//------------------------------//
// The Queer Quintet 
// Story: Equestria's Ray of Hope 
// by The_Darker_Fonts 
//------------------------------//

The world around Raymond blobbed and shifted into a heaving mass of glimmering purples, whites, and pinks.  Near blinding white sparkles spun around his head in a rapid flow, making him dizzy as his eyes tried to keep up with the energetic balls of light.  A feeling had risen to his chest, similar to what Raymond thought dying of a sugar rush felt like.  He decided that this kind of feeling was going to be categorized as “meth dream” in his mental archives.  Suddenly, like the sea drawing away from the beach, the feeling cleared away, leaving him off-balanced and confused.
He rubbed his eyes, still seeing purple in the edges of his view, before taking in the scenery around him.  
He stood in the middle of a large field of unbelievably soft grass that was outrageously green.  All of the blades seemed to be that exact same height, as well as the exact same width and color. It seemed to be completely weed less, which seemed to be an impossible feat on Mother Nature’s part.  Raymond’s own front yard was only a grand total of three hundred twenty square feet, and was about sixty percent weed.  Looking behind him, he found that the field only extended a few feet behind him until it reached a forest.
The forest screamed spooky at him, near literally from the squacks of unidentifiable birds and squeals and wails of unworldly beasts echoed from within its depths, sending a shiver through his body.  If this was the same forest he had seen through the stained-glass windows, his plans for escaping into there were all cancelled.  The place reeked of unwashed toddler socks that he could smell from where he stood, and a thick, sickly-green haze slowly oozed from it.  Vines climbed up and down the gnarled trunks of every tree in his sight and hung off of their sharply angled branches.  A small path led directly into the forest, though why any sane person, or pony- he didn’t know, would willingly go in there was beyond him.
A shadow zipped across his peripheral vision, and he turned to track it with his eyes.  He found that the shadow originated not from the ground, but from somewhere up above.  He looked up.
Huge mistake.  Raymond found himself blinded by an impossibly bright  midmorning sun.  “And I thought a phone screen at one in the morning was bright”, he grumbled to himself, forcefully blinking his eyes to counteract his blindness.  This was more like getting beamed in the eyes with a thirty kilowatt floodlight. 
Still blinking, his eyes adjusted to the light level, just enough that he could catch a glimpse of something darting around in the sky.  He followed the orange and yellow streak as it shot from cloud to cloud.  It destroyed each puffy ball of condensation it touched, seemingly trying to clear the sky completely.  A slightly larger streak of light gray with a storm cloud trailing behind it met up with its fiery colored companion.  The two stopped just long enough for Raymond to discern that they were indeed ponies with wings.  Pegasi?  Well, if there were unicorns and alicorns, why not?  He followed their trail as they once again shot away, their path leading directly in front of the sun.
“Gah,” Raymond yelled as he was once again blinded.  He blinked his eyes furiously, rubbing them with the palms of his hands as they began to water.  With how many times this was happening already in this strange world, he figured that he would be blinded on day three.  Finally dismissing the image of the Equestrian sun that had burned itself into his eyes, he looked down, finding himself face to face with a rock.
It was perfectly dimensional, smooth and gray, but also tilted slightly towards the blinding sun.  It was almost as tall enough to reach his chest , but still missed the mark by about an inch.  Stepping around its rightward side, he could see a distant forest that seemed much more neat.  Upon further inspection, however, he could see that it was a well maintained grove of trees with dozens of red spots polka dotting the tree.  Apples?  Well, ponies had to eat something, and since they were most likely vegetarian, he severely doubted he would see a steak anytime soon.
Anytime soon…
Raymond slumped down against the rock, leaning back on its incline, suddenly feeling drained.  Something inside of him still was pushing this all as unreal, a dream.  He cautiously raised a hand up to where his head was still smarting.  The pain spiked once again as he lightly rubbed it, confirming that this was indeed reality.  Or at least, another one.  He still couldn’t really tell in this wacky, cartoonish world.
