Author's Notes:

Not too sure how well I handled this. In my head, both Luna and Celestia are sympathetic. But I am a softy, and you may disagree.

Eh, I tried.

And I know that this technically isn't a Bloodbound lyric but still, how could I not?

And then it was dark and I was in a bed and I was confused.

Hadn’t I just been in California? And hadn’t it been sunny?

Then my brain caught up with me, and things clicked.

No, not California. Not Earth at all, in fact. Equestria, wherever that was. I’d just been dreaming was all, and I’d been dreaming because I’d been tucked up nice and snug by a magical flying horse-lady. After a bath.

It was all coming back to me now, and already the dream was getting fuzzier. Had my ex been there? And a bus? And another magical horse? Hard to remember, all a bit of a swirl.

Probably not important. Dreams are weird.

Although, given that reality for me at the moment involved magic and horses and magic horses dreams had a lot to compete against. Unless all of this was some larger, crazier dream. Or maybe I was in a coma?

Hell, it beat being in a giant version of the Forth rail bridge, I guess…

I took a look around the room. In the dark it’s fanciness was less obvious, but the bed was no-less comfy, so that was a plus. I wondered what time it was. Were the days even the same length here? This was the sort of thing that occurred to me in the dark as I sat and realised just how oppressively quiet it was.

I wondered where Celestia was. Asleep, I imagined.

That got me thinking more, as the night is the best time for thinking far too much about things you can’t do a whole lot about. Especially if you’re bedridden and can’t move anyway.

Celestia. Magic horse. Very nice lady.

The first and third parts there I had no issue with. Celestia was actually a pretty nice name and she was a very nice lady. The horse part thought was continuing to be something of a mental sticking point, as irritating as I was finding it.

Be rational, I told myself. Think! Yes it’s very odd to be talking to something - in regular life - should not be able to talk. But these are not regular circumstances! This much should be obvious. Either you really are somewhere packed full to bursting with horse puns where magic is real or else you’re dead. If the former, then be polite to the locals and don’t react with irritating, instinctual fear and wariness. If the latter, who cares? You’re dead!

I looked down at myself in the dark. I didn’t appear to be dead. That I was looking at all seemed to be proof enough. But who knows? I’d never been dead before. I had no experience.

For now, it was probably the more sensible thing to assume that I was actually alive until this was proved otherwise, which meant somehow getting over this lingering revulsion and panic - for want of better word - that writhed around my body anytime I clapped eyes on Celestia. And in particular when she talked.

This was the crux of the problem, I felt. Being human, I had been brought up on a solid bedrock assumption that other humans were the only thing I would ever see talking or thinking like me. Maybe we can teach a gorilla how to use giant remote control or sign language and maybe a dolphin will recognise its own reflection, I’m hardly going to sit down and talk about my Monday with either of them.

Maybe I was overthinking this.

Celestia was basically a person. She just wasn’t shaped like one. And that wasn’t her fault! And I liked hearing her talk! Apart from the writhing it was a lovely experience! Her voice had some aspect to it which made me comfier than the bed ever could on its own! Apart from the writhing bits every other part of me knew this!

Be rational, me, I told myself. I’m not missing a horse, I’m missing a nice person who has been nice to me from the very moment I became aware she existed. Before then, in fact. So get over it, writhing bits, I told myself.

In the dark. Inside my head. This is why I dislike being on my own too long. I think?

All of this thinking had taken up what felt like absolutely no time at all. It remained just as dark and as quiet as it had when I’d first woken up, and I was at something of a loose end.

“Bums,” I said out loud.

Hopefully, wherever she was, Celestia was having a more restful night than me.

Nice lady. Nice voice. Nice smile, for a horse.

At some point I must have drifted off again, as the next thing I knew the room was light and Celestia was there with breakfast. I hadn’t even heard her come in.

“I’m awake, I’m awake,” I said, blinking and stretching. That bath must have done me the power of good because stretching somehow didn’t leave me feeling worse than it had when I’d started. This, clearly, was progress.

