The next morning, Stevie woke up to a pounding headache. The byproduct of his night in the town threatened to do him in completely. Pain shot through every fiber of his being as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. In the end, his efforts to do something as basic as rising for the day proved fruitless, and he collapsed back onto his pillow. “Ray!” Stevie called.
“Yeah?” Ray asked.
“What happened last night, man?”
Ray stumbled out of his room, and felt his way over to where Stevie lay on Vinyl’s couch. He could feel that it was battered and scratched a little bit. Some of it sagged, while lumps as high as the average molehill made their presence known. He managed to find a seat in one of the valleys between these peaks.
“You got completely wasted, my man,” Ray said, “so Vinyl and I had to carry you back here.”
“Oh…,” Stevie said in realization, “...damn.”
“You ok?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Stevie said as he snapped out of his small daze.
“Good, now let’s go to breakfast,” Ray said as he helped Stevie up. Considering the sluggishness with which the average being coordinates himself after the consumption of alcoholic beverages, this was no easy task. When coupled with Stevie’s weight, it became nearly impossible. But by and by, Ray was able to get Stevie upright.
“Where are we gonna eat?” Stevie asked with interest.
“We’re gonna dine real fine with some chick named - get this one - Princess Twilight,” Ray explained.
“Who’s Princess Twilight?” Stevie asked in surprise.
You think I have any more ideas than you do? I'm a clueless man, but Vinyl said that she knows Princess Twilight.”
The two left their room and felt their way downstairs. The saying “blind leading the blind” would be quite apropo here, as the famous musicians stumbled down the flight. The banging eventually attracted Vinyl, who came rushing out of her kitchen to observe the scene. “Oh, my!” She said, “let me help you!”
She put her shoulder out for Stevie to grab, and Ray grabbed onto Stevie. The trio finally made it down the stairs, and Vinyl was able to turn and get a good look at each of her guests. They looked terrible, but then again, they had been out quite late. They didn’t look presentable, but she figured Twilight would overlook that. After all, she thought, Twilight’s the Princess of Friendship. What could happen?
“Are you two ready to go?” She asked out loud.
“Yeah!” Stevie said.
“Let’s go!” Ray shouted, then turned and yelled back upstairs, “OCTAVIA! GET YOURSELF DOWN HERE!”
“Good grief!” Vinyl said, “there’s no need to scream.”
“I’m coming!” Octavia said as she came down the stairs. She was dressed up a bit, knowing that she was on her way to meet royalty. She always enjoyed being proper, and this was no exception. She wasn’t overbearing about it, but she figured that her outfit was appropriate. It was a simple black dress with some white overlay that she had received as a present from Vinyl.
“Aw...you’re wearing the dress I got you,” Vinyl said.
“Yes, I am,” her friend replied curtly, “but I don’t want you getting any ideas.”
“Perish the thought.”
The group went outside, and trotted along the way towards Twilight’s castle. It was a beautiful day, and Cloudsdale seemed to be quite agreeable. The sun shone down upon them through patches of white, fluffy clouds. Ponyville had not seen any rain in a week, and some of the ponies were beginning to wonder where it could be. But whenever they spoke to Rainbow Dash about it, the rainbow mannered Pegasus always told them the same thing: “when the clouds come, I’ll make it rain!”
Just as Vinyl was beginning to question whether or not Dash’s oft chanted mantra would ever come to pass, they ran into her and Fluttershy on the road through downtown. The blue mare took one look and recognized the two famous ponies and raced up to embrace them. She had been told, in a meeting held between Vinyl, Octavia, Twilight, and their friends, that the famous ponies were in town. But the shock of seeing them in the flesh was a little too much for the starstruck mare to take, so she began yelling.
“I can’t believe it!” Rainbow shouted, “imagine, Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles here in Ponyville! Who would have thought?! I mean, this needs no added coolness! Not 20%, not 50%, not 100%! This is already a thousand percent cool!”
“It’s wonderful to meet you,” the much calmer yellow Pegasus said, “and I’m a big fan of your music as well. But, Stevie, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you become blind?”
“Oh, I don’t mind you asking,” Stevie said kindly, “I get that question all the time. Fact is, I was born blind.”
“Oh, you poor thing!” Fluttershy said, wrapping her wing around Stevie.
“What about you, Ray?” Rainbow asked.
“I went blind when I was 6!” Ray shouted.
