“Oh, it’s such a relief getting that new assignment from Princess Celestia…” Twilight Sparkle beamed up at the great tree before them that was the Golden Oak Library, illuminated by the midday sun.
Applejack quirked an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”
Twilight’s smile faded a little. “The reason she sent me to Ponyville in the first place was to encourage me to make friends. Now that I have, I was worried she might send me back to Canterlot alone. I didn’t want to just up and leave you behind like that.”
Pinkie Pie grinned, her tail swishing happily. “Aww, you do care about us!”
Twilight’s smile returned. “Of course I do, Pinkie. It just took me a trip through the Everfree Forest to realize it.”
“Don’t forget the harrowing encounter with a supervillain,” Tank Buster added.
Scarlet Starbeam smiled. “No bond quite compares to that forged in the heat of battle, does it?”
The nine ponies filed into the library to find a long table already set up, surrounded by nine chairs and laden with several paper bags and cups.
Rainbow Dash sniffed at the air eagerly. “Oh man, did the Princess order us hayburgers?”
“Oh!” Twilight blinked, as though not sure how to react. “I don’t think I’ve had one before; there weren’t any restaurants in Canterlot that served them.”
“Hayburgers…?” Scarlet echoed, glancing nervously at Tank and Waterwing to find similar looks of apprehension on their faces.
“You ain’t tried them either? C'mon, you’re in for a treat!” Applejack beckoned them over to the table, where Rarity and Pinkie Pie had already begun distributing drinks and sandwiches about.
As everyone else began to tuck into their burgers, Tank gave his a careful nudge. Sure enough, under the bun he found ketchup, pickles, lettuce, a tomato slice… and a hearty sprinkling of hay.
“Welp,” Tank muttered. “That… sure is exactly what it says on the tin.”
“This… may be a problem.” Scarlet glanced from one companion to the other. “Waterwing, what do you…?”
Waterwing paused, her hayburger held carefully in her hooves. Several bites were already missing from it; a smear of ketchup on her cheek betrayed where they’d gone. Scarlet and Tank stared at her incredulously, but she merely shrugged in response and hungrily tore off another bite.
“Hey, so I’ve been curious about something for a while now.” Twilight took a sip of her drink before continuing. “I’ve never seen cutie marks quite like yours before. Would you tell us how you got them?”
Scarlet blinked, staring blankly at Twilight. “Er… ‘cutie marks…’?”
“Why, of course, dear!” Rarity leaned forward eagerly. “Cutie marks as unusual as yours must have the most fascinating stories behind them. Go on, I insist~”
Scarlet spent a few seconds sweating nervously before lowering her voice to a barely audible whisper. “I have no idea what that means…”
Tank scratched his head, whispering back as quietly as he could manage. “Uh… I think they’re talking about these weird tattoo things,” he suggested, glancing from the shooting star mark on Scarlet’s flank to the heart-shaped one sported by Waterwing.
“But we know nothing whatsoever about them,” Scarlet protested.
“Nope, we sure don’t!” Tank gave her a sarcastic grin. “Looks like we get to improvise and hope for the best.”
Rainbow Dash quirked an eyebrow. “Uh, what are you guys whispering about?”
“Ah, nothing relevant!” Scarlet gave Rainbow a pleasant smile. “Tank here was just about to begin the exciting tale of his, er… cutie mark!”
Tank bristled, shooting a dirty look at Scarlet. “What? Why, you - ”
Twilight blinked. “Is something wrong?”
“Huh? Oh, uh… no, everything’s fine!” Tank waved his forehooves in dismissal. “Right, so uh… cutie mark story! That’s… certainly a thing… that I can definitely tell you.” He glanced down at his own shield mark as though hoping it might yield some means of escaping the conversation. “Let’s see… I, uh, got into a fight! A really nasty one, with, uh… an angry stencil set?”
A quiet breeze blowing in through a nearby window was the only sound to be heard in the library as six very confused ponies stared at Tank.
“WAAAHAHAHA!”
Pinkie Pie gave a great guffaw and toppled out of her chair.
Tank rolled his eyes. “I’m getting the sneaking suspicion that wasn’t the right answer…”
Applejack scratched her head. “Uh… if I didn’t know better, I’d say it sounds like you don’t even know what a cutie mark is.”
