//------------------------------//
// The Bothersome Man - 1 
// Story: Untouched by Human Hands 
// by Acmos 
//------------------------------//

“Lyra, are your humans big one?”

“Sweetie Belle, humans are not "mine", they are just...”

“And do humans eat fertilizers?”

“What?!” the mint pony was amazed. “Sweetie, humans, of course, can be omnivorous, but not to the same degree! If they really don't have magic, and moreover, they were herbivores, they definitely look different due to a much larger digestive tract! And in order to digest all sorts of chemical... Uh, well, I'm really afraid here even to assume how humans...”

“And is it true that they can climb the ceiling?”

"Oh, Sweetie..." Lyra sighed resignedly. “I don’t know what the three of you were thinking up there, but with each question, the confidence in me grows that it will be a waste of time.”

“Don't worry, Lyra!” one of the Crusaders giggled, pushing off with her hind legs and swimming a short distance through the air. The bundle of balloons she was leading was so large that Sweetie seemed about to fly into the sky. The only thing left to do was to thank the Ponyville weather control squad, which always worked conscientiously. Next to the Everfree, on a windless day... Well, if the wild wind did blow, or Sweetie Belle, due to her foal's recklessness, risked taking an extra bunch of balls and set off on a journey, swelling the valley with her squeals, there would be someone to save her besides safely the departed Rainbow Dash or the Mare Do Well, which has not appeared in public for a long time. In Ponyville, some completely indecent number of princess guards, including pegasus, was formed. True, the reason for that was weighty...

Lyra Heartstrings smiled at her thoughts and at the words of the white unicorn, who assured her that she would "love it". It was easy to understand that the Crusaders decided to celebrate something - they needed the balls for the sim. Of course, Lyra understood that the girls were up to their next prank, and therefore reacted to Sweetie's proposal to go to their "secret clubhouse" to meet with a "real man" (which the last parasprite knew about in Ponyville) with skepticism. It didn't make much sense for her to go there - but so what? There was nothing much to do on Sunday, there was still a lot of time before the autumn tour, Bonnie either left on business, or continues to scour Ponyville, for some reason sniffing out traces of an alien invader... Maybe she wanted to please her best friend by personally giving her a man in a gift box tied with a bow? Lyra giggled, remembering how super-serious the expression on Bon-Bon's face was when she spoke with Celestia herself in the darkness of the night and disappeared as quickly as if she had flown away like a Pegasus. Be that as it may, the alterations that the Crusaders regularly got involved in were always a reason for Lyra to laugh and, in general, were the key to a good mood - why not pretend that she believed? And when Sweetie Belle, who showed up in the morning on their doorstep from Bon-Bon's house, whispered that this "someone" who needed Lyra's help and wanted to see her was a stranger who caused a commotion in the city, the dreamer unicorn was intrigued. Well, how really the trinity of filly, if not found a man, then attacked his trail? With such a temptation, Lyra could not cope - and she did not see the point of her own curiosity in giving battle. Well, tell me, bad things can happen in such a cozy and quiet place like Ponyville? Not counting the rampage of the inhabitants of the Eternal One, the vestments in the flesh of ancient nightmares, time paradoxes, ecological catastrophes due to dragon breath, the truly explosive experiments of Twilight Sparkle, and so on and so forth. After all, humans in her understanding were supposed to be a peaceful, not prone to aggression race, otherwise how else can you build a civilization in a harsh world devoid of magic? Yes, humans could be friends almost more than ponies! And those rumors that at dawn an unknown monster attacked the guards in the middle of the cutiemarket, so that they barely fought back... Yes, anything could happen, up to the fact that rumors will remain rumors. Probably, there was a misunderstanding between the guards and Human, so they scared each other. Moreover, the guards informed the residents the very next morning that everything was in order!

Lyra liked to think in a similar vein - that contact with aliens will be established with the most prosperous outcome, and that the inhabitants of Equus are not alone in the foreseeable part of the Universe. And although even in ancient times the strongest magicians, including Star Swirl, came to the conclusion that life (except for its energy forms) in the near space as such is absent, this did not prevent Lyra from fantasizing. She was not alone - a few writers who tried themselves in the path of a science fiction novel believed that aliens could be of regular geometric shapes, such intelligent magic crystals. Some, on the contrary, believed that they would be the same four-legged, similar to ordinary ponies, only of a different color and coat structure, corresponding to the conditions of an unknown planet. Her pen pals were doing their best, inventing one form more unprecedented than the other. There were also intelligent trees, and creatures that consisted entirely of gears, and the personalized music of Harmony, which was left without masters due to some kind of global catastrophe.

As for Lyra, the idea of ​​a world without magic seemed to her the most attractive, because of this it was completely different from Equestria. The unicorn, which Bon-Bon called nothing less than a "wide-profile dilettante", evolved a whole concept of two-armed and two-legged creatures, created by someone who does not know and for what purpose. Well, that is, Lyra believed that these creatures could be artificial in manner of ordinary golems, for the spontaneous generation of the mind is a fable from the category that the alleged heroine Irling is in fact her alter ego. Or that the Somnambula pyramids were built by the same aliens; not so stupid, but still funny. However, humans created by universal workers and guardians of the world in which they were settled, unlike ordinary golems, could develop and act outside of gesture their frames set by the wizard. Having received the initial order to improve the world around them and fulfilling it more and more diligently, humans considered that they, too, were part of this world, and the order also extended to them. This conclusion led to a brief but turbulent evolution, analogous to the magic spiral of Equus, and over several generations, humans have become so complex that they have become indistinguishable from living beings, possessing high intelligence, tremendous strength and technical knowledge to compensate for the lack of the ability to witchcraft. Moreover, these creatures, rightfully deserving natural wealth, wisdom and strength, did not turn into swaggering sleepyheads, like dragons who did not care about the rest of the world, but continued to live - create objects of art, dissect the world with threads their technical achievements and scientific discoveries. Obviously, the more primitive inhabitants of that unfriendly world, including the four-legged, humans could tame and keep as pets. Lyra knew that it was foolish to expect her own fantasy to be embodied in reality, but she could not help herself - the unicorn really wanted to see tall, exotic creatures somewhere far away, next to which you feel like a loved, protected and sleek pet... In fact, her idea had only a couple of advantages over others: it was logical (as it seemed to Lyra), consistent and better evolved than other theories. Aliens could just as well be talking fish like sea ponies if their planet evolved mostly in the oceans... Lyra would not mind creating a full-fledged novel about a world she invented or something like that, but her writing skills left much to be desired the best.

But now - just one discovery, one ritual performed by Twilight Sparkle, and Lyra received serious hints that her invention is not so different from reality! In a parallel dimension, judging by the description of Bonnie, who accidentally happened to be nearby during Twilight's attempt to reach him, something two-legged and two-armed was driving the complex car. Princess Luna said something there, supposedly a human is able to change himself - maybe this is because humans have become their own masters? - but under the image invented by Lyra, the guest from another world suited very well. And the fact that the rotorcraft was supposedly a military device, like siege engines and other remnants of the Dark Years... nonsense, rumors. From Lyra's point of view, the wreckage did not hint at this, even if the car was large, dark, with an aggressive-looking runes in the form of a black star and a trident. The unicorn wanted to study the transport of a human better, perhaps to grab some souvenir as a keepsake, but the guards dispersed all the ponies to their homes. And then it was no longer possible to get through to the alien rotorcraft: neither delicate requests, nor even a light flirtation with one of the cordon guards helped. What can I say, the ponies of the royal guards were not only desperate warriors, but were also excellently trained, famous for endurance, if necessary, they could depict insensitive idols even all day long... Lyra hoped that the human did not begin to perceive them as a serious threat, otherwise, he could have simply escaped to some other Equestrian city - and Lyra was not joking at all when she told Princess Celestia that she wanted to be in the center of events!

Two unicorns, young in body and young in spirit, stepped onto the road leading to the Apple farm, which supplied delicious fruits and vegetables to the tables of not only many locals, but also other ponies in Equestria. Lyra was not afraid to move away from the city in such a turbulent time, even though she revered Ponyville more than the land around him (especially considering the proximity of the Everfree). It must have been painful for other Canterlot immigrants to look at the local leapfrog of architectural styles and buildings, but Lyra loved with all her heart these cozy houses, shops, summer verandas and hospitable sellers, a leisurely pace of life, colorful flower beds and lush lawns, her neighbors. And as according to her, if a human was really unfriendly, then he should be feared precisely in the city, where there were many random ponies, and not in the surrounding fields and meadows. There was no one to disguise as, perhaps, to pretend to be a random bush or tree. And if the alien found himself on the same Manehattan, where there are more than a thousand ponies, then a human could have been searched for decades... Thinking that the foals, due to their curiosity, could stick their nose where Lyra would not have thought , she asked:

“Sweetie... Listen, do you know what the human forgot in the cutiemarket? And why did he make such a commotion in the city at all? I know everyone is just talking about "Sugar Corner", but as for me...”

“Oh, nothing,” the pony carelessly waved her hoof away. “He said he needed a radio and supplies from the crash site.”

“Really?”

“Yep!” Rarity’s sister nodded seriously. “You know, Zeush complained that the radio did not was not useful, so Apple Bloom is playing with him now. Come on, Lyra, let's hurry!”

Sweetie Belle ran and flew ahead like a playful puppy, showing the way, while Lyra blinked in confusion. Zeush? So, according to the cutiemarks seekers, was Human's name? Their rally was overgrown with more and more details, and Lyra wondered why the foals had to invent such a well-evolved fable. Didn't they become in a couple of weeks such rabid lovers of science fiction as Lyra saw herself? Although, this trinity will become... The unicorn might want to believe the little pony, with quadruple enthusiasm to meet this "mysterious stranger" she moved, but the strange nonsense about humans that Sweetie Belle was interested in did not give Lyra any rest... These details destroyed the picture, knocked down the whole serious mood! Well, how, tell me, can you imagine a human breathing helium? A mass of relief, smooth muscles, which communicates exclusively in falsetto like a chipmunk, which only Fluttershy can disassemble... Lyra could hardly restrain her laughing bursting outward when she imagined a swearing man jumping up and down, indignantly shaking his hands and squealing. If it were true, humans would die out - from only one incessant laughter at each other!

Well, Lyra shrugged philosophically as Sweetie Belle turned off the road and took her in a roundabout way deeper into the apple acres. In any case, she was about to find out what the girls were up to, so there was no point in thinking ahead. On a winding path laid by the Crusaders far from the eyes of strangers, they came to a house on an old apple tree. There was no one nearby, except that from the clubhouse itself there were unintelligible voices, probably from Sweetie Belle's friends. Then Lyra saw Winona, the Apples' pet, dozing on the veranda. The dog watched the pony with one eye open and ears erect. When Lyra's guide, jumping up and allowing the balls to drag herself up, was on the stairs, the collie wagged her tail, slowly got up on her paws, stretched. Yawning, Winona trotted to the door and darted inside, while Sweetie Belle waved her hoof, inviting Lyra to follow her.

“Don't be afraid of him! At first I was also a little afraid, but he is peaceful, honestly!”

"Wait, Sweetie," Lyra slowed down with all four, beginning to suspect something. “So is it true? All the things that you said?”

But the pony no longer listened to her - she drowned in a heap of squeaky balloons and, with a puff, began to push them through the door. When Lyra went up to the veranda, with a couple of claps, all this multicolored mass finally cleared away after the unicorn. The muzzle of a bespectacled filly flashed between the curtains, but she was clearly not one of the Crusaders. Lyra pricked up her ears. From the house came a grown male voice, and even if there was nothing suspicious about it, it did not belong to Apple Bloom’s brother or any of the stallions that Lyra knew. Again, the voice sounded rather strange, although there was a sense of self-confidence in it, and Scootaloo's echoing voice was cheerful and careless... Lyra, hesitating, pushed the door with her hoof and took a step forward, inadvertently pressing her ears. Now she had no idea what to expect from a meeting at clubhouse. Clouds of confetti, a waterfall of punch, and firecrackers from Pinky's unexpected return? The alien who took on the guise of Winona? Or was it Discord himself, who wants to reward the Crusaders with orders for the feasible introduction of chaos in the life of Equestrians?

However, everything was quiet inside the house. The dog lay down in a ball in the corner, next to his little mistress - and Apple Bloom, with a soft pad attached to his ear and the most responsible expression of his face, flicked switches on a metal box, which with a wire antenna with a bunch of wires really resembled some wild one, assembled from handy trash radio station. On the right side of the door, Lyra looked with surprise at Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon - it was the latter's glasses that confused the unicorn when they appeared in the window. As far as Bon-Bon's female partner knew, this pair of bosom friends did not get along with the Crusaders at all, and what they were doing here was still a mystery. Tiara slowly sipped a bottle of carrot soda, inserting a straw into a glass neck. Seeing Lyra on the threshold, the gray pony bent down to her friend's ear and said something quietly. Tiara ran around the newcomer with her narrowed eyes, as if checking for resilience, then muttered something that should signify agreement, and grinned. The foals kept in their corner as if apart, but the conversation of the other ponies listened attentively, ears perked up.

“...our flight is not a cheap pleasure, available to an ordinary citizen except in a passenger seat, as you travel on trains and in skewbald sleds. Well, there, not counting the little things like gliders. Man by his nature cannot fly, Scootaloo... He needs, firstly, complex machines along with a huge scope of their service, and secondly a large amount of skills and knowledge. We call these brave humans pie-lotz .(1) Flyers... And only a small number of them, truly excellent flyers, can compete in the air with your... Rainbow Dash. You pegasus are too nimble.”

“Wow!” exclaimed Scootaloo. “Do you even have such?”

Did the ponies talk there? The balloons filled the middle of the room with their colorful mosaics, so Lyra quietly walked around, past Apple Bloom. The radio chirped, unfamiliar letters and symbols glowed with yellow lights on its buttons, but the conversation in the opposite corner of the room completely captured the unicorn's attention. The phrases were constructed with a strange accent, as if the speaker was pulling the vowels through force, trying not to break into a short yelp like diamond dogs. However, the speech was still cleaner and easier in comparison with the ponderous, if not barbaric, dialect of these two-legged. On the contrary, he made some sounds softer than they should, as if due to inexperience... Lyra, far from the most famous, but talented musician, only had to hear the sound once to understand: the common language for the speaker is not native. And after realizing after a moment's stupor what exactly the stranger was talking about, Lyra hardly rushed to the source of the sounds at a gallop. All this was not a joke of the Crusaders, just think! The mint pony telekinesis shoved the annoying balls out of its way, saw a real alien... and was stunned.

“Bloom, aren't you tired?” in a kind of inhibited state Lyra heard the voice of Sweetie Belle behind her. “There is no human music there! Just some stupid roll call...”

“Shh!” the earth pony raised her hoof to her lips, “I almost drowned out Vinyl's broadcast!”

“Nothing of the kind, you're just broadcasting noise! And you yourself listen to it.”

“Nah! I know it works like Twilight fixtures! If you press all sorts of buttons with a clever look, then sooner or later you will certainly have a resu...”

“No nah, yeah!”

“If you don’t want to get the cutiemark - move away and do not bother!” out of excitement, Apple Bloom stuck out her tongue, twisting one of the frequency players to the maximum. “And here I will try my luck!Ret-krau, (2) this is the clubhouse of the Crusaders! Calling the Wonderbolt Strike Team! Reception?”

“In vain, probably, I mentioned the electronic warfare,” shook his head on his long neck lanky... something. “Well, no matter what the child is amusing...”

