It’s not easy to live life one day at a time in Minnesota. I can speak for everyone I think when I say there is nothing less friendly than a Minnesota winter. Living in this Minnesota winter, I do have a job and a place to call my own, but that’s all I can say for myself. The old oak beams of this house like to creak in the wind, and no fire in that big fireplace that would ever warm the chill of a lonely life. People like to joke that my parents were the ones who moved out, but really that’s just what they did. Miranda, my sister, moved out first on her own, but when my parents decided to jump ship to New Hampshire, they left the house to me to take care of, because I was the only one left willing to live here.

Working a pointless job in a pointless city, waiting for something... for someone who would never come. I never understood how other guys found their girlfriends, soon to be their wives. From the stories they told me, it was always something like they just accidentally fell together by circumstance, and hit it off well, without anything going terribly wrong or anybody else getting in the way. Why did that never happen to me? I guessed it was just a matter of time until the right girl came along, so I waited, and waited... and waited.

It’s my own fault, I suppose. With most of my paycheck going to paying for the house, it was hard enough to feed myself from day to day, I didn’t really have time or energy for much of a social life, and really I think it was just that I was stuck in a rut. More like I was born in a rut. From a boring childhood to a mediocre education, to a career path that was like the impossible staircase: always sloping down. People don’t usually work at convenience stores for any reason other than to move on to something better, but I just didn’t have anything better to do.

It was into this dead end of a life that she came. Perhaps I was destined to meet the girl of my dreams after all. Accidentally falling together by circumstance, after all this time I finally found her, and she was everything I could have possibly wanted in a girl. I just never anticipated that she would not be human.

It was inevitable, in hindsight. My Little Pony had come into its own, with its fourth cartoon series a heartwarming animation that never failed to captivate me, even in its childish morals. Watching the adventures of Twilight and her friends was exquisite torture, with the cold flurries blowing outside, nothing to look forward to tomorrow but drive to work, work, drive home. My TV was like a window to a beautiful, colorful world, full of friendship and joy. It was as if I was held prisoner, watching the ponies outside from the tiny window of my cold little cell.

I don’t much like prison cells.

It was intoxicating to imagine that the ponies would be real, but I knew they were not. I knew so many things back then, facts and figures, equations and science. My whole life was easily, dreadfully predictable. Just keep doing the same thing over and over again, until something fails, and you die. Do this, I told myself, because anything else you try to do will only make things worse.

Perhaps I could have risen out of that. Perhaps I could have gone sky diving or some other sort of inane activity that accomplishes little and only leaves me older and less wise. Perhaps I could have stopped feeling this way on my own, lived a good life, and still died yearning. But instead, a pony came into my life.

When I feel like walking... a Minnesota winter isn’t the best place to go walking, actually. Sometimes the wanderlust gets to be too much though, sitting inside day after day, and so one day, with no customers to deal with for the rest of the weekend and nothing to look forward to besides 2 more days of loneliness, I walk into a snowstorm.

I’m well prepared for the cold. I bundle up in my sweater and thick socks, and thin socks, underclothes, pants, snow pants, thick mittens, a cap underneath my hood, and a woolen scarf that almost completely covers my face. I hardly look human stomping around in that harsh wind, with a million unique, special snowflakes shattering and clumping all over my body, stinging my cheeks. And yet... it doesn’t hurt as much to walk outside alone, as it does to sit alone in that house of mine.

It was a nice house for what we paid to keep it, with a big fireplace, good insulation... did I mention the Minnesota winter? I always had a dim attitude towards the cold. It’s what I grew up in, but I felt like it would have been nice if I could have a break now and again. Nobody talks about a Minnesota summer because you hardly notice it, before the chill northern winds have returned. Why can’t I have a life where the sun shines on my face in the morning?

The house I live in is off in a cul-de-sac community, with untamed wilderness right outside our backyard. It was nice to have that. You could wander through those winding deer trails when the snow stopped falling. It was less nice to have that, when thorny blackberry vines try to eat your lawn every. Single. Summer. But one day, in the frigid wind of a snowstorm that has been cut into howling ribbons by the specters of a forest of sleeping trees, I walk.

In the cartoon show, the unicorns had arcane powers, but the pegasi were the ones with control over the weather. Pegasi being the incorrect latin plural for Pegasus, which itself is a single pony’s proper name, and not the name of that type of winged pony overall. But pegasi they were, and as I tromped through that snowstorm, I found myself wishing for them to be here, to tame this wild weather, and give us some sunny days once and a while. I don’t expect to meet anyone, much less anyone I share anything in common with, but it so happens that I’m not the only one in this storm today, wishing for precisely the same thing.

If she hadn’t fallen, I would have never approached her. My stride freezes, at a crashing crunching ahead of me, something fighting its way through the snow, wind, and ice streaked underbrush. A dark shadow emerges from the storm far in front of me, what I thought was a deer. I don’t think it sees me, but I’m afraid to move, to scare it off, as it stands there so quietly and serenely, before collapsing, toppling over to land in the powdery snow with a thump. It has to be dead, a thousand times dead, I tell myself. If an animal were caught out in this storm, driven from their thickets by hunger and fear, they would never get up again, once they had fallen.