What was also progress was breakfast, which appeared to be toast. I had no issue with this. You could not go far wrong with toast.

“Good morning,” she said, sitting by the beside. “Did you sleep well?”

Bits and pieces of the dream came back to me. Best not to mention that, I thought. A pretty good way of annoying people is to think that your dreams are as interesting to them as they are to you. In my gut I knew this was never the case.

“It was okay?” I ventured, and she seemed to accept it, nodding.

“I brought toast.”

“I saw!”

“Like some?”

“Yes!”

Riveting stuff, this early-morning conversation. There was a minor fumble where I insisted that I would be able to hold the plate and feed myself. The first part was easy enough, the second not so much, and after watching me fruitlessly attempting to raise toast to my mouth for maybe a minute Celestia wordless took it from me and fed me herself.

“This is still humiliating, I hope you realise,” I said, toast hovering menacingly near to my face.

“Why do you think I like doing it so much?” She said, and it was a great bit of light relief and I greatly appreciated it, but there was an edge I couldn’t help but catch.

I’m hardly an expert, but there was something strained about her today. Her usual friendliness and warmth was present - practically radiating off of her - but there was that edge even someone as dense as me could feel.

“Uh, you okay Celestia?” I asked. It was only polite to see if she was, after all, given what she had done and was doing for me.

Her smile intensified, apparently intending to drown out whatever hint I’d latched onto with sheer brute force. It was a touch alarming.

“Just an unsettled start to my morning, that’s all,” she said.

Any immediate response I might have made to this was rendered impossibly by the sudden intrusion to more toast, so I dealt with that first.

Getting fed by someone else is not something I enjoyed. This was possibly one of the things I’d forgotten but if so I was rapidly remembering it. Just made me feel like a sinking pudding.

Swallowing, I said:

“Oh, okay. Happens to the best of us, huh?”

“It does.”

Toast crunched. I was getting crumbs everywhere. It was horrendous.

To fill the silence with some other than the sound of me eating I asked:

“Hey, crazy question but do you have a sister?”t

She froze, the next piece of toast she had been raising pausing just above the plate.

“Why?”

I tried a shrug and it made my shoulders hurt.

“It’s probably going to sound dumb but - ah, forget it, it’s dumb.”

Celestia put the toast back, which seemed a very serious move given the situation. Her smile had gone, too, which was more serious as far as I was concerned.

“What?” She asked, and against my better judgement I shrugged again. It hurt more the second time.

“I just dreamt about another magic horse, is all. Guess it’s to be expected that that sort of thing would show up in my subconscious. But there was one in my dream. Kinda looked like you, I think. Said they were your sister. Forget the name…”

Details remained fuzzy. I had the impression that it had happened, and that was about it.

Celestia had moved the plate by now and turned more fully towards me, leaning in awfully close. Her look was quite intense, and I found myself pinned in place by it.

“What did she do?”

Was it my imagination or was the room getting warmer? Probably just the sunlight coming in.

“Uh, I can’t really remember, honestly. Just talked, I think.”

“Talked to you?”

I swallowed.

“Yeah? Think so.”

The door then opened and Celestia jumped what looked to be a literal foot in the air, spinning around and standing so suddenly I had to move back to avoid her tail slapping me across the face.

I had no idea what being hit with a magical floaty multicoloured tail would be like, but on balance it seemed best to avoid it. My body lodged a formal complaint about the sudden movement. This took the form of pain. Unsurprising.

And in through the door with what appeared to be magnificent dramatic timing came in the smaller, bluer version of Celestia. Turns out she was actually real. This surprised me. Celestia sounded surprised, too.

“S-sister!” She said, and though I couldn’t see her face I imagined she looked as shocked as her voice suggested. Luna just looked sort of unimpressed with the whole scene before her.