The eerie creature towered over the table and Scootaloo, who was sitting next to it. It resembled either a giant spider, or some shabby, gaunt Appleloosian vulture - with the same hunched neck, rushing down and forward. If there were birds in the vicinity of Appleloosa that instead of feathers would be dressed in stone and dark plate armor, of course! The armor plates covered every inch of his body, warped, making it impossible to see the details. The creature had only one arm - which split into two smaller arms at the elbow joint, with narrow palms and two fingers crowned with impressive-looking claws! These organic instruments of tormenting flesh were fiddling about on an oilcloth-covered table with something dark, cylindrical in appearance, entirely entangled in thin ropes and plates. Slowly, droplets of a whitish viscous liquid slid down along it, like condensation on the egg of an unknown creature. From time to time from the claws thrust into the damp interior of the device, streams of steam began to curl, and a quiet grunt was heard. Meanwhile, the monster turned to Scootaloo again and nodded.

“Yes, we also have such unique ones. But do not look at me - the rotorcraft on which I flew would not have competed with the Rainbow. He's just carrying humans and... some payload,” the monster hesitated for a second. “Those who are bound by marketable laws...”

“Laws of markets,” Scootaloo corrected him immediately.

“As for me, the meaning would be more appropriate "laws of commerce," Tiara snorted from her corner.

Lyra looked at the Diamond Tiara with an extremely stupid look, and then at a couple of bags with the logo of "Dunk Laboratories", the largest supplier of alchemy from Trottingham, that lay near the table. It must have been the apple food they used on the Apple farm, but why did the Crusaders bring it to their clubhouse?

“Well, ordinary humans are content with less. Our skies are plowed by machines that are more modest in technical terms, but larger. These are huge steel colossus that quickly transfer cargo from continent to continent and those humans who are not ready to spend the days of their lives on a sea cruise or a train...”

“What about airships? Airships also carry a lot at a time!” Scootaloo did not retreat.

The monster, like a spider, twisted everything with its two-in-one limb, cutting through the air with claws glistening with moisture, like scissors. His movements were unhurried, eerie, and not at all like ponies. When he once again raised his hand, lifting it high and with the precision of a surgeon making an incision on top of the cylinder, Lyra made out the lower parts of the bodies a, hiding under the table. It sat like a man could sit on the floor - but what were those legs! About the length of the forelimb, like a pony's, they were thin and stiff, with a single joint closer to the groin that bent the knees at sharp angles upward. The legs ended with bone plates with a spur, this dull gray hook, undoubtedly designed to catch, hold and tear prey... They were not at all like the same clawed, but fluffy paws of good-natured manticores or sleek bird griffins! There was something in these legs, and indeed in the guise of an alien, from an insect... When a tentacle protruded from under the chest of the creature and, throbbing with wet pulsation, sucked to the cylinder with a munch, Lyra felt her veins begin to shake.

“In my world they have long outlived theirs,” the creature patiently answered the pegasus' question. “Ar-Len-joer (3) is fast, unlike an airship, not so afraid of winds, but with its speed and weight it is still clumsy. However, we also have other cars, single and double elusive iron falcons. Much faster and more maneuverable, capable of spinning in a twinkling of an eye and braking in the air, breaking the sound barrier. Why can't they, depending on the form!”

“Maybe...” Spoon raised her hoof uncertainly. “Maybe better a "model"? "Form" refers more not to properties, but to appearance...”

“Thank you, little one,” the biped made a strange gesture with two halves of his hand, showing a ring with his claws. “In general, this is the pinnacle of our aeronautical technology. Only our guards can afford to useintie-septo...(4)”

“Oh, I see!” Scootaloo nodded. “We also have the best of the best Pegasus in Wonderbolts!”

Lyra understood why the stranger's voice seemed strange to her - not even because of the sound, but because his lips at all did not move! They just weren't there! On a round head with a flat muzzle, everything was that a gleaming red eye and an upper jaw, like some skeleton in a zoological museum or an antiquity shop! The dark hole in the nose cut through the muzzle with such clarity that Lyra could not help but think that he had been bitten off. The left eye socket was closed by some kind of plate with a notch that bit into the bone... on the sides of the head, much lower than those of the pony, the ears were located, and the bone plates protruded upward. Sometimes they moved, parodying the emotions Lyra was accustomed to, but the pointed ends of the plates discouraged any desire to associate them with the pony's ears.

Moving her gaze to the five foals, who, who where carelessly settled down a couple of feet from the monster, Lyra felt a lump in her throat. Merciful sisters! shocked, she thought. What kind of horror is this? And why does it call itself a human?! It's as if Lyra's invention appeared in a nightmare, as if in mockery, connecting separate truthful details with a collection of claws and sharp teeth! Literally the only thing that kept the unicorn from fainting was the monster's articulate and filled with some foreign, but still meaning speech.

“Great!” Scootaloo concluded with enthusiasm. “I wish I could get the Pie Lot cutiemark! It's probably like a derby, only cooler and in the air!”

Lyra was staring in horror at the stranger's mutilated face, and then he turned his head right behind his back, like an owl, and looked directly at her.

“Um. I wouldn't say that, Scoots,” the “human” suddenly frowned, gathering his skin in a fold over his surviving eye. “Although we do have races on a light version of these machines.”

While the alien and Lyra glared at each other, one disgruntled, the other half-dead from fear, Sweetie Belle spoke up. Like a well-mannered filly, she patiently waited for her friend and the monster, who were enthusiastically chatting, to pause to insert a word or two.

“Zeush, Sugar Corner hasn't been reopened yet, and Pinkie Pie is gone!” reported the unicorn, nodding at the multicolored armful, which she brought with her. “But I said that it is very, very necessary for our new friend! I said he literally cannot live without holiday balloons, and Mrs. Cake allowed me to visit the pantry!”

The stranger blinked, breaking eye contact, and Lyra breathed often and loudly. Her heart was pounding - the gaze of either a feline or a reptilian eye, combined with an eerie physiognomy, literally riveted her to the spot. It seemed to Lyra that a couple of seconds more, and a skinny, but tall and tenacious monster would rush at her, swallow her along with her mane and tail, and spit out the horn and pin it to the wall in manner of a trophy.

“Sweetie Belle! You are my smart girl,” the wrinkles on the scraps of the "man's" face smoothed out when he turned to the foal. “You really helped me. All of you, - the self-propelled skeleton nodded to pegasus, which already wanted to be indignant. “I'll get your pocket money back to the last bit as soon as I get hold of the local currency.”

“But I have no pockets,” said Sweetie, looking at her flanks, as if she were really checking to see if Rarity had secretly clothed her sister in one of her creations before leaving. Then her face brightened:

“A-ah, you mean the Crusaders Foundation? Oh, come on!” Sweetie smile cheerfully. “We are always glad to new members of the club and are ready to help ponies without cutiemark! Well, not-ponies too... And ponies with a mark too... But they were often just unhappy with our help.”

The filly walked over to what the foals called "Zeush" and jabbed her cheek against the hard side from the side where his hand was missing. Lyra watched without blinking as the stranger raised a limb in response. Overflowing scarlet light, grunting - and the forked hand was cleaned dry of mucus, and the claws somehow incredibly folded, retracting inside the fingers. Lyra opened her mouth in surprise.

“Aren't you the charm itself?” the alien grunted with a sigh. The bony monster stroked the unicorn's cheek with his hand, brushing the tips of his fingers over the ear, which made her giggle happily.

This... this creature does not threaten Sweetie Belle, Lyra thought suddenly. On the contrary, in a conceptual manner, it expresses approval and patronage! The girls were in the same room with this, it seems, since the morning, but they were safe and sound! In disbelief, Lyra watched the monster gently scratch her friend between the ears, and the little unicorn tramples her hooves with pleasure and strives to climb onto his lap. And, apparently, not only Lyra felt a fleeting prick of jealousy; Diamond Tiara snorted haughtily and turned away, continuing, however, to look sideways at the target-seeker striving towards the big man. Scootaloo's keen eyes did not hide it, so a sarcastic smile played on the pegasus's lips. But she disappeared almost immediately, because Scootaloo kicked Zeush's side with her foot, demanding to resume the story that had been interrupted:

“Li-i-isten, can you make such an inte... Well, can you build a machine from your world? - she stared at her interlocutor with eyes shining excitement. - Well, at least small one?

Skullhead hesitated before asking the next question - it was clear from the narrowed eye that avoided her gaze that something was bothering him.

“Scootaloo, I don't want to offend you, but...” finally, in a flat voice Zeush said. “You can't fly, can you? Do winged ones have complications in your world that cannot be cured?”

Tiara and Spoon heard this, quietly exchanged a few phrases and giggled. Scootaloo looked at the hooligans with hostility, already took in more air, preparing to reprimand the enemies, but then the monster shouted at them:

“You know the rules, girls,” the voice of the stranger was not angry, but the foals instantly signed off.

“We are silent! We are silent, honestly!” the gray and pink earthlings pressed their ears.

“I'm not sick,” snorted Scootaloo, looking angrily at Tiara, but turning to her alien "friend". “You know, it would be better if I was just sick! Then doctors would put me on the wing, that’s all. It's just that the magic core is not yet fully formed, and the front part of the body outweighs.”

“So the whole question is you need to... wait? Are you tired of it?”

“Well, of course!” the pegasus was indignant, frowningly looking behind itself and spreading its small wings. “Dad took me to fly on a glider, my mom skated me many times, but this is not at all the same! There is no feeling of lightness, still pulls you to the ground. And you won't be asking them all the time! And when I tried to beg Twilight for these gravita... graviza... Gravithings, in short! Well, in order to lighten her weight, or what kind of spell, so she said that this is contraindicated... Like, the center of gravity due to such crutches will not be formed correctly, and it will be difficult to retrain when the wings acquire the required strength.

The stranger was silent, stroking Sweetie on the head, which comfortably located between his legs, and thought hard about something.

“Well,” he finally summed up. “You will sooner or later order with lifting force. But my relationship with it are more complicated, exactly the opposite is the case. The force of the lift is maintained until the speed drops,” the alien gave a short chuckle, blinking unhurriedly. “Acceleration from one jerk is enough only to fly from one side of the street to the other...”

“Wait a minute,” Apple Bloom, finally leaving the radio alone, walked over to the rest of the ponies and sat on the floor, peering into the stranger's face. “So you are not only this pay-lo… Pie… em, flyer, can you still fly by yourself?”

“Recently I learned, but badly and not...”

The alien shuddered, falling silent in mid-sentence, but a moment later spoke calmly:

“Why did you decide that, little one?”

“Well, rotorcraft hover in the air without any speed, just like pegasus! Don't even ask Granny here, everybody knows,” Apple Bloom scratched behind her ear, puzzled. “And your flying machine is a rotorcraft, grown ups told so. And is there a lot of use from a paddle, which can fly over the only one street?” the earth pony giggled.

“Maybe we misunderstood him?” exchanged glances from the earth pony Scootaloo, but the «human» raised his hand, warning their argument:

“Apple Bloom got it right,” the stranger spoke slowly, in a tense tone, as if he was trying to remember something. “But my capabilities are… difficult. Quite a personal question. I would prefer not to go into details for now.

“Okay,” Scootaloo shrugged. Pegasus made a sweet face, giving her muzzle a pleading expression:

“So will you craft me a flying thing from your world? Pretty ple-e-e-ase?”

"No, I can't build one, Scooti,” the alien replied mildly. “I am not an aircraft technician, not an engineer, and by profile I am not even a flyer... I am, first of all, a biogeez.”

“Biologist!” the foals burst out laughing, including Tiara and Spoon. Sweetie Belle added in an instructive tone:

“These are ponies like the ones those skeleton textbooks made!”

"Biologist," Zeusch said firmly. “I own the secrets of my body... I know how other bodies and wildlife in general work, but in all other respects, if it is not connected by reflexes, I am a dilettante... a dilettante who has picked up the top. Apparently, I...” the "human" paused and grinned again. He finished his speech with great sarcasm in his voice:

“But, apparently, sometimes an amateur-generalist can be more useful than forty thousand specialists in their field.(5)”

“Oh, so I will still wait for my personal Inteh Septo?”

“It really can't be.”

“Well damn,” Scootaloo sighed.

“Sorry, little one,” the alien gently ruffled the pegasi's mane. “Even if I understood their structure and had the ability to accurately create the details, in your world pla-aen(6) will still not fly. We have them designed for a different density of the atmosphere.”

“I'm not little,” Scootaloo grumbled from under her bangs, as if angry at the alien adult, but in fact very pleased with the attention he gave her. Zeush, on reflection, added:

“Unsurprisingly, you are using magical varieties of bladed machines and airships. Of course, it is possible to create a model sharpened for the realities of your world, to build something superior to a glider, but this colossus will have a wingspan... This  will be no longer an IS. It is irrational, and one discord Pegasus will be more maneuverable. Even if you use your technologies, then...”

The newcomer suddenly waved his hand like a pony, driving away an invisible fly with its tail:

“So Sweetie, get off. I need to finish preparations...”

“Okay!” easily jumped onto the floorboards of the unicorn. “And what for?”

“To meet the royal persons, of course! What a celebration if the object of their attention suddenly falls from lack of energy?”

“So you decided to meet them after all?!”

“I never ruled out the possibility that I could afford such a meeting...”

The stranger opened one of the bags next to the table with his claw, lowered his head and began to devour the ash-colored powder with a gurgling sound. The tentacle that connected it to the cylinder glowed with a dull orange light and began to contract even more intensely. As for Lyra, she was experiencing what could be called a culture shock. The stranger did not seem to be aggressive, even friendly - the foals were not at all afraid of him and, it seems, had known for quite a long time, and not just met. But holy are Celestia's flanks! Is this horror really a representative of the civilization Lyra dreamed of meeting with? Are humans really not former golems, but insectoids?! Yes, even the queen of changelings, under whose hypnosis Lyra was not lucky to get, and even had less insect features with her! The unicorn didn’t know which heavens, which were in control of fate, should complain about such misfortune.

Meanwhile, Tiara and Spoon, who had arranged a meeting between themselves in the form of feverish whispers and waving hooves, seemed to come to an agreement. The foals' muzzles took on a sly expression, and the pink earthy pet proclaimed:

“And you would not want the Princesses to know that instead of adults, with cutiemarks ponies communicate with blankfl... Uh, these three are sitting in the house, right? Would Her Grace consider you, well... too frivolous to accept as an ambassador of another world?”

The stranger looked up from the already empty sack and looked at Tiara - and she fearlessly withstood the terrible, according to Lyra, look. Shaking off the fertilizer crumbs, the big man ran a hand over his bare teeth.

“Girl, what do you think?” Zeush asked with a bit of malice in his voice. “The princesses already know it. Well, at least by the evening they will find out,” a long, like a butterfly's tongue stuck out from under the teeth, with which the bony creature began to quickly pick up the caked remnants of the chemical. At the same time, he did not stop talking - still, he did not have a mouth, and the sound seemed to come straight from his lungs!

“You, ponies, are simple-minded creatures, of course, but someone from the inhabitants of Ponyville noticed how Sweetie Belle was walking with an armful of balls. And there was also this one with her,” he jerked his head towards Lyra, “who is supposedly known for her love of phantasy tick and ideas about intelligent aliens. Someone may remember that an unknown stranger visited the same "Sugar Corner". And if all these facts reach the princesses, it will not be difficult for them to add two and two, I think...”

As if fearing an outsider's displeasure, Silver Spoon added:

“Well, if you promise to go to school for class and help us make a presentation about your world, we can tell our version of events!” She patted the eyelashes of the pony in glasses “We’ll say, you were with us all this time, and Sweetie Belle... so, passed by! Everybody will believe us, our families have an excellent reputation!”