Yet I still approach, hesitantly, carefully, curiously. I just want to confirm that it is a deer, nothing more than that. I just want to know what kind of a frozen corpse I was going to find out on the trail tomorrow morning. It’s a good way to get bitten, kicked, and bruised, for your efforts to approach a dying animal, but I suppose I’ve never been able to put Fluttershy out of my mind. A kind, caring soul, the “friend to the animals” of the show, Fluttershy would have wanted to see what it was, to take the poor thing back to her cottage and nurse it back to health. In a crazy, undying hope, I do what she would do, as if that would bring my fantasy to life.

What I find is no deer. I approach closer, then closer still. Her body lies still, slowly being buried in drifting snow. If I hadn’t seen her fall... but I did. I do. And all the dull certainty in my life has just become null and void. What I see fallen in the snow is not a deer at all. I see a strange creature lying there, whose dense purple fur could have kept her warm in many places, but not here, not now.

Her large eyes have slipped closed, as her hold on life fades away and she falls into the final sleep. A deep purple mane cascades forgotten down her neck, with its characteristic pink stripes, parting around the fluted horn in her forehead. Almost invisible under the rapidly accumulating snow over her thighs are five white stars surrounding a larger one in pink. I don’t even have to see the mark to recognize her though. I know exactly who this is. This is Twilight Sparkle.

Final sleeps be damned, I defile her fresh corpse in the eyes of some, but in the eyes of others I save her life. Reaching my hands down, I lift her limp body from the snow. I have to carefully hook my hands underneath the unicorn to get a grip on her, as encumbered as I am by winter wear. She feels so light in my arms, smaller than I expected. Her legs are awkward and tipped in stiff hooves, but I manage to sling her over my shoulder. I can’t get a response from her, can’t even tell if she’s still breathing, but I know one thing I can do.

I run.

The wind hits me like a wall as I leave the tree line, and make my way down the abruptly suburban sidewalk invisible under the snow, save for the evidence of snow plows on the street earlier. Pressing forward with a frightened determination, I make my way to my house and open the door, releasing a blast of heat. The fireplace still has embers in it, and the heat pump is clearly working in spades, but I let the money pour out my front door today, because the last thing I want to do is kill her from warming up too fast.

Thanks to a Minnesota health class, I knew that if you warm up too fast, your blood vessels all dilate at once, your blood pressure tanks, and your heart stops. Warming too fast can be more deadly than the cold itself, and just when you thought you had saved them, they die in your foolish arms. Even the thought of doing that to an incredible, impossible creature like this, my favorite pony Twilight Sparkle, fills me with fear.

Sitting there in the doorway, while the storm rages in front of me, I look down at this miracle cradled in my arms. My snow jacket looks ridiculously puffy against her slim form, those delicate, hooved arms now curled and unconsciously limp against my chest. It would be unimaginably cruel if she wasn’t... her chest rises and falls, almost imperceptibly. She’s... alive. Twilight Sparkle is alive!

I can’t comprehend the magnitude of my own relief, as I cradle this living, breathing pony, waiting for the temperature to equalize. Once I finally decide it’s safe to do so, my heavy wooden front door shuts out the storm. Warmth fills in around us, as the sound of the storm dies to a whisper of a rushing wind beyond the walls, and a creaking in the oaken beams. I feel... not just joy, but worry. What does this mean? Is my entire life a lie? Why is my entire life a lie? Why is Twilight Sparkle wandering around behind my house? And what do I do for her?

As gently as I can, I lay the unicorn mare to the floor, and stand up, tearing off my mittens and using my thick, but capable fingers to unbutton my coat. She’s not shivering, a very bad sign, but can I risk taking her to a hospital? Would they even be able to do anything for her? No, they would never save her, only experiment on her and deliver her to the autopsy table for further defilement.

What I do instead is take off my coat, shaking it mightily to get the snow off it, and then lay it on top of her. That coat alone is capable of covering all but the tips of Twilight Sparkle’s hooves and tail. Leaving her lying there cold and alone on the floor, I hurry into the bathroom, where I start drawing a bath of lukewarm water, just enough to feel on my hand. I don’t know if that’s the right temperature, but it’s all I have. I don’t know CPR or have any idea how to do CPR to a... a magical pony.

Am I hallucinating? Did I just carry a frozen deer inside, thinking it was bright purple in color? Nothing I can do about it now, but.... With the water still running, I return to the front door, where my coat still lies forlorn on the ground. With some trepidation, I pull it aside, and underneath it is a slim, purple unicorn. Oh thank goodness. It’s not a deer after all. Either that or I’m still completely insane.

It’s easier to carry Twilight with my hands free of mittens. It feels strange, holding this icon of virtue in simple, human hands. She’s... smoothly fuzzy, like holding a giant, gangly rabbit. Not very warm at all though. I lower her into the water carefully, watching her face for any sign of pain. She’s starting to shiver at least, so I think that’s a good sign. I have never actually brought someone back from hypothermic collapse before, or ever brought someone into my house who wasn’t my sister, or my friend Nick... or ever placed someone into my bathtub... naked.

No, no, no she’s not human I am not going to think of her in that way. I am a scholar and a gentleman and I’m not even going to take a peek, even though it’s right freaking there with Twilight laying on her back in the water, legs splayed limply apart. Yes, I’m just going to be adjusting her hips to angle more downward now. Okay crisis averted.

I don’t know how Twilight’s here, or what she’s doing, but... I shut off the water with her immersed in it up to her neck, supporting her head while the little unicorn comes back to life. I must have forgotten the explosives strapped to my chest, because when she murmurs and opens vivid, glimmering violet eyes like amethyst gems, it feels like my heart is exploding. Those beautiful eyes crack open, just enough to see me.