“Sister,” she said, inclining her head slightly as she clip-clopped into the room, shutting the door behind her. “I am glad to see you have found something to fill your empty hours. Being princess evidently takes up less time than it once did.”

I could practically feel the passive aggression coming off that one. It was like a heat-haze.

Wait, princess? Did she say princess?

I looked at Celestia. Like, properly this time. Lots of shiny bits and pieces? Regal air and bearing? Palace? Working at the palace?

Oh man, we were going to have to talk about this, weren’t we?

Would explain the tiara-thing though, now that I thought about it. Man I’m slow.

“That’s uncalled for, Luna,” Celestia said, with the kind of delivery that suggested she had been caught out and knew it. “I’ve hardly abdicated. I’ve just been taking a little time to care for an injured guest.”

“A ‘little time’ for a monarch has rather a different meaning. A little time for a day is noticed. A little time for several is talked about.”

I had no idea what was going on, but it sounded very important and I got the impression that Celestia was being chastised. And from the rather quiet way she was standing there and taking it I also got the impression that she knew the game was up. Whatever the game had been to start with.

“Why you have taken the care of the human on yourself is beyond me. They have doctors for this sort of thing nowadays, I hear,” Luna continued, glancing at me properly for possibly the first time. I tried to wave, failed, and she looked back to Celestia.

“He was dying when I found him, Luna! And would have died if I had wasted the time to go and fetch help. I had no choice! Should I have just left him? What would you have done?”

Luna’s expression softened, but not by much. I just sat and let the situation wash over me. All of this was way over my head and far out of my control. I was a leaf on the wind. Agreeably, a leaf on the wind that was also a significant factor in what was being discussed, but still. Just a leaf, that was me.

“Of course I would not have expected you to let him die. While I can appreciate your compassion, you cannot shirk your duties to look after the human. Your royal responsibilities do not go away.”

Harsh words, but true, and delivered with obvious kindness. The kind of thing spoken by someone who is concerned. Celestia could say nothing.

I have to say, the novelty of being an alien and getting referred to as ‘the human’ was actually pretty significant. Sure, being talked about like you’re not even there is always galling, but still! I’m The Human! That’s kind of neat. Back home I would have just been a human. No fun at all.

Luna stepped in close and the sisters had a nuzzle. Very touchy-feely these ponies. Must be a cultural thing.

“If you simply wish another, more exotic pet we would not begrudge you it, but not one that demands so much of your time. It’s the abandoned chicks all over again.”

I had a feeling I was being insulted here, somehow. Couldn’t quite put my finger on it. What could it have been, what could it have been…

Celestia too seemed to read into this sentence as the nuzzle finished somewhat abruptly and she hissed:

“Luna. He can hear you.”

“I am pretty exotic,” I said. I doubt it helped much.

“Oh, sorry,” she said in my general direction, and it was hard to tell if she was sincere or not. I wasn’t especially concerned either way and it hardly mattered as Celestia interposed herself between me and Luna before anything further could be said.

“I will resolve the situation,” she said, some alarming steel suddenly in her voice and as Luna opened her mouth to reply she added: “To your satisfaction, sister.”

Luna shut her mouth, apparently getting the message.

“My thanks. I have only your best interests at heart,” she said.

“I know, Luna, I know, and I yours - shouldn’t you be getting to bed?”

Luna glowered but left without comment.

Things were very, very quiet after that. Celestia came back and sat down where she’d been sitting before. The toast was probably stone-cold by now. Neither of us could look at the other. She had the proper understanding of what had just done down, I knew that something had and that made me feel awkward.

It was less than ideal.

But still, best to bite the bullet. Something had to be done.

“So…” I said. I wasn’t sure where to start with anything that had just happened. I had a lot of options. Eventually I decided to go with what seemed to be the biggest bombshell to have landed in that conversation. It seemed a solid place to start:

“A princess?”

“Yes,” Celestia said.

“Is Luna also a princess?”

“Yes.”

“Right, cool. Dual princesses. Glad we got that out the way.”