“Hm-m-m-m...”

The intruder seemed to be seriously thinking, throwing his head back to the ceiling, so that the Crusaders looked at him with distinct concern. Finally, Zeush again turned his gaze to the well-groomed ponies, and apologetically asked Silver:

“But you, too, do not have these so-called "marks", do you?”

“How is that?” Tiara almost dropped the hairpin from her bangs in surprise. “And what is this?”

She pointed to her own cutiemark, which almost mirrors the jewelry worn by the understand.

“I don't see anything here. An ordinary filly flank. Well, how ordinary is not for me to judge, not so many species from your tribe have seen close up... But yes, the flank, perhaps a little more well-groomed.”

“You yourself are... a species!” Tiara exclaimed resentfully. “Here it is, my mark, here! Are you blind or something, with one eye?!”

“No, empty. Not even a speck. Perfectly clean pink coat.”

“A-a-a-ah!!!” howled Tiara, clutching her head with her hooves. The fact that someone had ignored her tag so ingenuously certainly didn't add to the mood of the girl.

“My not so well know your language... Explanation, what you do said now?”

“Ugh!” pouted Diamond Tiara, trying with all her might to ignore the trio of filly, who could hardly hold back the laughter, breaking out from such a picture. “He's just laughing at us, Spoon!”

“Ti, what if he really just doesn't understand?” Silver wrinkled her nose, puzzled, straightening her glasses. “These three said that his eyes were arranged differently... Maybe not worth it..?”

“Don't be silly, he understands everything perfectly!” stamped with her hoof Diamond Tiara, rolling a bottle of soda and looking angrily at the alien - he was again twisting something in a cylinder on the table with his scissors brush. “Pegasus care about the weather, unicorns are strong in applied magic, griffins are the best traders! But this is all nonsense! But this view, whoever he was...” Tiara lowered her voice and enthusiastically whispered in her friend's ear, so that everyone in the house could hear:

“It is downright ideal for caring for the fur coat and mane of earth ponies! Without any telekinesis and wings, there are so many built-in instruments in one paw! Imagine what will happen when his second one returns! I... we just have to get it for ourselves!”

The monster, presenting itself not at all as it should be for the creatures of the Eternal Wild's magic, looked at Tiara with an unblinking gaze, and then calmly concluded:

“If I were you, I would beware of squirrels... Anything can happen.(7)”

“Squirrel?” from surprise even Tiara forgot to be indignant. “But what have the squirrels to do with it?”

“What are you talking about, Zeush?” in turn, the Crusaders did not understand.

“Auf?” raised her head Winona, wrapping her head in search of animals with a fluffy tail, after which you can run around and drive to a tree.

"Nah, nevermind," grumbled a guest from another world. “This is about my... humanity,” the creature stretched its muzzle up and moved its neck. A strange grunt this time came from his chest, and the plates on it moved. “So, here I am again and unwell. Uh... I think I messed up something in your language, didn't I? Scootaloo, kheh, this is only a temporary measure, forget about this first aid kit already. Kha. I can't pick up your sores at all.”

“Oo-oo-oo...” the pegasus returned to her place, after she had jumped to the closet. “So uninteresting.”

With a creak of stretched latex, the creature pulled the balloons to itself, unhooking one of them, and Lyra felt the need to break the silence that had lasted from her side and say something. Anything. For too long, the unicorn has been posing as Fluttershy, who is about to go out in public. Although the idea of ​​attracting the attention of someone with a burning eye with a vertical pupil, jagged long legs like a Chrysalis, and sharp claws was frankly so-so in Lyra's opinion. But even to be silent, not to react in any way was already beyond her strength! She should have chosen the first sentence very carefully, if she did not want to provoke the creature and find out what it, discord take it, is...

“You...” began Heartstrings, swallowing. She completed the sentence faster than she could think.

“Are you talking?”

Perfect start, mentally put her hoof to the forehead of the mint pony. I couldn't ask anything more stupid, you fool?! It's just bIt was stronger than Lyra. When the stranger looked at her again, loosening the ribbon on the ball with two halves of his hand, all her admonitions in the spirit of "he is good", "he is kind" and "he is affectionate with children" vanished without a trace. Lyra could not help but pay attention to the fact that the «human», like a giant grasshopper, has a body covered with a dark chitinous shell, armor in rare places exposes a sickly gray skin, that instead of a face marked by intellect and pride, he has an indistinct stub. Any pony in her place, accustomed to a well-fed and carefree life, could think of only one thing: just expect trouble from such an awkward creature. And it's better to run altogether as long as the skin is intact. It's not even Zecora, who just by her appearance made a rustle in Ponyville - this is a much higher level! The way the stranger inhaled the balloon, as if inflating it the other way around (why?!), almost paralyzed Lyra's thoughts... again. The creature coughed, put down the latex rag and, looking oddly at the unicorn, shrugged.

“Why not.”

“Sweetie Belle, sweetheart,” almost crying from the struggle tore her with herself, plaintively held out the unicorn. “To whom did you bring me?”

“How to whom?” she was sincerely surprised. “This is Zeush, human! The one that Twilight Sparkle dragged into our world,” said Sweetie proudly. “He is our friend, researcher, biologist and, you know, Wonderbolt... I mean, a flyer!”

“This is human?!” Lyra looked around the Crusaders with wide-eyed, as if hoping to subtract mischief and a joke on their faces.

“Well, yeah,” a pegasus with a lilac mane looked at Lyra in bewilderment. “Doesn't he look like what you described? Two hands... were. But two legs, and walks straight! When not running on three... Well, a bald head with a flat muzzle still...”

“He doesn't look human at all!” Lyra protested, watching as the creature absorbs the contents of the balloons, one by one. “Certainly not on those as I imagined them!”

‘You know, little pony, you also look like xeno familiar to my contemporaries very, very distantly. Khuh,” either sneezed, or almost owl hooted the stranger. “But I'm not complaining.”

“Oh, he ate a little!” Apple Bloom chuckled. “You should have seen him yesterday, Lyra! Just like the skeletron from Ogres and Dungeons!”

“Well, maybe I was not in the very dawn of strength, but I lived up to my reputation, so...” "human" muttered under his breath, in the end it was completely unintelligible. Lyra, chewing her lips in confusion, looked hopefully at the Crusaders:

“Girls, what a stupid joke are you playing with me?”

“And now I'm offended, by the way. Kheh,” Zeush grumbled, tossing the last colored rag to the floor. “I do not advise you to think that I am some kind of joke of nature. Many thought so...” stumbling in mid-sentence, he suddenly reached out and pulled the tentacle hose out of the device he had been fussing over all this time. With a chomp, this appendage retreated into the chest, disappearing under a piece of carapace, and the monster slapped its two-fingered palms against each other, rubbed them. It was an eerily minotaur-like gesture - if minotaurs in Equestria had one arm, two! The stranger repeated the same sequence of actions and strange, animal sounds, and the cough suddenly left him at once:

“Now let the whole thing be infused, and with a favorable outcome, I won't need the alveoli another three days...”

“Cider is infused,” told, raising her hoof, Apple Bloom. Then she looked down at the webbing cylinder and giggled.

“This is not a drink, is it?”

“No, Bloom. This is my source of food,” noticing the elongated faces of the foals, the alien hastened to give an explanation:

“Not in the sense that I'll literally eat it. It is rather... Energy. A crystal of pure alchemistry. Battery for organics. You do not seem to have such.

“If this is a crystal, you can say "accumulate charge", "charge", Lyra timidly suggested. “And if alchemistry, then "reacts", "synthesized"... The last, if you need to get something new from several.”

“The battery must produce synthesis from the surrogate,” Zeush looked at her carefully. “Does that sound normal?”

Lyra nodded in confusion.

“Very good,” the monster breathed out a red cloud on the device, suspiciously reminiscent of those that excited Ponyville a couple of days ago. The scarlet substance was absorbed into the shell of the cylinder, which made the cylinder hum, barely audibly, and a thin stream of steam began to curl upward. – “I'll remember this.”

“According to some words, as you can see, we still have to work and work, but he grasps very quickly!” boasted unicorn Scootaloo, looking at the stranger with such pride, as if he were her pet, trained for the exhibition. “Yesterday he spoked in such a way that my ears were wilting, but today he’s really good!”

“Your merit, girls,” Zeush did not persist.

“Only the cutiemarks of the translators we never received,” Apple Bloom complained, looking sadly at his empty flank.

“Oh, there will still be...” the "human" patted her on the back of the neck, and the foal closed her eyes contentedly. “Maybe you’ll try all the activities of the world, and you will have a universal mark that can be interpreted as you like.”

“Universal?” Scootaloo tilted her head to one side. “Like you?”

“I don't want to be a dilettante!” Sweetie Belle was worried, however, she immediately looked repentantly at Zeush:

“Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you...”

‘It's okay,” the alien chuckled. “I don’t have a cutiemark. In my world this case... it is more difficult and simpler at the same time.”

“Interesting,” Apple Bloom wondered, “how can a cutiemark look like, what does mean everything?”

“Well, if you mix everything in a row, you get chaos... But Discord didn't have a mark at all!”

“Discord cutiemark?” Sweetie Belle stuck her tongue out in a gesture of dislike. “Well, I do not want! Fi!!! Scootaloo, I don't want mark like this!”

Diamond Tiara clearly wanted to put in a sarcastic word, or even two, but, looking at the stranger, wisely decided to keep quiet. Lyra wondered how a guest from another world had learned to speak with a pony in record time. Had he forced one of the unicorns to cast a spell on him by force? A griffin, a friend of Rainbow Dash, who, as Lyra realized, lived with her family among the Pegasus, once flew into Ponyville and learned the pronunciation of sounds from childhood. Her speech in terms of the range of tonality was very similar to the alien dialect, unlike the translation spell, which itself forms simple verbal constructions and rather clumsy substitutes for concepts - this was often used by merchants who came from distant regions of Equus... But at the same time, the spell adapted all words, and there was a clear lack of vocabulary in the dialect of this huge spider-man! Couldn't he learn to "profit" for these two or three days, and therefore missing some particulars?! Meanwhile, Zeush looked up at Lyra with a narrowed eye:

“Well,” he said in a businesslike manner, pronouncing the words so separately and distinctly that it was clear to everyone, “You seem to have already understood that I am different from your ideas about humans... Whatever they may be. You know,” the stranger raised himself in his place, “at first I wanted to ask you about the local order, about princesses in general. I’m completely limp with you,” the stranger complained to no one to whom. “I don’t follow the language, I didn’t even look who it was coming to my residence. A large object is recognized, plus a small Sweetie - it means that everything is in order, with her confidant, you can not be distracted even by recognition through optics. Grm-m-m... And chatter - well, you also need to learn to speak cleanly, and without live communication with native speakers it is almost impossible.”

“Uh-uh...” Lyra said thoughtfully, not knowing how to react to such words. The stranger suddenly turned around like a giant wood louse, rising to his feet and clattering his spurs. The unicorn felt her heart pounding as the creature's head swung up to the ceiling and its shoulders straightened, visually increasing the space it occupied. In the house of the Crusaders, comfortable and filled with summer warmth, it suddenly became cramped and uncomfortable at once...

“So you, then, are the confidant of the princesses, since you easily went to them at night. It means that you are person concerned,” the monster rasped gravely. “And now also a witness. I'll have to term-ineyet,”(8) legs, sharp as spears, in one step brought the monster close to its victim. “The standard physique of an equid female... you brought me a little meat, Sweetie. But as the last component for the battery will fit...”

Black claws with a red tint gleamed in the rays of light coming through the curtained windows. Zeusha's skeletal torso swayed backward and menacingly forward. The upper jaw bristled with a row of sharp fangs. In his gaze, Lyra, dwelling in wild, primal horror, saw darkness without a single spark of light. No mercy, no hatred - just frozen volcanic lava, still hot, ready to explode in a stream of fire and destruction at any moment.

“Ai-i-i-i...” Lyra made an attempt to scream, but squeezed out only a plaintive squeak - the quintessence of helplessness in front of a powerful and ruthless predator. She backed away, already ready to rush out with the last of her strength, breaking down the door, but then the foals rushed to the monster:

“Don't!” Scootaloo began to scare, jumping up and grabbing the stranger by the knee. “Lyra is good! She's good pony, honestly!”

“It's my fault!” echoed her Sweetie Belle, along with Apple Bloom straddling the other leg, not in the least afraid of bent claws. “I offered, but did not know... where Lyra went there! She has nothing to do with it!”

“Em... What are you going to do with Lyra?” Silver Spoon said in confusion. She and Tiara did not seem to know how to react to what was happening.

“Just kidding, don't worry,” the alien muttered, replacing the fangs with flat, even teeth, as if they weren't there. “The battery has already received everything that needed.”

Not at all burdened by the Crusaders, the «human» has overstepped Zero through the curled up Lyra, placing her long, thin legs like some kind of wading bird. Convinced that the danger for the unicorn had passed, the foals were delighted, counting on the continuation of the ride - Scootaloo even climbed the monster on the scruff of the neck, which earned another displeased look from Tiara. However, Zeush, having grabbed the fidget, simply went to the far window. Only now Lyra saw between the pots on the windowsill glass soda bottles filled with some substance of a dull blue color. In the same place, on a sheet of paper, a liter of "Do not touch!" The monster lifted one of them, looked through the glass at the light, checked the neck as if smeared with reddish wax - and then began to stuff small pieces of glass in comparison with it somewhere in the lower back, under the armor. Lyra silently watched as all four bottles rustled into the armor, and the plates folded back into place. Zeusha's fearful gaze softened again, and to Sweetie Belle's confused excuses, he replied:

“Nothing, little one. It’s not your fault, I suppose,” then the creature’s voice quivered as he turned to Lyra.

“And yet, mammal, start talking - why did you go to the princesses?”

“Me?!” Lyra, it seems, still did not believe that she had not been devoured. “I just wanted to find out from the princesses what they learned about a human... And I myself told them about what humans I represented! Nothing more, I swear by heavens!”

The mint pony, with all her frightened eyes, watched the broken figure, which approached her and sat on the floor, crossing her legs, resting her double "hand" on her knees.

“Well,” muttered the creature, “an ordinary citizen climbs into the monarch's window in the middle of the night to share his fantasies with her majesty’s... strange enough to be the norm for your world. Consider that you convinced me,” apparently, impressed that Lyra still does not roll with her hooves up, imitating impressionable Ponyville flower girls, or, at worst, does not run headlong away from the Crusaders' house, he nodded approvingly:

“Scared, but not as scared as you could have, huh? Well done. You will suit me.”

“Wh... What kind of jokes you have!!!” Lyra screamed indignantly.

“Quite normal dark humor,” the creature snorted, glancing condescendingly at the unicorn. “I'm a doctor, I'm supposed to.”

“Are you also a doctor?” surprised Apple Bloom. “Can you, this, heal other ponies?”

“Humans,” corrected her «human», thoughtfully propping his jaw with his hand. “It seems that once again the language map has shifted. I don’t heal humans,” Lyra heard a strange grin in his voice again, “I have no legal right to do so. But in an emergency, I can help. Look, do you have any sort of ranks for students... researchers?”

“Ranks?”

The Crusaders looked at each other.

“Well, Twilight Sparkle is, um, a scientist,” Sweetie expressed the general opinion. “And a disciple of Her Grace.”

"There is a rank “Doctor of Applied Magic” in Canterlot, if you... that's what you mean," Lyra muttered, but then it dawned on her.

“And what if I started to run? If I wanted to report to the guards?! Would you...”

The spherical head with fins-ears turned, and the stranger turned to Lyra his expressionless, not counting the eyes, physiognomy.