He felt his frustration mounting as he clenched his fists and started bumping his head against his rock companion.  It wasn’t hard enough to hurt, just barely enough to actually feel the contact.  Still, it knocked a thought from the depths of his mind, bringing it into his mental spotlight.  It was a very blatant thought, slowly making his conscience aware of the depressing realism of his situation.  It stopped all his thoughts in their tracks making him focus on that simple, yet painful aspect of his life.
He didn’t want to admit the terrible truth, because he knew once he said it, he wouldn’t be able to deny it.  He pulled his knees up to his bare chest, tucking his between them.  The thought kept tearing at him, swirling about like a mental hurricane full of sharp debris.  Clamping his jaw shut, he let his bitterness at the situation he was now in flow through him, poisoning his thoughts.  He cursed the pony princess, the whole world he was now unwilfully inhabiting.  Anything to keep that terrible truth from coming into light.  But slowly, it pushed its way into his mouth, tickling the edge of his tongue, begging to be released into the world.  With a long sigh of weariness, Raymond let the floodgates open.
“I’m never going to see them again.”
Mags, Kevin, Ben and Mason, Codey and Casey, and Sammy.  Mom and Dad.  Even grumpy old Mr. Gerald, the man who ran the dump.  He’d become sort of like his own grandpa, rather than some gruff old fart at the workplace.  He began to curse the whole situation one last time for good measure, when he suddenly felt something wet and cold drip onto his bare leg.
He stopped his tirade of obscenities, wondering what was going on.  Without looking, he reached out a hand and brushed the wet spot.  Another drip landed on his opposite leg.  He brushed the cold wet spot away hesitantly.  It wasn’t raining, as just a moment ago he’d seen those two pegasi clearing away the last of the clouds.  Slowly, he brushed his hands against the sides of his cheeks.  They came back wet, which meant-
He was crying.
He didn’t feel sad, though he knew all too well that that would come later.  Instead, he was angry.  Angry at stupid Twilight, at that stupid throne room, at the whole stupid world, or was it dimension?  He didn’t even know anymore!  Most of all, he was angry at fate, that out of the billion kids on Earth, he was the one who had been pulled away from home.  Why couldn't it have been some poor African kid who was starving on the steps of their home?  Why not a Chinese laborer, a slave to the corporation and government they worked for?
However, despite not feeling the cold of sadness, he did feel the burn of anger, and let his tears flow because of it.  He wanted to release all of the building anger before he unleashed it on the sturdy rock behind him, as he doubted there was an abundance of hand casts in an equine society.  Pulling himself closer to his knees, he began rocking as a sob rose to his mouth.  It died on his tongue, however, instead morphing itself into a low, guttural growl resembling that of an agitated Doberman.  Tears continued to flow down his legs in a steady river, soaking his boxers.
He felt another sob coming and decided to embrace it.  Might as well clear away all of his emotional tension now before it ended up hindering him in the future.  The sob shook his entire body, jogging loose any remaining doubt that this was still fictional.  He silently began counting the sobs as they rocked his body, but gave up after about twenty, his mind too numb from the unguided sorrow that had overtaken him.  It soon found direction in the form of his family, his lost home.
Memories of them flooded his head, each new one shredding away at him a little more with a full body sob.  Helping Ben build his metal Apollo 13 model in the early Saturday mornings of summer.  Pretending to be the evil tyrant of the land that tried, and always miserably failed, to catch Cody, Casey, and Sammy with his demon hordes.  Cheering as Mags received the Distinguished Scholars Award for straight A+'s through her entire middle school career.  Even the worst memories tore him to pieces.  Hours of lecturing his siblings to get their crap together before Mom and Dad had an anxiety attack.  Late nights spent pooling his earnings with his parents’, only to find that it wouldn’t be enough for all of them to eat.  Sacrificed meals, hours lost, all to try and keep his parents and siblings alike happy and unassuming.  To protect and provide.  That had been his one true purpose in his life. 
