You know that moment where your world falls apart? It's the one where everything just becomes too much and you're completely at a loss to make sense of it all. If you don't know it, then let me explain. It's the moment you realize that a speeding truck is about to T-bone your car, or when the doctor tells you that you might want to sit down before you hear what is about to be said. It's a terrible moment, and one that I would wish on nobody.

I wanted that fucking moment back. As bad as it is, it still holds a small hope that some last second action will change the inevitable.

My brain had skipped completely past that moment with a happy wave and gone straight to the aftermath. In one fell swoop I had proved that humanity was not alone in the universe, and I had done so in the worst way possible. Because really, what could be worse than having a pony teleport itself into your living room?

First off, this pony was highly upset. How do I know? Because ponies don't normally teleport across whatever nigh-insurmountable divide separates their world from ours. I - since Craig had been using my phone - had been teasing her unmercifully, so she was not just popping in for tea and crumpets on a whim. And spending some quality time in a coma was not likely to improve her mood either.

Next is that this pony, clearly having a good claim to being a Princess, was well-connected. Even now, whatever other ponies lead Equestria - I assume Celestia and Luna - are likely already involved. Or at least they soon would be when they found one of their number missing. I could feel the weight of the brightest and most powerful of Equestria turning their unhappy attentions to me. Any moment now more portals would open and disgorge teams of angry guards to rescue their Princess from my nefarious clutches. That impending encounter terrified me.

Even if I somehow survived the imminent pony invasion there was my own government to consider. Steven Spielberg's "E.T." played out in my head over the course of maybe a second, with heavy emphasis on my apartment building being swaddled in quarantine plastic by legions of faceless hazmat suits. I was about to suffer the full brunt of the United States' alien first contact policies. Being abducted for a night of alien probing paled next to the amount of poking, prodding, injecting, removing, and analyzing I was about undergo. I could not, for the life of me, decide whether death by alien plague or dissection while searching for signs of said plague would be worse.

The United States government was not even the scariest group out there - at least they had good intentions. I hoped. Plenty of people would probably be fine with friendly talking ponies being real, but then there were the faithful. I don't really have anything against religion; some of the greatest and most amazing things have come from people's faith. But I cannot deny that, though religions generally preach messages of love and peace, they are not well-known for tolerating contradictory 'theories.' Ponies being real blatantly questions the long-held worldviews of quite a few. And whose fault would that be? Mine.

There were probably going to be quite a few jealous Bronies too, though why they would want to go through what I was about to was beyond me. Additionally, my own parents would probably not be too happy that I had managed to piss off a good portion of the world. They would certainly disapprove of how I had treated our first pony visitor. There could even be some sort of inter-dimensional police force that...

"ALEX!"

Oh. Right. Craig was still right next to me. He seemed upset about something given the way he was glaring at me.

"What?"

"Dude, you were completely out of it. This is serious here! Aren't you gonna' go check it out?" He jerked his head sideways toward the source of our problems. Oh, and Craig chastising me for not taking something seriously...?

"Nope. Don't wanna'." I snipped matter-of-factly without taking my eyes off the fallen pony. Maybe if I denied her existence hard enough, then she would simply go away. "Why don't you?"

He stared at me with a healthy amount of surprise. He then took a long, deep breath while briefly removing his cap to run his fingers through his short, curly hair. For a moment I thought he might actually do it. Finally, he shook his head.

"No, this is all you, man. That kid's show is your thing. You talk about it all the time." I'll give him 'thinking about it all the time,' since I'm kind of a closet Brony. "You're the one who knows all about it. You've got the posters and crap. You read the stuff that those other nerds write. You're like the expert on ponies here!"

Well, I couldn't argue with that - I had watched a lot more My Little Pony than he. Not that it was that hard when compared to someone who actively avoided anything 'girly.' Still, I did not know much about first aid. If a band-aid would not take care of it, then I was in trouble. Judging by the pony's fall, a simple band-aid was not going to be a quick fix-it.

However, I was clearly not about to win this one - Craig looked adamant about staying put. I tried bolstering my resolve for the imminent encounter but I was not too successful. My mouth quickly went completely dry. I really did not want to go over to the hallway just to find out how badly I had screwed up.

"Tell you what, I'll go see if she's okay if you go get me a glass of water."

Craig slugged my shoulder. I totally deserved it, really. It forced me to move though, since it put me off balance and I stumbled a step to the side. That made it my turn to glare, but he just made some frantic ushering motions toward the pony.