Her silence speaks volumes.

“You’re safe now, it’s okay,” I tell her, not knowing if she’ll understand me, but speaking in soothing tones nonetheless. I release her chin and sit up straight, now that she’s awake and conscious. My back is sore and kinked from staying in that odd position for however many minutes it was.

“You saved me...” her quiet voice whispers out, as if she were amazed that such a thing would ever occur.

“I don’t know what humans you’ve encountered in the past,” I tell her gravely, “But I will never do anything to hurt you.”

“All... alright,” she says looking disoriented. “Where...?” she asks, looking around.

“I took you to my house,” I tell her, “You were freezing out there in the storm. Do you know... you’re in a different world, now?”

“Oh is that... what happened?” she asks, her lithe form shifting slightly as sensation returns beneath the tub’s lukewarm waters, “Need to find way back to... my friends...” she says sleepily.

“We should get you dry first,” I tell her, “You were getting really cold out there. I’ll go warm up the fire.”

After I’ve wrapped her in a warm blanket so she can sit shivering in front of a roaring fire, Twilight says softly but gracefully, “Thank you so much for taking me into your home. I don’t know what happened. One minute I was testing out an experimental teleportation spell, the next minute... snowstorm.”

“You must’ve teleported into my world!” I tell her, folding my own long legs to sit next to her, “Maybe if you cast the same spell again, you can go home!”

Twilight shakes her purple maned head at that, saying sadly, “It’s a lot more complicated than just throwing it in reverse. I just don’t know what went wrong exactly. I have to find out, experiment on a smaller scale, try to collect information about your world that may help, and try to contact my friends.”

“That sounds like a checklist to me!” I point out brightly.

“It does indeed!” Twilight says equally cheerfully, not otherwise moving her weary form, “And if there’s one thing I love, it’s checklists!”

Twilight doesn’t exactly look like she’s ripped straight out of the show. Her fur has texture, and she’s not two dimensional. In particular, her mane falls to the left of her neck, even when facing her right side. Though I suppose she could just flip it from one side of her neck to the other. She still has the striking pink stripe in her very dark purple mane, and her cutie mark is that unmistakable star. Her tail isn’t a flat blade, more of the shape of a long, flat paintbrush, and her mane is rough and dissheveled, rather than a perfectly combed bowl cut. Sensible, considering she was just out in a snowstorm.

I think the biggest difference is her voice. Twilight sounds... sort of like Tara Strong, but her voice is higher, a little sweeter, and she has an odd accent at times... she pronounces ‘s’ more like ‘z’ for instance. I can’t really put my finger on exactly what it is. Twilight’s Russian voice actor?

Twilight is still exhausted from her ordeal in the snow. She speaks with me for a while, but it isn’t long before her ears are drooping and her shoulders sagging. “Sorry, I’m... I’m still a bit tired...” she says bashfully, leaning against me with uncharacteristic weariness.

“No problem, Twilight!” I reply to her, catching her before she falls over, “Just um...” but she’s already asleep. Even sitting down, she barely comes up to my shoulder. Twilight does not have her wings yet it seems, but in a way, that makes her all the more adorable, and vulnerable. Just a vulnerable little purple unicorn, asleep in my arms.

As I hold Twilight Sparkle to my chest, I gaze into the dying fire in the fireplace, trying to divine its mysteries. What mysteries would have put an ordinary guy like me right here, right now, leaning together with a little purple unicorn, who sleeps the night away? My back starts to ache, but I endure it, because I just can’t bear to wake her. Eventually I start to drift off too, and when I wake up, slumped against the couch, a blanket has been placed over me, and Twilight is gone.

That’s when I hear her hoofsteps clopping on the wooden floor in the other room. Rising and following after, I’m treated to an amazing scene. She seems almost guilty when I come into the room and see her levitating things with her magic. “I–I–I’m sorry if I startled you!” she stutters, dropping the pen and paper and sliding the books back on the shelves.

“Sorry, it’s just... the first time seeing your magic!” I say in astonishment, “Can you cast real spells, and even teleport?”

“How d’you think I got here?” she asks with a smirk.

I stutter at that, “O-oh right, teleportation accident.”

“It’s n-no big deal, unicorns do this all the time,” Twilight says with an awkward smile, levitating a book as if to demonstrate. “I just couldn’t help but notice that you had some books in this room and wanted to check them out. This wouldn’t count as one of your world’s libraries, would it?”

I laugh at that, caught off guard, and say, “No, this is just my personal collection. You’re free to look through any of it if you like.”

“Thank you very much!” she says with a bright smile, “I don’t suppose I could visit one of your human libraries? I bet they have lots more books in there!”

Any doubt that it’s Twilight Sparkle is washed away when the first thing she asks of me is if she could visit the local library. Not even asking for food, but for books. I feel terrible telling her, “I’m afraid not. People aren’t exactly used to seeing ponies around here.”

“Oh, right hehe,” she replies with a blush, “You’ll have to excuse me being a little clueless about your world.”

“No problem,” I say agreeably, “Ask me anything and I’ll be happy to clarify.”

Perhaps that was a mistake.

I try to answer her barrage of questions, but they quickly go into mathematical stuff I have no clue about. “I can probably get a book on that,” I tell her regarding eigen...somethings, “But you’ll have to wait, unless you want to try the Internet.”

“What’s the Internet?” she asks with a look of innocent worry on her face.