And now he was gone.
He realized that it wasn’t so much the fact that his family had been taken away from him that made him want to pound on his faithful rock companion.  Rather, it was the fact that he had been taken away from his family that made him beyond pissed.  How would they survive without him?  He had done enough of the bills and enough high school to know that he made roughly a fifth of his family's total income.  It paid for their food and clothing.  Now that he was gone, how would they make up the money?  Who else would protect Mags during one of her episodes, or calm down the twins when they became overly emotional?  Worst of all, with no other mentally stable person in the house, whose testimony would the CPS believe?  Would their tearing talons finally rip the family apart?
The fire in his belly returned, although this time cold as winter.  This Twilight hadn’t just sentenced his family to death, but to a hell on Earth like none before.  The poisonous thoughts that circled his mind made Raymond feel physically sick, to the point that he almost puked on his bare knees and legs.  He swallowed the rising bile in his throat, the bitter, acidic aftertaste leaving him parched.
He became vaguely aware of the sun warming his back, and briefly considered the prospect that time did indeed still press on.  He kept curled in a ball, but leaned back against his now warm, but ever faithful rock.  Other thoughts began cycling through his mind, less deep and more practical.  What would he eat?  So far, all of the creatures he’d seen had been some sort of equine, so there had to be at least a form of grain, and, as evidenced by the distant apple trees, there were also fruits, so it wasn’t hard to believe that there were some kinds of vegetables around too.  However, being equine, he doubted that they would have any of the essential meats with them, if any meats at all.  
There was also the problem of attire.  None of the ponies he’d seen wore a manner of clothing, since they had fur.  That also implied that technically… best not to follow that train of thought.  If they didn’t wear any clothes, then there would be no need for a clothing store, which also would mean that Raymond would only be in his boxers in this strange land for quite some time.  And, even though Equestria seemed like a peaceful place, he didn’t think his boxers had a lifetime guarantee.  That meant being nude around a bunch of technicolored ponies.  Raymond felt his face flush.  Maybe that creepy forest wasn’t the worst place to be after all.
Another sob racked his body, as he wasn’t completely done with his breakdown.  He sniffed, realizing that he now, along with wet trails from his tears, was covered in sticky snot.  He took a deep, calming breath, that decided it wanted to be a sob at the last moment.  This, in turn, made him get hiccups, and that was about all of the misfortune that his emotionally wrecked teenage mind could handle.  He dissolved, once again, into a blubbering pile of pitiful moans and wails.
He felt stupid, because he was crying over crying, and over hiccupping, and was hiccupping because he was sobbing because he was crying, and it all ended up being one large mess.  It wasn’t long into this second bout of hysteria, however, that he suddenly felt something warm, soft, and solid pressing on his right shoulder.  The smallest breeze was passing on his back and arm, somehow calming his near uncontrollable state as it soothingly blew across his exposed left shoulder.   The warm, blanked-like object became sentient as he felt something cool and smooth tapping him on the back.  His sobbing and hiccupping calmed slowly, allowing him to hear feminine “shh”’s and “there there”’s.  He looked up at the being on his shoulder, finding it was a pegasus.
She gave him a comforting smile, rubbing the crick of his shoulder with a hoof, the longest strands of her cream fur tickling him.  Her deep, teal eyes sought out his own like a prospector searching for gold.  Her wings shared the same cream as her body, the feathers well groomed and tended to.  Her mane and tail were a pretty pink, the foremost styled in a way that tried to hide as much of her face as it could without blocking her eyes.  
“There there, Mister Monkey,” she said, her voice somehow sounding more gentle than her actions were.  “It doesn’t matter how you look, you’re still a precious part of Equestria to me.  I think those pants you’re wearing are lovely, and don’t let anypony else tell you otherwise.  Just look on the bright side: none of your monkey counterparts are as unique as you!”