“Er… well, you see, what I believe he meant to say was - ” Scarlet began, before she suddenly felt a hoof on her shoulder and stopped.
Waterwing shook her head gently, lowering her hoof just far enough to place it over Scarlet’s heart.
Scarlet stared down at it for a moment, taking a deep breath. Finally, she looked back up at her companion. “…Very well. I suppose we owe them at least that much.”
Waterwing lowered her hoof, smiling as she nodded in agreement.
“Truth be told, Applejack,” Scarlet began, “you guessed correctly - none of us know what these strange marks on our bodies mean.”
“But… how can that be?” Fluttershy glanced worriedly from pony to pony, not sure what to think. “Everypony knows what cutie marks are…”
“I’ll give you a hint then,” Tank offered. “If everyone in the world knows what cutie marks are, what do you figure that means about us?”
The gears in Twilight’s mind snapped into place with an almost audible ‘click.’
“Wait… that explains everything.” Twilight glanced between each of the three companions in turn. “The way you hesitated before introducing yourselves, and the strange gaps in your knowledge… not to mention your speech patterns and your spells are totally unfamiliar. I’ve never seen anything like it before…” She took a moment to sort all this out in her head. “Are… you three from another world?”
Pfff! Rainbow Dash spat out her drink.
Tank smirked. “Wow, you figured that out way faster than I expected.”
“Another world?” Applejack echoed, a skeptical eyebrow quirked. “So what, are you saying you’re supposed to be some kind of aliens or something?”
“In a technical sense, I suppose,” Scarlet explained. “Our recent memories seem to have been muddled, so we can offer little in terms of context…”
Tank shrugged. “All we know is that we were in the middle of a job back home, enjoying our upright posture and our opposable thumbs, when bam - suddenly we’re a bunch of candy-colored equines with inexplicable butt tattoos in the middle of a field with no idea how we got there or where all our stuff went.”
Pinkie Pie scratched her head. “Opposa… what?”
Scarlet giggled. “Opposable thumbs, Pinkie. Our true form is that of the human, a bipedal primate. You would likely find our appearance very bizarre were we not transfigured so.”
Rarity blinked. “This is rather a lot to take in…”
“I’m sure the whole thing sounds completely bananas,” Tank admitted. “I honestly can’t tell if you even believe us.”
“Of course we do.” Twilight smiled, her tail swishing happily.
“Yeah!” Rainbow agreed. “…Wait, we do?”
Twilight straightened up a bit in her seat. “You three are connected to the Elements of Harmony, just like the rest of us… not to mention you risked your lives to help us defeat Nightmare Moon. If that doesn’t make you worthy of our trust, then I don’t know what would. I hope we get to be really good friends! I would love to learn more about you and your world…” At this, her eyes lit up. “Oh, and I almost forgot - we also have the task of discovering just what your Elements are! I hope you’re as excited as I am. This is unprecedented! We have so much research to do!”
Scarlet bit her lip. “Er. Yes, well… you see…”
Twilight’s excited grin faltered. “Huh?”
Tank heaved a noisy sigh. “Twilight… I’m really sorry about this, but we can’t stay here. We have friends and loved ones waiting for us in our world. We have lives to get back to; we can’t just drop everything and stick around to help you, even with an assignment this important.”
Pinkie Pie’s eyes began to water. “Wait, you’re leaving already? But you just got here! I didn’t even get to throw you your party yet…!”
Scarlet winced. “It breaks my heart to say it, Pinkie… but yes, we really must be on our way. I promise we will not soon forget our time here… or any of you, for that matter.”
Twilight looked crestfallen. “Well… it’ll be a lot harder identifying your Elements without your help… but it would be pretty selfish of me to ask you to stay just for that, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, but you could come visit sometime, couldn’t you?” Rarity suggested. “We would all be ever so pleased to see you again.”
“Rarity, we have no idea how we even got here in the first place,” Tank explained. “I highly doubt we could promise to come visit.”
“Um… wait…”
This time, Fluttershy’s small voice drew the attention of every pony in the room. “Um, well… it’s just…” She spent a moment fidgeting in her seat, as though unsure if she should continue. “If you don’t know how you came to Equestria… then how do you know how to leave?”
Dead silence overtook the library for the next several seconds, during which Tank could almost feel the color draining from his face.
“Oh, void.”