I gulped, trying to wet my throat again, and took the first tentative step.

And nothing happened. No angry ponies, no (additional) world-shattering events, and nobody from the X-Files showed up. Nothing more exciting than the soft sound of the carpet squishing underfoot.

So I took another step. And then another. Each was an exercise in silent creeping and slow balance. The tension, despite nothing happening after each step - or perhaps because of it - only climbed. It felt like hours were passing as I slowly snuck across the open room. What began as a dry throat quickly progressed to some light cold sweating and a sense of vibration in my hands and feet. Risking a glace down, I found that, yes, my hands were shaking ever so slightly.

The pony, for her part, did absolutely nothing. Well, she was breathing. I could see her wings slowly rising and falling with the motion of her sides, and there was a faint raspy sound coming from her muzzle. The position of her head on the floor, scrunched between the casing and her neck, was probably restricting her airflow despite her slack, slightly open mouth.

Standing over her I could see that the show was not entirely off with its take on pony anatomy. Her head, while mostly round, was extended to the front a bit as it formed her slim muzzle. It was like a happy compromise of features, as though someone had taken a human/s face and then given it vaguely equine features - more like the Princesses' heads than the main cast's, really. The shape of her cheeks and nose meant that her eyes were not quite fully forward-facing and, judging by the arc of her lashes, were smaller than those in the show. I suppose it would be stupid to ask for biological realism from a cartoon. They were still much larger than my own though. Her peripheral vision was probably pretty good, and with eyes that large, I wondered whether she had excellent night vision to boot.

Her coat was a sort of rich golden yellow. It was darker than Fluttershy's, and a just bit more toward orange. Her mane really was styled thin and in a very organized series of waves - she must put it through some sort of iron to get it to stay shaped like that. The strands separated slightly as they spilled over her neck and across the floor, making her mane appear almost as though it was composed of a series of ribbons. Her coat had a slight luster to it, but her mane practically shined of its own accord. I could easily imagine Rarity having a hand in maintaining her appearance. I mean 'hoof.' Whatever.

The horn on her forehead looked about eight inches long and it had the same faint sheen that her coat, though it was clearly not fur-covered. It was not filed to a point either, but a small rounded nub.

I frowned sympathetically as my eyes followed the curve of her neck and down over the point of her withers. She looked very uncomfortable crumpled on the floor with her back to one wall and her knees and hocks pressed against the other. While her legs were similar to a horse's, they were less... 'knobby.' Her knees and fetlocks were not as bulbous as they are on horses, which gave her legs a sleeker look.

And of course I could not help but look to her flanks in search of her cutie mark. Did ponies even call it that? It would be a hilarious name to give such an important symbol of who a pony was. She did have one. It was three clouds, each layered over the one behind it, decorated in pastel blues, violets, reds, and oranges. Spreading up and out from behind the front-most was the impression of a soft, warm glow as though the setting sun was nestled hidden amongst the clouds. Or maybe it was the rising sun. Either way, the symbol was both cheery and comforting.

And the colors! It looked as though each hair in her fur was fully infused with the appropriate color, which made the entire symbol look completely natural despite its vibrancy. The only thing I can compare it to is the spread and vivacity of colors found on tropical birds. Though, looking closer, it seemed that the colors in the clouds were separated into flat faces with straight edges and distinct points. Could they be imitating gemstones?

Wait a second.

Oh God, maybe she was not from Equestria at all! Maybe she hailed from this mysterious Crystal Empire that had been mentioned ever-so-briefly. Great, now she was a complete unknown! I had hopes that perhaps Celestia or the main cast would be the ones to come looking for her - if they were at all like the show, then perhaps I would have a chance to explain myself - but if this was not an Equestrian Princess... Maybe I should start praying to Cadance in the hopes of forgiveness.

Then I realized that I was standing there dumbly staring at her rear. Ponies clearly had a different outlook on nudity, and I felt safe assuming that they were used to others looking at their cutie marks, but I still felt like an ass. Here I was, supposed to do something to help her, and I was ogling her butt. I tried shoving my sudden shame to the back of my mind and resolutely brought my eyes back up to her face.

This was it.

I crouched and extended a hand. Ever so slowly I reached out past her muzzle, her cheek, and finally her ear. My hand shook horribly as it hovered just behind her head over the curve of her slim neck. This was always the moment in movies when something horrible happens. She would wake up and, with a snap of her magic or a stab of her horn, attack me. Or now would be the moment when the guards showed up with me, the alien attacker, leaning over their Princess and about to finish her off. Or the alien that was all claws and teeth would jump down on me from above...