“What,” Raymond asked after a moment of silence, quirking his eyebrow in confusion at the buttercream pony.  She yelped in surprise, launching into the air as if she’d been shocked.
“Y-y-you can t-talk,” she exclaimed, raising her forelegs to her mouth.  Heaven only knew how cute her stuttering and larger than life eyes made the pony, and Raymond had to resist the urge to reach up and pat her on the head.  “I’ve been able to talk to animals before, but they’ve never responded in Ponish!  Wh-why, I didn’t even think monkeys could even talk at all, but -but maybe I was wrong?”
Her stammered statement ended in a question, so Raymond decided to answer it.  
“Well, I’m not a monkey,” he reassured the nervous pegasus, an amused  smile spreading on his face.  Oh, gosh, she was just too cute while she was trying to understand what was going on.  Raymond felt his mood lifting even now, before they’d started an actual conversation.  
“Th-that makes sense,” she said, tapping a hoof on her cheek in contemplation.  “I didn’t think there were any monkeys in the Everfree Forest.  Maybe you’re a gorilla, then?”  Raymond shook his head.  “Or maybe an ape?”
“Nope,” he said flatly.  The pegasus continued to tap her cheek before finally giving up.
“I-I’m sorry,” she needlessly apologized, looking embarrassed.  A red blush peeked out from behind her short pink facial hair.  “I know you’re some kind of primate because you have fingers and toes, b-but, well- um, I guess I just don’t know which kind.”
“Homo sapien,” he said kindly, giving her a small smile.  Internally, he was having a battle over whether or not he should trust the buttercream pegasus who was now hovering before him.  While he couldn’t deny how unbearably cute she was, he knew how deadly the cute ones could be.  Once again, sibling skills were helpful.  Besides, for all he knew the pegasus was a plant from Twilight, here to get him comfortable enough with Equestria so he would do… Gah!  He didn’t even know!  However, looking back into her eyes, all he saw was kindness and care,  which is why he found himself patting the grass beside him.  “You can sit down.  I know flying must be exhausting, and besides, I only bite on Mondays.”
The pegasus complied, landing next to him and giving him a smile at his weak attempt at humor, but followed through with it with a quip of her own.  “Well then, I guess I’m safe until tomorrow.”  Raymond chuckled at the joke, but filed away the information about the date.  He looked down at the pegasus.  Even when he was sitting, she only stood neck high.  She flapped her wings a couple times after landing before tucking them in and sitting down on her back haunches, facing him.
“So,” she began slowly, “can you tell me why I’ve never heard of these, um, ‘homo sapiens’ before?”
“Well,” he said, thinking for a moment, “probably because we don’t walk around calling ourselves homo sapiens.  We have a much more common name.  Does the word ‘human’ ring any bells?”
“N-no, I can’t say that it does,” she said apologetically.  Raymond felt his spirits drop.  He had figured that he might be the only human in this land, based on the relative awkwardness of Twilight and the obliviousness of this pegasus, but this conformation crushed him more than he was willing to admit.  The pony must have seen this, because she reached out a foreleg and patted his bare arm with it, giving him a comforting smile.  Whoever she was, she had mastered that ability, because he instantly felt better.  He gave her an inquisitive quirk of the eyebrow.  He knew all of the motivation behind the movement, he just really didn’t know why.  He was a complete stranger, and quite possibly a danger to her, but she didn’t even seem to have thought about this thought.
“Why?” 
“Hm?” 
Raymond hadn’t realized he had spoken out loud, but decided to follow through with the questions on his mind.  “Why are you being so kind to me?  We’ve barely met, and don’t even know each other’s names, but you’re treating me like we’ve been lifelong friends.”
The buttercream pony seemed confused at the question, like he’d just asked her why the sky was blue.  “Well, I guess I just heard somepony in need, and went to help in the best way I could.”