I probably could have cared about this revelation more, but I didn’t. Wasn’t as though I was from here anyway, so it had nothing to do with me. As far as I knew this place could have princesses boiling out of every orifice. I wasn’t in a position to do anything about it anyway. All that mattered to me was that Celestia was nice, which she was, so it was gravy.

“Uh, why was she mad at you? I feel I was only really following half of that, sorry,” I asked.

Celestia rubbed the back of her head with a hoof, a very odd gesture to see a magical horse do. Don’t even ask me how her joints were supposed to work.

“I may have not been giving work my full attention for the last few days…”

“And your work is…?”

I was looking for clarification, just so I knew the full extent of what I was dealing with here.

“Running the kingdom,” Celestia said, as though this was a normal thing to say to someone.

“Ah,” I said. Not a lot else I could say.

“Luna notices these things, though she gives a very good show of not noticing. So good I thought she hadn’t. Then we spoke earlier as she was heading for bed, and she asked if there was any reason I had been ‘lax’ in my royal duties of late. She gave me an opportunity to come clean. I...didn’t. Looks like she knew the reason anyway,” Celestia said, shrugging with enough ease to make me jealous.

Ah, I thought.

One of those types of conversations. The type where one side is holding all the cards and the other isn’t even aware a game is being played. I was never a fan of those. Not that I could remember any. Just had a general impression that I’d always been the one on the losing side before I’d even known it.

“How did she even know?”

“I imagine that whatever you told her in your dream confirmed whatever suspicions she already had. My sister knows me quite well...”

I blinked.

“You mean she really was in my dream? Like actually there?”

“Yes.”

That was difficult to wrap my head around. I knew in a general, fuzzy sense that she’d been there, but I thought that just been some artistic license on my brain’s part. Just dreams being weird, as dreams often are, or else something completely different that I remembered as Luna only once I saw her. Learning that she had literally been in my head was something else. This place was jacked.

But still. That did rather make what had just happened my fault.

“Sorry for telling on you,” I said.

“You weren’t to know,” she said, and the conversation fizzled.

Despite this, I pressed on.

“What was that about baby birds?” I asked.

Celestia bit her lip sheepishly, pawing at the rug with her hoof. This was adorable. So adorable I nearly stopped caring about the answer even as she was thinking of how she should deliver it.

“Don’t take what Luna said the wrong way, she was just heated. The birds were a long time ago and they were a one-off anyway. You’re much more than a pet.”

Nothing about this sentence was reassuring.

“Uh, thanks?”

Always nice to be told one is more than just a pet by someone solely responsible for your care and who could throw you out a window with their magic brain. Celestia jolted and then blushed lightly, turning aside.

“...I probably could have phrased that better,” she said.

“It’s fine, I get what you meant,” I said. I did. It was still pretty funny that she’d said it like that, though.

As an afterthought I also chucked out:

“Thanks for saving my life, by the way. I didn’t know it had been you personally.”

Given that apparently she’d done it all on her own on the spot. Her continuing to look after me personally for however many days after was just the icing on that particular cake. She blushed - she actually blushed. Properly this time, not just a little bit.

“You don’t need to thank me,” she said.

“Well I kind of do. I’d be dead otherwise. You said so, right?”

Celesta couldn’t deny this, it seemed, so instead she deflected:

“Anyone would have done the same thing.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it. And not everyone is a princess, either. You went out of your way.”

All of which did beg the rather important question:

“If you’re a princess shouldn’t you be doing important things than looking after me? That whole ‘running the country’ thing you mentioned?”

“This is important,” she said sternly.

“Pull the other one. You’ve probably got heaps of horse-related problems on your plate. I’m just some dickhead. You said there was a doctor what looked me over, why don’t you palm me off onto them? Get me off your hands.”

“Hands?”

Was she taking the piss, or just off her game? Could have sworn she’d previously demonstrated some level of understanding of the concept of hands. Maybe I just hadn’t used the word. So hard to keep track of these things.

