the stairs, take a left and walk until I saw two sets of doors. I then remembered where to go from there.

"Thanks for the help," I said, before turning and following the directions which she had given to me. Looking around the place, I still can't quite believe that this place is made from crystals. As I walked down the corridors, I noticed a few ponies, most of whom were maids, a few being guards, had noticed me. And were a bit startled at the sight of me. I took no notice of them, as they weren't being hostile in any way.

Eventually, I reached the door to the dining hall and opened the door. Looking in, I scanned the hall to see if there was any sign of Cadence or Shining Armor, and sure enough, both of them were sitting at one of the tables, eating their breakfast. They saw me and Cadence waved me over to where they were sitting. As I walked over, I saw what they were having. Shining was eating a bowl of cereal, while Cadence was having pancakes.

"Morning," I said to both of them.

"Good Morning, Jack," Cadence replied. "Did you sleep well last night?"

"Yes I did," I replied. "That bed was really comfy, better than the ones we used in the hotel we were staying in at Toronto. It was a five-star, so it wisnae exactly cheap for a week either."

Cadence giggled. "It's expected given we're in a castle."

"Yeah, I know," I replied. "I've never actually been in a castle before though."

"Did you sleep alright?" I asked.

"I slept OK, helps when not many people come to court on a Sunday. It would have been better if this one," Cadence answered, pointing at Shining and glaring at him. "...wasn't moving every two seconds while I'm trying to sleep."

Shining huffed, then looked at her with the sort of look someone would give you if you just stole the last chocolate bar. "I slept like a log last night."

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did!"

This was looking like an argument that would last forever, so I got up out of my seat and went over to the table that had the bread and took two slices, while also grabbling a slice of cheese and buttering the two slices of bread to make a cheese sandwich, I wasn't feeling hungry at that point so it didn't really matter. I walked back over to the table and sat down again just as the argument had come to a close.

Cadence laughed. "No, you didn't, Shiny. You were constantly tossing and turning and you fell out of the bed at three in the morning!"

Shining opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again when Cadence raised her eyebrow at him. This sort of thing happened to me once, so I knew how he felt. I fell out of the bed once while Emily and I were still together, and she never let me hear the end of it after that.

Cadence turned back to me. "So, any sign of the others?"

"Nope," I replied. "Coupsie's still snoring like the lazy bam pot that he is, and I think Nathan was up, but still in his room."

And like clockwork, Nathan opened the door to the hall and walked over to where we were sitting. "Mornin', folks."

"Mornin', Nathan," I responded. "Coupsie still sleeping?"

"Probably."

We ate our breakfasts, with Nathan getting some cereal. We found out the cereal was called Celesti-O's, and laughed over how similar to Cheerio's they were. After that, we talked about a variety of things, somehow going on one of the largest tangents ever, going from talking about Twilight and her friends to when the next season of Formula One and Formula E would start.

Yeah, don't ask.

Eventually, Cadence had to leave to go to court. It seemed like there were going to be a lot of petitioners today. Shining didn't though, so he said he'd go with us since he had nothing better to do at the moment. When we finished our breakfasts, Shining said he'd give us a tour of the castle. At this point, Thomas walked into the room, at ten past nine and sat down. He had a cheese sandwich, like myself, only for some reason he put three slices of cheese in his sandwich.

If he ends up feeling sick I'm not feeling sorry for him.

After Thomas had finished, Shining led us on our tour of the castle, which was helpful for me, so at least I could find my way around the place. This tour lasted for an hour and a half, showing us, amongst other places, the recreation room, the throne room, and even took us onto the balcony that was used often to make announcements. Looking down, I saw a crystal stature of what looked like a dragon.

"Shining," I turned to him. "Is that statue there that Spike the dragon you were talking about at dinner last night?"

He turned over to me and saw what I was looking at. "Yep, that's him alright. He was responsible for saving the Empire when Sombra returned. They viewed him as a hero for doing so, so they built a statue of him. Cadence said he was quite pleased when he saw it for the first time. And then he goes and saves the Equestria Games by burning an ice cloud that nearly hit the stadiums with his fire breath."

I looked at the statue again. "And he's only a baby dragon?"

"Yep."

"We'd better not get on his bad side, then," Thomas joked. I laughed because if he'd managed to do that while he was only a baby dragon, what would he be like as an adult? Maybe it could be a bit like King Kong in that final stand in New York. Wait, who am I kidding? He's the assistant of Twilight, who was a princess. I'm pretty sure she'd get him under control.

Wouldn't she?

After that we still had a few hours to kill, so I decided to go back to my room and get my laptop from my room along with the travel set for the DVDs. I came back out with it to see Shining's confused face.

"What's that?" He asked me.

"It's my laptop. It's kind of like the phones we have, but it's more powerful and not as compact."

We headed to the rec room, with me explaining that if it was ok, I would put a film on for us to watch, which would take us to half one. Shining said that would be ok, and the others agreed. When we got in to said room, there was nobody else there, so we went over to the seating area and sat down comfortably while I set everything up.

"Not exactly your home cinema," I commented. "But good enough." I then put the disk of the film into the disk drive and waited until it recognised the disk, which is a right pain in the arse for me. After everything was done, I sat onto the seat again and the film started.

The film in question was Rush.

Shining liked the film. A lot. He liked the show of rivalry between Lauda and Hunt and their difference in personalities, with the former being more uptight and wanting everything to be perfect, but being an excellent driver, while Hunt was a more relaxed, or chilled, man, but Hunt and McLaren having trouble keeping up with Lauda and Ferrari. I pointed out that the Lauda-Hunt rivalry was slightly exaggerated for the film, and they were good friends in real life.