“Oh, sorry,” Rainbow said.
“Hey, Stevie you're swaying,” Rainbow said.
“He often does that!” Vinyl cut in before Stevie could say anything.
“Um, why do you sway like that Stevie?” Fluttershy asked nervously.
“It's a habit,” Stevie replied as they arrived at Twilight’s castle.
Rainbow knocked on the door, and then a female voice greeted Ray’s ears.
“Well hi guys, i'm assuming you're here for breakfast.” The female voice said.
“Yeah” Ray chimed in.
“I'm assuming that you are Twilight Sparkle?” Stevie inquired raising his eyebrow.
“That's right,” Twilight said as she led the friends inside her castle and down the hall to the dining area.
“Describe this place to us!” Ray told Twilight.
“Ok, my castle is made out of crystal, and the dining hall we are about to see has a long table, and chairs on each side of the table,” Twilight described the castle.
“Nice,” Stevie approved as he imagine what the castle would look like.
“Who else is here?” Ray asked as he listened to his surroundings to try and get a feel for the castle.
“My assistant Spike,” Twilight spoke up.
The castle was pretty quiet except for Spikes snoring in the other room.
“Your little assistant is sleeping,” Ray said to Twilight.
“But it isn't his naptime,” Twilight whispered to Ray.
“Then why can I hear him snoring?” Ray asked.
“Must've been tired from the day's work,” Twilight said as she made her way to Spike who was indeed sleeping.
“Hey, Spike, we have guests,” Twilight said as Ray walked in the room as Spike got up from his bed.
“Hi, the name’s Spike!” Spike said to Ray.
“I’m Ray Charles,” Ray said to Spike.
Spike looked confused as he took it in the newcomers.
“I’m sorry but I do not know who you are?” Spike said.
“Where we come from we used to be musicians,” Ray explained.
“Where do you come from?” Twilight asked.
“We come from another planet, the planet where we come from is called earth, it is pretty similar to this planet but the only difference is that it is populated with a species called humans,” Ray continued explaining.
Then he went back to Stevie who stood in the doorway, Ray laid his hoof on Stevie’s shoulder.
“This here is Stevie,” Ray said before the other stallion could say anything.
“Nice to meet you,” Spike said as he attempted to shake Stevie’s hoof.
Spike pulled back his claw realizing that the stallion wasn’t looking at him.
Spike looked very disappointed at his claw, then he went back to his room.
“What did I do?” Stevie asked as he heard Spike leave.
“Not sure,” Ray said comforting his friend.
“So how did you come to equestria?” Twilight asked once they had sat down for breakfast.
“Well, I'm not sure how Stevie came to Equestria, but I know how I came here, see I was trying to rescue my brother from drowning in our small village,” Ray said.
“And then what happened?” Rainbow asked eager to hear the rest of the story,
“He unfortunately didn’t make it, I was so mad that I jumped in after him but I did not tell my mother what had happened, and then I ended up here, I've been here ever since,” Ray finished his story.
“We are so sorry about your brother,” Twilight said embracing Ray in a tight hug.
“Thanks so much,” Ray said, returning the hug.
“What about you Stevie, how did you come here?” Twilight asked letting go of Ray and turning her attention to Stevie.
“Well I’m not really sure, all I remember is that I was on tour in a town called New York which we have on earth, and that’s about all I remember before I ended up here, but I do believe that I was in an accident,” Stevie said hanging his head.
Then there came a knock on the door, once the door had magically opened an orange earth pony with a cowboy hat on and three apples for a cutie mark appeared.
“Hey, y’all, sorry ah’m late, Pinkie was spoutin’ somethin’ bout two musicians being here,” The orange pony said in a very thick southern accent.
“That would be us,” Ray said.
“Well, if it ain’t Ray Charles!” The orange earth pony said.
“I’m Stevie wonder,” Stevie spoke up.
“Well it’s a pleasure to meet y’all,” Applejack said as she proceeded to shake Ray’s hoof.
Ray just looked ahead and didn’t shake Applejack’s hoof.
“Now that ah think bout it Pinkie didn’t say nothin’ bout you being blind, Ray.” Applejack said as she pulled her hoof back.
”What song would you like to do?” Ray asked Vinyl who was sitting across from him.
“Hm, I would like to do a jazz number,” Vinyl replied.