“Oh, you are in for a treat,” I gush proudly, “Come on, let me show you what a computer is!”

She starts to follow, but then Twilight’s stomach growls loudly. Then my stomach growls loudly.

“Maybe we should eat something first, eheh...” she says with a cute little raised hoof.

“What do you want for breakfast?” I ask once we’re in the kitchen, going through my cabinet, “Not meat, I assume?”

“Oh, cereal is fine,” the little unicorn tells me, rubbing tiredly at her eye with the crook of her fuzzy arm, “Do you have any Hay Me Ohs?”

“I don’t have any hay, but will oatmeal work?” I ask her, getting a smile and a nod in response.

Opening the fridge, I wince at the sight of some beef stroganoff I got from the Italian place downtown. That and the salami, some chicken wings and what’s left of the ham stand out pretty starkly in my most certainly not vegetarian refrigerator. The milk will probably be safe though, so I grab the bottle out of the fridge, and pour Twilight Sparkle a bowl of toasted oats and milk.

She levitates a spoon to eat. Her magic is just like on the show. It surrounds her horn, and the spoon in sparkling, purple light before lifting the spoon up into the air, and depositing another spoonful of cereal in her mouth. Twilight eats ravenously, devouring what’s in the bowl, and floating it up to drink the milk inside. Setting it down with a clunk, the purple unicorn blushes and says, “Heh... could I have some more, please?”

I’m all too happy to oblige. “You sure eat a lot for a little pony,” I remark as she nears her second bowl of cereal.

“Oh, this is highly uncharacteristic,” she replies through a mouthful of cereal, “That storm really took a lot out of me.”

“I’ll say,” I tell her, “I was worried I’d have to take you to the hospital!”

Swallowing, Twilight gives me a wary look across the table, saying, “You didn’t take me to the hospital, did you?” With an abashed smile, she adds, “I’d hate to raise a fuss.”

“No I didn’t, don’t worry,” I tell her, “A pony like you appearing in our world is beyond incredible! People might... humans might fear you, or even try to hurt you! Not everyone is a nice guy like me. You probably don’t wanna be seen by too many people, or the government might try to capture you and experiment on you.”

“Oh no!” Twilight said in distress, “Are your kind really all that bad?”

“No, it’s just I’d like if you could let me deal with any humans you want to interact with,” I tell her with an appeasing smile, “Once we let the cat out of the bag, well, have you ever tried to put a cat into a bag?”

“Say no more,” Twilight says with a sympathetic smile, “I’m just sorry to have put such a burden on you, dropping in on you like this.”

“Oh, it’s no problem at all,” I tell her earnestly, “It’s an honor to be able to help you, or even meet you!”

“Really?” Twilight asks in surprise, “What’s so special about meeting me?”

“Twilight, I think there’s something I need to show you,” I calmly tell the purple unicorn, leaving her with the mystery of it until I’ve led Twilight Sparkle back to the room where my computer is.

“So... what’s this?” she asks, staring at the screen as it boots up and tilting her head, “Some sort of picture box?”

“It’s a computer,” I tell her, swiping the mouse to awaken it, “It can perform simple tasks, like decoding electrical signals, or doing mathematical calculations. One of the things it can do is show pictures, on this ‘picture box.’ The actual computer is down here, with various things connected so that we can control and configure it.”

“Fascinating!” she says, looking at the monitor, “So, what does it do now?”

“Well, let me show youuuu...” I say, trailing off as I remember that my desktop background is one of Twilight Sparkle posing... in a very sultry manner. I hastily open the file manager, covering that image up and stammer, “T-t-the computer is divided into files and... each file can be a picture or a movie...

“You know what a movie is, right?” I ask hopefully, pulling up the “ponies” folder.

“A moving picture?” she prompts uncertainly, as I immediately panic on seeing the subfolder labeled ‘porn’. Twilight continues to speak, staring fascinated at the screen as she says, “Technically a sequence of still images that produces the illusion of moving by cycling through them too rapidly for the eye to see?”

“Yes, that’s exactly it,” I reply tensely, right-clicking the ‘porn’ folder and renaming it to some random letters.

“What’s that?” Twilight asks curiously, at last looking at the folder. Just for good measure, I go to the folder options and select “hidden.”

“Oh, just some old stuff I was meaning to delete,” I say as the folder vanishes from sight. Trying to distract her, I say, “These files are organized into ‘folders’ that are collections of files.”

“Fascinating!” Twilight says, “Can some of these files be folders, too?”

“Yes indeed!” I tell her brightly, “And so folders can contain folders. But the files are what’s most important.”

“What are these... ‘files’? Twilight says, watching me select folders going to the one marked episodes then season 1. “They have different pictures, unlike the folders,” she observes.

I think I can show Twilight the show. I probably don’t want to show her season 3 and beyond because she’s not yet a princess, and it might be dangerous to see into her future. Season 1 should be safe, maybe even season 2.

“Each file is a sequence of data,” I explain, “That can be decoded into pictures, movies, even cartoons. Do you have cartoon movies in your world?”

“Cartoon?” Twilight asks curiously, “It doesn’t ring a bell.”

“When the pictures in the sequence of pictures are drawn images,” I tell her, “Instead of a sequence of photographs, they call that a cartoon”

“Sequences of drawings?” she replies in confusion, “How would a random sequence of drawings provide the illusion of movement?”