“Why? I would have tied you up and left you in the care of these young lil terr-o-rizzt,(9) that’s all,” the monster shook his head towards the inseparable trinity. “Or maybe I would have let you go in peace; I am already ready to meet princesses, have taken into account almost every alignment. Civilians cannot harm me in any way... I care about my safety, but I will not interfere if any of those present wants to leave. Right, little one?” he turned to the gray earth pony

“Well... yeah!” Silver Spoon nodded uncertainly. “When we came here in the morning, we were a little scared, and when wanted to leave, no one was holding us.”

“See?” Zeush raised his bald eyebrow. Then, with a sigh, he beckoned the pony with glasses:

“So be it Spoon. I see how you looked at my dist-alize.”

Tiara ran up to the foals sitting in a circle and the «human» first, sideways pushing Silver, who was delighted, but the monster did not seem to pay special attention to her. He offered a suddenly widening palm with retracted claws, and Spoon, hesitating, stepped on it with all four hooves, balancing with difficulty in such a small area. The stranger carefully carried the foal to his lap and, having settled it there, split his arm with a slight crack. Diamond Tiara puffed out her cheeks and blushed to the accompaniment of the quiet but harmless giggle of the cutiemarks Seekers - it seemed that the earth filly would burst with indignation.

“What’s your name, mammal?” Zeush asked the unicorn sympathetically, loosening Spoon’s braid, which turned into a silky mane with a silver sheen. Before Lyra could open her mouth for an answer, Scootaloo blurted out:

“She's Lyra! Lyra Heartstrings, we told you so! She musician, and moved out of Canterlot, and...”

“Well, can't she answer herself?” the «human» grimaced. “I know, Scoots. I just hoped to get her out of her stupor with a question that she could easily answer.”

Lyra really felt relieved - at the sight of Silver quietly sitting on the stranger's lap, though not from the question. Contact... was getting better. She could not completely get rid of the unpleasant feeling - as if the pony was in the same room with the conjuring Twilight Sparkle, who once, out of the best intentions, decided to supply the doll with a spell of attraction and made the whole city rush after her. Here you can't do without a dugout made of pillows... But Lyra, nevertheless, felt now from the sight of a «human» something besides a quiet panic: interest, curiosity, excitement. Especially after his hand gathered back into a four-fingered palm and wrapped his fingers in soft skin, like elongated hoppers.

“Lyra... It seems like a normal name,” Zeush carefully took off Silver's glasses and put them on the floor. “I was going to call you "Fuzzy" in my thoughts at first. In general, on this basis, any of the locals would come up, but as the first adult acquaintance, and your bangs with a tail are lush, mischievous...” the stranger, in turn, ducked his fingers into the flowing mane and stroked Spoon several times on head, closed his eyes. “Then I decided that it looks too much like a pet's nickname. "Mint" is banal, "Celery" - somehow does not sound. Then you will  Ljier-rah. This is the name in my native language of the instrument that supposedly depicts your rune,” the stranger clarified in a completely pacified tone,“ and which I alone do not see as a discord. Well, at least the ear will not be corny with your onomatopoietism... I'm not sure that this word of yours is the best fit here. Never mind.”

“My name is close to the old Equi word form "melody",” Lyra smiled timidly. “So this option is quite suitable.”

The stranger fell silent, with measured movements scratching the scruff of the extremely pleased Spoon, Tiara sulked silently, the Crusaders waited for the conversation to continue, and Lyra decided that the guest from a parallel world was passing the baton to her. She immediately asked a question - due to the fact that this detail in the speech of the erect spider seemed very strange to her. Was he really so alien to Equus' universe that even Harmony did not pay even a tiny fraction of her attention to him?

“Can't you see the cutiemarks?” the unicorn looked askance at him, remembering the dialogue between Zeusha and Tiara. “Really?”

The monster-who-was-not-so-monster, catching the familiar panicky notes in her voice, opened his eyes, not stopping to stroke the finally relaxed Silver.

“I still scare you, pony,” he stated.

“Well...”

“But they are not afraid,” the stranger nodded at the Crusaders, not looking up from his occupation. Scootaloo at these words ruffled with such a proud look, as if she had decided to immediately receive the guardsman's mark. “Probably, you have the effect of disappointed expectations. Or simply because you are a newcomer, and the foals of the local ponies, due to the proximity of the Ever-Wild, have a downright all-metal psyche,” grinning, Zeush suddenly threw his head back, naturally removing it behind his back. “Anyway... I've already had time to experiment with the girls. The scientific method is mine everything; it allows you to learn the method itself... and your perception too.”

The unicorn looked warily at the rather smiling Mark Seekers. The word "experiment", in view of his residence in Ponyville Twilight, for the locals could mean anything, and therefore Lyra, in advance prepared to be horrified, asked doomly:

"Experiment" in what sense?”

“By the simplest experience, it was found,” muffled from the back of the stranger, “that a direct binocular gaze, the gaze of a predator taller than you, does not awaken evolutionary phobias in ponies. It seems that for girls it was not an obstacle when I observed with full-fledged double optics, and did not follow from the corner of my eye. After all, you, too, have not badly evolved binocular vision... So,” his words were interspersed with grunts and red veins, which swiftly snorted along the neck bent to the side and back, tied with ligaments of muscles. “You can perceive a human face and its emotions - not like a pony's face, but still.”

When Zeush returned his head to its proper place, Lyra gasped. Instead of a bare skull, on the neck sat a head covered in pale pink-yellow - not the most common, but quite healthy shade - skin, with rather sharp features compared to ponies. Lyra thought that she had never seen such a face among the species that inhabited Equus. The stranger's hard dark mane seemed to be cut short, but it was noticeable that it had not been properly groomed for a long time. A sharp nose with thin wings and a very sharp chin with a massive lower jaw stood out on a flat face. The cat's eye was now covered with heavy eyelids, and the corners of the lips that were too prominent on the hairless muzzle were curved in a barely noticeable cheerful (so it seemed to Lyra) grin.

It... was not the face of a typical person, as Lyra had imagined. If only because it was not devoid of a more or less familiar mane, as well as small, rounded ears, which were quite distinguishable. Well, on the other hand, it was much more attractive than a faceless bone horror, roughly cut, as if sewn by some crazy surgeon from separate scraps of flesh. And when the vertical pupil of the creature suddenly widened, turning the eye into a familiar pony, albeit a smaller one, the obsession almost completely lost its power over Lyra: the cobweb of capillaries dissipated, disappearing somewhere under the eyelid shaded by the browbone. Instead of an inflamed scarlet color, the iris was filled with a dull blueness, as if a colorography had appeared - and then the bone plate in the second eye socket suddenly opened, crawling to the side and turning into a part of the temple. From the depths of the skull, it protruded, before our eyes (Lyra was not a fan of puns, it just happened) overgrown with skin the same quite ordinary eye... Tiara expressed their common opinion with Spoon about what they saw briefly but neatly, wrinkling her nose:

“Fi.”

But Silver Spoon did not see anything - she lay with her eyes closed, completely surrendering to the sensations and from time to time sighing contently.

“You yourself are "fi"! In my opinion, it's cool - so easy to change your appearance!” objected Scootaloo. “Listen, can you show any of the Wonderbolts?" she looked slyly at Zeush. “The queen of changelings could do that too! I bet you can't?!”

“Better Miss Cheerilee!” giggled Apple Bloom. “Then we can say that all homework is canceled! All this will hear and confirm that she said so! Can you?”

“Bloom, we can't do that! What Applejack will do to us when he finds out, can you imagine?!” gasped Sweetie Belle, but Tiara looked at the earthy one with a bit of respect - it seems that she decided in her own way that she was not so empty-flanks and hopeless, since she immediately gave out a cunning and attractive plan.

“Some other time,” human moved his jaw, as if checking the safety of his teeth. “This is the standard form of my head - this is how it looked when I first got into your world,” he carefully looked at Lyra, as if wishing to more accurately capture her reaction. “Is it better?”

“Much better,” the unicorn nodded with relief. “You are in this form, uh, normal, although not at all a pony.”

“Well, thanks, I guess,” human muttered under his breath, starting to scratch Spoon under his chin.

Although part of the Ponyville inhabitants would have scattered to the sides because of his height, just like that, out of harm's way, now Lyra clearly understood that the alien did not wish her harm, did not pose a threat to the ponies - otherwise what were all these ceremonies for? The sense of humor of the guest from another world was strange, no doubt, but he is definitely not a monster and not a tartar creature who has no sense of tact and no concept of elementary politeness. Deciding to finally dispel her fears (for the words about "the look of a predator" alerted the unicorn), Lyra carefully considered her question. To ask so head-on would probably be a shame, and Zeush's face did not seem to look like a pony-eater - he showed no more prehistoric fangs... Maybe initially his body was also somehow different, like a face, and not as if taken from a huge insect?

“Um... Listen...” remembering another at least strange expression of the stranger, Lyra asked:

“Look, are your species not mammals? It's just that you have some kind of body... Strange. I don’t understand whether it’s a reptilian scale, or a beetle shell, but now you have a face...”

“I was originally quite a primate of the mammalian class,” replied the stranger reluctantly. “Now - the jester knows him. Something... in between.”

Noticing how elongated the faces of his listeners, Zeush correctly interpreted their surprise and, raising an eyebrow, asked:

“Am I so different?”

“Not a single place!” Lyra exclaimed. “You have no hair on your face, tiny ears, which, moreover, are pressed against the skull! The nose is generally protruding almost like a griffin's beak, and the forehead is high!”

“No, no, what kind of monkey are you?” shook her lush mane with a bow Apple Bloom. “You now look more like a pony with a muzzle, as for me! You, of course, lack normal ears...”

“Stop... Are you a marmoset?” Scootaloo giggled, staring at her alien friend. “Wait, for real?!” the pegasus stopped when Sweetie looked at her sternly, as only a real lady could, even if she was only a couple of feet height. “Oh, I'm sorry... I didn't mean it, honestly! It just sounds too stupid...”

“There is no... error here?” Sweetie asked hesitantly, as if trying to smooth over her friend's rude directness. “Maybe you were wrong in the word again? Monkeys jump, usually on all fours, and you... Well, you, when you are not hiding, walk straight? They also climb trees in the jungle, but not the ceiling!”

“Oh, Sweetie...” smile Zeush darted to the unicorn, massaging the scruff of Silver Spoon, who even opened her left eye, squinting and trying to figure out what was causing the noise among the ponies. “If it were not for the structure of your legs, I too would never rank the ponies among my relatives...” human thought for a good ten seconds, after which he concluded:

“Hm, there is no suitable analogy for your world. Judging by the data from the reference books and the collective knowledge of this trinity, in your language "horse" means an equopodized mouse,” it seems that he specified more for himself than for Lyra. “I remember that I was asking the second side question... Well, chee-rup (10) does exist in your culture - in the form of a pink alicorn, which instead of a bow uses spells of attraction... Ha,” Zeush let out a short, sharp laugh, like he coughed.

“Are you talking about Princess Cadance?” surprised Lyra, who once acted as a bridesmaid of the most enviable bride of all Equestria. “Why does she need a bow? She is a magician, not a guard, her husband is in charge of the royal guard...”

“Why, why...” human dismissed. “At least to drive away competitors in view of their rich choice from her hubby. Well,” the stranger stretched, with a juicy crunch fingering the plates along the spine. “As a mercy to your feelings, little ponies, I can declare with full responsibility that I definitely have nothing in common with yours primates. I just used the word that I thought was the most appropriate to describe the term,” he pronounced the last phrase not so confidently, glancing at his little assistants, as if expecting that they would rush to correct Zeush. “But on my planet we are relatives, although our paths parted a long time ago, we never crossed again. Evolution is such a thing...” tearing off his hand from Spoon's mane, he waved it vaguely in the air, fingering. “It often creates forms in front of which the mind and its habitual framework succumb. Many of my species do not even want to know about our relationship with monkeys, despite the obvious evidence, and amuse themselves with fairy tales about creators from heaven, then from distant stars, then from where else there is enough imagination...”

Lyra would have thrown her ears up on hearing about a sticking point with her theory, but her mind was busy desperately trying to isolate, in a mentoring tone similar to the one Twilight Sparkle loved to crush on, any useful information about humans. Needless to say, perseverance (in the usual pony pose) and the ability to listen to the lecturer at the conservatory were not her serious sides.

“Meanwhile, all of us, representatives of wildlife, are relatives to one degree or another... A bacterium and a wandering albatross - no matter how big the difference, somewhere very far away on the evolutionary tree they will find a common link,” the newcomer continued meanwhile. Some new sounding was manifested in his words - enthusiasm, as if the speaker straddled his favorite topic and gave the listeners what he knew very well. “Walking upright turned out to be a winning strategy, here we will also write down the increase in the volume of the cerebral cavity... all this changed us, humans, beyond recognition, as natural selection changed in half with magic and your ancestors too. Of course, I do not consider you primitive analogs from my world, despite the fact that the self-name of your race comes close to them in meaning. To me, you are xeno - an intelligent form of otherworldly life, the most competitive and fit species on your planet. And judging by your reaction, I am no way a stupid monkey for you either,” the alien finished calmly.

The ponies, including Lyra, exchanged glances and nodded fervently. Only a madpony could have imagined such a thing - especially considering that in order to imagine a monkey stripped to a skeleton, and even talking, leading an almost scientific debate... It was necessary to have some truly strange mindset, which Lyra, to her relief , did not possess. She didn't want to have nightmares later. Zeush nodded in response.

“Well, that's agreement. And about my very distant resemblance of a muzzle to a pony...” he squinted his eyes at Apple Bloom, smiling thinly. “Kan-verge-ntshne, (11) as I know. Organisms of different ranks under similar evolutionary conditions have the same traits... We are not looking for anyone but humans, asLem said , (12) - Zeush briefly called someone's name, as if spitting out a small pit. “But it seems to me that it is more correct to say "we with a high probability will not find anyone but humans. You have not hands, but gravitators, some strange hair and skin in terms of the absence of pigment - but at the same time a brain volume similar to a human, much closer to the human anatomy of a muzzle, almost the same sector binocular gaze, modified for the pronunciation of articulate sounds, the oral apparatus...”

“O-o-oh! Sweetie, why did you help him with that stupid reference book?!”

“I didn't want to! Who knew that this was his talent in life?”

The stranger kept pouring new learned terms, and the foals, without words understanding each other, got hold of a deck of cards from the box. Judging by the way Scootaloo rolled her eyes, this was not the first time they had seen a similar attack of talkativeness from a new friend, and they knew it would be for a long time. Apple Bloom silently offered Tiara a game, and she, sighing, reluctantly took the cards, starting to cut into the usual 2 by 2 along with the Crusaders - probably, the earth pony also wanted to pass the time until the strange adults lost all interest in them. Lyra, by virtue of her concern with the question, understood some part of what Zeush was talking about. Her theory about the artificial origin of humans was bursting at the seams - well, but they were not, judging by the words of the alien (but not by his appearance, not counting the head), strange dangerous garbage from deep space, but quite a species subject to the theory of evolutionary magibiology. And the further the stranger plunged into his reasoning, the more Lyra became convinced of the truth of this conclusion.

“…this is not to mention the fact that you, like humans, are not busy all day in obtaining food, but have time for intelligent activity,” summing up the line, said a guest from another world. “The volume of your digestive tract is much more modest than that of your own cows. Although, it must be admitted, the strangeness of metabolism is more to blame than diet. The sun recharges you, doesn't it?” Zeush chuckled. “Magic... If I understood correctly, your species is young precisely because of it, and intelligent life now corresponds to the stage of a supercontinent on my planet. Evolution proceeded at an insane pace, which is why most species carry zoomorphic features. If there were magic on my planet, humanity would probably be talking lemurs with magic twigs,” noticing the round eyes of Lyra, who was impressed by his knowledge of Equus, human shrugged his shoulders:

“I Learned most of this from books. The kind you had at your school. The rest is... personal speculations.”