I do not know how long I waited there, but I wanted to make sure that the moment had its chance to do me in. And it did nothing. Though my imagination tried its best to scare me into my own coma with increasingly stupid scenarios pulled from every horror movie I had ever seen.

With a sharp intake of breath I let my hand fall gently. Her fur was soft, much more so than a horse's, and surprisingly short. Warm too. Her coat had the smooth velvety texture that comes from being well-cared for, and I could feel the gentle forms of her muscles underneath. A part of me wanted to spend some time just softly stroking her neck...

I didn't dare though.

I let out my breath and concentrated on what my fingers were telling me. It was comedic just how normal she felt; especially after all I had put myself through to get here. Now that I was in direct contact with her I could feel the steady draw and release of her breathing. Shifting my thumb a bit I found her pulse as well. It was comforting to know that pony physiology was similar enough that I could find a pulse. Fortunately, as far as I could tell, it was holding steady as well. Barring her head trauma, she seemed fine.

I withdrew from her neck before reaching back down with both hands to hold her head. I slid one under to gingerly lifting her up and see the other side. I know that head wounds tend to be extra 'bleedy,' but the amount covering the left side of her face and parts of her mane made me cringe. Slipping the hand under her head further back, I cradled the back of her head so that the left side of her muzzle rested against the inside of my forearm. Doing so got blood all over my arm, but I figured that at this point one of three things was already going to happen just from simple exposure to her: a horrible death by Ponypox, nothing at all, or I would turn into an Alicorn. I hoped desperately for 'nothing at all,.' Though becoming an Alicorn might be fun.

Holding her head this way tickled the inside of my arm with her breathing, but it allowed me to reach over with my other hand and pull her mane away so that I could see her wound. From what I could tell there were a series of small scrapes and one large gash that was surrounded by an area that was already swelling. It was nasty, and I could see blood still flowing, but I had seen and suffered worse while playing sports like football. As long as it was kept clean and properly bandaged I was pretty sure this pony would be fine.

That's when I heard a slight snuffling noise. Looking in horror to the face of the pony I was holding I found that it was not her. Not yet at least. I quickly tracked the sound back down the hall toward my room. There was Dimble, sniffing curiously at the pony's tail, and slowly working his way toward me. That would be a great way for her to wake up - me holding her head so that she couldn't move while a cat sniffed under her tail.

I hissed at Dimble through my teeth, but he only spared a moment to look at me quizzically before continuing his investigation of this new and interesting thing lying in the hallway. I quickly laid the pony's head down on the other side of the casing so that her neck was not curled so uncomfortably, her circlet falling from her forelock and rolling through the doorway to Craig's room. Extricating my arm from under her, I stood up before ever-so-carefully stepping up and over her wings. I tried not to stand on too much of her tail, but it had spread across the entire hallway.

Dimble greeted me with a cheerful meow as if to say 'look what I found!'

"No. Sorry fuzzy, can't have you doing that."

He protested as I scooped him up with my clean hand - I did not want to try cleaning pony blood off of my cat. I dropped him through the bathroom door before shutting it on him. His hurt and confused look was cut off by the door and was shortly followed by a plaintive cry and some faint scrabbling. I knew he hated being kept in or out by a door, but there was not much else I could do. This was certainly turning into a lovely evening; it was a perfect match for my day.

"Well its eyes are fine." I whirled in place, nearly slipping on the pony's tail as I did so. Craig was crouched at the entrance to his room with a hand out, presumably holding one of her eyes open. "They might be a little slow, but I don't think it's that bad. It'll probably wake up with a massive headache but be fine. Stupid blood is getting everywhere though."

"You probably can't even spell the word 'dilation,' but you can tell if someone is suffering brain damage?! What the hell?" I looked at Craig incredulously.

"Eh," he shrugged, "I think I saw it on Survivorman or something. Anyway, you should check this out. Her eyes are purple. Like, really purple. I don't think they're contacts either."

I blinked at him, and couldn't think of anything to say. I was still dealing with his whole analysis of her concussion, and the sudden switch in topic was not helping my addled mind. Craig could occasionally pull really useful, but totally random, knowledge seemingly from nowhere. I could never figure out why some things stuck with him but others didn't.

"So she's going to live?"

"She? You checked?!" His eyebrows rose questioningly as he examined me from the other end of the pony.