“They’re not random,” I explain, “They’re drawn as if they were a sequence of photographs, but since they’re drawings, you aren’t limited to movies of things you can photograph.”

“That’s... interesting,” she says skeptically, “Seems like a lot of work. You do realize how many frames per second is needed for smooth animation, right?”

“It is a lot of work,” I nod sadly, “But there are some things for which we have no other choice. Now, what I’m going to show you may be shocking, but I can promise you that these were just drawings, one frame after another drawn by hand purely from the artist’s imagination. An artist who had never seen you before, and never known you at all. Everything depicted here is fictional, just a story someone made up out of the blue. That’s why your presence in our world is so incredible, because of this cartoon. Check it out.” I hit play.

Twilight Sparkle perches her forehooves on my computer desk watches silently through the story of the two sisters. Predictably, when Twilight’s story begins, the Twilight in my world exclaims, “Is that me? “ She looks at me in worried confusion, saying, “I thought you said these were fictional!”

“They were!” I crow excitedly, “Nobody’s ever seen or heard of you in the entire world. They just wanted to do a story about ponies, and made up a random character, who was a little purple unicorn living in Canterlot.”

“Lilac,” Twilight mutters.

“What?”

She shakes her head, waving a hoof, “Nothing, just keep playing this. I want to see how much it matches up with my reality in Equestria.”

“Well alright,” I say wryly, “But considering who you are, I think you’re in for a trip down memory lane.”

“Even if I have seen it before,” Twilight says totally missing the joke, “It’s fascinating to see a new perspective on it. Literally, in my case! Wait, was that Lyra?”

We spend over half a day watching the entirety of season 1, pausing only to stop for a quick meal of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. “That was incredible!” Twilight says in excitement, getting right up to the computer screen. “Just like I remembered it!” She smiles at me with genuine gratitude, saying, “Thank you so much. Could I have a copy of these once I figure out a way to return home?”

“I suppose something could be arranged,” I tell her noncomittally, “But you might have trouble reading the magnetic disks. Plus I don’t want to endanger your world with our technology or anything.”

“Yes, taking things from other universes is usually a bad idea...” Twilight grumbles unhappily. But she respects my wishes and obeys, reluctantly, like she does with so many new things in her life.

The days I spend with Twilight Sparkle are some of the best days of my life. It’s just so heartwarming seeing her learn about the world all over again. She’s such a smart pony, but she knows so little. She needs me to show her how to use the television set, and grills me excitedly on how it works. The use of a ball point to deliver ink on paper is something world changing for her, while to me it’s just a fact of life.

It’s pure bliss seeing her dance around in the snow outside, a new mare from the frozen, exhausted animal that I found lost in the snowstorm. With my winter coat and hat on, and hands in my pockets, I walk through the woods we here in as she prances around without a care in the world, needing only an old scarf of mine to keep herself warm.

“Ponies are very well adapted to the cold,” she tells me in that cute intellectual voice of hers, “We’re something of a phenomenon back home. Even gryphons wonder how we survive so well without winter wear. Let me tell you I have trouble explaining that! To me it’s just natural. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to need clothing, such that you freeze to death if you have no clothing to protect you. Well, I suppose my last accident was sort of precisely that, but I still hadn’t even thought of clothes at the time, whereas you would had mere minutes to survive without any clothing in subzero...”

She chatters on like that, and I listen with amusement, accepting her for who she is. It’s definitely something the show got right. Twilight Sparkle loves her lectures. Twilight uses her magic too, for many things. Levitating silverware and ball point pens, reorganizing my books all at once, a snowball fight that I lost badly. Magic is just natural to her. At one point she says, “Is it alright if I use a spell on you really quick?”

“What spell is it?” I ask skeptically, “Not Want it Need it?”

“No that—” Twilight huffs, scrunching up her muzzle, “That can only be cast on inanimate objects, and I learned my lesson there, twice! I’m just talking about a simple scanning—er—spell.” She blushes, looking up at me with admiration, “I’m just so fascinated by how you—I mean—how your species works. How you get enough air in your lungs when running around, how your heart pumps all that blood so high. You are a...” she lifts a hoof, looking away and stammering, “Y-your species is a fascinating one, like nothing else on your planet. Even ponies are similar to donkeys or zebras in my world, but your closest relatives don’t even walk on two legs!”

“It’s alright, it’s alright Twilight,” I laugh, hands upraised in surrender. “As long as it doesn’t do anything weird, I’m fine with it.”

It tingles when she casts it, sweeping a pink magical beam back and forth across my body, but that’s about it. I suppose it could have given me tumors or something, but something tells me that cute little unicorn couldn’t cast something harmful even if she tried. She comes from a world where the worst that anypony did to hurt each other was throwing pies. She doesn’t understand how cruel the real world can be, but I’m happy to be there to protect her from it, try to preserve her innocence as long as I can.

Twilight is worried when I have to leave her, but I assure her that everything will be fine. “I’m just going to work,” I tell the anxious purple unicorn, “It’s something humans do every day, to survive.”

“How long will it take?” she asks nervously, “I want to know when you’ll be coming back.”

“9 or 10 hours,” I tell her, “Usually around 9.”

“That’s practically all day!” she whines, “What’s so important that it takes all day?”

“Well, I watch a... store,” I tell her, “I sell things to people who come by, and make sure the store’s shelves are stocked.”

“Oh, so... kind of like Rarity’s boutique?” Twilight asks innocently.