“Do you also know our writing?”

“Without going into nuances - now I know,” Zeush nodded. “As Scootaloo said, I'm a fast learner.”

“A-ha,” muttered the pegasus, looking intently at the cards, hoping to find there a particularly large party that Diamond Tiare and Sweetie Belle could shake off.

“Based on my experience with girls, I dare to hope that you understood my dialect all this time.”

“Quite,” giggled Lyra, already looking much more openly in the human's face.

“We can also communicate through Scootaloo, if you are jarred by how fake I am talking,” the stranger again focused on combing mane of Silver Spoon, which was already snoring softly on his lap. “She did not mind acting as a translator on a permanent basis.”

“No, you shouldn't! I understand you perfectly well,” Lyra crossed her front hooves with inspiration. So many questions were spinning in her head! She is in fact talking with a representative of a foreign civilization, and he does not mind answering her questions at all! “You see, I didn’t expect the meeting to be so... chaotic! I just got all the prepared themes out of my head! And I didn't take Sweetie Belle's invitation seriously, left the notebook at home...”

“Nothing! I would also consider it a joke, probably,” the white pony laughed, handing over the three horseshoes to the forced partner.

“Well, I won't push you. Make your thoughts. I hope that you, in turn, will answer my questions already,” human shrugged his shoulders again, but this time more casually. Lyra could not understand how this gesture came out so expressive for him, given that one shoulder joint was missing. Suddenly it dawned on her:

“Wait... Bonnie told me you had two arms when the rotorcraft crashed! Have you lost it in the Everfree? This is an unfriendly place for an unprepared pony... um, a human,” the unicorn looked at Zeush with sympathy. “It’s a pity that no one could warn you... Probably, no one would want monsters to attack him like that from the doorway! You should have stayed with the pony... Oh. Who knew...”

Human, bending his neck, looked in surprise at the left side of his body. Then he smiled at Lyra with a snort.

“Ah, you mean this... Everything is all right, I just let it go for a walk.”

“Who?” the mint pony was surprised. “A hand?! Is this your jokes again?”

“Trust him,” Apple Bloom said earnestly, looking at Lyra over her cards. “In his world, "biologist", you see, means the same as "wizard"!”

“Nonsense. This is not witchcraft... he has no horn, no mark,” Diamond Tiara bit her lip, avoiding looking in the direction of human, which betrayed her displeasure. “How does Spoon allow such a skinny one to touch herself,” she muttered under her breath, frowning amusingly.

Lyra looked around the foals with a dazed gaze - who reacted quite casually to the news that the alien's hand had fled somewhere by itself.

“Can you do magic? Do humans have magic?! Indeed?” she already stood up for all four in surprise. “Is that why you learned our language so quickly and made yourself a normal face?”

“This kind of ability - only I have and only over myself,” replied the stranger dispassionately. “The rest of the humans are doing something similar... But with much more costly methods and on a more modest scale. Using complex machines, we create new plants with the characteristics we need on the basis of existing ones, like earth ponies. Or we create medicines, we treat congenital diseases,” he pondered, remembering something, and added:

“We can only hope that the transfer of such an amount of matter and the active use of my abilities did not increase the risk of your sun exploding,” a note of irony clearly sounded in Human's voice. “Anything more likely than the war with recklessness will still be won.(13)”

“Huh?”

Zeush gave the unicorn a distant gaze, then sighed.

“Doesn't matter.”

“Wh... Why only you?” Lyra asked the question with such fervor, as if she hoped to break through the barrier of incomprehension, which from time to time he erected with his mysterious, probably related to the native world of man, speeches. “Why don't the others have that? Are you like an alicorn among humans?”

“Well, that's hardly likely... Because the power of science, that's why,” Zeusch snorted. “For the time being, I was at home in terms of natural capabilities an ordinary person. Two arms, two legs, head, average physical parameters in all respects. Growth is considered average at home. But then - thanks to the same science - I changed. I got the opportunity to change myself at my own discretion and adjust to the task at hand.”

Lyra did not fully grasp what the alien was talking about, but, apparently, Zeush's case for his planet was... atypical. Unique. Maybe the scientists there, unable to accept Twilight Sparkle's message, have embarked on some grand experiment in order to in turn contact Equestria? Did they choose a candidate from among their ranks to do this? Lyra blinked, feeling that a little more, and her brains will boil, so that clouds of steam will be drawn from her ears.

“But... if you can be anything, then why are you now like...” without having figured out how to describe his condition and not offend the alien guest, Lyra poked her hoof in his direction,  “this?”

“Evolution is not always about improvement. Sometimes, to adapt, you have to step back, otherwise it will throw you to the sideline. Evolution does not tolerate losers, ”Zeush shook his head almost proudly. “And to open a new business, one way or another, you need start-up capital,” he added, and Tiara nodded in agreement. “I was not ready for the realities of your world. Nobody would be ready. So I had to bring a part of my body into the technology that allows me to exist, ignoring inedible flora and fauna and switching to the simplest chemicals,” Zeush's limb again split into separate hands. Two-fingered hands flashed quickly, gathering Silver's mane into a neat braid, like manipulating golem on a conveyor belt. “Long and disadvantageous compared to standard human methods, but possible. I could appear before you in the guise of a human - but with the current level of mass it would probably be even worse. Believe me, a man with wasted muscles and a complete lack of subcutaneous fat is a sight to behold... Two days ago, I was a pale likeness of myself. Today...” human patted Silver between the ears, waking up the earth one, “I'm worth something more.”

Ignoring the fauna... Again those slips of his, thought Lyra. Zeush seemed to deliberately tease, sow doubts in the soul of the unicorn; each new fact, voiced by him, only gave rise to even more questions! Deciding that it was worth following Applejack's example, and straightforwardness would be the best of the ways, Lyra asked:

“You...” she hesitated, but asked the question, as it seemed to Lyra, with the most courageous and determined look:

“Honestly, are your species a predator?”

The foals, who have almost finished the game, have their ears pricked up again. Silver, blinking sleepily, scanned the floor around Zeush's legs with her hoof:

“Am I... missing something? I just closed my eyes for a minute...”

“I am different and cannot be responsible for all of humanity,” the stranger said, looking seriously at Lyra, passing glasses to Spoon who squeaked happily. “Personally, I can live half-badly on minerals and your incredibly strange sun. But my source, human, is omnivorous.”

“Ah,” Lyra smiled with relief. “Then it's all right. This was what I was hoping to hear.”

“Well, great,” the alien guest raised his eyebrows. Before Lyra, pacified by the words of Human, had time to ask a new question, he added:

“In general, humans can live without protein food, but badly and not for long. Brains will not work, joints will be desstroyed... Rickets, other delights of a poor diet. Substitution of meat is possible, but still not enough. We have no way to feed on background magic - only that will be stolen from other high-energy systems. The efficiency of a level that allows such tricks is available only to me... I think so.”

Noticing that the foals were looking at him, widening their eyes, and Lyra gasping for air without speaking - even Winona seemed to look at him reproachfully - human looked around in bewilderment:

“Did I say something wrong?”

“Wait... are you eating your pets?!” gasped Lyra, flopping back to the floor in surprise. “But you said that humans are omnivores!”

“What kind of discord pets...” muttered Zeush, stroking the head of the worried Silver, soothing her. “We have dogs and cats, other companions - they are our friends, and live, as they are lucky, a happy and relatively long life. And there are such as, for example, chicken...”

Sweetie Belle, who looked confusedly from Lyra to human and back, finally decided on the side to support - and this choice was definitely not in favor of the mint unicorn.

“Ponies keep them for fluff and eggs,” she said quietly, looking inquisitively at human's face, as if trying to figure out if he was joking. “And you? Is it really for the meat?”

“But I thought, since you have chickens... Oh, yes. I remember,” Zeush responded inappropriately.

“We are omnivores, yes,” exclaimed Diamond Tiara, “but who would put meat on this list?!”

“I heard from Scootaloo that some winged ones eat fish, the same griffins...”

“That’s fish,” Lyra shook her head. “It's not the least bit intelligent, and many former predators eat her. Pegasus too, and this is completely normal... We believe that when magic began to fill our world eating meat was in vogue, but it was so long ago that there is no evidence of this.”

“Really? So, the use of exactly red cell fibers for you is not even medieval savagery, but something zha-ras-ik?(14)” human bared his teeth, showing even white number of them. “Come on, Scootie,” having put the yawning earth pony on the plank floor, he squinted his eyes at his most faithful assistant and showed her his scythe-toothed grin:

“Do you think I could harm you? Are you scared?”

“Why be scared?” the pegasus was surprised. “You have such fangs that you I hardly distinguish it! I'm not afraid of you! You didn’t do anything bad to us,” the girl boldly reported, and Lyra, quite reassured by the human’s “head replacement”, in her thoughts agreed with Scootaloo: it was difficult to be afraid of what you’ve never seen - such an aspect of humans' life rather seemed strange.

“There we go. And you, Lyra Heartstrings, have on a note... Humans are not primitive hunters, but quite a evolved civilization. We have everything that can be put on stream, from toothpicks to nuclear machines,” human poked his finger somewhere at the ceiling, as if he had really flown from space. “This is almost all of your living creatures semi-intelligent, judging by what I saw. And we have achieved that the chicken is, consider, your fish. Just a piece of meat with a nerve knot completely susceptible to apathy - but swinging out a couple of weeks before its presentation. Some even think that this is the merit of any harmful drugs...” Human grinned badly. “Fools do not realize that the metabolism of these creatures is already working at the limit - you will not accelerate it even more. All this,” he looked at Lyra from under his brows, “differs from your point of view, pony?”

"Well, if only a little," Lyra said carefully. “I just didn't think that humans are not like us... in terms of friendship with almost everything that lives on Equus.”

“Even if I suddenly turned out to be a dangerous pony-eater, you are inedible for me, absolutely and irrevocably,” human got to his feet and walked to the table. “Now I get around by creating an artisanal chemical factory only on your land, on your own sun.

“Dangerous pony-eater" thoughtfully examined the smoking "battery", and Apple Bloom suddenly conspiratorially jabbed a mint unicorn in the side with her elbow.

“Come on, Lyra!” the girl winked at her. - Zeush is a real human, as you described them, he is very good guy!”

“Not good as you think, little one,” the alien chuckled.

The girls were quiet for a while, focusing on the game that was already drawing to a close - hooves clattering to the floor. Human, too, fell silent, contemplating the product of his magical-not-magic art. Lyra hesitated, got up and walked over to him.

“They're not afraid of you at all,” she said quietly, looking over her shoulder at the foals. “Although they did not expect to meet you, probably...”

“Well, as I said, this trinity would have enough courage for a dozen cou-arde la-ne.(15) Plus, I've proven myself pretty well... and made an effort not to scare them, unlike you,” human who was squatting, suddenly put one finger at a right angle and, folding the rest, pointed behind his back. “And these two... probably think of me as something like a lost adra-ed.(16) Golem servant,” human nodded at his double hand, as if pecked with a sharp nose. “Don’t be afraid of me either, little pony. I do not represent a danger to the reasonable...” again Human made this strange pause, as if for the umpteenth time cutting himself off in mid-sentence, “gathered in this room. And maybe I am different from humans as you imagined them, but I can assure you: my predecessors, without any fangs, folding arms and claws, were doing, in fact, the same thing as I was - selection... In a more common sense than this word is used by earth ponies. New properties of organic matter were consolidated and designed... All in all, the difference is that the products of their talent took from several weeks to tens of years, while for me it took several hours.”

“I'm not afraid, it's just...” the unicorn suddenly thought that such a corrosive and thorough human as Zeush could not help but learn about the attitude of ponies to pets before meeting Lyra. On the other hand, he did not even say that he did not know this...

He was waiting for this question, Lyra was surprised to herself, and wanted to solve it in her own way? Lyra did not understand the subtleties, did not feel false, but if this was plan of a guest from another world, it was played out like clockwork. Almost like Discord - he could seem gallant, perform some insignificant at first glance actions, but everything he did with a pony ultimately led to contention and deception. All these human’s "I could", his ability to portray other faces, like a top-notch changeling... Lyra decided that if we were to be frank, then to the end. Wouldn't this by no means stupid rational be angry for the fact that she is not such a frivolous filly, like some of the townsfolk of Ponyville? From what Sweetie Belle was saying, Human was looking for someone like that.

“You know how to manipulate... uh, manage sentient ones, right?” Lyra asked in an almost reproachful tone, although she perfectly understood that there was nothing to blame the stranger for. Not all ponies in Equestria were like the locals with their simple and good-natured morals... To her surprise, the stranger did not even think to deny:

“As much as I know. At home, I was the head of a large scientific project, so administrative skills and the ability to negotiate were needed,” he patted the plate on his chest with his palm. “But I do not like this occupation, and even more so I do not like to abuse it. I've been on my own all my life. My own. I am not a puppeteer, but the most ordinary person... perhaps with an overly outstanding destiny. Which turned me into a crossroads of all forms and directions, all biological techniques known and unknown to human-kind. Yes.”

“So you, uh, are you... an alien changeling? Metamorph sorcerer?”

“Not in the sense that you put it here. You may not believe, Lyra,” human widened his eyes, so that Lyra could not help laughing, “but humans are just what they are. Countless beliefs, cultures and traditions. At my house man can be anything and anyone - magic has nothing to do with this, and neither do my abilities. Someone, if he could survive getting into your world, would hope for the friendliness of the natives. Someone like me would have found reasonable caution in themselves and collected the data first. Someone would run away in panic, shouting about "four-legged horror" and giving praise to the heavens that the gods saved from meeting them. And someone else would have gotten into the credibility of the Crusaders and with the help of them carried an explose-machine into the real residence of the princesses, which, perhaps, could take them out of the game. And there are many more probabilities...”

“Really? So many different options?” Lyra was surprised. “I thought that at most you would refuse to meet ponies, and the princesses will have to look for you elsewhere...”

“We say that how many humans, so many opinions. It seems that we are much more individualists than you.”

“Perhaps...” Lyra agreed, and immediately got scared:

“Are you serious about girls?! Why would you need to attack the princesses?! You...” noticing the malice on the human’s face, Lyra breathed out with relief:

“You're kidding again, right? There's no plan to attack the princesses with the Crusaders, is there?”

“We won!” shouted Sweetie Belle, holding out her hoof to shake her opponents - and partner. Tiara, however, took the victory for granted, did not give a hoof and, lifting her nose, simply walked away with Silver to the wall.

“We demand revenge!” Apple Bloom and Scootaloo said in a voice indignantly. Sweetie Belle convinced them with a few general phrases that her alliance with Tiara was only temporary, and they could easily play 3 on 3 against someone else. The foals, giggling and embracing, jumped up to Zeush, who had risen to his full height, and he looked at them with a slight smile.

“Of course, there is no such plan,” human laughed. “This trinity is much more attractive to me in the form of innocent cuties than the blind instruments of my will.”

“What? What? And what have we got to do with it? - turned the heads Cutie Mark Crusaders. “And what did you and Lyra talk about? How can a instrument be blind?”

Human smiled, but his eyes remained absolutely serious. Lyra laughed in response.

“I think I understand now why you play with words like Canterlot's egghead guys. Because you were one of those at home! You would have come to the court of princesses, oh, you have.