“Okay, but I could have been faking it or just really mad and been a danger to you,” he objected.
“Oh,” she said, as if the thought had just struck her.  However, she just looked up at him and said, "Well, you’ve been nothing but a sweetheart so far, and I don’t think you would ever intentionally hurt anypony.  Besides, I personally have a strong belief that if everypony was just a tad bit kinder, the world would go around a lot quicker than it does, and if I want that ideal to become a reality, then I need to follow through with it.”  A dreamy expression now covered her face.   “I also believe that if you ever want to have a lifelong friend, you need to treat everypony like they are.”
Raymond was stunned into silence.  This pony was much wiser than she let on to being.  The pony looked into his eyes and blushed.  “I’m sorry for going on such a tangent,” she apologized, “let me introduce myself.  My name is-”
“Fluttershy,” another feminine voice interrupted, before continuing to shout, “look out!”
Raymond snorted at the comedic timing of the interruption, before looking towards the source of the voice.  He stopped his snickering as he saw a blue dot with a rainbow trailing it launching in his direction.  
Crap, he thought, raising a hand to block his face from the oncoming bolt.  That was apparently the right call, as he felt a hoof connect with the center of his hand.  His eyes had involuntarily closed at the prospect of getting his face pummeled, but he didn’t need to see to toss his attacker over the back of his shoulder.  A crash came from behind the rock, followed by a prominent groan of pain.
Raymond opened his eyes, but before he had time to check on his adversary, a wild whoop filled the air.  He turned and saw an orange pony suddenly appear, seemingly out of nowhere, just a few feet to his left.  It was only then that he realized that he was on a hill, not in an open field of fresh green grass.  The orange pony had a peach mane and tail, with accompanying emerald green eyes.  Those eyes were narrowed in concentration, but, surprisingly, not anger.  They were, instead, full of excitement as they sized up their opponent.  Raymond. 
Another pony followed her- it was now becoming easy to recognize the physical feminine qualities of female ponies- head bowed so that her horn was set to ram into his legs.  She sported a pristine white coat that defied logic itself with its pearly cleanliness.  A long, curled plum mane trailed behind her.
The orange pony held a rope in between her teeth, swinging it around in a circular motion that formed a lasso.  She lassoed him, tightening it as soon as it fell around his arms, preventing them from moving.  Raymond frantically assessed the situation as the pearly white unicorn continued her charge.  Going on a whim, he dug his heel into the ground, shooting clumps of dirt at the oncoming pony.  As he had “predicted”, the unicorn stumbled back in shock as her white coat was splotched brown with wet clumps of soil.  She began to scream indignantly at the dirt that now matted her fur, running backwards, as if to escape the dirt.  Instead, she ended up running right over the edge of the hill, her scream cut off as she tumbled away.
The orange pony's mouth dropped in surprise at her friend’s fall, giving Raymond ample time to escape from the lasso’s constrictive grasp.  He attempted to get up, but the time he’d spent curled up made him clumsy.  He stumbled back against his faithful rock, trying to see all directions as he heard something whoosh past his head.  Looking up, he saw the blue rainbow dot was shooting up into the air.  After several hundred feet, it stopped, shooting back down at Raymond.  However, before it got too far on its descent, Fluttershy flew between him and it.  
“Waaaait,” she yelled, waving her forelegs up at the oncoming rainbow.  Raymond watched as the streak turned slightly to the left, slowing down enough to make out the cyan pegasus that made up the dot.  It skidded several times upon landing, finally stopping near the edge of the hill, spraying the unicorn from before.
“Rainbow Dash,” she said to the cyan pony in a scolding tone, articulating each word as she wiped the mud away.  Her voice was cultured and clean cut, like something he would expect from nobility.  “Have you no shame?  Do you have any idea the amount of time it will take to get all of this muck out of my coat and mane.  Enough time to get pruney, that’s for sure!”