"I... uh..." And now I did. I could not help it! It is like being told to not think about something; of course then you will! My eyes flickered ever so quickly along the length of the back of her rear legs, and over the long curves of her flanks before trailing further. With her tail flopped on the floor like that I found her slim marehood bared for all the world to see. Or at least to those of us standing at this end of the hallway. My eyes snapped back to Craig just as quickly. "Gah! Damnit, man!"

My blush must have been record-setting because Craig was rocking back on his heels and laughing his ass completely off.

"Dude, that was priceless!" He managed in between gasps. "You just checked out a pony! I knew there was something wrong with you!"

I simmered silently for a moment. "Yeah. And you can just shut the hell up. I'd bet that you would too if you were standing over here."

"Nuh uh! I'm in to girls, man. Not... whatever girl ponies are called." He was now sitting on his carpet, having fallen over while trying to breathe. "But you know what's good about that?"

I knew he was up to something, but I bit anyway. "No, what?"

"At least it proves you're not gay!"

I sputtered incoherently as Craig fell about laughing again. Here I was, having possibly brought about the destruction of the world as we know it, and Craig was making stupid jokes. Some things would never change, and I could not help but smile. I might as well play along.

"Yes, well, pussy is pussy."

Craig got real quiet, real fast. I, however, was busy occupying myself with the bathroom door. I realized that we needed towels to wrap the pony's head in and to clean up the floor tiles, and the only ones were in the bathroom. With Dimble. Who shot out as soon as the door was cracked. He leapt over the prone form in the hallway and scampered in to the living area.

"Hey, keep Dimble out of the hall." I called over my shoulder.

"Sure. Whatever."

I scrubbed my arm in the sink as best I could before grabbing the few extra towels we had. I doubted we would have any left after tonight. Exiting the bathroom, and carefully pushing errant strands of pony tail out of my way with a toe, I tossed the towels at Craig's face. He caught them with a jerk before adjusting his hat back into place and bending down to slide one underneath the pony's head. He wrapped it around as much as it would go, which, with her muzzle poking out of one end, made it look like her head had a fluffy red-brown cocoon.

"Okay, now we're gonna' get her into my room, and put her on my bed."

Craig looked at me with a huge grin.

"Yeah, it's not like that. Your room's a bigger mess, and I know what you do in there every weekend." He brings home a new girl. "We have to put her somewhere, and I don't think the couch is going to cut it." I motioned toward her wings.

"Whatever you say, man. Whatever you say."

"Are you saying you want her in your bed, then?" I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Nope. Just seeing how bad you want her in yours."

"Sure. I want blood all over my bed. That sounds like a great time." Craig blanched at that, and I'm pretty sure I know why. "Now just get your end. Gently. We'll lift her up together."

Craig stood there dumbly for a moment trying to figure out what I was doing. With some struggle I managed to get her hind legs curled under her. She really was not that big. Her body was perhaps four feet long from the front of her chest to the rear of her haunches, and she was slim enough that I would easily be able to wrap an arm most of the way around the thickest section of her barrel. But unconscious, and completely limp, she kept slipping out of my grasp. Craig followed my example and positioned her on her front, her head stretched out next to him.

She was also surprisingly light. A miniature horse of her size would probably be easily double or triple her weight. Not that I was complaining, since it meant that we could actually lift her.

With her in position, I slipped my hands under her belly, holding her rear hooves against her, and tried very hard not to think about how or where I was holding her. In an attempt to preserve some of her decency, I tucked her tail in and under her, then held it close to her as well. Craig followed suit after taking a moment to drape another towel over his shoulder, then rested her head in the crook of his neck. I had only myself to blame for the part of her that I was hugging to me as we lifted her off the floor. Her limp form soon threatened to simply roll out of my arms, and I found that I had to grasp her tightly to prevent this. Craig snickered when I clutched her closer and I was doubly glad that her tail was in the way.

I began to back up, but I kept us moving slow because Craig had to deal with her wings dragging toward his feet. We just did not have enough hands to hold them up.

"So how'd you know it was a girl pony?"

I looked at Craig incredulously as we slowly worked our way around the corner of my doorframe. "Really? You're going to ask this now, when we should be worrying about not dropping her?" He shrugged slightly. At least he was careful to not let her chin slip off his shoulder.

"Fine." I sighed. "I thought she was a she because according to the show, ponies are sexually dimorphic."

Craig blinked, and confusion rapidly spread across his face. "She's a sex mutant? What..? I thought the show was for little girls."