“Yes, just like that,” I tell her sadly, “I have to go every weekday, or I’ll lose the house and be living on the streets.”

“Oh, that’s so sad...” she says sympathetically, “I can’t believe you humans spend so much time working!”

“Well, that’s why we humans achieve so much,” I say a bit smugly, “While ponies stay stuck in past. Now let’s go over the checklist before I have to leave.”

“Oh, alright,” Twilight says, brightening, “So... first, I can get myself anything I need to eat for the day, second, I should never answer the door, and only you will have the key, and third, you’ll be gone for about 9 hours, maybe more. Anything else to add to the checklist?”

“I think that’s good,” I say shouldering my bag, “I’ll see you when I get back!”

“Thank you so much!” Twilight says, blushing and holding up a hoof, “...for everything.”

“It’s no problem, purple smart,” I tell her with a wink.

“Purple what?” she asks, but I’m already outside and locking the door.

My best friend Nick still likes to have lunch with me. Why he never moved out of this town, I have no clue. He’s a pretty amazing guy though, one of the few people I genuinely like to be around. He’s probably the best thing that ever happened to this town.

Nicholas Spears. I met him back in college; we hit it off really well from our shared dislike of our statics instructor. But he soon became one of my best, and longest friendships. He has a wry sense of humor, and a sort of happy-go-lucky attitude, in a self deprecating sort of way. Somehow he kept his soul from getting crushed by this nowhere city, and even thrived in it. He’s just always been there for me, and... and Twilight Sparkle might be the first time I ever had to keep a secret from him.

“Oh, let’s just say I’ve had my eyes opened about some things,” I tell him mysteriously over a chicken nugget platter.

“Not gonna tell me what?” he asks predictably. From the darkest heart of Africa about... six generations back, he’s as much of a mongrel as anyone in the continental U.S. with short cut curly black hair and auburn skin. I think he also has German ancestry. I don’t exactly know the details. What I do know is his appearance. Six feet, tall, we meet eye to eye. Wrapped in a thick coat with one of those furry caps with the ear flaps on the side, he’s still more comfortable about the cold than I am, despite any superficial hints that he would be more comfortable at southerly latitudes.

“If I told you, then I wouldn’t be not going to tell you, now would I?” I tell him with a wink.

“I don’t even wanna try to parse that sentence,” he says with a roll of his eyes, “So I’m supposed to refit the old train bridge, but I think my calculations are a bit screwy. Mind taking a look?”

He’s so nice to me that way. I didn’t make it through college like he did, but we did study the same area, so I help where I can. I just don’t have the head for numbers, though. My dream was building... stuff. It wasn’t a very well thought out dream. Mostly because stuff has already been built, all the stuff I could possibly imagine to design. One builder cannot compete with a factory full of slaves in Taiwan. And really, I was... okay with that. Leave it to others to run the world. I just live here. Me and my purple unicorn mare, Twilight Sparkle.

I return to her every night, and every night she is happy to see me. To learn from me how my world works. To help me live in that world, become a better person. The first night is the hardest. She even cries a little. She didn’t know if I was ever coming back. I have to protect her innocence from this uncaring world of mine. Making a firm decision, I go into my refrigerator, and throw away the salami, and the leftover ham, and the chicken wings, and now I have no meat in my fridge to traumatize her with. It’s about time I started making some changes in my life anyway, to be the more responsible man. I have someone else to live for now, after all.

I teach her my special recipe for tossed tomato salad, and she loves it. I teach her about pizza delivery, and all the conveniences of a modern household. Even when things go wrong, it’s a blessing to be able to take care of this amazing mare. Like once she asks me to show her vegetable cutting techniques that make use of my hands (an endless source of fascination for the hands-free purple unicorn). She’s too excited to try it in her magic to compare, and in tugging the knife away from my hands, she ends up slicing me.

It’s just a little cut, but I strongly chastize her for acting so brashly, without my approval. I know how this world works, so Twilight Sparkle should listen to me, instead of ignoring me and arguing with me. In that, she’s like a little angel. She gets so worried for me, caring for me and using a paper towel in her magic to compress my finger until the bleeding stops, then carefully applying a band-aid to me. Twilight never picks a fight with me, and she is always the first to back down, so that I can explain things to her, and nurture her into the beautiful mare that I see her as.

Not to say that I’m always the one supporting her. We support each other. The day I introduced her to Netflix, she naively chooses a film called Titanic. I try to warn her that it’s a terribly sad film, but Twilight just blinks innocently at me and says, “Because the ship sinks? It can’t be that bad, can it?”

I can’t say no to that look, and she does genuinely enjoy the historical significance of the film up until the end. Twilight can’t enjoy the end of the movie because it always reduces me to helpless sobbing tears.

“They almost... and the lifeboats... and the grandmothers and the babies...” I try to express, while Twilight worriedly daubs at my cheeks with a levitating handkerchief.

“Oh no, Aaron, I’m so sorry, I didn’t think...” she murmurs, forgetting the movie entirely out of worry for me. It’s the most anyone’s ever been worried for me in my entire life, and it just came naturally to her. She’s just that kind of person, or, pony, to care so deeply for someone that she only just met a week ago. I can’t count how many times I feel blessed that she came into my life.