“No way,” the stranger shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably, pursing his lips. “I'm not arrogant type, little pony. And my species in term of manners is not entirely the same as me. We have not only incomprehensible sublime concepts and scientific theories, but also good, simple, exactly what you understand. Friendship, for example.”

“Twilight Sparkle was interested in friendship a year ago!” Scootaloo interjected immediately. “She even sent letters to Her Grace!”

“Exactly! She will probably be interested in how you make friendship in another world!” Sweetie Belle echoed her. “But she left now, took all her friends, and my sister too!”

“We are also interested!” Appleboom stood on the hind legs, with the front legs resting on human's thigh. “Can you tell? Oh please!”

“Well, like everywhere else, probably,” human shrugged his shoulders, sitting back down on the floor, bending his strange legs and folding almost in half. “Arranging joint gatherings, going somewhere, helping each other, finding common interests, just communicating, keeping friends from any ill-considered nonsense... Eh. The latter, unfortunately, not always.(17)”

“Oh-ho, so not all humans are so calculating and buried in dark corners suspicious guys?” Lyra giggled. “Will you let me be one of your first friends in Equestria?”

Human looked at her in surprise.

“One of the first? Do you think other ponies can trust a strange, unlike them biped?”

“Of course!” the unicorn nodded confidently. ‘From another world, who does not want to acquire another? You probably have so many interesting and unusual things! And Equestria has a lot to offer you! You probably already figured that out yourself, didn't you?”

Zeush's face, suddenly impenetrable at once, was turned towards the front door. Lyra thought that if he were a pony, the foreigner would now wiggle his ears warily. She raised her head, noticing his interest in the space outside the house, and Winona, but then Zeush finally woke up. Closing his eyes wearily, human spoke quietly:

“New friends in the new world, huh? I don’t have time for this. I'll show you something, little pony,” he raised his voice to the foals.

“Scoots, paper and a couple of pencils! I guess a little memory training won't hurt.”

“Oka-a-ay!” pegasus rushed to the cabinets and began to rummage there with all the enthusiasm. Finally, Scootaloo procured a blank sheet of paper and ordered writing materials, choosing from the entire range of the largest and longest. When she brought them to Zeush, he grabbed one pencil in each paw, and under the pony's curious glances, he began to create.

Lyra watched with amazement and delight as on the paper, through the whirlwind of flickering limbs, something like black-and-white photographic prints began to appear. In the foreground there were two, of course, humans, and in the left, the unicorn easily recognized her new acquaintance: the similarity of their faces was obvious. A man dressed in either a dark coat or a jacket - it was difficult to judge by the cut of humans - hugged, putting his hand on his shoulders, the smaller creature to his right - in a simple dress with an open top. Zeush looked relaxed here, looking at the colorographer with a patronizing, cheerful gaze. The human mare — no doubt it was her — also smiled and was very at ease. The features of the mare... woman were just as sharp and wrong from the pony's point of view, except for the cheekbones, but the outlines of the lips spoke of sensuality; the look of deep dark eyes attracted attention, and in the short, slightly lighter mane than her companion, there was something impressive.

“So this is you!” surprised Apple Bloom, hoof pointing at the painted massive figure. “And who is next to you? Did you have a very special somepony there?” giggled the earth filly, looking slyly at human.

“My sister, Dae-na,” he answered with undisguised nostalgia. “Something like this we humans look in everyday life. As I said, the form of my present is only a guarantee of survival in your world. Dae-na was... is my best friend.”

Lyra finally relaxed: the couple depicted on the sheet seemed to be something as similar as possible to the humans the unicorn saw them: the figures were dense, stretched up, completely covered, judging by their appearance, with strong muscles and smooth skin. It seems that she just came across some kind of too eccentric and strange in terms of abilities instance... Lyra was a little embarrassed that not only her brother and sister, but also the figures of other humans were wrapped from head to toe in clothes when The decoration of the building in the background did not at all hint at some kind of festive reception. Rather, it looked like one of Manehattan's malls, where there were many similar tiers and shop windows. The mint pony wanted to clarify whether the general wearing of clothing was a tribute to some kind of tradition, but Human suddenly continued:

“In truth, the only real friend I've ever had and whom I could trust unconditionally,” he chuckled. “I don’t know how to be friends in your usual sense, pony. So it seems to me.”

Lyra looked at human in disbelief.

“Did you only have one friend?”

"It's so-o sa-a-ad," Sweetie Belle looked at her visitor from another world with her big, pitiful eyes. “You must have been very sad to live there alone.”

“I couldn't complain. For humans like me, it's okay, Sweetie, believe me,” human smiled at her with curling lips. Lyra warmly thought that for a short time in Equestria, the little unicorn seemed to have become human’s favorite. “I had several acquaintances, good persons with whom you can have a few words and share your opinions. But such, um, neutrality... quickly collapses in the event of serious trials, under the blows of which real friendship will withstand. I liked to think that the less you see a thing in your life, the more value it gets.”

“Friendship is not a thing that benefits from being alone,” Lyra shook her head. “It helps ponies every day and in the most difficult times, but living with one single friend is no better than without friends at all. This can escalate into mania.”

"You're right," the alien tilted his head. “But who said that this is something bad?”

“You can become dependent on him - a friend will be what you need every day, and this is already an infringement of his free choice...”

“However, all these are words,” human waved his hand, turning away. “It does not matter.”

A Bon-Bon’s friend saw how his pupils narrowed for a moment, and his face took on an absent expression.

“Why friendship does not matter?” asked Lyra, a little offended that the human so easily ignored her ardent speech.

“It's not about friendship,” Zeush snapped his jaws. “When I left my world, my sister was in danger. I must get back to her as soon as possible. I am obliged to protect her.”

“Oh,” pressed their hooves to the lips of Sweetie and Apple Bloom. “Something serious?”

“If so, we must hurry! We need to talk to Twilight right now...” Scootaloo looked seriously at human, but then she remembered that person in charge of the experiment had left for the north. “Eh, well, with Princess Celestia, that is, as we suggested! And with Luna!”

“Is your family in danger? If this is not another stupid joke, then of course you should turn to Their Highnesses...” Lyra tried to hide her sadness and disappointment in her voice. If everything was so serious, then, of course, the human needed to return to his native world. The unicorn cheered up, deciding that once a human managed to come to Equestria, then such a brainy person like Zeush will certainly find a way to return here, no matter what Twilight said!

He would hardly leave his sister if she was in danger, Lyra thought suddenly. But why then did Zeush end up being transferred to Equus? Had he been sent to visit a pony against his will? Or is it all just a series of coincidences, a coincidence that Twilight was caught by him? While the unicorn puzzled over this riddle, Tiara, who came up with Spoon Diamond, unceremoniously pulled a sheet with a picture-cardography to her and began to study it. In the end, she even sniffed, and then busily asked:

“Didn’t you say you couldn't draw?”

“I don't know how,” was his answer.

“And what is this if not a group portrait in pencil?!” the earth filly was indignant, deciding that Zeush decided to laugh at her again in his simple manner.

“This is an old photography from my house,” the human dismissed her claims. “I only reproduced it’s impression from memory, associating the movement with a pencil with the same means of disguise as my subcutaneous tissues. Even then you need to be able using a camera, to take into account all these exposures and lighting. And in this,” he took the leaf from Tiara with a dexterous movement, so that his fingers closed almost under her nose with a click, “there is not an ounce of art. And my hand, giving out this "picture", was not engaged in creativity, but represented the same object as the wrench, only fully automatic... even self-learning.”

“A hand-made cardography...” Diamond Tiara muttered, looking at Spoon. “We could make money on such a novelty.”

“Tool!” Sweetie Belle reminded herself. "Tool" you probably meant to say, not "wrench"! This is more generalized.”

“Not interested, Tiara,” Zeush calmly answered the pink pony, who I have already offered him to divide the proceeds "seventy-five by thirty." And, as you might guess, the little entrepreneur was going to take the most of the proceeds for herself "as a distributor and representative of alien wonders in Equestria"!

“You again saved me from embarrassment, milady Belle,” human ceremoniously bowed his head, addressing now to Sweetie, “and brought me a little closer to theponyception of your world. Thank you.”

‘You're welcome!” joyfully announced the unicorn, a little embarrassed that she is called "milady." “I'm interested in myself! Thanks to a conversation with you, we will find out what features your society has, and what cutiemarks we can get from there!”

“Overdo it somehow, and get the cutiemark of the cutiemark seekers...” the alien remarked with a laugh. The next word he uttered in his native language, groaning at it, like a dog barking hoarsely:

“Rik-ershkhn... (18) No more jokes, Lyra,” he turned to the mint pony. “Here with someone, and I always have time to talk with the princesses. First, I would like to end the conversation with you. And since we decided the most, I'm not afraid of this word, strange from your point of view, sides of being me, found out that I'm not so different from you in other aspects...” human looked at Lyra with his attentive small eyes, from which it was so difficult to guess what he was thinking. “Since we understand each other well, I suggest you, Lyra Heartstrings, start our relationship from scratch…

“What, really?!” 

“…as if there were no threats to tear to pieces, the horrors of eating half-sane meat and other nonsense,” the alien looked at her in bewilderment. “How do you, ponies, start making acquaintance?”

“But you seem to be introduced to each other?” surprised Apple Bloom.

“Not really, little one,” human replied apologetically. “Actually my name is A-legs-ande Mer-sher, or A-legs, for short. I thought it was too difficult for you, but since our acquaintance is acquiring more details...” noticing the puzzlement on the faces of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, human added:

“Ze-ushs is also my name, but it's more... a designation. Nickname.”

“A-lags... Alex,” Lyra softened what she heard, listening to the sound, as to the iridescence of strings. “And what does this name mean in your language?”

Human seemed confused. Puzzled, he ruffled his short mane.

“In my day, names no longer mean more than the humans who… wear them. For us, a name, besides appearance, is an opportunity to be different from the herd.”

“But still?” Lyra asked curiously. The foals did not lag behind, their ears pricked up with might and main.

“Protector... Protector of the living and spice merchant. And the nickname in the original sense meant "bright sky."

The combination seemed unusual, as if it was composed without listening to Harmony, from two randomly taken pieces. Mercer is a solid name, someone who does some big business picks up a lot at once. Alexander, judging by the contrast, sounded with a hint of a noble rank. After listening to the sound again and driving it through her experience, Lyra asked:

“Em... can I call you Xander?”

Human looked at her as if he had seen a unicorn for the first time. Then, immersed in thought, rattled like a calculator cabinet:

“Hrm-m-m...”

“Um, Xander?” Lira waved her hoof. “Are you still here?”

"Never mind," Sweetie Belle giggled. “If he thinks and begins to puff like the sister of Pinkie Pie, it means that the next couple of minutes Alex will not be able to reach him.”

“Which of her sisters?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Pinky didn't elaborate!”

“And if he says "it's very simple", from what was said further you will not understand a single word, most likely,” Scootaloo laughed and went to the table, attracted by a loud crash. “It seems that Alex and Twilight are traveling in the same carriage!”

Lyra finally realized that the outsider decided to think it over immediately; To a resident of a world devoid of magic, he probably thought it strange that a unicorn without knowing an alien language so easily made a diminutive, more pony-correct form of his name.

“I’m not a linguist,” Lyra explained, hoping by this to bring a human out of the state of meditation, “but I feel such things well. "Xander" would sound right, harmonious... musically. You can call it innate intuition, one of the sides of my talent. But many just say...”

“… magic,” human finally summed up. “I shouldn't be so surprised, considering how I got here... Well, thanks at least not "Sandy". In fact, you can call me whatever you want. But "Alex" would bring me the most satisfaction. "Dr. Mercer" is already for colleagues...”

“Oh, okay. If I am not mistaken, do you have such a manifestation of humans' aspirations with the help of magic? Like magic itself?”

“Your truth... But it never bothered us.”

Human was quite willing to give answers to questions, was friendly and open, except for the mystery of some of his sayings. So next Lyra asked the question, not expecting to receive something shocking in response, believing that the otherworldly would no longer be able to surprise her:

“So how did you get here? I mean, what did you do if you were the one who got Twilight?” clarified the unicorn. “Does it have something to do with the fact that your sister is in danger, or that you are different? At first I thought that other humans had chosen you to be sent to Equestria, but now I don't know what and think...”

Alex gave Lyra his branded appraising look, but the next moment he sharply turned his head to the table:

“Scootaloo!” not angrily, but very close to this he said. ‘What did I tell you about my reagents?”

Pegasus, who had previously been standing on the table and trying to peer into the battery from above, jumped away, fluttering its wings. She grumbled, putting her hoof on her front leg over the other and looking down:

‘They are unstable...”

“And that means..?”

“That they can explode like a very large fireworks display,” the pegasus giggled. “Come on, Alex! I am fast, in which case I will bounce!”

“Unleashing energy is at its best! I myself have not yet fully figured out how all these systems work,” the human looked at her sternly. “Content in general can react to heat and rush at you, considering it a consumer of energy! And I do not smile at all to look your parents in the eyes and explain why their daughters missed a pair of limbs and received chemical burns half a face. So,” he pointed his finger at the door, looking around the foals with a glance,” you, foals, would go out into the street. Go play the ball while the weather is nice. And here I am going to talk to Lira on serious topics.”

“Oh, come on, Sandy-i-i... We have good weather here almost always! What did we not see there on the street? And with you I wonder-oh-oh...” the pegasus took on a truly innocent look, but human shook his head:

“This won't work for me, Scootie, I'm not your teacher. Don't be stubborn, go!”

“Okay...” Apple Bloom sighed, heading for the exit. “You, adults, always keep secrets behind closed doors... Winona, lets go for a walk!”

“Well, Scoots, have you finished badly?” Sweetie Belle squeaked resentfully, whose touching look this time did not make the slightest impression on Alex.

“Whatever!” snorted the pegasus, fighting off Winona, who was circling around them, pleased that the gatherings at the clubhouse had finally ended. “Alex is a guy, he’ll resent for about ten minutes and he’ll stop… Girls, let's go to warm up or something!”

"Go, ponies," Alex ushered them off, including Tiara and Spoon, whom he looked at especially expressively. “Just remember - no mutual grudges. I'll find out,” he tapped a finger on his temple.

“What about me?” the pink earthling tried to be indignant. “When will you scratch me already?!”

“I’m going to have open-heart surgery soon,” Alex grumbled, pushing Diamond Tiara out the door with his massive figure, just hanging over her. “Come on, the flowers of life, there is no need for you to look at this.”

“What? How can life be floral?” Tiara was surprised at last, but Human had already closed the door behind her, and then he closed the window with curtains.

As soon as Lyra was left alone with a person, it was as if he was replaced. All gaiety disappeared from Alex's face completely, like dust that had been wiped off with a damp cloth; deep-set eyes gazed at Lyra sullenly and without particular disposition.

“Okay, now let's talk seriously,” he said lifelessly. “You’re not a foal, and you can be privy to more substantial and less... disingenuous details. Although, how to think about it…” a sharp grin traced the person's face, turning a rather pleasant face into some kind of evil mask. “Listen to stories about their adventures, so the endurance of your cubs is downright iron. The Everfree's school of life, not otherwise... However, I have already said that.”

“Children,” Lyra corrected, looking puzzled at her interlocutor. What caused such a sudden mood swings? “Children, if generalized, or foals, if you refer to the species. Cubs are more of a semi-intelligent...”