“OK great, but before I can help you, I would like to explore some of your town!” Ray said as he got up, and walked over to Stevie.
“If you wanna help with this song, we could write it together, that sounds like a blast?” Ray said to his companion.
“Yeah that’s not great,” Stevie said, making an attempt at getting up, which proved to be a difficult task since Stevie was still kind of drunk.
“Let me help you up,” Ray said.
“No, thank you but I’m ok,” Stevie said as he was trying to stand up with Ray’s help.
But soon as Stevie was upright he fell back into his seat.
“Let’s go into town,” Stevie said with a slight waiver in his voice.
“Ok, good,” Twilight said standing up.
“This should be very interesting,” Rainbow thought to herself.
“Then what are we waiting for!” Applejack said as she got up and helped Stevie to the door.
Once they were outside Twilight’s home, Ray and Stevie started walking.
“Well, what should we look at first?” Twilight asked with a little laugh.
Twilight noticed that Ray and Stevie were wandering off, “hey guys, where are you going?” she shouted.
“We don’t know,” Ray said with a lighthearted chuckle.
“Well you better get back here this instant,” Rainbow Dash shouted.
“Hey cool off, Dash, we cool,” Stevie said.
Ray and Stevie went back to their friends, and Stevie had to sit down.
“Listen boys, I don’t know how it was in the human world, but around here we’ve got some rules, rule number one no running off unsupervised, rule number two no talking back to your elders,” Twilight said seemingly in one breath.
Ray looked in the direction of Twilight’s voice and started to laugh.
“Now you listen here, Twilight, Stevie and I ain’t no kids, we can take care of ourselves, right Stevie?” Ray said.
“Yes,” Stevie acknowledged.
“Um, Ray, do we know if Stevie is on the autism spectrum?” Twilight whispered.
“Hey guys let’s go to Town Hall!” Stevie suddenly piped up.
Twilight looked startled as though she had just seen a ghost.
“Ray, I never got your answer,” Twilight whispered as the friends walked to Town Hall.
“No, Stevie doesn’t have autism, at least not in the human world, maybe it is different,” Ray answered.
“Hey, I heard that!” Stevie shouted.
“Damn, Stevie you should really start learning distance, I'm standing right beside you, I don’t want to be deaf because of you,” Ray said as he put his hands over his ears.
“You shouldn’t talk about other ponies behind their back, that was a little bit rude of you, Ray,” Fluttershy said softly.
“Oh, So we are basically your kids?” Ray asked with sarcasm dripping from his words.
“No, but I’m just telling you that it is a bit rude to talk behind somepony’s back,” Fluttershy said.
“Oh please!” Ray said with a roll of his eyes.
“Ray, please stop your rude behavior!” Twilight advised.
Then Ray felt Fluttershy getting extremely extremely close to him.
“RAY, SAY SORRY,” Fluttershy almost shouted.
Stevie could feel Fluttershy’s anger, so he walked up to where he believed Fluttershy to be standing.
“Fluttershy, calm down he didn’t mean it,” Stevie calmed Fluttershy.
“I know he didn’t mean it, I just think that Ray should be a bit more respectful,” Fluttershy said with a little bit of anger in her voice.
“Have you ever meditated?” Stevie asked the yellow pegasus.
“Um, no I haven’t, should I be?” Fluttershy asked.
“Yes, it might be good for you,” Stevie said, giving Fluttershy a hug.
“Aww, this is so cute!” Twilight said sweetly
“Get a room, you two!” Rainbow said to Stevie.
A couple minutes of awkward silence followed, permeated only by Rainbow’s growing laughter.
“So, who’s up for ice cream?” Twilight asked.
“ME!” Pinkie shouted behind Twilight.
Twilight turned around to stare at the pink pony in shock.
“Pinkie, warn me next time before you do that or just don’t do it!” Twilight advised.
“I could’ve told you she was there,” Ray said mockingly,
“Ray I thought I told you to keep your mouth shut!” Twilight shouted.
“I’m sorry,” Ray said sheepishly.
All was silent on the way to the ice cream shop on the other side of town.
Ray was walking with Vinyl and they were discussing the jazz number that Ray was going to do with Vinyl.
“This feels like we’ve been walking for hours,” Ray complained.
“Yeah you one to talk, you’re so old your bones are probably breaking with each step you take!” Rainbow said mockingly.
