//------------------------------//
// 3: The Pigeons Come Home to Roost 
// Story: An Equestrian Princess in New York 
// by Tallinu 
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	3: The Pigeons Come Home to Roost

The roof access was locked of course, but my keycard opened it. The stairwell was steeper than Twilight would have liked, and tricky for her to navigate, but we made it down to my floor without incident.
“Okay, let me make sure there’s nobody in the halls... Be right back.”
I peeked out cautiously and slipped through the door, letting it close behind me. I went to the intersection where the elevator was located, checked that nobody was waiting or about to come out, and turned to go fetch Twilight, only to find her watching me through the stairwell door. I grimaced and rolled my eyes, then beckoned to her, moving past the elevator to my door. Number 715, home sweet home. The sound of hooves was at least dampened by the carpeting in the hall, and I doubted anyone on the next floor down would think there was actually a pony walking around up here, but I was still nervous.
The lock clicked and I pocketed my card as I pushed the door open. Twilight tucked her wings in tight, but there was plenty of clearance. I was still amazed by how large she actually was, and wondered if she always had been or if it had something to do with becoming a princess. Of course, that was assuming anything I’d seen in the show was remotely accurate, and I was beginning to wonder about that.
I shut the door and locked it, then turned to give the Princess the dollar tour. She had passed the kitchen, on our left, and was looking around my living room curiously. She ran her hoof along my genuine leather sofa on the right, against the wall shared with the bedroom. I winced, hoping I wouldn’t have to explain the material.
“Welcome to my humble abode. Kitchen, bedroom, bathroom…” I pointed down the short hall to my right. “I’m not sure if you’d be able to use it, honestly... but we can probably figure something out, same goes for food. I, uh... I hope this doesn’t bother you, but I’m just going to come right out and say it. Humans are omnivores... So some of the things in the fridge have meat in them.”
“I thought you might be. Your front teeth,” she explained, when she saw my dumbfounded expression. Then she tapped on the couch. “The processed animal hide was another clue, of course. There are so many materials I don’t recognize, just in this room. But even this couch, the quality is amazing. You didn’t tell me you were wealthy, Casey!”
“Hah! I’m hardly rich, I have to work every day just like most people. And we didn’t really have much time to get to know each other back there. The whole ’dead animals’ thing doesn’t bother you?”
“It’s nothing new. Griffins are predators, after all. So are dragons, mostly, and even we are technically omnivores, despite our teeth. We typically stick to milk and eggs, but smoked jerky makes a good portable supplement for travel rations, and... Are you alright?”
I was probably making a very strange face as I tried not to picture a pony ordering up a juicy steak, and I nodded. “Yeah, fine. That’s just not what I expected to hear.”
“Well, it does make more economic sense to eat a vegetarian diet than to use many times the calories raising an animal only to eat that instead. Not to mention avoiding the moral questions involved in that kind of farming... But that’s not why we’re here, is it.”
“If only.” I flopped into the recliner next to the back window, with the couch on the wall to my left. I gestured to it. “Make yourself comfortable, as long as you’re careful with the hooves... You don’t look too much heavier than me, and it’s fairly sturdy.”
“Thanks, I will. But you shouldn’t joke about a woman’s weight.” Her grin let me know she was kidding again, but I still blushed as she scooted onto the couch facing me and folded her legs.
“Don’t you mean a mare’s?” I wondered aloud.
“Hmm, the translation spell can be a little quirky... I assume you aren’t trying to call me an animal?”
“No! Not an animal, no - but you sure aren’t human. You bear a very strong resemblance to our horses and ponies, but you’re clearly an intelligent person.” I scratched my head, frowning thoughtfully. “Speaking of that spell, though... How does that work?”
Her eyes lit up (figuratively) and she took a deep breath - and then she paused, mouth half-open, and let out a huff. “Nutshell version, right?”
I chuckled and nodded. “If you don’t mind. I’m sure I wouldn’t understand the long and technical version, even if I had the first clue how magic worked.”
She gazed at me thoughtfully for a couple seconds and then nodded. “Basically, it forms a persistent conduit linking two minds, takes the concepts one is trying to convey through speech and sends them to the other, matching them to the best equivalents... It can reconstruct concepts into compound forms if needed, but it works best when both parties have the words needed to explain the concepts in question.”
“What’s the range? If I was on the other side of the planet, but called you up on my phone so we could hear each other’s voices, would it still work?”
She thought for a moment and then nodded. “I believe so. It’s a point to point mental link, it shouldn’t be affected by distance.”
I grinned as I pondered the implications, and arched an eyebrow at her. So do I even have to speak out loud?
“No, technically — Oh!” She grinned back and chuckled. “Very impressive! Most people I know can’t do that without practice.”
“Interesting. So it’s effectively a long range telepathy spell with training wheels, mostly bypassing language.”
