//------------------------------//
// Chapter 12: Evening Goodbyes 
// Story: Outside Reality 
// by The reluctant fan 
//------------------------------//

Galen trotted back down the stairs. 

“Rarity’s looking at my clothing. Apparently she wants to make me something that will, y’know, actually fit me now.”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “That sounds like Rares alright. She'll find any excuse she can to make clothing."

“Isn’t that like her job though? I thought I heard she was a seamstress.”

Applejack smirked. “My point still stands.”

“Well, whatever. I’m gonna go see how Twilight is doing with translation."

Twilight happened to be entering the room at that moment. "No need, I'm already done! I made translation notes for you, and me and my friends!"

"Oh sweet! Wait, how'd you learn how to use the copy machine without me?"

Twilight tilted her head in confusion. "What's a copy machine? I just wrote them out myself."

Galen blinked. "Jesus Christ, and I thought I wrote fast. The copy machine does what the name suggests. It copies a paper's contents onto other sheets of paper. Much easier than writing everything out yourself."

Twilight gave Galen a shocked and excited look. "That would save me SO much time on lists! You need to show me how to use it!"

Galen waved her off. "Maybe another time. Gimme one of those papers, I'm gonna try and start memorizing it."

"Good idea. Here, I brought a dictionary in case we would need it. It should help you get a grasp on the symbols a little easier."

Galen took the book and sighed. "I really hope this isn't gonna suck as much as Spanish class. I never was good at foreign language. I have a dictionary in my room as well. Here, I'll bring it down so you can look at it. We may have some words that aren't known to each other, so we should look out for them as well."

"That would be great!"

Galen and Twilight began to attempt memorizing the symbols of their respective languages. They ended up losing track of time, and by the time they looked at the clock, it was already evening.

"Ah, shit. You girls should probably get going. It's getting late and all."

Twilight sighed. "Yeah, that's probably for the best. Most of us do have jobs to get to in the morning, and Spike needs to go to bed soon too. I'll go gather him up, you can alert the girls."

Twilight trotted down the basement stairs to get Spike while Galen went to check in on his other guests. Rainbow and Applejack were bickering on the couch. Apparently, they had started placing bets with each other on what team would win the game, and Rainbow's pick had barely won out. She hadn't let Applejack hear the end of it since.

"Alright ya two hotheads, if you're gonna be fighting over sportball like my dad and uncle at a family gathering you're gonna do it outside. It's about time to get going."

That seemed to snap the two out of it. For the 30 seconds it took them to get out the door, when they started up all over again. Galen rolled his eyes and went over to Fluttershy. She had curled up with Sam on the couch and draped a wing over him. The former human smirked and rolled his eyes before nudging her awake.

"Hrn... huh..?"

"It's getting late Fluttershy, you should probably head home."

"Oh dear... you're right. My dear animal friends must be so worried. I completely forgot to check in on them today! I'll see you tomorrow Galen, if that's all right that is."

As Fluttershy swiftly exited the house, well swiftly for her standards, Galen trotted into the kitchen to find Pinkie Pie humming a tune while baking. Somehow in time she had been in the kitchen, she had made three triple layer cakes, a batch of brownies, and multiple trays of assorted cookies. Galen sighed in exasperation. 

"Pinkie, did you use MY baking supplies to make all this?"

"Yeppers! Turns out your baking ingredients aren't much different than ours, well apart from some teensy little details! Here, want a cookie?"

"Pinkie... how much of my baking supplies did you use?"

"Oh, well a couple bags of flour, a couple bags of sugar, and a bunch of other stuff, why?"

"I NEEDED that to make things at a later date! Next time please ask before you use that much! Can you at least replace what you used?"

"What? But you still have plenty! See?"

Galen peered into the lazy Susan to find it chock full. Nothing was missing from the last time he checked. He swiveled his head from the Susan to the literal mound of empty bags of ingredients and back again. 

"...Not even gonna question it. Gimme one of those cookies."

"Which one?"

"Snickerdoodle."

Pinkie handed one of the cookies over to Galen and he took a bite. His eyes widened in surprise. 

"As Samuel L. Jackson would say, this is some serious gourmet shit! Damn, tastes like I got it from an obscenely overpriced bakery!"

"Hooray! You like it! Does that mean you're not upset anymore?"

"Not since my lazy Susan is still somehow fully stocked. But seriously, tell me next time you're gonna make that much with my stuff."

Pinkie gave a salute. "Gotha Gae!"

Galen deadpanned. "Don't call me that ever again."

"Okie dokie lokie!" With that, Pinkie gathered up all her pastries and bounded out the door, somehow balancing it all at once.

"I swear, she's gonna give me an aneurism."

After shaking off the residual crazy that Pinkie had left behind, Galen went up the stairs to find Rarity drawing what appeared to be diagrams for what was to be his new clothing.

"Hey, Rarity, everyone's leaving. It's getting kind of late."

"Oh, but I had finally gotten a good idea on how to recreate the sweatshirts! Would it trouble you to let me bring them home with me?"

"Knock yourself out. You're making this stuff for me after all, and I have literally no use for clothing I can't wear."

"Oh, thank you darling! I'll have your new wardrobe ready as soon as possible."

Rarity grabbed Galen's clothing and her other things in her magic aura and began to make her way out.

"Well, that's the last of them. I wonder if Twilight and Spike have left yet?"

As he went down the stairs, Galen found Twilight and Spike in the doorway. 

"Come on Spike, it's getting late."

"But can't I at least ask him first?"

"Ask me what?"

Spike and Twilight looked over to Galen in mild surprise. "There you are! I was wondering if you had gone upstairs."

Spike rushed over to Galen. "Dude, those games were so awesome! Can I borrow it? Just for the night?"

"Hmmm... no."

"Aw, what?! Come on man!"

"That shit's expensive as hell, and actually irreplaceable now that I'm stuck here. It's not leaving my house unless I'm the one taking it. If you broke it, well..."

Spike took the message and hung his head. "Yeah, now that you mention it, that was a pretty silly thing to ask, huh? I can still come over and play sometimes though, right?"

"S'long as it's okay with Twilight, I don't see a reason why not."

"Awesome! Can we come back tomorrow, Twilight?"

"Actually, I was going to ask Galen if he wanted a tour of Ponyville tomorrow."

"Oh, right. I do live here now, huh? I guess, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get myself acquainted with the layout of the town. Sure, I'm down."

"Great, I'll let the girls know. I'll see you tomorrow, Galen."

"Yeah, okay."

Galen shut the door and sighed. "The longer I'm here the more it settles in how surreal my life is now. I'm a tiny ass Unicorn, everything looks like a cartoon, and magic is real. Well, whatever. If I stew on it, I'll probably have some sort of existential crisis. Now, I guess it's time to do what I've been dreading all day. Call my dad, and probably be teased relentlessly about being turned into an animate girl toy."

Galen trudged up to his room, ready to face humiliation yet again.