We’re laying together on the couch, wrapped in a blanket and watching season 2, that weekend. I decide to allow her to watch that season, because Twilight says that she fought changelings at a wedding once, so I think it’s safe to show her season 2 at least. With me laying back relaxed, and her snuggled into my side, resting her cute little pony nose on my chest, it doesn’t really matter to me what we’re watching, only that we’re together. I give her a little hug as the wedding finale comes to a close, and she sighs dreamily, saying,

“I hope one day I can have a wedding like that, singing, kissing my true love, riding into the sunset... my brother truly is the luckiest stallion in the world.”

“No, I’m the luckiest one,” I tell her in a contented rumble, “Because I have you here with me.”

Twilight blushes furiously at that, fiddling her hooves together and saying shyly, “G-goodness you don’t t-think that. I’m just an ordinary mare.”

“Oh you’re much more than an ordinary mare,” I gently correct her.

She looks at me, softly saying, “Aaron...” Her purple pony snout is so cute, and her limpid, scintillating eyes capture my attention. She’s so close...

My cell phone goes off again.

“What is that beeping noise, anyway?” Twilight asks, turning to follow her ear to my bag.

“Sorry, I really should get that,” I tell her, “I was supposed to... oh damn, Nick!”

She blinks at me wide-eyed, so I explain, “I totally forgot with you here. I was going to go out with Nick this Saturday.”

“Oh, is he a friend of yours?” Twilight asks curiously.

Nodding, I say, “Yeah and I bet he’s trying to get a hold of me. Oh I am such an idiot. Hold on one sec.”

I don’t make it before the phone stops ringing, but sure enough there are three missed calls, not from solicitors, but from Nick.

“Nick?” I say calling him back.

“Aaron, what’s up?” he replies in his friendly tenor, “You weren’t answering your phone today. New project got your attention?”

“No, it’s...” should I tell him? Would he be able to help at all? What would Twilight think of it? “Nothing’s up I was just watching some shows,” I tell him, seeing the fear in my unicorn’s violet eyes.

My eyes join her in fear when he says over the phone, “I’m right outside! Can I come in?”

“He’s here?!” Twilight blurts out.

Her pupils then narrow with her mouth hanging open as Nick replies, “Is there a girl with you? Seriously?”

“No, it’s the uh,” I try to think up an answer while Twilight grimaces angrily and exclaims much more quietly,

“Sh... oot!” with a little hoof stomp.

“The TV’s still on,” I tell him, trying to sound confident, “You must’ve heard something from there.”

“Oh, good,” Nick replies in relief, “It’d be a cold day in hell before I’d expect to see you bring home a lady friend.”

“Hey!” I assert to him, “I’ll find the right girl someday. I’m just patient!”

“You’re a patient sorceror,” he drawls, less than convinced.

I hear a snort that sounds like a chuckle from Twilight, but she actually looks really worried, whispering tightly, “You can use magic?!”

“Ssh!” I tell her, covering up the phone briefly. Then I say lazily into it, “At least I made it past 30 without a bad breakup.”

“Touchè,” he replies solemnly, “So are you gonna let me in or what?”

“Sure I uh,” I say loudly, then covering up the phone again I hiss at her, “Can you turn invisible?”

She shakes her head worriedly.

“Hide somewhere?” I ask.

“I’ll find somewhere,” Twilight says, galloping off with a clip-clop of her little swift hooves.

“Alright, I’m coming to the front door,” I announce to Nick.

“’kay,” he replies easy enough.

When I hang up and let him in, Nick smiles at me and says, “So, where’s she hiding? Laundry hamper?”

“What? Where’s who hiding?” I ask nervously.

“Your car’s the only one that fits in the garage,” he says, taking off his coat, “And you wouldn’t turn a lady out into the cold. So who’s this mysterious lady? A girlfriend, perhaps?”

“S-she’s not my girlfriend!” I protest, blushing hard, “I just met her last week!”

“Still reeling her in, huh?” he asks, waggling his eyebrows, “I can see wedding bells in the future~”

“I-it’s not like that!” I stammer, blushing red.

“So it’s not like that,” Nick speculates, “But it is like something?”

“No uh... yes uh...” I say warily.

Twilight shouts from the other room then, saying, “Well, no point in hiding it now! Aaron, could I have a word?”

Now Nick is really amazed, for all the wrong reasons.

She’s hiding in my bedroom, while Nick takes off his coat and boots, fully expecting me to have a word with an ordinary human girl. Leaving him to that, I hurry back there, where I find Twilight is waiting, standing beside the bed. The lower edges of the bedsheets are disturbed... was she hiding under the bed?

“I’ve already deduced that Nick is a discerning individual who is going to incredulously interrogate you,” the purple unicorn says irritably, “And your attempts to deceive him would just result in more inquiry, putting both of us in danger before he ultimately uncovered the truth. As a good friend of mine once said, honesty is the best policy, and frankly I don’t think you have a deceitful bone in the body.”

Oh, if only she knew the secrets I have to keep from her, about how dangerous the human world is, full of haters and wars, and degenerate pornographers that totally don’t have a folder dedicated to their art on my computer.

“So who’s this ‘Nick?’” Twilight asks innocently, “Does he like the show, too?”

“Like it? He introduced me to it!” I declare, “I was having a... hard time with getting shot down, by a... a girl...” I lose a bit of my enthusiasm as I recall the exact event, “And he was just... he was the only one who cared. Everyone else thought it was nothing, like I had any other girl I could be with, but he... well, he sat me down in front of what I thought was a ‘lame, little girl’s show’ and by the time I’d watched a few episodes I felt... better, you know? I mean...”

