It was morning in Ponyville. The sun was shining and the fallen snow was glistening in the sunlight. Fillies and even a handful of older ponies were playing in the white snow. Snowballs were flying through the air and snow ponies were being constructed. The Ponyville weather team had made the perfect snow that winter. Everyone was enjoying the snow. Josh would have also been enjoying the snow with them if he had his jacket.
“This is another reason I want, no, need my back pack. It has all of my weather gear inside of it, along with my books and-” Josh was loving the cool air, but getting in the snow would be too much, even for him to handle.
“I know Josh, you've told me a hundred times by now.” Andromeda rolled her eyes and had a look of amusement on her face. She was, after all in a happy mood since Josh and her were discharged from the hospital. They weren't fully healed, but they didn't need to be monitored by the staff anymore.
“Oh man it feels good to have all of my clothes on after being stuck in a gown made for ponies while being practically paralyzed for a few days. Good thing I slept through most of it.” Josh leaned back and stretched his body so his muscles would loosen up after being dormant for too long.
“It indeed does feel good to be able to get around and be free from the hospital. I don't mind the cold weather either.” Andromeda was on the same page as Josh.
“You and me both Andromeda.” Josh took a deep breath to take in the cool air around him and exhaled when his lungs were full of air. “So, what now?”
Andromeda had pre-planned while laying around in the hospital. “Now, we head to my place.” She had looked to Josh to see his reaction.
“Alright, sounds good to me.” At the end of his sentence, Josh looked over to Andromeda and let a smile form.
Andromeda was still looking at Josh and noticed the smile he had, she however, raised an eyebrow as a small smile of her own started forming. Smiles are, of course contagious. This was a little awkward, so Andromeda decided to start moving things along.
“We should get going.” She kept her focus on Josh as she said this.
“Alright then, show me the way.” Josh kept his smile all the while. He was still happy about getting out of the hospital and being able to walk around outside in the snow.
Andromeda started to walk, but shortly stopped and turned around to see if Josh was following her. He was still standing at the main entrance to the hospital, lost in the environment around him.
“You coming, or would you rather stand here dreamily all day?”
“What? Oh, right, sorry about that. Sometimes I just get lost in my surroundings.” Josh sheepishly stated before running up to Andromeda’s side.
Andromeda shook her head and a light chuckle escaped her when Josh ran up beside her.
The walk to Andromeda's house was rather quiet. Josh and Andromeda were looking around at the snow and the ponies playing in the snow as they were walking. Neither of the two had anything to say to the other, so they both kept to themselves until they were approaching Andromeda's house.
When Andromeda walked up to the front door of her house to unlock it, Josh stopped walking, then stepped a few feet back to get a better view of her house.
Overall, the house was a decent size. It was about average if compared to to other houses in Ponyville, but maybe just a tad smaller. Definitely a cozy size for one person, or pony to be living in by themselves. The foundation ever so slightly stuck out of the ground where it could just be seen. It was fine stone that had, from what Josh could see, not a single crack in it. The walls were made of some sort of light brown wood that matched the thatched roof. A chimney protruded out of the front of the house to the right of the door, if observing from outside the house. There were medium sized tree trunks that were support beams. They weaved through the walls of the house to keep everything sturdy. The architecture was quite similar overall to that of older German houses back on Earth.
“Here’s what I call home. I bought it when I first arrived in Ponyville. The townsfolk were a bit skittish around me at first, but after a few weeks they got used to me.” Andromeda let out a chuckle after she finished.
‘I wonder how long Andromeda's been here, and where was she before she moved to Ponyville?’ Josh wanted to say what he was thinking, but he didn't want to interrupt Andromeda or be intrusive.
Andromeda was standing at the door waiting for Josh. She noticed he was thinking again, which made her raise her eyebrow. “You coming?”
Andromeda's words snapped Josh back to the world of the living. “Oh, uh, I'll be right there.” Josh hopped a few steps forward and walked into Andromeda’s house. She had been waiting outside the door and soon followed. After she walked inside, she closed the door behind her.
“You seem quite distracted Josh. Anything particular on your mind?” Andromeda was quite curious as to what thoughts were going through the human's head.
“I'm just taking in my surroundings.” Josh gave an honest answer, but he also felt like something was off, or displaced, but pushed those thoughts to the back of his head.