As we drew up next to my bed I let out another sigh. I should have known this would happen. Big words and Craig mixed strangely. It is not that he is dumb. Words he does not know just tend to get mixed up in his head, and he then associates them to words he does know in ways that make sense only to him. Now I just had to figure out which track his thoughts were taking.

"Er... No?" Yeah, I'm smooth like that. I was, of course, concentrating more on what I was holding than what he was saying.

"But you just called her a 'die-morph.' So some kind of mutant. Right?"

'Morph.' Mutant. Same thing of course. "No, it's not like that. It means that girls and guys look different. I'm going off the cartoon here, but the guy ponies have different faces and are bigger and bulkier. She looks like a girl pony from the show, so I thought she'd be one."

"Ohhhh..." Learn something new every day, huh Craig. "So because girls have boobs and guys don't, we are sex mutants too?"

I would have facepalmed hard if I could have done so without dropping a comatose pony. "Close enough." He grinned at me as though he had just accomplished something amazing.

Content to let the conversation drop, I nodded my head toward the bed beside us. Letting the pony down was a lot easier than picking her up, and it did not take long for her limp form to sprawl across the entire thing. I shooed Craig off to get the rest of the towels while I arranged the pony's wings as best I could. The bed was directly across from the doorway, so lying on her left side gave little room between her back and the wall. I had no idea whether her position would be at all comfortable - horses tend to sleep standing up, but ponies...? Yet another piece of information I could only assume about.

I shucked most of the covers out from under her, but pulled the thin first sheet over her. I was not sure whether she would be too warm or not, but it made me feel better about her decency. That did not stop Craig from sniggering from the doorway.

"I always thought you needed some practice tucking a girl in. I didn't think it'd be a pony."

"Stuff it." I was getting tired of this. "Just give me another towel." I slipped it under her head when he handed it over.

"So now what?" Craig asked as I stood back to make sure everything was as good as I could make it.

"Now you get to run to the store. We need gauze, bandage pads, medical tape," I had to make sure he did not just buy masking, "and some antiseptic. The towels don't do any more than prevent her from bleeding all over my pillow."

"You know I have to be at the studio in less than an hour, right?"

"Well, yeah. That's why you need to hurry. Or you can clean up this place while I go."

Craig looked over his shoulder and down the hall. He did not think long, nor did I expect him to. "I'll go. You can fight with your cat over who gets to clean the floor."

A flurry of motion later had Dimble back in the bathroom to prevent him from investigating the bloody tiles any further. Craig left with a wink and a 'don't do anything I wouldn't.' It meant that I pretty much had free reign to do what I wanted, though what his views on ponies were had yet to be seen.

Suddenly being alone in the apartment made my nervousness rush back. I could feel my hands trying to cold-sweat through the warm water as I scrubbed the floor clean. I appreciated that none of my nightmare scenarios had played out so far, but it was hardly any consolation. What should I do now? Should I just wait and see, or should I call an ambulance? I am sure that a hospital would help, but there would be all sorts of shocked questions that I did not feel up to answering. And it would get the authorities involved pretty quickly.

Should I just call the authorities and get that over with? It would probably be the safest course of action, but I can only imagine how horrible it would be to wake up in a government alien containment facility. I did not know if they actually had those, but I am sure they could manage something suitably unsettling. All I know is that I would hate to wake up in a sterile white room that was one part prison and one part lab. I really did not want to subject the pony to that if I could.

I could try talking to someone, but that still left questions. Who could possibly give me advice on this kind of situation, and how could I ask without letting on that there was an alien in my apartment? Cleaned up and standing in the doorway looking over the pony on my bed I could think of only two people. My mom, who used to be a doctor, and my dad, who is a lawyer.

While my mom's old medical knowledge might be of some general use, I suspected that there was little that she could actually do for a pony. Not that I wanted to get into that conversation with her. Just asking her for general advice would probably get me a 'be kind and do the best you can.' She was normally gentle and considerate like that.

My dad, on the other hand, might have a wealth of knowledge as to what officials might do in this situation. He is a lawyer after all! They know about that kind of thing, right? Plus he had always been the more easy-going of my parents - mom made the rules in our house - so it would probably be easier for me to just brush off the situation and get some advice.

It would also be nice to just talk with either of them. I had not done so in a while, and I definitely needed some bolstering right about now.

But standing there in the doorway, my computer happily making World of Warcraft in-game noises, reminded me that simply cleaning up the floor was not enough. Imagine waking up in a strange room, surrounded by aliens, and there are posters and random paraphernalia lying about showing your world, friends, and maybe even family. I did not want the pony waking up to that either.

