I walked next to Twilight as we walked through Ponyville, Spike resting on her back. I didn't understand why he didn't just use his wings, but I wasn't about to ask a dragon about his business. Besides, Twilight wasn't using her wings either, so whatever. Ponies muttered amongst themselves as we passed by. I was starting to get used to them whispering when I was near, but it felt different this time. Sounded different, too.
"Who's that with Princess Twilight?"
"Must be important. An ambassador, maybe?"
"Isn't that the stallion who kept falling on his face yesterday?"
"I heard he got really drunk at a party and hit on the Princess. Did she take him up on it?"
My cheeks flushed warm. That last one took me by surprise. My attempts to woo women, with or without alcohol in my system, always rewarded me with a sore cheek or a face smelling like cheap vodka. But not this time. Had I...?
I shook my head. No way. She was taking pity on me, and she was helping me since she was the only one clued into what was happening with me. No romance involved whatsoever. Besides, she was a Pony, I was... well, technically, I was also a Pony, but she was a Princess. I didn't fancy my chances. Then again, weirder things have happened. Like getting hooves.
"Don't take it to heart," Twilight said, giving me a reassuring smile. "When there isn't a monster attack or end-of-the-world crisis, there isn't much going on in Ponyville, so Ponies love to gossip."
I nodded, but then I noticed how nonchalantly she brought that up. "Monster attacks and ends of the world happen often then?"
"At least twice a month," Spike answered. "You'd be surprised how many times this town gets attacked by parasprites, or bugbears, or magic-stealing centaurs."
My eyes snapped to look at Spike. "Did you say bugbears?"
"Sure," he said with a shrug. "Giant bears with six legs and a wasp stinger. What did you think I meant?"
I blinked. I should have expected that, but somehow I didn't. "Uh, nothing. What's a parasprite?"
"Little bug-like creatures that can multiply themselves," Twilight explained. Her horn glowed, and with a flash, a notepad floated in front of me, showing a doodle of some kind of circular creature with wings and big buggy eyes. "Don't be fooled by how cute they look, they'll devour any material they can reach."
"Like some kind of evil moth?" I guessed.
"Sort of. They also have an affinity for polka music, which Pinkie Pie used to lure a whole swarm of them out of town."
"Whoa, slow down," I said, raising a hoof and quickly putting it back down so I didn't faceplant. "Did you say they like polka?"
"Yeah, we don't get it either," Spike said as the notepad vanished. "But it worked, so, y'know."
As we reached the edge of the town proper, I fought the urge to ask where they kept the giant snakes with chicken heads.
We walked down a path toward some grassy plains, and we came up to a building. It was very purple and built into some hills, surrounded by a moat. Like the world's smallest and most fashionable castle. The waterfalls, bridge and stepping stones were a nice touch, I had to admit.
"Here we are," said Twilight, puffing out her chest. "Welcome to the School of Friendship."
I furrowed my brow. Had I heard that name before somewhere? "School of Friendship? What's it for?"
"Why, to teach the magic of friendship to every creature in Equestria! Maybe even beyond, too."
"You need an entire school for that?" I asked, tilting my head.
"You'd be surprised how many ways there are to make friends and bond with them, and how much work goes into it."
I recalled how my ways of bonding with Ponies here involved getting drunk, falling on my face, lugging literal tons of fabric and getting trampled by long-eared demons. "Fair enough."
"Anyway, you're going to love it," Twilight went on, leading me toward the bridge.
"You sound pretty happy with the place," I noted. "Were you a student here?"
"Close," she smiled. "I founded the School, and I was the first Headmare!"
I'd say that wasn't really too close to 'student' personally. "Headmare? So you ran the place?"
"Right," she confirmed with a nod. "But I stepped down to focus on my duties as a Princess, so I passed on the position to my protégé."
I couldn't help but notice the pride in her voice. "Your protégé?"
"I'll take you to meet her first," she decided, leading me across the bridge toward the entrance. "I think you'll like her."
Her horn glowed, and the doors glowed purple as they opened inward. I was expecting groups of young Ponies walking around holding books and, well, there were some around here. I saw Ponies, some dragons bigger than Spike (which I figured wise not to bring up), Ponies that looked a bit like dragons, Ponies with wings and beaks, some beefy yak-looking creatures, some bug-looking Ponies and I swear I saw a griffon swoop over my head.
