Flurry Heart flouted her royal engagements and spent much of the next two days in bed, eating cream puffs and wallowing in despair.
The alicorn rolled over in her snuggly cocoon and stared at the wall for untold minutes before the silence of her boudoir was shattered by a flash of magic.
“Flurry, it's almost noon,” chided her unseen mother.
“So?” she groaned, shrinking further into her comforter.
Cadance magically flung open the curtains, allowing the room to flood with bright, midday light and causing her daughter to clench her eyes shut in protest.
“So your Aunt Twilight is visiting right now and she brought someone else along with her who I want you to meet.”
“Ugh, that doesn't sound good,” she mumbled, only her face visible. “Well, who is it and why should I care?”
Her mother stood before her in silhouette. “It's Anon.”
Flurry blinked. “Anon? The human… guy… with the skin?”
“Yes. There's only one human in the whole world and he lives right here in your own country and you've never met him before. You should be excited.” She used the same motivational intonation of a parent trying to get their foal to go to their adult friend's foal's party where no one RSVP’d because the kid smells weird and eats paper.
Flurry screwed up her face apprehensively. “Are you sure? I could have sworn I met him last time we went to Canterlot.”
Cadance furrowed her brow in doubtful recollection as she entertained the claim. “Last time we went to Canterlot we just met Spike at the train station.”
“Well, whatever,” she scoffed frustratedly. “The time before that or some other time.” She undulated like a fish out of water.
Her mother threw up her hooves. “Okay, fine. What exactly did he look like when you supposedly met him?”
Flurry gritted her teeth in uncertainty. “Oh uh… Well he wore clothes and walked on his hind legs most of the time and… his paws were…”
“He doesn't have paws.”
“Ugh. You know what I mean. His… foots.”
“You can't do this when you're the reigning princess,” droned Cadance.
“I know but I'm in no danger of being the reigning princess, so-”
Her comforter abruptly vanished from around her in a blink, teleported to the downstairs laundry.
“Mom,” she grunted in annoyance.
“It was probably all crummy from your puffs,” argued Cadance dismissively.
Flurry muttered to herself as she got to her haunches on the naked bed. “I'm still recovering.”
“No you're not. Brush your mane and make yourself presentable for company. It's his first time in the Crystal Empire so we should all try to make a good impression.”
Flurry Heart sighed wistfully but hopped to the floor in compliance. - - -
After a concerted lack of shenanigans, Flurry got herself ready and made a belated appearance in the parlor where Aunt Twilight and the aforementioned human were already seated and visiting with her parents.
She strode with caution discretion to the gathering, eyes fixed on the strange creature. She'd never seen anything like him before. The surface level details she'd latched onto from second hoof accounts appeared to all be true. He wore a black suit and red tie. Hardly any of his actual body was exposed and the parts that were had no coat but naked green flesh. Though it was difficult to tell while he sat folded up in his chair, he appeared tall, taller than an average pony on four legs anyway.
“Oh, Flurry,” chimed her mother upon noticing her presence. “Anon, this is our daughter, Princess Flurry Heart. Flurry, this is the fabled human, Anon.”
Anon smiled warmly, stood up and bowed cordially, bending himself in half as only a bipedal creature could. He was indeed tall, perhaps tall enough to look Twilight or her mother in the eyes. Maybe not her though. Flurry hadn't quite reached the end of her alicorn growth… or maybe she had and she was just a little short.
An elated grin swept over Anon’s face before he sat back down. “Well, now I've met all the alicorns, right?” He glanced back and forth between them all for confirmation while looking like he'd just won a free cruise at bingo.
“Yep,” Twilight grunted dismissively.
“Alright,” he crowed in triumph, pumping a fist in the air. “First human ever to do that.”
Flurry floated to the free chair next to her mother, keeping her eyes on Anon all the while. Despite his odd appearance, everything about him was strangely entrancing and even inviting.
Twilight cleared her throat. “Anyway, it's still an ongoing process but one thing that's interesting is that in the few years he's been here I've noticed that the telomeres on his DNA don't appear to have deteriorated at all.”