“Don't give a damn,” human dismissed. “Are you asking why I came to Equestria, and not someone else? It's a long story,” in Alex's voice were notes of real anger, and Lyra fearfully pressed her ears. “I lost my memory. Gained a power that my Air-ish ancestors never dreamed of. I confronted a sinister government organization that forced me to brew all this tartare cauldron, fought with ferocious monsters, suffered terrible injuries,” human's gaze became clouded, and his voice trembled, as if his mind remained in time, where he did not want to return at all. “I remembered my former self, collected it piece by piece. Wounded more than once, but never defeated, I went through all the trials of fate, regardless of losses. In this war, I lost my legs and almost lost my sister,” human looked with hatred at the elastic bone stilts with a spur, which in fact did not resemble the foot of anyone that of living beings. “In the last desperate dash, I overtook the humans whom I considered responsible for all this pain and madness. They had already collected everything they needed and wanted to destroy the whole city, so that the world would not know about their crimes... I prevented them by taking the most powerful explosive machine from the city to the ocean. And here I am.”

“Oh. I... I...” dumbfounded, Lyra at first did not know what to say. Finally, she went up to Alex and, standing on her hind hooves, hugged him by the armored belt, expressing sympathy and personal experience:

“I’m very, very sorry that you had to go through this,” she concluded sadly, pressing her cheek against what the human was supposed to have a belly, and worrying that the alien probably doesn’t feel Lyra’s fur with his armor and the warmth of her body, cannot feel her support. “I hope that your affairs will get better…” 

Suddenly it dawned on Lyra that one of the details of this terrible story somehow did not agree with what she knew. The unicorn unclenched her legs, looking with disbelief at the again impassive human face:

“Wait a minute!” the pony exclaimed. “But when Bon-Bon saw you... She said nothing that your legs are not in place! On the contrary, she said that you are all completely stocky and dense! None of this,” Lyra swept her hoof around the human physique, including the stilt legs, “you hadn’t!”

Alex was silent, staring sullenly at the unicorn. And suddenly he... smiled, and then laughed shortly - like a big old raven croaking.

“You mammals are so sentimental, this is something,” human patted Lyra condescendingly on the head, and she, put into prostration by her discovery, did not even notice that they had actually touched her with a hand. “I thought everyone in your world is like naive children, and here I will completely lose my qualifications. But, apparently, I am once again pleasantly mistaken.”

“What qualifications? Do you humans have…” muttered the unicorn, still not believing that this heartbreaking story, spoken with an absolutely serious face, was entirely a joke. “I-is all your humor based on violence and loss of limbs?”

“Yes. Not. Probably?” Human raised his eyebrows. “Of course not, Fuzzy. Just my mindset...”

He was friendly again - as if there was no cold aloofness and grief on Alex's face a minute ago over the war-shaken human world. Either he had a diploma from a drama school in addition to his degree, or... Maybe this he meant when he said that humans can be "whatever" in terms of cultures, beliefs and psychology? And the whole difference between Alex and other humans is that he was additionally "improved" by the coordination of his body as well? Anyway, Lyra pouted, looking reproachfully at human:

“Listen, why are you again deceiving me?”

“A serious human who owns his life and destiny will not lie about trifles,” Alex shook his head. “I openly let you know about the untruth, and therefore I was only joking,” he went to the window and looked out, examining the surroundings of the apple orchard between the curtains. Then he sighed:

“Sometimes your whole life turns into one unsuccessful long-drawn-out joke. For example, by answering the question who created whom.(19)”

“Well, I don’t know what to say... I already imagined myself such things,” Lira laughed, deciding not to pay attention to the next strange dictum of Mercer. “So, everything that you said was a joke?”

A mine of sly amusement remained on Human's face - but, moreover, it seemed to Lyra that something flashed in his eyes that could be interpreted as regret.

“It so happens that a good prank is based on a bit of truth. (20)”

“Ugh, you are wagging the tail again!” shook her head unicorn. “Why are you smart guys just not supposed to speak directly?”

“Not least because I'm afraid of the scenario "Mortal Torment of the Alien",(21)” human responded, walking back to the table and carefully leaning against the wall next to him. “I'll start telling you everything - I'll ruin your mind. You have one won’t initial impression of what impact it had.”

“No way!” Lyra answered firmly. “You may be strange... Very. But you seem to be good guy! Girls would hardly trust you if you were an unpleasant type or capable of somehow ruining a pony, like Discord.”

“Oh really?”

“So, let me collect my thoughts...” Lyra raised her hoof, closing her eyes, but immediately stared at human again:

“Wait, is it really so bad living on your planet? These "sinister organizations" are not giving life to ordinary humans?”

“What is our life?” Alex shrugged philosophically. “Life is a game... Do you have card games with an element of randomness at all?” he waved his hand, remembering that there were more ponies in the Crusaders’ clubhouse just recently. “Ah, well, yes, the girls just played in some kind of unintelligible, from my point of view, tossing. I don’t know about you, Lyra,” the stranger snapped his joints, glancing at the battery and squinting, “but in our world the quality of life depends not only on what cards you get, but also on how you play them. I won, with very mediocre starting conditions, thanks to diligence and talent, I managed to win the prize.”

"Break the bank" if you are talking about a big win. We have gambling establishments in Las Pegasus, generally speaking...”

“Roger, accepted, remembered,” the human raised his hand in a welcoming gesture. “I had an excellent life by the standards of any human. Only at the end in this sense I went bankrupt, and even then out of my own stupidity. However, I didn't have much choice... How do you say there, oxalis is not sweeter then sorrel?” faced with Lyra's incomprehensible gaze, human raised his eyes to the ceiling and quietly snorted:

“Don't bother you, little pony, we humans live fine. Earlier, like yours, it was worse. Then our "princesses" came into play, constraining factors, and diplomacy, trade and other antics of this kind became preferable. As I said, until recently I could not complain,” human put one leg after the other, knocking out a simple rhythm against the wall with his fingers. - We have many countries and many different races, although they all walk on two legs and can interbreed with each other, differing only in skin tone, eye shape, and a number of other genicthread traits. Many worldviews... We have our own "kingdoms of griffins", which had a glorious past, but without a clear position got lost and do not know what to do now. We also have possessions about which the ordinary man in the street only knows that they exist, but the rulers have to reckon with them...” perhaps the surprise on Lyra's face appeared too clearly even for a foreigner with his completely different culture, because he winked :

“Wondering how I knew all this? My renewed memory is even more than a cardographic one. In addition to the reference books that Sweetie Belle taught me, I also came across a history textbook at your school... then, when I Learned the language, I got acquainted with its contents from memory.”

“And what happened before your, um, "Age of Harmony"?” feeling that she will regret it yet, asked Lyra.

“A terrible mess,” Human shrugged, “even worse than yours. Wars, epidemics, prejudices, slavery and the terrible illiteracy of the population,” Alex rubbed his eyes and the bridge of his nose with his fingers - this is how human portrayed either despair or fatigue, or maybe both. “Although in the dark times there were many things that would not allow those decades to be attributed to the dustbin of history. Great geographical discoveries and inventions that became the basis for civilization in its modern form, scholars we revered, unique architectural monuments...”

“Well, if you are already civilized...” the unicorn remembered that Princess Luna openly ranked the alien rotorcraft as a military one. “Just don’t tell me that you are still fighting on such a scale.”

“Conflicts do happen, even though they're rare now,” Mercer reluctantly objected. “It seemed to me, or did you ask not because you were worried about the very possibility of war in our world?”

“No, that's not the point. This is not at all... We also had conflicts, even after the accession of Their Highnesses, even though the parties managed to come to an agreement most often,” Lyra answered cautiously. “It just seemed to me... If this was your machine, in which you flew into Equestria, then you could be a soldier. And you don't want to deal with the princesses, you behave more like a representative of another state than on your own... I have no idea how you can be a scientist and a soldier at the same time, but that's my impression,” Lyra giggled. “Like this.”

Mercer looked at her from under his brows, and the unicorn thought that the sudden guess in her head was quite consistent with the fact that Alex called himself a "dilettante", "grabbing the top."

‘Smart little pony,” human muttered. “You like theories of conspiracing, eh? Do you think I am a soldier who did not want to be a living weapon and fled from fulfilling his duty to another world?”

Mint unicorn shook her head.

“You may be careful, yeah, but you don't look like a coward!”

“Well, I never would look like it,” Alex grinned. “In fact, I was working on a project that in the long term was supposed to end all wars, future and present. Establish a new order on the planet...”

“Wow! So you were supposed to play the role that the alicorn sisters played with us?” inquired Lyra, grabbing the tail of the thought that had already flashed earlier.

“What?” Alex raised one eyebrow. “No... I don’t think that analogy is appropriate here,” he disagreed with a chuckle. “A new world has come... For me alone. My old way of life was crushed into dust, my state declared me the persona nan gra-ntno and arranged a hunt for me... If I stayed at home, I probably would only have to do what to hide from everyone.”

“Really?” Lyra wondered. She could not imagine that the Royal Sisters began to persecute someone so viciously - even a magician from among the court, who would have cast a spell related to the forbidden. And to think that the pony was deprived of the company of others and was an outcast all his life... “You were treated cruelly.”

“But they made me strong. Able to do something that takes humans thousands of times more time and resources,” the human's face remained calm, but Lyra with some seventh feeling felt that inside he was literally boiling with anger. “I am far superior to ordinary humans. I became faster and inconceivably tenacious, became even smarter. I survive in your realities, which would kill another human in less than five minutes. ”

He pointed to a neck with a long trachea, streaked with ligaments of muscles that go right under the skin of the face.

“Wait... No, no, kha, seriously, wait,” the unicorn gasped naturally from surprise, bulging her golden eyes at Mercer. “So is it that other humans in Equestria will never be able to get? They are here...” looked with fright at her new acquaintance Lyra, “...will they die?”

“Why "will never be able"?” Alex grunted. “Humans went down to the bottom of the ocean, and flew into space, and landed on our moon, where the conditions, to put it mildly, are not a resort either. They even arranged a walking tour along it, even if the time spent there was limited.

“You flew into the space and moon?! Just like pegasus, or have you messed up the word again?”

“Ah, a long story in which everything is mixed; from politics and patriotism to the same conspiracy theory and imaginary connection with the Carnival project...” muttered Mercer. “In short - truly astronomical amounts of money, a bunch of complex mechanisms, countless gallons of burned fuel and protective suits that preserve our atmosphere and our conditions. I don’t need one...” Alex tapped his knuckles on the irregular plate in his side. 

“This Twilight Sparkle of yours is lucky that it was me who was caught unprepared. I have no doubt that the horned clever girl is worth something, but she might not have time to figure out what kind of intervention the alien needs to save life.” Mercer arched his neck, hunching over, dropping his head almost to Lyra's level. “By the way, another argument to the question of whether I am a primate or another form of life I am. By all indications, I am still a different species... What is not mixed in me now - unused geni-threads inherited from old branches were activated, new sequences were recorded by horizontal transfer...” 

Human thought, but this time to climb into jungle his own head and ignore the world around him in no hurry, “Yes, you can generally not look for "for" and "against", here just one argument will be enough. I doubt as hell that I could have interbreed with my former relatives... in the familiar sense.”

The unicorn thought that humans in massive protective suits arriving in complex cars in Equestria is, of course, something interesting, but still not at all... Well, Alex was also "not at all", but at least he could keep his hands out of massive hoppers! Fingerlings, that is.

Okay, the mint pony dared, plucking up courage. We will work with what we have!

“I know you’re tired of my questions,” she said delicately, “and I’m a little embarrassed to ask, but... Can I look at your hand?” Lyra giggled in embarrassment, but firmly continued to look Human in the eye. “I mean, touch it?” I understand if you have any taboos on this, and you don't want to...”

A stern, almost impenetrable face with magnificent cheekbones now seemed to be looking at Lyra with a certain amount of arrogance.

“Which of my relatives would give something like "if you don't want to, I will understand" - and I would suspect him of trying to manipulate the entry-level.”

“What do you mean?” Lyra was surprised. – “Wait, I don’t bother you at a...”

“…but something tells me that in your case it was the usual politeness,” Mercer did not let her finish. “Regarding your request, in my understanding and habits, equids are generally not intended to touch... to caress humans. We are not in sov-yat rashza.(22) Anyway, okay,” Alex concluded after a short thought, squatting down and stretching out his hand, “I have recently formed a whole set of limbs of various purposes, but for some reason I have confidence that you specifically need this option..”

“What do you mean?” asked the unicorn, coming closer.

Alex's hand has changed again. She had not looked so bad even before - not at all like those knotty, creepy hooks, but now Lyra saw how from somewhere out of the joint, shimmering red, a fifth finger, opposed to the other four. Human turned the hand over, palm up, and Lyra was able to see how tiny wrinkle lines appear on the skin in the place where the palms were pressed against obe. On the rounded tips of the fingers, one could see hardly distinguishable waves, spiral patterns... the nails were quite small, the same flesh-colored with a narrow light border. The pony looked timidly at Mercer.

“May I?”

He made a vague sound, apparently indicating agreement. Lyra, touching her hand with her hoof, cautiously looked Human in the face in case it would cause him discomfort - of course, he did not even frown. The hand turned out to be the same as Lyra judged by its appearance - smooth and rather gentle... If only you do not look "deeper". The skin, hairless, but covered with a barely noticeable fluff on the outer side of the palm, was soft, pliable, easily displaced if pulled to the side with gravikinesis. It's like regular pony skin, which was covered with fur on most of the body. But if you press harder, you could feel the stiff muscles entwining the bones - as if there was a metal frame under the epidermis, dermis and subcutaneous fat. The tendons on the knuckles were taut like piano strings! The stranger willingly allowed Lyra to bend and unbend his fingers, but as soon as she tried to tilt her hand in the joint, the unicorn ran into some kind of insurmountable resistance. Noticing Mercer's grin, the pony frowned and pressed harder, acting in addition to telekinesis, but the hand did not give in even a millimeter.

“Green Hearth's Warming tree!” the unicorn gasped, panting. “You will not budge!”

“Naturally. Even now I am one and a half times heavier than a human of my build. All three and a half of you,” Alex grumbled. “And the muscles, I think, can work just as well as your magic-reinforced heavyweights. Plus, telekinesis has only a partial effect on me.”

Lyra... liked the hand. She was interested in not even a complex design, at first glance fragile, dressed for safety in a soft leather case, but something else that both fascinated and repelled the unicorn. Probably, the very idea that delicate and delicately acting fingers, as if by nature intended to stroke and comb a pony's fur, seemed surprising to her, could at any moment give way to the sharpest claws that jumped out from somewhere out of harmless-looking flesh. Bound power, latent threat - however, it was never used against the ponies, the same guards who, according to rumors, got off with bruises and crumpled ribs, as if they had a fight in a bar. Deciding that this time was enough, and with her attention she could disgust a guest from another world, Lyra released her brush from the magic field. She didn’t want to seem annoying or eccentric. Or both.

“Interesting,” Lyra summed up, smiling cheerfully. “In Equestria, you will not find a race with just such a structure of limbs.

"Well, okay," Alex muttered. “By the way, it's good that you reminded me. Here I was stroking the girls' heads with this very hand and patting them by mane... Does this mean something in your culture besides approval and expression of friendship?” having regained his hand, the alien looked at her thoughtfully, removing the "thumb" in the joint and giving the hand a symmetrical look. “Considering that you have not reacted in any way to my actions with Spoon, this should be a common practice. Am I right?”

“Uh... Well... yeah?” agreed Lyra, unable to understand what Mercer is driving at.

“Nice. Since you were so preparing for a meeting with me, this is the first question for you, little pony,” the stranger straightened up, putting his hand behind his back and looking expectantly at Lyra. “Tell me about the limits of the permissible. About your rules of social behavior, instructions for which, if not problematic, then you will have to rummage through the local library - and I do not have access there yet. Can I only pat you on the head? When meeting alicorns, can't I look in the eyes or is there some other hassle?”