"I... guess this is what you meant by every creature?" I muttered.
"That's right!" Twilight raised her chin with a smile. "Our goal is to share the magic of friendship across Equestria, so we can promote peace between all races. That's why we have the likes of griffons, dragons, hippogriffs, changelings, yaks and kirin to mingle with each other, as well as with us Ponies!"
So those were yaks. The ones from my world were already big, but these ones were huge. It was honestly a bit intimidating, but I tried not to show it.
"I plan to bring in creatures outside of Equestria too," Twilight went on as we walked down a corridor. "I'd love for us to establish proper relations with Zebrica and Abyssinia."
Zebrica and Abyssinia... I mulled over those names for a moment. I figured the former was to do with zebras. I wasn't sure what Abyssinia could be about, but for some reason, cats came to mind.
We came up to a door and Twilight politely rapped her hoof against it. Nice to see the founder and ex-Headmare wasn't one to throw her weight around.
"Come in," a woman's voice said from inside. Or a mare's voice, I guess. This Pony terminology was going to take some getting used to.
We walked into the office. More purple. Either a theming choice, or Twilight had more of an ego than she let on. Behind the desk sat a lilac Unicorn mare, a minty streak through her curly dark purple mane, wearing a magenta blazer (How much purple does this place need? I thought). On her left was a thankfully much less purple Unicorn stallion. Yellow with a frizzy orange mane, wearing round glasses and a blue robe with stars on it. He really struck me as the 'important wizard' type. That was a sharp goatee too. To her right was another Unicorn mare, this one light blue with a curly white mane. The glint in her purple eyes told me she couldn't wait to tell me who she was.
"Oh, Twilight," the lilac one said, smiling ear-to-ear. "Welcome! Who's that with you?"
"This is Sharp Sight," said Twilight, looking to me. "I'm just showing him how things work around here."
"Huh?" she tilted her head.
"Remember that experiment I told you about?" Twilight muttered. "Well... let's just say I got a result." She nodded toward me.
"It's okay," I said. "You can say you plucked me out of my world into yours. It's not really a touchy subject for me."
"I, uh," Twilight stammered, then slumped. "Yeah, more or less. By accident, of course!"
"So your dimensional travel experiment worked?" the lilac one said, getting up and walking around her desk toward me. Her bodyguards(?) followed suit. "Well, welcome to Equestria, Sharp Sight. My name's Starlight Glimmer, the Headmare of the school."
I nonchalantly raised a hoof. "Sup."
"This is Sunburst, the Vice-Headmare," she said, pointing to the frizzy stallion.
"Well, I like to say Vice-Principal," Sunburst said, adjusting his glasses, "but nonetheless, good to meet somepony from another world."
"Same to you," I said with a curt nod.
"And this is--"
"And I am," the blue Unicorn declared, puffing out her chest so hard it almost popped off her body, "The Great, and Powerful, Trrrrrrrrixie! The humblest, most caring and understanding school counsellor you've ever seen!"
I half-expected confetti cannons to go off after that big introduction. The smiles and rolls of eyes from the others said this was normal.
Then it hit me. Trixie. That name definitely stood out. It was certainly no combination of cute, smile-inducing things. No, it was a human name. I'd definitely heard it before. Was I not the first victim of Twilight's science experiment? Had she brought Trixie over from my world and forced her to just make the most of it? Did she not think I'd want to know that there was another in my situation? Were we both being played in this?
"Um, Sharp Sight?" Starlight's voice derailed my train of panicked thought. "Are you alright? You're... kinda staring at Trixie."
"Um, yeah," I muttered, clearing my throat. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry, didn't mean to stare."
"I don't mind," said Trixie, grinning. "It's been a while since my last show, so I've started to miss all the admiring looks."
"I know what you're thinking, Sharp," Twilight interjected, "and no, Trixie isn't from your world. I've known her for a long time."
Trixie nodded, still beaming. "To be the best magician-slash-school counsellor in Equestria, it helps to have been born there."
"Magician?" I repeated. "Like sawing Ponies in half and stuff?"