Stevie started to laugh, “Hey, Ray I know we’ve been friends for years, but you’ve got to admit that’s kind of funny.”
“Maybe for you, but she called me old, I'm not that old, I'm 67 now,” Ray said, sitting down on a nearby bench with Twilight by his side.
“Hey guys it’s nice and sunny out, the birds are chirping and the sun has come out to play, Ray we are to go on without you if you want to take a break,” Fluttershy said as she continued walking with Stevie.
“We can’t just sit around here all day, let’s go see what Rarity is up to.” Twilight said getting up.
“Who?” Stevie asked.
“You’ll see, she’s one of the best fashionistas ever,” Twilight said.
When they arrived at the carousel boutique, Twilight knocked on the door, shuffling could be heard from inside, then Rarity opened the door.
“What a pleasant surprise, may I ask what brings you here?” Rarity asked, embracing Twilight.
“We just want to show our guests around.” Twilight said.
“Well, come right in, I'm actually hosting a guest of my own today, he’s pretty famous in Ponyville.” Rarity excitedly announced.
As Ray listened to his surroundings he could hear singing in the back of the boutique, he had heard this song before in the human world.
“Hey guys I can hear singing,” Ray said to nopony in particular.
“Oh that must be my guest now, he might’ve come in the back door, let me go check,” Rarity said as she walked off.
“If this is who I think it is we’re going to have so much fun,” Ray whispered to Stevie who wasn’t listening, he was exploring everything that was within his reach.
“Hey Stevie are you listening to me?” Ray asked.
“Huh, oh sorry I wasn’t listening,” Stevie said.
“Here he is the one and only Moonwalker!” Rarity announced.
“Moonwalker?” Stevie and Ray said in surprise.
“That’s me,” Moonwalker announced.
“We had a singer on earth called Michael Jackson, he could do the moonwalk but unfortunately he died,” Ray said in disappointment.
“Dude that’s trippy, but he ain’t dead,” Moonwalker said with swagger in his voice.
“Michael?” Ray and Stevie said in unison.
“Yup that’s me, but I prefer to be called Moonwalker, do you know after I overdosed I fell into a coma instead of dying, then when I woke up I ended up here, always let me tell you this place is cool,” Moonwalker said.
“Well these are our friends, say hello guys,” Ray said.
“Hi,” The main six said in unison.
“How long have you been staying at Rarity’s boutique?” Twilight asked.
“Oh man, I don’t know, since I came here,” Moonwalker said as he sat down.
“Hey let’s get high,” Moonwalker said as he handed Ray a cigarette,
“Oh Moonwalker you do realize that this is a kids story right?” Pinkie said out of nowhere.
“Whatever man I just wanna have some fun dude,” Moonwalker said, not paying attention to Pinkie.
“Let me show you my mansion on the edge of Ponyville, I had that built for me, reminds me of the mansion back home I had,” Moonwalker said.
Twilight lit up her horn and teleported them all to Moonwalker’s mansion.
“What is my mansion that I called nowhere land, let me show you around,” Moonwalker gleefully said as he skipped along like a child.
Twilight and Pinkie looked at each other.
“This is my bedroom, and here I can basically do anything I want. I can jump on the bed, I can have breakfast in bed when I want, isn’t it awesome?” Moonwalker said as he led the friends into his bedroom.
Moonwalker’s bedroom looks like a child’s bedroom, with famous cartoon characters on the walls, in the corner stood a big four poster bed.
Moonwalker went over to the bed and started jumping on it.
“Woo hoo this is fun, hey Ray come join me,” Moonwalker said in excitement.
“I think I’ll pass,” Ray said.
“What about you Stevie, you want to come jump with me, it’s lots of fun,” Moonwalker tried to coax Stevie into jumping with him.
“I don’t think so Moonwalker, listen there is a time for fun and there’s a time for business!” Stevie huffed in annoyance.
“I know that man, but every once in a while when I come here I just have to have fun, I even had a gigantic amusement park built, want to see it?” Moonwalker asked eagerly, still jumping up and down.
“No thank you, I think we’ve had enough sightseeing for one day,” Ray said before Stevie or any of the others could answer.
“Alright, but if y’all need me I’ll be here,” Moonwalker said jumping down from the bed.
“Guys let’s go home!” Twilight said as she teleported them back to her castle.
Vinyl and Octavia walked home with Ray and Stevie, just as the sun was setting on the horizon.