“These things,” I said, lifting mine with a Herculean effort and actually getting them just above my lap before having to drop them. It got the point across.

“Oh. Have I made you feel unwelcome?” She asked, pouting.

I was momentarily flabbergasted by this brick-wall I’d apparently walked myself into. What conversational Judo was this?

“What? No! You’ve been great! Not at all unwelcome, I just - I don’t want to be distracting you if you’ve got stuff you should be doing,” I said.

“Anything important I’ve had to do I’ve done. You’re not a distraction.”

“Would you tell me if I was though?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said a split-second later.

“You didn’t even think about that!” I spluttered.

“I didn’t have to,” she said, smiling sweetly.

“Augh!”

I wasn’t Luna, so clearly I had no business arguing with Celestia. It was like getting tangled in parachute silk. It was hopeless. That, and her damn voice and her damn smile kept making me lose the thread anyway. I just felt so bloody comfortable and looked after. Infuriating! But lovely.

This time Celestia was the one to break silence, clearing her throat before saying:

“About the doctor…”

“Yeah?”

“I may have...used words in an obfuscating fashion,” she said, shifting.

That could go lots of different ways. My brain fizzled as it tried to calculate the options.

“Uh, okay?”

“You were looked over by someone who is a doctor but you cannot be handed over to them because you are technically already in their care.”

That took me longer than it should have, mostly because it was one of those cases where the answer is so flagrantly obvious that you think it can’t be that, because it’s too obvious, only for it to turn out to just be that obvious.

“...you?”

Tapping her hooves together she nodded, not looking me in the eye.

I turned this over in my head a few times.

“You’re a doctor?” I asked, for clarification more than anything else. She didn’t look like a doctor, but then again she didn’t look like anything other than a fantastical magical horse with pretty hair. And doctors could look like anything anyway.

“I have had the time over the years to become many things, if I felt like turning my hoof to it,” she said.

“...what?”

I was missing something here again, I was sure of it. But it probably wasn’t important. Best to ignore those bits and focus on what I could actually understand.

“Wait,” I said. “Didn’t you say the doctor said I couldn’t be moved because I was too delic- oh, oh okay, I see. You’re the doctor and you said I couldn’t be moved.”

Then I thought about this.

“Wait, no, I don’t see. Why? Why would you want me here and not somewhere where I wasn’t your problem? In fact, why were you the one looking after me in the first place? I mean, I can see your reasoning about not rushing off if it would mean I’d die - thanks again, by the way - but after that why didn’t you bring anyone else in? I’m so confused...”

This whole thing was starting to tie me in knots.

Let me get this straight.

I arrive here somehow. That much is obvious given that I was, well, here. I arrive in such a poor state that I’m apparently so close to death that if Celestia hadn’t intervened on the spot I would have died. Fine. I can believe that. Horses can know first aid, that’s cool.

Following this Celestia - a princess with shit to do, I’d imagine - gets me inside a palace into a room that’s clearly out of the way enough that she won’t be bothered when she’s in it, where she proceeds to singlehandedly care for me over the course of the next few days. In between continuing to princess when she can spare the time.

That seemed about the long and the short of it to me. In my head. Without asking.

“Why though?” I capped off my internal monologue with, given that for the duration Celestia hadn’t said a word.

Celestia kneaded the rug and mumbled something but I couldn’t make it out

“Pardon?” I pressed.

“I wanted to look after someone…” she said at barely a step above a mumble.

That hung in the air for longer than seemed possible.

“For real?” I asked.

I mean sure, that’s a thing people like to do. But come on! A princess! And going to all this trouble? Then I saw how borderline-distraught Celestia appeared to be and most of my thinking came to a grinding halt.