I pulled down my single My Little Pony poster - the one with the entire season one cast - rolled it up, and stuffed it in my closet. A handful of figurines and a couple of DVDs followed and were tucked neatly into a box under some other junk. Just for good measure, when I logged out of my game, I hid my 'Ponies' file deep in the electronic bowels of my computer. I did not want to risk her knowing how to break into my computer and finding my fan art. My PDF saves of various fan fictions joined the artwork. Can you imagine what an actual pony would do if they stumbled across Fallout Equestria? Yeah, I was not eager to find out.

Almost as an afterthought I also hid my porn. I had very little in the way of physical copies, so mostly it was burying another folder somewhere within my computer. Hopefully I could find both hidden files in the future.

After turning my computer off, I retreated to the living area to continue my brief cleaning spree and found my phone and the pony's iPad-like device still on the floor. Neither seemed damaged from their fall to the carpet, nor did either seem to be doing anything more dangerous than running down their batteries. I scooped them both up, put my phone to sleep, and investigated the pony's device. While entirely too pink for my choice, it was surprisingly similar to the electronics I knew. The display had numerous pictorial icons, and a background of the pony smiling widely amongst a group of other ponies all clustered together for the picture. Other than the ponies in the foreground and a sliver of gleaming white and gold wall to one side, it was a perfectly normal park. Laid over the top of all this was a round red blinking icon with some Equestrian script that resolved and faded along with the icon. The message seemed important, but I could not read it and I was loathe to begin poking at the device to see what would happen.

I had gone back to the side of my bed while trying to figure out how to turn the device off when I heard the front door open. There were no obvious buttons on the damned thing. But why would there be? Hoofed creatures were not known for fine manual dexterity.

"Alright. We got gauze, the kind of pad things that the guy told me I needed, antiseptic, and some sticky tape." Craig wandered in with a lumpy plastic bag.

"What kind of tape?" I said, putting the pony's device on my nightstand.

"Uh. The white kind that comes in little rolls?"

I took the bag from Craig and looked inside. It seemed to be all the right stuff. "Okay. Grab me a bowl of some warm water and a couple hand towels."

As he went off to do that I gently lifted the pony's head, both towels still in place, and slipped into where my pillow had been. I undid the towel around her after resting her head in my lap. She did not even twitch, which got me worried. By the time Craig returned I had the various materials spread out about me in what open space I could find.

"Shouldn't she be awake by now?" I asked, peering down at her.

"Yeah." Craig also sounded a bit worried. "Normally you're only out for a minute or two. This can't be good."

I tried my best to swallow my fears. Please, whatever deity, or Princess, might be out there, don't let her be seriously injured!

There was still some slight blood flow, but being less than it had been I took it as a good sign. With a damp washcloth I began dabbing at and cleaning the area around her wound. It took a couple of nervous silent minutes to do so before I moved on to the wound itself. Lightly stroking in the direction of the gash to prevent any more damage brought her first actual reaction. I froze when she tensed and gave a soft groan, her face scrunching a bit as she pulled her wings in closer. I waited, not even daring to breathe.

But she did not do anything else.

I looked up to Craig who was standing stock-still a little ways away. His eyes were wide in an expression I am sure I mirrored. "Good sign?" I whispered.

He did not appear to have heard me and was still staring at the pony in my lap like he wanted to run.

"Craig!" I said a bit louder. He spared me a glance. "Is that a good sign?"

He gave both a slight nod and a slight shrug. It was one of the weirdest things I have ever seen, but it got the message across.

Turning back, I gathered my wits about me. Please do not wake up right now! I did not want to have to explain this situation, as innocent as it actually was. Speaking of which... I shifted a bit to get more comfortable and to get both her muzzle and horn a little further from my crotch. One would have been horribly embarrassing and the other likely more painful than anything I had yet experienced.

I put a little antiseptic on another washcloth and dabbed that slowly on to the side of her head. She sort of twitched again, but otherwise did nothing. That did not stop both of us from holding our breathes and freezing again. After another tense minute I finally got up the courage to place the bandage pad on her. Wrapping the gauze around and under her head proved to be a little difficult with only two hands, but I managed. How she did not wake up from that I don't know. I finished with a bit of tape to hold the entire thing together.

I handed the towels to Craig and stuck the rest of the stuff in the bag again. I took a last look back as we retreated out of the room. She looked a bit silly with the gauze wrapped around her head, but seemed to be resting peacefully. With the pillow back under her head, and her face pressed firmly into it - her doing, not mine - it was an adorable sight. I turned off the light and shut the door with a small smile before joining Craig on the couch.