“Um, Rarity,” the orange pony said.  This one’s voice was gruff with a prominent “farmer’s” accent.  “Don ’cha think we might have bigger prob’ems than mane maintenance?”
“Agreed,” she said, eyeing Raymond.  “Those pants that thing’s wearing just won’t do now, will they?  With those awful burgundy and black stripes, I bet I could play checkers on the thing.  Quite frankly, it would be better without.”
Raymond felt his face flush at the suggestion.  Before any of the mares could notice, the pegasus, Rainbow Dash, spoke up.  “I think AJ meant the thing itself, not what it's wearin.”  She flapped her wings, flying a few feet into the air.  “What is it anyways?  A hairless chimp on steroids?”
Raymond was about to object to being constantly referenced to as “it” and “thing”, but he once again found that Fluttershy had flown in front of his face.  He sat back against his rock, trying to get a good look at his pony assailants, but instead found that her long pink tail was blocking his face.  He sighed, trying to be content with only having the ability to hear what was going on.
“He’s not an it, he’s a human,” he heard Fluttershy say furiously, voicing his own thoughts.  “He’s very kind and just happens to be having a rough day, which, thanks to you three, has only gotten worse.  We were just having a nice chat, when you three came and assaulted him.”  Fluttershy stopped her scolding for a moment.  “Wait a minute.  You three?”  She rotated a full three hundred sixty degrees, eyes widening with fear.  When she finally faced her friends again, she asked, “Where’s Pinky Pie?”
Raymond’s brows furrowed together in confusion.  What were these names?  Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and now Pinkie Pie?  This dimension just kept getting weirder and weirder.  It took another strange twist when he heard the orange pony mutter a horrified, “Oh no.”
“Sur-PIES,”  an unbelievably high pitched voice yelled directly in his ear, threatening to shatter his sensitive eardrums.  He turned to where the ear splitting noise had come from, only to find something silver-gray and shiny directly in his face.  With an alarmed yelp, he realized he was now staring down the barrel of a miniature cannon. He turned his head to the left in an attempt to duck away from the deadly artillery piece, but it was too late.
The cannon boomed, and Raymond flew to the left as something warm, wet, and sticky splattered across his face, shoulder, and chest.  He groaned disparagingly, though he couldn’t hear anything through the ringing in his ears.  
Great, he thought sarcastically, this, of all things, is how I die.  Shot in the head by a cannon in a world of pastel ponies without anyone else to know what happened.  The cannonball must’ve clipped my skull pretty good, because I can feel the bits of it mixed with my blood.  The cannon also must’ve gotten a piece of my brain, which explains why I can’t feel a damn thing.  Although why I can still think rationally is beyond me.
However, despite not wanting to view the carnage caused by the cannon, Raymond opened his left eye, his right being covered in blood.  Pushing himself up just enough that he could see his chest, he found that it wasn’t covered in blood, but instead with pink and brown. He opened his mouth to question the feat, when a sudden pink blur launched into him, shoving something sweet and slimy in his mouth. 
The pink menace pushed him into the ground before reaching up into its mane and pulling out a green cupcake.  Raymond gagged as he realized that the thing that had been shoved into his mouth, now identified as a cupcake, had probably originated from those tangled pink curls too.   The pink pony raised the cupcake in the air threateningly.
“Don’t move,” she screeched, “I know how to use this!”	
“PINKIE PIE,” he heard Fluttershy yell angrily, catching the pony off guard.  “Get off.  Now!  Seriously, girls, what is wrong with everypony today?  He’s just a new friend, not a threat!”
“Oopsey,” the pink pony, Pinkie Pie said, looking sheepish as she climbed off his chest.  “Sorry Fluttershy.”
However, before she turned away, she gave him a look that said “Don’t try any BS or I’ll cream your face”.  She shoved the cupcake she held into her mouth, chewing noisily as the other ponies formed a half circle around him.  He grunted, pushing himself into a sitting position, when suddenly, a strange flash of color on Pinkie’s flank made him pause.