“That’s... an excellent summary, yes.”
“And it doesn’t help you understand anyone you haven’t cast it on, does it.”
“Nnnope.” She winced slightly.
“So if you wanted to talk to a lot of people at once, you’d need someone to translate for you, huh.”
“Eeeyup.” The wince was more noticeable this time.
That led to an awkward pause. I’d effectively elected myself to that position without even realizing it. I think she knew I’d just realized that, and was waiting for me to demand that she find someone else at earliest opportunity. But there was no way in hell I was going to abandon her, even if she would accept such a decision gracefully. That didn’t mean I liked the idea any better, but there was no need to make hasty decisions about the future.
“So, can I get you anything to drink?”
“Yes, please,” she replied, a little too quickly to disguise her relief at the change of subject.
I hopped up and headed back to the kitchen, looking over the counter as I went to the fridge. “Water, milk, fruit punch, soda, actually I’m not sure if that’s a good idea. Can you burp? Our horses can’t burp...”
“Um, yes? Why do you ask?”
“Because the soda is carbonated, it has a lot of gas dissolved in it and it bubbles out when you drink it.”
“Sounds disgusting. May I?” So apparently ponies have a word that means both ‘disgust’ and ‘fascination’ because I’m pretty sure that’s what she used.
I looked at her and blinked a couple times. “Ooookay then. One Sprite coming up.” I grabbed one for myself as well, and thought better of tossing the can to her. I wasn’t sure if she’d catch it without shaking it up, and I didn’t want it to fountain all over her, as hilarious as that mental image was.
I heard a loud snort and turned to see her trying not to laugh. “What did I say?”
“Sorry! You’re... heheh! You really are very good at that. Would it actually make that much of a mess?”
“Yeah. Well, maybe. And I didn’t mean to share that. Are you sure this thing isn’t sending you every damn thing I think about?”
“Pretty sure, yeah.” She either ignored my suspicious tone or didn’t notice it. “If it was, I’d have trouble thinking clearly, myself. Not to mention it would be unethical to do that on purpose, like I said earlier. It’s possible it’s more sensitive than it should be in your case. I can try raising the threshold slightly, if you’re concerned.”
Okay, she wasn’t ignoring it, she was just handling it in a calm and professional manner. I could work with that. Besides, if you couldn’t trust Princess Twilight Freaking Sparkle, who could you trust? She didn’t seem like an alternate ’dark mirror’ Twilight, like in some of the nastier fanfics out there, and as far as I could tell she’d been straight with me so far. “Hmm. Maybe later, if it gets... bothersome. And I’m… sorry about overreacting earlier. Here.” I handed her the cold soda, and she inspected the can curiously, holding it with a hoof. I reminded myself once more to ask about that.
“I probably could’ve handled that whole situation better, too. So this piece here…?”
“Yeah, like this.” I set mine on the coffee table and showed her how to open it, then watched as she did the same with her magic.
“Interesting.” She listened to the hiss of popping bubbles for a few seconds, then sipped from the can, copying me. Her eyes bugged out and I think she nearly spat it all over the table.
“Careful, don’t drink it too fast at first. And inhaling a lot of the gas at once is a little unpleasant, but harmless.”
“Feels like it’s biting me! But it’s so sweet.”
“Yeah. Swish it around a bit and it’s more of a tickle. Should I get you some water instead?”
“No, it’s fine. Let’s talk.”
She sipped again, and I settled back into the chair, nodding.
“Yeah. So, maybe the most important thing is why you’re here. Was there an accident? Is someone else stuck here? Some artifact from your world ended up here?”
She stared at me in confusion. “No, none of us are stranded anywhere, and I don’t know of anyone or anything arriving here except for myself, via the portal I set up. Those seemed like oddly specific questions, though. And then there’s what you showed me just after I arrived. I got the impression you had some kind of foreknowledge… Is there something from our world that you do know about?”
“In a manner of speaking. I guess I should start with that instead. Then you can fill me in on anything that’s incorrect or missing.”
And so it was that I told Twilight Sparkle the story of the creation of Twilight Sparkle.
You know what I mean. Get your minds out of the gutter. Toy company. Talented writer. Family entertainment. Cast of characters. The story so far, or at least a summary thereof. I used the big flatscreen opposite the couch to play brief clips from relevant episodes. Yes, I had the whole series recorded, along with things like Dr. Who and Battlestar Galactica, but I had yet to run out of disk space. And no, I am not the kind of raging fanatic ‘brony’ who wears pony-themed clothes and talks about them all the time. I just liked the stories, especially the fan-made stories. The whole thing clearly fascinated her.
Speaking of which, Twilight burping is adorable. She’s so polite about it, too, covering her muzzle and apologizing for the interruption (until I finally convinced her that wasn’t necessary with me).