“Well, in general, there are no special restrictions. For us, ponies, tactile contact is generally accepted and important... It is customary for us to tap our hooves against each other when we meet, bows... Well, this is what all sorts of dandies in Canterlot do. Just try to be polite to Their Highnesses, and...” the unicorn began, but then it dawned on her. “Oh, exactly!”

The guy is cunning - took it right off the bat on his own, and I forgot about it for joy, the mint pony thought. So, Lyra is calm... don't be ashamed of him. You are no longer a young silly girl who just graduated from music school, but the first of the ponies... adult ponies who can tell him about this and prevent all kinds of trouble. Be gracious, dispassionate, and unshakable. Yes, it will.

“As I said, we love gatherings and friendly hugs,” giggled Lyra, coping with a second hitch. “If you are a friend, then the pony will not mind if you stroke her, including on the back. I certainly won't mind...”

“Ly-ra!” human snapped his fingers, frowning. “Don't be distracted, please. Facts. I need facts, not personal experiences!”

“Oh, sorry!” the unicorn came to her senses. “Yes, there is nothing more to say - with torso everything is in order, with legs too. Pegasus are generally very fond of basking, caring for each other's chest fluff. Belly... If the pony trusts you, I think she will allow her belly to be scratched,” Lyra giggled, but immediately returned her seriousness to her tone:

“Do not touch the lower abdomen... I think you yourself perfectly understand this. With a head like you have already figured out, I did not notice anything strange. Ears... Well, it's kind of personal, but if you accidentally get beaten, then it's okay, we love it too. And yes, the most important thing!” Lyra, catching her breath, carefully looked at Human, wanting to see his reaction. “Do not touch the interwing space... That is, the flying muscles of the pegasus and the base of the horn of those who own them.”

The stranger looked at her without blinking. Then he grunted briefly:

“Reason?”

“This is a very personal place,” Lyra replied, gradually turning to something close to a whisper, twitching her ears. “Like the wings in general for pegasus. There are enough nerve endings to... Well, you know. That is, you, of course, do not know, but you understand me, right?” Alex was silent, looking at her strangely, and Lyra hurried up, as if trying to give out the information in a single piece and never come back to it:

“Well, the horn is a very delicate magical tool, therefore it is considered a personal space. You can't just, um... throw a unicorn off balance just by accidentally hitting him in his bangs, but you better avoid that, okay?”

Not a single muscle twitched on human's face, but he glanced at the door as slowly as if he feared seeing a ghost there. The unicorn was finally embarrassed:

“Don't tell me that you are with Scootaloo or Sweetie Belle... oh,” Lyra broke off and spoke even more embarrassed:

“I do not blame you, if anything... You are from another world, so some embarrassment was inevitable, I think,” the unicorn nodded to the stranger with understanding. “Well, Scooti is still small, she, in principle, is not capable of thinking in such a way. You, most importantly, do not repeat this again!”

“Nothing happened,” with the voice of a man, it seemed, it was possible to concrete the walls, it sounded so emotionlessly monolithic. “I was careful. I believed that this kind of misunderstanding... could happen, and imitated only what I saw. That would be... unpleasant. Is there anything else I need to know?”

“Oh, well then, everything is all right,” Lyra breathed out with relief, glad that they quickly skipped over a sensitive topic. “I hope you are not offended by my suspicions. And... um... I also hope that you are at least somewhat familiar with court etiquette and the basics of diplomacy. Our rulers are very kind and good ponies, but they are still not convinced professors... Princess Luna, if you press her with such a verbal stream… most likely she will not stand it and will overlap you with a Canterlot voice. You see, she's in a new type of Equestria relatively recently, and...”

“I have etiquette,” Alex interrupted her with such a businesslike air, as if he was really going to dig between his own convolutions for its presence. Then he focused his eyes on Lyra's horn.

“A slender magic tool,” Mercer narrowed his eyes. “A vulnerable point?”

"Including," nodded Heartstrings. “The horn is quite difficult to damage because of its magical structure, but if in some incredible way it will be possible to do this, the injury will be very serious, almost incurable,” Lyra shivered chilly, wrinkling the fur of her withers. “And just a blow on the horn, in which the spell is twisted, isn’t such a pleasure.”

“This was predictable. Nevertheless, thanks for substantiating my suspicions,” human smiled, again "coming to life" with his face and starting to demonstrate something besides sarcasm. “Scootaloo is not capable of thinking in such a way.” Judging by the sound of your speech, it meant physical impossibility, not foal psychology and, due to age, the absence of sex education. Explain.”

“Sex? How can you teach someone their gender?” Lyra blinked in bewilderment, but immediately realized what was the inaccuracy of the stranger's speech. “Ah... That's what you mean.”

Here's a stallion! Again he turns on this topic, giggling to herself, Lyra thought. Although, considering the tone of his voice... Perhaps his egghead essence has leaped up again?

“We, ponies, have such a perception,” Lyra's cheeks turned a little pink, but she continued firmly - the alien should have Learned such things in order not to consider the ponies as some "wrong" otherworldly. Well, that is, Lyra suspected that specifically his kind, these humans, were more closed and had a more detailed concept of personal space, like the same amphibian beeches of the Great Desert - since they all wore clothes... Not everyone in Alex's world tried to resemble aristocracy in a row? Human looked at her expectantly, and Lyra, after a pause, revealed her thought:

“The hormones and the proper receptor system are not yet fully formed in foals. In adult ponies... We kind of... do not notice such things until there is no corresponding smells... pheromones...” the unicorn was filled with color more than before, “stimulation, taste, corresponding, in the end, the situation and forcing thoughts in this direction. We just don't see things like that that can cause, uh... arousal. Therefore, no one worries that everyone goes without clothes. This is not a social form of education, but, as you said, a more physical level. And if you stroke a random pegasus on the street between the wings, for him it will be any gesture, but not...” Lyra squeaked against her will, pressing her ears and staring somewhere to the side, “erotic!”

Human chewed his lips, muttering something under his breath.

“Blind spot... Well, I guessed that since you are mammals, you are not...” he snapped his fingers, choosing one of the special constructions that were rarely found in everyday speech that were studied through reference books, “asexual , and the corresponding organs are not intended for decoration. So stroking the flying muscles of a Pegasus is like stroking a human on any other erogenous zone hidden by clothing? Most likely, it will not cause an effect, but it will be perceived as a very ugly gesture... Interesting,” Alex paced the room, thoughtfully putting his fingers to his chin. “I guess I was not so wrong when I thought about your desire to obey - no matter where it came from...”

Lyra was embarrassed to the extreme, but she tried not to show it anymore. And as soon as a human managed to speak so dispassionately, as if they were not discussing something personal, but over a cup of tea, they were unassumingly talking about the weather schedule? Meanwhile, Alex, turning to the second circle, suddenly stopped and looked at Lyra:

“I thought you had some kind of eye-hide magic...”

“What-what kind of magic?” Lyra got interested.

“Well, hiding,” Mercer put his hand to his right eye. “I thought that since you all go without clothes, then the intimate parts of the body can be muted, like insignia take place on your sides. But since you are all hollow-flanks to me, then...”

“Nah, illusions are unpopular... they are easy to dispel, unlike the magic of changelings, it is easy to recognize, but also difficult to reproduce,” Lyra shook her head, but then raised her eyebrows:

“Oh! I think I understand your train of thought...”

“Well, yes. Ponies, the same girls or, do not bring fate, princesses think that everything is in order, and I talk to them decently, but in fact I have the opportunity to look at them shamelessly. It is dishonest in relation to the interlocutor, don't you think?” human put his hand on the armored side, calmly looking at Lyra. “Not that I don’t give a damn about your nakedness, but I am drawn from such a concept... vizhe-niz-mez, (23) or what? And this is disrespect for others - and first of all for oneself.”

The mint pony looked inquiringly at Human's face, and he seemed to have already said everything he was going to. When Alex, in turn, gave Lyra a bewildered look, the unicorn gave up:

“Oka-a-ay… I honestly did not expect this from a guy. Your way of thinking is quite...” Lyra wanted to say "liberated", but then seized on a more suitable and, as it seemed to her, neutral word, “adaptive for a creature from another world. As for me, your reaction to our order is strange for someone who covers every inch of his body with clothes at home.”

Mercer raised an eyebrow in a decidedly ironic gesture - not like Applejack, who thus showed deepest skepticism about your wishful thinking.

“Adaptive?” in the voice of a man could be heard stinging notes. “If you mean my ability to adapt, then adaptability has nothing to do with it. First, sorting out these kinds of things is part of my job. And secondly, I have almost twenty-six cycles... yours. And nearly thirty of mine. Not fourteen,” Mercer looked up at the ceiling, “to look away and blush desperately when describing such things. And I had to grow up in my time... quickly. Though not in terms of these very relationships.”

Lyra wanted to be offended, because in her vision such dispassion was not the norm, demanded significant mental efforts for naturally emotional ponies. But, on common thought, Lyra decided that Human did not want to offend her, because she was still not used to the realities of Equestria. Golden sparks of mischief flickered in the eyes of the unicorn:

“Great!” Lyra laughed, wagging her tail playfully. “Since you’re so unbreakable, I don’t think you mind petting me?” the pony made big eyes, looking at the frowning Alex. “Pretty ple-e-ease? You can scratch on the back too!”

For a second or two Lira, holding her breath, thought that Human would refuse her or play some terrible joke in his own manner, but Alex suddenly dropped to one knee, resting the articular element of his armor on the floor.

“Mammals...” the two-legged grumbled, pursing his lips and generally trying to sound displeased - but there was no anger in his voice. When Lyra approached human, trustingly nuzzling her outstretched palm, he stroked her cheek - and Mercer's expression subtly changed for the better.

“You yourself like our fur, don’t you?” giggled Lyra, when human raised the brush higher and patted her on the head.

“Hmm,” Alex closed his eyes, just like when he was brushing Silver Spoon's mane. Little by little, his face took on a relaxed expression. “I’ll deny everything, little pony. What your are evidence?(24)”

“Well, you didn't seem to mind when Spoon... O-o-oh,” Lyra quite stretched her neck when her palm went down, running along the spine, driving a wave along the light green fur.

“It was a rhetorical question.”

Lyra exhaled happily. It felt no better than Lotus and Aloe, the acclaimed gravikinesis who ran the Ponyville spa - they were just different. Exotic, if you will - even more wonderful than she imagined. Not an even squeeze of magical fields, but smooth, lively and resilient flesh and blood that exudes a pleasant warmth. The uncomfortable thoughts that these dexterous fingers could break the unicorn's neck, simply cringing on it, completely disappeared, leaving a barely noticeable peppercorn of imminent danger, which only plunged into a state of bliss more than frightened. Lyra could probably stand for a day under only one hand of a person, or even three - but when Alex scratched her scruff to pleasant creeps and once again descended his fingers to her shoulder blades, a door creak and an uncertain voice were heard from behind:

“Scoot, has it been ten minutes?”

“Exactly... Oops! Are you busy here?”

The Crusaders lined up at the doorframe in a pyramid, peering inside, whispering and giggling. Diamond Tiara and her inseparable friend made a face a little behind. Scootaloo looked at the pink earthy pet, fiddling with her eyebrows.

“Jealous, Tiara?”

“No way!” she shook her hoof dismissively. “He himself must earn the right to touch my exquisite coat!”

Mercer, meanwhile, ripping his hand away from Lyra, slithering steps toward the door, moving frighteningly smoothly above the floor.

“Children, what did I tell you? - he said reproachfully, gently pushing the foals in the forehead with his palm and closing the door behind them, sliding the latch. - If so, this dwelling ceases to be a neutral territory and becomes my undivided possession for ten... - looking at the battery that suddenly stopped smoking, Alex raised his voice:

“…for three minutes!”

“What?” was heard Scootaloo's indignant voice outside. “But this is our clubhouse!”

“He took the house away from us!” Apple Bloom echoed her.

“Come on, this is just a couple of minutes!”

“What if he hits on the head with a fireworks display?”

“Don't talk nonsense!” Sweetie Belle giggled muffled. “Humans eat all kinds of alchemicals, not fireworks.”

“And what if the battery goes bang?”

“Well, you don't go to battery anymore,” heard Tiara's mocking voice. “So it shouldn't...”

“What are you hinting at?!”

There was a stomping on the stairs, and the voices of the foals died down - and Lyra was still in blissful detachment. Her pipe dreams of the human world, albeit too in an extravagant way, did come true - which could not but warm the pony's soul. The unicorn watched Alex with a solitary gaze, who, muttering something about "keeping the temperature," loomed over the table. Whatever synthesis he was waiting for, the alchemy of man did its job: the battery now emitted a barely audible hum, and the pale pink color of the veins disappeared, leaving only an even crimson flicker of lights with a glimmer of orange.

“Lyra, look away,” Mercer told her, brushing off the web of veins from the surface of the cylinder. The battery turned out to be metal with some kind of multi-colored drips, and the unicorn decided that Sandy, apparently, had used an ordinary paint can as a container, having made several holes in it. What an eccentric man! “After that we will end our conversation... in the fresh air.

“And scra-a-atchi-i-ing?”

“If that's what you want,” Alex slanted his discerning eyes at her.

“What I want?!” Lyra laughed, obediently turning away to the wall.

“For your own good, do not peep and watch that these five do not rush at the door at once. You have castles, of course...”

Naturally, as soon as Lyra heard the grumbling and the rough clang of armor, she was tormented by curiosity - what is the alien going to do? Maybe he will just throw the can behind his back, connecting it with this tentacle or artery to his circulatory system? Or, judging by the noise his armor made, is Alex going to remove his armor that helped him survive in Equestria? The temptation to find out what humans are hiding under their clothes (let Mercer, in his words, tNow it looked completely different than it was at home), it was too big. When the barely audible smell of sulfur spread in the air, Lyra slowly, pressing her ears, turned her head. Human stood with his broad shoulders spread apart...

... and his chest was opened. Lyra had never seen anything like it - plates of armor parted to the sides, ribs bulging like feathers in the tail of a monstrous bird. In the hole, the heart and the weaving of some internal organs gleamed wetly, pulsating rhythmically. The bellows of the lung remained motionless - only a fleeting shiver ran through them. Some ligaments were flowing, drops of whitish liquid oozed along the edges of the terrible wound... Alex raised the "battery", and three tentacles protruded from the top, which had previously connected it to Mercer's chest. The octopus in the jar rushed to the very depths of the flesh, joining one discord with the well-known diaphragms and vessels. Alex inserted the battery to the right of his own lung, somehow slyly, turned it with a metallic noise, locking it in place - after which the ripped upper part of his torso closed exactly like a cage, closing the grid of ribs and plates of armor, lowering the arc of the solar plexus from above. Human took a deep breath, lifting his head and gruntingly flexing the muscles on his one arm. His blue eyes flashed with the familiar scarlet lights, and for a moment it seemed to Lyra, frozen in horror, that her new acquaintance himself had become somehow more impressive, bigger, stronger.

“Ye-e-eah...” Human rumbled. “That's better. I feel like a man again... Now I'm ready,” he turned his whole body to the unicorn. Alex looked at his new acquaintance with the same measure of malice. There was no doubt: he expected that Heartstrings would succumb to the temptation and spy on him, therefore he did not send her away with the colts. “Lyra? Lyra, are you all right?”

Pony, who was so fond of anti-magic fantasy, but turned out to be not very ready to meet her live, did not answer - she quietly went into a saving swoon. Perhaps today there were enough impressions for Lyra Heartstrings...