"Oh, nothing so... trivial anymore," Trixie scoffed, waving a dismissive hoof. "Thanks to my lovely assistant-slash-boss-slash-best friend here, my magic has been evolving, in more ways than one."
Starlight's cheeks turned rosy as Trixie put that hoof around her. "All I did was show you some easy spells. You really took off on your own."
I noted Trixie's mention of Starlight being her assistant, and I suddenly imagined this Headmare wearing fishnets. My brain must have been easing into my new equine instincts, because I didn't find the mental image all that unappealing. Then I wondered if she wore them to all four legs or just the back two.
I looked at Sunburst and decided to put a pin on that line of thought. This was my first chance to actually talk to another guy Pony, and I didn't want to waste it.
"So, Sunburst," I began, "what's your story?"
"Oh, there's not much to tell," said Sunburst, shrugging. "I'm Vice-Principal here, as well as a magic researcher. Oh, and Starlight's boyfriend." He added, smiling sheepishly.
I would have questioned why he would have added something like that last, but the look in his and Starlight's eyes when she nuzzled up to him told me all was well. I was certainly no expert on romance - Drunk Sharp was the Pony to ask there - but I certainly sensed no ill-will in either of them. Sunburst must have just been new to this whole 'relationship' thing. Hopefully he lasts longer with her than I did with whatsherface.
"Oh, thank you for reminding me," Trixie piped up. "The Great and Powerful Trrrrrrrixie is also Equestria's greatest wingpony!"
"Yup, you gesture and hold up cue cards in the bushes like nopony else, Trixie," Starlight teased.
Trixie shrugged. "It worked, didn't it?"
Twilight smiled and stepped forward. "Anyway, now that the introductions are out of the way, would you mind if I showed Sharp Sight around, Starlight?"
"Not at all," Starlight answered. "I was just about to head to my own class. Though, try not to interrupt anyone."
"Wouldn't dream of it," the Princess assured her.
"I wasn't talking to you," she said, giving me a cheeky wink.
Twilight and I said our goodbyes to the three Unicorns, and she started leading me down a corridor. I tried not to make eye contact with anyone passing by, mostly due to me looking too old to be a student. Thankfully, most of the attention was drawn to the Princess casually walking down the hallway.
"I'd love to say the School started without a hitch, but we did have some hiccups," she explained. "I've butted heads with Chancellor Neighsay more times than I'd like to admit."
"Sounds like a real hardflank," I remarked. The strange portmanteau felt oddly natural coming out of my mouth.
"Well, at the time, he was," said Twilight, biting her lip for a moment. "See, Chancellor Neighsay is the head of the Equestria Education Association--EEA, for short."
"So the school board?"
"Pretty much. He was against me opening the School for all creatures, not just Ponies. He believed that because we'd been threatened by the likes of dragons, changelings and yaks before, opening the school and inviting their kind in would just breed even more tension."
Now that was a surprise. I had no idea prejudice could even be a concept in a place like this, let alone invoked by Twilight's own kin.
"Is that not something that happens where you come from?" she asked, noting the shock on my face.
"Actually, it's more common there than I'd like to admit," I said. "I just didn't think it'd be possible in such a cheery-looking place."
"Well, recently he's changed his mind about it."
"What happened?"
Twilight stopped for a moment, looking down at her hooves. "That's... a long story. I'll tell you about it some other time." She fixed me with another smile. "For now, though, let me show you around."
I raised an eyebrow. I was not going to let something as ominous as that go, but I figured it wasn't a pressing matter for the moment. "Yeah, I wanna see what this place is about."
I was soon convinced that this wasn't some kind of prissy, old-timey school with chalkboards, wooden chairs and ruler-smacking. Each class I was taken to, I was surprised to see I recognised the teacher.
Rarity greeted us with a wave when we poked our heads into the Generosity classroom, which had some comfy sofas set around a small podium, Rarity standing there with a mannequin as she went on about the importance of matching the right type of hat with the right colour dress. Naturally, everything she was saying flew over my head.
Fluttershy's Kindness class made a lot more sense to me; all the pens and mouse tunnels around the room meant the goal was to show kindness to animals. The current class was focused on what Fluttershy called a winterchilla; I wasn't sure if I wanted to know why the one on her hooves looked like this cute little cloud with a head, and on the board was a drawing of it looking like some kind of big, demonic beaver.