After the end, it was slightly after half one, so we decide to go get some late lunch. Nathan and I ordered penne with chicken, while Thomas ordered a grilled cheese sandwich, with Shining having a salad.

"Going back to Formula One," Shining said turning to us. "Is it a popular sport?"

"Yes, it's quite popular," I replied. "It's taken a bit of a slump over the last few years, not as many people seem to be watching it on TV."

"Aye, but that could be down to online streaming, though," Thomas pointed out.

"Yeah, but to me, something feels slower about the races. The engines are smaller and they don't look like they're being driven as hard anymore. Plus, Formula E is getting more popular."

"Who's the best F1 driver?" Shining asked.

"What, now or ever?" Thomas asked.

"Ever."

"Michael Schumacher." Thomas quickly answered.

"Ahem." Nathan cleared his throat in a way that says "That's where you're wrong".

Thomas turned to Nathan. "What?"

"Err... Ayrton Senna?"

"Yes, what about him?"

"The greatest F1 driver? He didn't have Schumacher's flappy paddle gearbox, and he was killed after only racing in F1 for ten years, but he still won the world championship 3 times, and he would have won more!"

"I will agree that Senna was a good driver, but Schumacher won more championships, the numbers don't lie."

"Jim Clark was an underrated driver," I pointed out. "He may have only won two championships, but he only raced for eight years, and had he not have been killed at Hockenhiemring, he would have won the 1968 season and probably many more."

"Jim Clark was really good," Nathan agreed. "You know you're good when you start eighth and go to first, and lap everybody besides 2nd place, and finish almost five minutes ahead of the next guy. And he's Scottish as well."

"Seems like quite a bit of rivalry," Shining commented.

"Yeah, all motorsport is really competitive. F1 is probably the greatest example, although the World Touring Car Championship, NASCAR, World Rally Championship and Le Mans are all good examples as well."

"The most competitive sport in the UK is football though, by a country mile," Nathan said.

"Football?" Shining asked, with his eyebrow raised. "Is this like hoofball?"

"What's hoofball?"

"They have a ball at the centre and they have to run/pass the ball to other players with their hooves, Pegasi using their wings is disallowed, and Unicorns are not allowed to use their magic, either."

"That kind of sounds like football."

"It's not as big here," Shining pointed out. "I like the sport, but it really only gets played by Earth ponies. Come to think of it, Twilight said Spike had gone to a game with Big McIntosh recently. Happy with the results, I think."

"Well at least it's not like that American football, which is really similar to rugby," Thomas commented.

"Rugby is better, hands down," I said.

"Agreed," Thomas and Nathan replied at the same time. I'm not annoyed this time, though.

"I think this motorsport would be really interesting for Equestria to watch," Shining said. "After watching that film, I'm impressed, but also kind of surprised nothing of the kind has really happened in Equestria before."

"If someone figures out the solutions to the problems so you don't fall into the same sort of problems we have, I don't see why not," I commented.

We sat and discussed some more, more about the sports in Equestria and what Equestria had accomplished in the last one hundred years or so, so we had a rough idea of where they were compared to Earth. I'd put them in the late 60's in terms of technology wise, as they had very basic computers that weren't all that powerful compared to ours, free healthcare that was equivalent to our knowledge (minus the computers, obviously) and sciences were not as widely practiced at schools as magic was. It was usually Earth ponies that would do the STEM fields, although sometimes Pegasi are involved as well, with unicorns mainly sticking to magic.

Cadence joined us a little while into this conversation. She was on lunch break for half an hour and seeing we're already here, she sat with us. We then told them both some of the things mankind had done over the last 100 years, including the Moon landings, Concorde, sending probes into space, GPS and Sat-Nav, nuclear power and how we managed to split the atom, the International Space Station, amongst other things.

Needless to say, they were impressed. They were also slightly disappointed at ponies for the lack of progress that they have seen, the computer project in Canterlot started three years ago, and the STEM fields were not large enough to handle these projects, and agreed there needed more power to be put into these projects to achieve the things we have done over the past one hundred years.

Shortly afterward, a guard game into the dining hall. "Your Highnesses, I am here to inform you that Princess Twilight and the Elements have arrived at the station and are on their way to the castle."

"Thank you, Corporal," Cadence said. "You may return to your post."

He saluted and walked out again. Cadence got up out her seat again. "Well, I better get back to court. Sorry I couldn't stay any longer."

"That's alright, Cadey," Shining said. Cadence and Shining then shared a quick kiss. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Tom wincing in discomfort. I seemed to be the only one that noticed this, but I understood why. I would be feeling the same way as him if I was in his shoes.

Cadence then waved goodbye and then left to go back to court. Shining got out of his seat as well. "Well, I think we should go outside and meet them there. No doubt Twilight will be excited to meet you."

"Well in that case, let's go," Thomas said. And so we left the dining hall, with most of us finished our food. Except for Nathan, who took his grilled cheese sandwich with him. Because he still wasn't finished after twenty minutes.

I mean, honestly, how long should it take to finish a fucking cheese sandwich? I'd understand if it was two, AT A PUSH, but not finishing one in twenty minutes?

Besides Thomas and I commenting on the time it took him to finish his sandwich, which we said was so long he'd probably be able to find Edinburgh Castle sooner, we walked down the stairs and back out to the entrances and meet this Princess Twilight and her friends. Hopefully we'd get along with them too.

We'd never thought we'd meet members of an aerobatic team as a result.

Author's Notes:

BUGGER! I'm late!

Enjoy :p