When Josh had walked inside, his attention was grasped upon a most extraordinary sight. There was a large canvas painted as the night sky. Some parts were unfinished, but he still couldn't help but comment on the work of art. “Wow, this is amazing. How long did this take you to paint?”
Andromeda looked at what Josh was referring to and a small smile formed on her face.
“Well, I work on it whenever I have plenty of spare time. Once I get started painting, it's difficult to stop.”
“It's very impressive and I hope you get to finish it. I really like the amount of detail, but what are you using as reference to paint?”
“I use a telescope that's put away right now to see the position of the stars. The telescope is a little week, but it works. There are also things I've added that I felt needed to be there. And thank you Josh. You are the first I've shown my work to. I don't exactly have many visitors around here.” Andromeda looked away and rubbed the back of her head.
“That's too bad, because I'm sure plenty of people, or ponies, would enjoy it.” An awkward silence filled the room. Both Josh and Andromeda were just looking at the painting while trying to avoid eye contact. Neither of them were prepaid for such a situation.
Andromeda was almost a different pony when talking about her art. Not the headstrong, stubborn bat pony Josh had come to know in the few days he had spent with her, which didn't go unnoticed by the human. ‘Andromeda must not have very many friends around here. She also seems a bit embarrassed about her work, even though it's really good. There are so many details to her work, like how a galaxy is in a cloud of stars and that one part that looks like...’ The more Josh stared, the more lost he became. His attention was caught on a particular galaxy, but he didn't have much time to dwell on it.
Andromeda was getting tired of standing in dead silence and decided to end it. “Anyway, since you'll be spending the night here I'll show you around my house.”
Before Andromeda could steal the attention of Josh, he once again became slightly distracted by the painting in front of him.
‘That painting is beautiful. I just wish there was a way for me to be able to look at it whenever I wanted- oh, wait.’ Josh felt stupid and facepalmed. The facepalm was a little harder than he anticipated and ended up hurting himself. He had to rub his reddened skin to get it to feel better. ‘Stupid me. I have my phone, I can just take a picture.’ Josh let out a slight chuckle when he brought out his phone and took a picture of the masterpiece.
Andromeda looked blankly at Josh. She wasn't sure what he was doing, and Josh picked up on this after he finished taking the picture. “Oh, I guess you've never seen anything like this before. This, is a phone. I can use it to contact other people with phones as long as I have signal, and take pictures. There's a whole lot of other things it can do too, but it would take me way too long to explain everything.
“You know Josh, I guess it was your turn to wow me. It's only fair I guess. Heh.” Andromeda stepped closer to Josh to get a better look at the flat rectangular object in his grasp. She was intrigued and her expression showed it.
Josh noticed Andromeda's was quite interested in his little piece of the human world and decided to leave that for later. “I'll explain it some more and show it to you better later, but for now I would love to have a tour of your home.
“Yeah, you are definitely going to have to show me what all that little thing can do later, but anyways, the room we are standing in right now is the living room. I mostly use this area and the couch to read. It's quite nice, especially when there is a fire in the chimney to warm things up.” Andromeda had a grin on her face as she gestured to the room around her.
Josh noticed quite a few more details when looking around than what Andromeda pointed out. The roof of the house was quite tall and on the inside, there was only the first floor, so Josh was able to see all the wood support under the roof. There was one large log that was a handful of feet above him that looked like it stretched through the entire middle of the house. Josh could only assume though, since the walls to the kitchen and other rooms went all the way up to the ceiling.
Andromeda let Josh finish up looking around the house and continued the tour when she figured he was done looking around. “To your left is the bathroom and shower, which you are allowed to use since you will be staying here. There are also fresh towels lying on the counter if you need one to dry off after a shower. To the back of the living room, directly in front of you when you walk in, is the entrance to the kitchen.” Andromeda gestured her hoof to the large opening in the back. Two strong looking trunks stood on either side of the doorway and were connected to the walls. A branch or two arched over the doorway with just enough height for a human to walk through. The trunks blended well with the walls they were attached to.
Andromeda walked inside of the kitchen to continue the tour. “Here is the kitchen, which I'm sure is quite obvious.” There were two main sets of cabinets. One set at ground level and the other was above the ground cabinets by roughly two and a half feet. The ones on the ground also had marble looking counter tops to place food on. There was also an oven, stove, sink, and a few windows to let in some light.
“After the kitchen here, we have the hallway.” The hallway was ninety degrees right after taking a few steps into the kitchen, which faced toward the main door to the house. “The first door on the left is my room,and the door at the end of the hallway is for storage. And that concludes the tour of the house.”