On it was a strange mark, precisely where Twilight’s had been, but this one was different.  Instead of it being the stars, it was three individually colored party balloons.  Looking around at the different ponies, he realized that they all also had their own marks as well.  The one called “AJ” had three apples, Rarity’s was a bright blue diamond, Rainbow’s was a cloud with a rainbow lightning bolt shooting from it, and Fluttershy’s was three pink butterflies.  This made Raymond question, did all ponies have these marks?
“My, you are a mess,” Rarity said, interrupting his thoughts.  Her horn began to glow a blue, the same color as her eyes.  After a second, a red and white checkered picnic blanket crested the hill, the same blue hue surrounding it.  It floated over to Raymond, then, after indicating he should grab it, he took it from the unicorns magical aura.
“Take this as my way of apologizing for assaulting you,” Rarity said as he wiped off his shoulder.  “It was rude of me and rather presumptuous of me to do it, and I hope you will accept this, though small as it might be.”
“We’re truly sorry for all this trouble,” AJ apologized, stepping closer.  Raymond could now see, with his good eye, that she was wearing a rodeo hat.  Typical.  “We all honestly thought that ’cha were gonna hurt Fluttershy, as you are a might stranger lookin’ than we down here are used to.”  Raymond stood up to wipe his chest off.  “Whooee.  Yer a tall feller.”  Then, hesitantly, she turned to Fluttershy, and asked, not quite in a whisper, “He can understand us, right?”
Raymond wiped his face off, finally gaining access to his mouth.  “I can understand you all right,” he said before Fluttershy could answer for him once again.  “And- surprise- I can talk too.”
He enjoyed a moment of amusement at the mixed reactions the four newcomers gave at the sudden revelation of speech.  Rarity’s mouth dropped quicker than a deadweight, stumbling back in shock and nearly falling over the side of the hill again.  Rainbow Dash, who was still hovering a few feet away, flapped her wings a bit harder than she must’ve meant to, because she launched several feet higher into the sky.  AJ raised a hoof to her hat, pushing it back with wide eyes, mumbling something incoherent under her breath.  And Pinkie Pie… well she was so excited about the prospect of him being able to talk that she was literally buzzing with it, a wide grin spreading on her face.
“You. Can. Talk,” the vibrant pink pony shouted, nearly bursting Raymond’s already ravaged ear drums.  The pony’s grin spread to an impossible length as her vibrating increased, giving the impression that she was floating above the ground.  The other ponies began to back away from their eccentric friend with wide eyed fear, and Raymond decided to follow suit.  However, it was at this moment that his faithful rock betrayed him, blocking his escape and pinning him between it and the hyper pink pony.
“YOU CAN TALK!!!”  Pinkie Pie exploded forward , launching herself back onto his chest, pinning him on the rock.  Her fur, still sticky from sitting in the frosting that was on him, spread a new layer of the crème on his exposed skin.  “Tell me EVERYTHING!   What’s your name?  Where are you from?  How old are you?  How tall are you?  Why are you here?  Are you moving here?  Why do you wear those silly pants?  Is it because you don’t have fur?  Why don’t you have fur?  What’s a human?  How can you speak Ponish?  Why are you so close to the Everfree?  Oo!  Oo!  Are you on a super duper secret mission from Twilight that you can’t tell anypony about, because you can tell me, and I won’t tell anypony.  Pinky Promise!”
Raymond blinked at the peculiar pony in front of him, trying, and failing, to remember and keep up with her rapid fire questions.  The other ponies began giving him quizzical looks, as if, for the first time, realizing just how little they knew about him.
“Now just hold yer horses, Pinkie Pie,” the orange pony said.  “Yer gonna fry the poor- er, feller’s?- brain!”