Pinkie Pie was teaching what Twilight called a Laughter class, giving us a wave so hard I thought her leg was going to fly out the window. The room was decked out like it was someone's birthday party, pretty fitting from what I've gathered. I didn't get it at first; how do you teach someone to laugh? Pinkie somehow managed to not speak at two-hundred miles per hour as she explained the nuances of comedic timing, which concluded with her splatting herself in the face with a cream pie. The class exploding into laughter, Twilight snickering into her hoof, and me letting out a snort made it all clear.
Starlight's class was one I was particuarly curious about. It wasn't every day a school had its principal teach classes, but there she was, teleporting around the room, cloning herself and rushing past us so quickly my unkempt mane became notably more unkempt than usual. Fittingly this was the Magic class, which Twilight used to teach according to her muttering. The stairs and seats descending to the teaching board reminded me a lot of the exam hall in my old college, minus the astronomical (I assume they were, at least) spheres hanging from the ceiling.
A look in the Loyalty classroom made me wonder if Equestria had different sports than back home. The floor was marked out like a basketball court, but the hoops were hanging vertically from the ceiling, and I had no idea what the buckets were for. Maybe in case one of the aerodynamically inclined made themselves too dizzy? Rainbow Dash, the multicolour-headed Pegasus, acted more like a coach than a teacher, and she and I locked eyes and gave each other the "Do I know you from somewhere?" squint more than once.
Applejack's classroom was like a massive barn converted into a toolshed that remembered at the last minute that it was supposed to be a classroom. She flashed me a knowing smile as she walked around the students working in groups on some kind of woodshop project. I couldn't make out what they were building, but I safely assumed it was to do with apples. I didn't know what any of it had to do with Honesty, but I figured I'd already been a big enough hinderance to Applejack by showing up on her property and asking her to teach me how to walk, so I didn't think it'd be fair to question her about her business. That, and I didn't like the look she gave me when I went to take an apple off the tree without asking.
Twilight concluded her tour by leading me out of the library into the middle of the courtyard, crossing a bridge onto a platform on a lake, the fountain proudly spraying in the centre.
"So, Sharp Sight," she said, both of us stopping at the fountain, "what do you think of the School?"
"Honestly?" I said. "I think I would've actually wanted to go to school if this is what it was like."
"Glad you approve," she chuckled, smiling widely. "I think it's one of my greatest achievements. Second only to my coronation. Ooh, I should make a list!" She pattered on her hooves.
"Coronation?" I repeated. "What's that like? Coronation for a Princess of Friendship? I imagine there's a lot of hugging and kissing babies?"
Twilight froze and turned to look at me. "Oh, um, not that coronation. That one was important and all, but--"
"So you're, like, a double Princess?"
"Well, um... yes."
I cocked an eyebrow. "Say what now?"
Twilight took a deep breath. "Sharp Sight, I have more to tell you," she said, her voice a lot more serious.
My ears drooped. "I didn't get somepony pregnant last night, did I?" I asked, then my eyes widened with terror. "I didn't get you pregnant, did I?!"
"No! Oh Celestia, no!" Twilight yelped, waving her front hooves. "Nothing like that! It's just... I've got more about your situation to tell you. And about myself."
"You're not withholding info on me, are you?" I asked, a bit more sternly than I probably should have, considering this was a Princess I was talking to.
"I thought it'd be best if I told you everything in chunks," she explained. "To let you settle in before I give you the full story. I didn't think you'd take it well if I told you everything right off the bat."
"Twilight, in the last day, I've survived falling into a new world I knew nothing about, falling on my face a dozen times, far more judgemental stares than one should get in a lifetime, a small mountain of clothing strapped to my back, trampling via long-eared demons, an impromptu house party and drunkenly hitting on a member of royalty without getting arrested." I took a step forward. "Try me."
Twilight stammered, but came out with a defeated sigh instead of a counterargument. I fought the urge to smirk.
"If you insist," she said, her horn starting to glow. "It'll help if I show you as well. Have you ever been teleported before?"
"Apart from when you did it?" I shrugged. "Nope."
"So not while conscious then. Try your best not to throw up."
For a moment, all was white.