“When I found you you were close to death. However you got here must have been very hard on you. I tried everything I could think of but it was still close. For the first few hours I wasn’t sure you were going to make it. But you did! And you just looked so hurt and I knew the moment I saw you that you weren’t from this world - how alone you’d be when you woke up! I couldn’t have just left you at the hospital. They’re busy enough as it is, and how confusing that would have been for you! Surrounded by so much you couldn’t have recognised? Better I be there to ease you in gently, see that you were treated delicately.”

I felt Celestia was doing a disservice to my ability to just roll with weird crap, but I hadn’t known I had that ability and her heart was in the right place so maybe I was in the wrong. Certainly, I could feel the conviction of what she was saying coming at me in waves. Then again I liked her voice and she’d nursed me back from the brink of death. So maybe I’m biased.

“And then the more I visited you and looked after you the more I remembered how much I enjoyed caring on such a close, personal level. Being able to see who I was helping. I love my little ponies, I do, and I live to serve them and know I help them every day. But this was different, refreshing. Something I’d missed. Selfish, I know,” she said dolefully, wings drooping.

This was going way over my head again. I believed her, I just didn’t really get it. I didn’t really need to. So I just listened to her speak, kind of wishing I could give her a hug because of just how miserable she looked.

“I wasn’t going to do it for any longer than I had to. Once you were able to get up and about I’d have brought in others and would have stepped back. It would have been fine. I was just...enjoying it…caring for someone like that...”

Another shrug. Then:

“That, and you’re quite nice company, you know.”

“Now I know you’re lying to me,” I said.

A wing came up and patted me on the head.

“Shush, you. Don’t do yourself down.

I glowered at her while she patted, weathering the patronising - but pleasant - gesture.

“You don’t need to apologise or explain yourself to me, you know Celestia,” I said once the wing withdrew.

“But-”

“No, no really, it’s fine. I’m not in any condition to pick fights and I don’t want to anyway. Maybe I’m just a softy or maybe my injuries have mellowed me out but really it’s fine. I liked you looking after me. Well, as much as I could. I want to make it clear I don’t like being looked after, okay? That clear?”

“Very clear,” she said, smile returning by inches.

“And sure, you taking time of your busy day to fuss over me probably wasn’t the best thing to do but it’s happened now and we had a whale of a time. You saw me naked, I broke my nose, it was good times all round.”

She giggled. I celebrated internally.

“But, uh, what does happen now? If you don’t mind me asking?” I asked. She sat up straighter.

“Now? Now I shall return my full attention to my royal duties and you shall pass into the care of others. The palace does have medical staff.”

That was a funny way of saying I was going to the horse hospital.

“The pal- I’m not being moved?”

“Of course not. Your doctor said you couldn’t be, remember?”

“You! Oh you. You...are something else, Celestia.”

Fairly certain this was probably an abuse of power. Her smirk looked like one, that was for sure.

“I see no reason for there to be undue disruption for the patient, given his unusual condition. This guest room wasn’t being used anyway. And besides, this way I can ensure that you - given that you are a guest here - are being treated appropriately without the fuss that would be involved with me visiting the hospital. A royal visit can cause all kinds of trouble in a busy place like that, you know. I think this works out best for everyone.”

She actually sounded like she had a point. Royalty did tend to have a wake that followed around with them causing ruckus. Could have just been my bias again. And the bed really was very comfortable, would have been a shame to have to leave it.

I then found myself being nuzzled again. Nice, but still going to take some getting used to.

“Until I work out how to get you home, no matter what happens, I will make sure you’re looked after, my little human.”

And for a good second I loved every bit of this sentence. Then I remembered that I am a grown-ass man, and I can look after my damn self. And I am no-one’s little human!

Though, for the sake of argument, if I had to be, I’d easily choose to be Celestia’s first, before anyone else. Easily. Like, in a heartbeat.

But that’s besides the point!

“You know Celestia, one day soon I’m going to be able to pee all on my own. Then what will you do?”

She lent in so close I felt her Goddamn horn resting on my forehead and her eyes became impossible not to look at.

“I’m sure I’ll think of something,” she said, smiling.