“Apple Jack’s right,” Rainbow Dash said, nodding in agreement.  “Let's start with simple introductions first.  My name’s Rainbow Dash, but you can just call me Rainbow or Dash, doesn’t really matter.  What’s yours?”
“Raymond”, he answered, suddenly feeling slightly nervous.  He didn’t know these ponies!  What if they were with that Twilight?  Then again, what if they weren’t?  “You all don’t need to introduce yourselves,” he added in quickly, “I already kinda caught everyone’s name.”
“But darling,” Rarity protested, “it’s common courtesy.  My name is Rarity.”  Despite her chatter, Raymond noticed that the pony was furtively trying to wipe away the dirt that spotted her once white fur.  Realizing that he still held the large blanket in a tight grip, he turned and walked over to the mare.  Folding the blanket to a non frosted side, he began wiping away the muck from his new… were any of these ponies to be considered his friends yet?  He’d barely met them, and that was because they had attacked him.  Given, it was for a good cause.  
He stepped away from the Rarity, his work done.  There were still patches of brown speckling the fur, but at least no clumps hung from her.  
“That was very gentlecoltly of you,” she complimented with a grateful smile, sapphire eyes delving into his own.
“No,” he corrected, stepping back so that he could view all five of the mares.  “That was apology accepted.  You five are the kindest ponies I’ve met today.”
“Yeah, really, really sorry for attacking you with a cake, and then assaulting you with a cupcake, and then threatening you with one,” Pinkie Pie apologized, sitting back on her haunches with a sheepish grin.  She raised a hoof to her head, then shrugged her shoulders.  “I guess after having so many wacky lookin’ baddies try to take over Equestria, I just sorta assumed that you were the next one.”
“That’s okay, Pinkie.  You know, in my family, we have a saying.”  Raymond paused, looking down.  “Or, well, had.”  He suddenly felt melancholy overtake him.  The small spark of happiness he’d felt from conversing with these ponies was washed away in an icy torrent.  He frowned at fate’s cruel reminder of just where he was, refusing to stray his gaze towards the equines around him.  He felt a single tear escape out of his eye, rolling down his cheek.  It dripped off of his chin and continued its path down his bare chest, trailing cold behind it as if trying to spread his sudden depression throughout the rest of his body.
“Hey Ray”, Pinkie Pie inquired in her seemingly always cheery voice.  “Why the looooong face?”
“Why don’t you go ask your pretty purple pony princess, Pinkie Pie,” he said, voice growing cold.  Bitterness had seeped into his voice and poisoned his thoughts, but it wasn’t unwarranted.  Still, when he looked up enough to see the pony’s faces, he could see confusion etched into their expressions.  They probably hadn’t heard that sort of undertone directed towards their dictator before.
“Oooooooo, nice alliteration,” a sly voice from behind said.  “I’ll have to remember that one for the next time I see Twilight.”
Raymond turned to find a creature unlike any other he’d seen before standing where his rock had been.  The thing had an antler on one side of its horse head, and a weird, wavy blue horn on the other side.  Its face also sported white eyebrows and a short white goatee.  It had a long brown body, with an eagle claw arm to its left and a lion’s paw arm to its right.  A bat wing, and what appeared to be, a pegasus, sprouted from its furry back.  A long reptilian like tail that ended in a white, paintbrush-like puff, topped the absurd creature’s appearance off.  For a moment, it even seemed to be the only sentient being, so far as he’d met, to be taller than him.  He realized, however, that the creature wasn’t standing on its equally mismatched legs, rather, it was floating off the ground entirely.
The creepiest thing about the newcomer, though, were its eyes.  They were pupil less, with only the uneven red dots that were surrounded by a sickening yellow sclera.  The creature leered down at him, seeming to grow taller and making Raymond’s 5’ 4’’ dwarf in comparison.
“Well, well, well,” the creature sneered, bending its neck so its face was unnervingly close to Raymond’s own.  “What have we here?”