"So, now what?" He was slouched forward with his hands hanging off the couch between his knees.

"I guess we wait. And hope she decides to go easy on us." I settled back on the other end and stared up at the ceiling. I hoped my upstairs neighbors had not noticed the commotion. The pony collapsing had been pretty noisy.

"What do you mean 'us?' This is all you, dude."

"Gee, thanks! You're such a pal!" I deadpanned.

"You're the one who found her." He sat back and looked over at me. "How did you even do that?"

"I... don't know." Really, I had no idea. "It was just a random message on my phone. I thought it was a mistake and made a joke of it. How was I supposed to know ponies were real?" I flailed my hands once in exasperation.

Craig grunted. "Somebody must have. You found that translation thing online."

"Yeah. Now I really want to talk to that AzureMare person. Maybe she," or was it 'he?' "found out about ponies the same way we did. A botched message that..." I perked up. I had an idea! Why did it not come to me sooner? "Maybe the Sun has something to do with it. Things have been going haywire all day. Maybe the flare somehow screwed up space-time and connected our Sun to Celestia's!"

Craig just looked at me like I had lost it. "Who's 'Celestia?'" Oh right. He's not a fan.

"Uh. She's the H. P. I. C. - Head Pony In Charge. Controls their Sun, leads the kingdom, is older than dirt, and nicer than Mother Teresa. Kind of like a pony Jesus, minus the whole dying horribly thing." I was NOT going to label her as God. I really doubted that she had the Omniscience, -potence, and other 'omnis' that the biblical God did.

"And you've gone and pissed her off? What the fuck!" Craig stood up and stepped away from me as though five more feet of distance would spare him the wrath of The Almighty.

"Well, I'm hoping to convince what's-her-name in there," I motioned toward my room with a hand, "that we just made a big mistake, and didn't mean any actual harm. Hopefully she'll be okay with helping us not get smited. We might have to grovel a little for this."

"Once again, all you, dude!"

I sighed. "I don't even know if Celestia's a real pony, or if she was just created for the show. The only thing I can do is wait for that pony to wake up."

Craig and I waited there in silence as the moments got longer and longer. It was getting really awkward, to be honest. But he apparently had nothing more to add, and I had learned the hard way that if I did not have anything specific to say, then it was definitely wiser to keep my mouth shut. And I also could not think of anything to add.

Finally Craig broke the tension. "Well, uh, I think I'll get going. Be a little early, but I need to find some idiot to make fun of on the show. Probably need to make up some contest for tickets too, since there's a show this weekend at Oggie's." That is a popular band venue and bar on the north end of town. I had been hoping to go, since Craig often 'found' a couple of extra tickets to such things. I suddenly felt a bit down. Now I was definitely not going to that.

"Yeah. Go to." I fixed him with a stern glare. "You can't say anything about this. Not a single damned word. If I so much as hear a peep about ponies from you on your bit tonight I will murder you. Capice?"

He smirked. "Everything but that last bit." Back to the old Craig again, I see. I just continued to glare though, and his burgeoning smile soon faded. This was serious after all. "Fine. I promise not to say a single word about what happened tonight, Alex."

I flopped back on the couch and went back to staring at the ceiling. Being alone in the apartment with nothing to do but wait for a lost, hurt, and angry pony to wake up was not how I had wanted to spend my evening. What a perfect day this had been. I felt like I should be giddy - ponies were real after all - but I could not get over just how badly I may have fucked up. But still. Ponies...

"Hey Alex. I'm out. Try not to think too much about the unconscious and completely naked pony rubbing herself all over your sheets!" He called far too cheerfully as he winked over his shoulder at me.

"Oh, fuck you!" I grumped from the couch.

"Whatever. And I love you too, dude. No homo. Later!"

And he was gone. Just great.

After a moment of moping I pulled out my phone. I really wanted some advice on what to do now; preferably some that did not come from Craig. I had no idea what he would actually suggest, but I was pretty sure it would be heavy on the snark. Perhaps completely comprised of it. So I would have to look elsewhere. Once again my parents came to mind, but when I tried to think my way through the actual conversation it never came out correct. How do you go about asking someone what they would do with an honest-to-god first contact situation without making them suspicious? Well, I doubted that anyone would outright assume that there was actually an extraterrestrial in my apartment, but the entire thing would be so full of awkward as to be suspicious. Plus I had told Craig not to tell anyone. Was I really going to break my own request?