I have to blush heavily now as I realize I’m technically talking to a girl right now. Smooth move, Casanova. “You don’t know, but guys in my... world have it kind of hard with romantic... stuff.”

“It sounds like she really hurt you,” Twilight says quietly, “I’m sorry to hear you had to go through something like that. I’m just glad the show helped you feel better.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t to be,” I try to laugh, rubbing the back of my head, “But he does things like that. I mean, he always knows how to cheer me up.”

“Sounds like somepony I know,” Twilight says with a more genuine chuckle in return.

“I think you already know who his favorite pony is,” I reply with a raised eyebrow.

“I just don’t know if we should tell everypony,” she says, fidgeting with her mane, “What if Nick goes to the authorities? Or the scientists? Or the press?”

“I know it’s not safe to tell anyone,” I tell her, “I really am thinking of your safety. But he’s not gonna let you down, he’s... special. Maybe him, maybe my sister, but I think you can trust Nick not to tell anyone about this.”

“Well, okay, if you think it is wise, then I trust you,” she says, looking up at me worried, but accepting of my judgement.

“Okay Nick,” I tell my friend still patiently waiting out front, “You can come back now.”

“Alright, who died?” he asks, crossing his arms, and putting a damper on that smile of his.

“I am serious,” I tell him, “I want you to prepare to have your mind blown!”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” he drawls, “Alright let’s see this thing.”

“It’s less of a thing,” I say, “And more of a her.”

“I know it’s a her,” he says chidingly, “You’ve been talking with her for the last five minutes!” At my blush, he adds, “Don’t worry I couldn’t hear what you were talking about.”

“Look I’ll just...” I walk stiffly into the other room, “Just come with me, okay?”

“You need to relax, Aaron,” Nick replies chidingly, following along with me, “I was just kidding with you,”

“I know, but this isn’t something I can joke about,” I tell him, “You wouldn’t believe it if you didn’t see it.”

“Fine, what’s this amazing...” he says coming into the bedroom. A little purple unicorn is still there, on the bed now with her legs neatly folded under her, reading through a book she found. She looks up when we walk in, and uses her magic to close the book, just a random auto manual.

“Hello there!” she says with a pleasant smile, “You must be Nick!”

“Nope,” Nick says, turning around and walking stiffly the other way, “Nope.”

“Nick, wait—” I say turning to look after him, but he just shouts behind himself, “Nope!”

By the time I get to the front he’s already jammed his boots on and vanished out the door. I hear his truck’s engine start, and then pull out of my driveway. The crackle of snow tires diminishes as he drives away.

“Well that was interesting,” Twilight remarks, leaving the bedroom and striding up to stand beside me, as I stand there looking out the open front door to my house in shock.

I close the door, turning to look at her fearfully. “I did not know he would react that bad,” I tell her, sweating bullets, “So what is he gonna do now? Go to the police? You might have to hide out! I don’t want them to catch you, or you might never get home!”

“He’s coming back,” Twilight states, flicking an ear. What?

Then I start to hear a truck driving back down the street, pulling up in my driveway again. Boots clomping to the door, Nick opens it himself.

“Sorry!” Nick shouts into the house with a shit-eating grin, “I’ve always wanted to do that!”

Ugggh. “And that is how Nick would react,” I grumble, rubbing at my forehead with the palm of my hand.

...

“You know when I said you had a girl, I didn’t mean a mare,” Nick tells me chidingly he walks lazily back into the room we’re in.

“I’m as surprised as you are,” I tell him, looking at Twilight fondly, “It’s just been such an amazing adventure, ever since the day that a little purple unicorn came into my life.”

“Lilac,” Twilight grumbles.

“What?” I ask, not quite hearing her.

“I was just going to say how glad I am that I came into your life,” Twilight tells me with a grateful smile, “You and your friend both, I am ever so grateful to you for saving me!”

“What’d Aaron save you from?” Nick asks curiously.

“The snowstorm last month,” I reply for Twilight, “Twilight had a teleportation accident, and wound up stuck in the middle of it!”

“You seriously found Twilight Sparkle?” Nick asks, then turning from me to peer at the unicorn mare. “You are seriously Twilight Sparkle?” he asks her.

“In the flesh,” she says puffing her chest proudly, “I hear you humans have heard a lot about me!”

“Boy have they, but I thought it was fake!” he exclaims, openly staring at the unicorn standing in front of him, “Are the others real too?”

“Others?” Twilight says uncertainly.

“You know, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttersh—”

“Oh,” Twilight realizes hastily, “Yes, they’re real too. We got separated during a freak teleportation incident and well... here I am.”

“Amazing!” Nick says, “You have to tell me all about it.”

“Oh, there’s not much to tell,” Twilight says, blushing and turning her head, “You have seen the show after all.”

Author's Notes:

Well, here it is, the story that’s been eating my brain lately. I just want to let everyone know beforehand, that Twilight Sparkle is my hero, and I think she’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. Just in case you start to wonder. Because you probably will. However, I cannot call this a self insert, as I am sadly not nearly as dumb as our beloved protagonist. I just like first person stories. They’re silly.

This story is upsetting, and thrilling, and dumb, and edgy, and triggering, and outright pornographic, because I’m allowed to write whatever outrageous stuff comes into my head, and not held to some arbitrary standards of decency or modesty. As someone who’s gotten kind of... left behind while society marches on, I simply haven’t got anything to lose. So don’t say I didn’t warn you.