“Andromeda, I love the open architecture of your house. It feels similar to older buildings in my world in many areas, and I love it all. I wish I could find a place like this back home. Thank you so much for letting me to be able to stay here. It means a lot.” Josh was flaunting a genuine smile after his little tour and Andromeda gave a smile in return.
“You are quite welcome Josh. Oh, almost forgot, the are a few items I need to buy in town, so I'm going to go to the market. Do you want to come with me? Wait, no, actually, could just you stay here?” Andromeda looked a bit embarrassed at her slip up.
“I thought you said the town would be fine with me on our way here.” Josh’s feeling weren't hurt, but he was wondering if Andromeda had changed her mind how the locals would react to him.
“I did say that, and while mostly true, the vendors I am going to be buying from might close shop before we walk up to them. Even though the ponies around here are used to outlandish things, they are still quite skittish.”
“Alright, I'll stay here and wait for you. Is there anything I need to know before you leave though?”
“I shouldn't take more than two hours, but it depends on how busy the markets are. Be sure to not break anything, and I mean anything. Feel free to make yourself at home and read a book, but do not, under any circumstances, go in my room. We can talk more when I get back, but until then, just keep to what I said.” And with that, Andromeda grabbed her saddlebags, opened the door, and exited to go to the Ponyville market.
‘Alone now, I guess. Might as well read.’ Josh looked around the living room and spotted a small bookshelf positioned against the wall. ‘I'm surprised I didn't notice that earlier.’ He walked over to it and started to sift through the books in search of anything interesting. It took him a few minutes to choose what to read, but he eventually settled for a book labeled The History of Equestria.
‘This should be interesting.’ Josh let out a chuckle.
While reading, Josh had a feeling of displacement. Anxiety was building up in him like a balloon being filled with too much air. He couldn't figure out why he was feeling this way until a fact he couldn't ignore rose in his head.
“This history is interesting. In fact, this whole place is interesting and intricate as the real world- wait- I've slept, became hungry, gotten hurt, and read in full chapter books. This- this is real. I’m not in a coma, nor a dream, and I'm not on anything.” Josh couldn't pinpoint what exactly he was feeling at the moment of his overdue revelation, but he was sure he felt light headed. Time seemed to slow down. His whole world came crashing down on him. He had already known these things, but put them in the back of his head to deal with later. Later had come, and Josh wasn't ready.
‘So that's what I was missing earlier.’ Josh felt like passing out and wasn't quite sure how to react. The situation was too much for his brain to compute. He stood up for a while, mentally running over his predicament over and over again until the stress of the situation became too much for him to bear. In his time of thinking, he decided he needed to find a way back home as soon as possible. ‘Come on Josh, get a hold of yourself.’ Josh was still in control, but the stress of being thrown into an alien world and realizing it too late was taking its toll on him.
The door to Andromeda's house flew open as a misplaced human came dashing through it. Josh had never had a meltdown during his entire life up until that point. It was also the first time he had ever been stranded on an alien planet with no idea how to get Home; it was the idea of home that hit him the hardest. Was there any way of going back? What was happening without him? How much school had he missed? Where did people, including his family think he went? Books on space travel would be of some real use, but Josh had no idea where to find some. ‘There has to be a book that can help me find a way home. Magic is in this place, so there's that. Okay, the best thing for me to do now is ask someone for directions to the nearest library.’ Josh looked around and strode toward the nearest pony toward him. He figured they had to know where a library was.
“Do you know where I can find a library with books on teleportation?” Josh’s voice was frantic and shaky. He was attempting to keep his composure, but he was having a hard time at it.
Josh’s target was an azure unicorn mare with a wand and crescent moon as a cutie mark. She was noticeably surprised and answered almost immediately with a shaky voice. “Twilight's Castle.” She wanted for the scary bipedal creature to get away from her as soon as possible.
Josh didn't have time to notice the skittish blue unicorn’s reaction. He had to find answers. “Which way is it?” The answer was asked in a rushed assortment of words. Instantly after asking, Josh received a point of the azure unicorn’s hoof. And within the blink of an eye, he was gone to find the information he needed.
Wind was the only input Josh’s body was receiving when he ran in the direction the shaky azure hoof had pointed in. The thought of never seeing Earth, home, or his family again made him almost completely numb. A feeling, or lack thereof, he wanted to end.