Adding to being confused and more than a little lost I now felt bad for having considered betraying my own admonition. Great. That did it though. I could always wait to tell others about the situation, but once out in the open there was no taking it back. I did feel a little safer about waiting for the pony to wake up and asking her how she wanted to handle things.

But that still left me with some time, a whole lot of nervous energy, and nothing to do. I flipped on the TV and tried watching it, but I couldn't stay interested. My thoughts were dominated by the creature in the other room.

After a while I just had to get up and move. Not wanting to pace, I took up where I had left off cleaning. I washed the dishes, straightened up some of the furniture cushions, and put the various movie and game disks away. We did not have an entertainment center - too lazy to buy something that expensive - but a set of Ikea shelves worked decently as a substitute. I also grabbed the couple stray pieces of clothing that Craig normally left lying about and tossed them in his room. There I found the pony's circlet, which I placed on my nightstand. I realized that sleeping with her torc on was probably very uncomfortable, but I had no desire to try and remove it now. Stripping a pony would be another great crime to add to my list!

I finished my once-over by making sure there were no obvious bits of trash anywhere. Because really, this was like having company over. I kind of wanted the place to look decent, and not quite so much like a bachelor pad. I was not, however, going so far as Craig's room. I might not be the neatest person in the world, but every pile had its place and reason. Craig's entire room was one gigantic mish-mash of random things strewn about, but it was also his stuff, and it was not my place to mess with it.

It was getting a bit late when I finished, though earlier than I usually liked. With nothing better to do I went through the process of brushing my teeth and preparing for bed. Incidentally, that let the cat out of the bathroom. My bedroom door stopped him, much to Dimble's dismay, but he generally slept on the floor anyway. The living room would be good enough for him for now.

While brushing my teeth, the face in the mirror stopped me. I had never considered myself handsome, but I thought I did okay. Kind of right in the middle of the scale between Swamp Thing and Brad Pitt. Women did not go out of their way to flirt with me, but I had also never been laughed off. I thought my jaw line was pretty good, if a little scruffy at the moment; I could do with a shave soon. My dirty blonde, shoulder blade-length hair was pulled back in a short ponytail (har har) like always. Personally, I felt that I looked better with longer hair rather than shorter. Plus I had found out that it really was a lot of fun having someone play with your hair. I wasn't going to let girls monopolize on that. Gender equality and all, you know?

My eyes though. The hazel eyes, staring at me in the mirror past a nose with a very faint bulb at the tip, were clearly worried and more than a little strained. I could see that I was a mess after today. Who would not be? But if I could see it, then it meant that others could as well, and that bothered me a little. Hopefully Craig had not noticed. I tried smiling happily, but it was a bit lopsided and just came off looking goofy. I chuckled a bit at the antics of the image before me, which did help. I tried to hold on to that feeling as I finished up, took out my contacts, and nabbed the extra covers from where I had tossed them in my room.

I'll freely admit to spending several minutes in the doorway marveling at the pony nestled on my bed. She seemed peaceful enough; every line was at ease as she lay in a slight curl, and her breathing easy.

Curled up on the couch as best I could - it was not a rollout unfortunately - I tried my hardest to sleep. There was just no getting around the fact that there was a pony barely more than a room away, and I had no idea who she was or how she would be when she awoke. My thoughts tumbled over again and again playing out various scenarios for the coming hours. As a pessimist, they tended toward the darker, more uncomfortable endings. What can I say? If I expect the worst, then chances are I would be pleasantly surprised when things turn out for the better.

Unfortunately my restless thoughts also meant that I was a long time getting to sleep. Well, that and I normally stay up for a couple more hours. When I did sleep it was light and uneasy. I remember waking up when Craig came home early in the morning, though I cannot remember what he said. It was probably some sort of teasing about me choosing the couch over my own bed. Give it a rest... Unwilling to throw my only pillow, I just swatted at him with my hand.

The rest of the night continued like that. Short bouts of sleep before waking suddenly to some noise or another. Even with his door shut, Craig's persistent snoring was not helping. Each time that I awoke I would lie deathly still and wait for some sign from my room. It would take long minutes of oppressive nothingness before I would slowly drift back away from reality.

Until I awoke to a gasp.

It was still pretty dark, so it was definitely early. The quickly stifled cry of surprise and fear had a distinctive feminine tone to it, and it put me instantly awake and alert. A sudden deluge of adrenaline guaranteed it.

I gulped against a throat that was once again very dry. It was time to face the music.