“What does that mean?” shrugged Shining, mystified.
“It means he might be ageless,” she clarified.
“And that's weird,” interrupted Anon, “because where I'm from, people aged like all the time, almost constantly.”
Twilight rolled her eyes and sighed. “Anon, you should check out the castle,” she suggested dryly. “There's so much to see in the Crystal Empire.”
Cadance, having noticed that her daughter was at least initially intrigued by the human, chimed in. “That's a good idea.” She turned to her. “Flurry, you should show him around. You're not doing anything.”
Flurry blinked and pointed a hoof at herself. “M- me?”
“Sure. You know the empire. You've lived here your whole life. It'll be a great experience.”
“I don't know, I've never given a tour before.”
“It's easy, just take him places and show him stuff. It doesn't have to have some grandiose format to it.”
“That sounds fun,” agreed Anon, slipping the strap of his messenger bag over his neck and getting to his feet.
Flurry stood up slowly and faced the human. “Uh, okay.” Her mind boggled as she tried to throw together an impromptu itinerary but, put on the spot, she was drawing a blank. “Um… I guess… we should start with the castle first.” She gestured raising her hooves with an awkward smile.
“Sure,” he nodded amiably.
“Right...” She teleported the two of them out of the parlor and into the upstairs hall.
“So, this is the hall,” she began with flat uncertainty. “Well, it's actually one of many halls we have here in the castle… and also the empire as a whole.”
Anon looked quizzically all the way down to the end of the hall which was punctuated neatly on one side with potted plants perched atop knee-high columns. Then he turned around and looked down to the other end where the passage terminated at a T-section with a stodgy looking portrait of some long dead noble. Then he turned slowly to his tour guide with a blank expression. “Cool.” He pulled a small SLR camera from his bag, put the strap around his neck, put the viewfinder to his eye and snapped a picture looking in each direction.
“What's next?”
Flurry put a hoof to her chin in thought. - - -
“This is the garden.
“This is the gallery.
“The ballroom.”
“The dining hall.”
“That's where I fell when I was six.”
“This is where I hide when I don't want to attend formal events.”
“This is the dungeon where I and my family were imprisoned in the dark during the coup.” Flurry refrained from lighting her horn in order to emphasize how pitch black it was.
Anon grimaced as the sound of slow dripping water filled the conversation's pause.
“Wow… That sounds like it sucked.”
“Yeah. But I don't actually remember it at all because I was really little at the time.”
“Oh… Well that's nice, I guess…”
The tour continued onward, guided sporadically by whatever thought popped into Flurry's head as she teleported them here and there across the castle. Anon documented every location for posterity.
“This is the balcony. You can see the whole city.”
“This is the kitchen.”
“The wine cellar.”
“Stairs.”
“My parents’ bedroom.”
“My favorite janitor closet.”
“This is where all the trash in the castle goes.”
“Hold on,” said Anon, winding his camera. I need to change rolls.”
“Did you bring that camera with you from the human world?” Asked Flurry curiously.
He shook his head absently. “No. My camera back there was a lot smaller… and digital. Twilight got this one for me because I used to like taking pictures of things when I visited new places back on Earth. You know, it's hard to explain but the digital photos took up a lot less physical space and you got to see them instantly and know if they were good or not. Now, using film, I have to be a lot more careful and picky about what I take pictures of.”
He snapped the back of the camera shut, advanced the film and crouched down to frame the open dumpsters in the alley behind the castle.
Flurry watched the remarkable alien adeptness of his fingers as they adjusted the camera for the next shot. “I like your grabby hooves,” she blurted without much thought.
“Oh, these?” He gestured, raising the camera. “Thanks. I call them hands.”
“What can you do with them?”
“Mostly hold things… or pull on stuff. They're basically a magicless levitation spell.”
“Woah,” she marveled.
“Oh, I can sort of make them look like dogs too.” He held up his free hand, contorting it till it had an ear and a mouth and an eye. “Woof.”
Her mouth dropped open in delighted amazement. “It does look like a dog!” She looked at her own hoof, imagining the possibilities of hands. “I wish I had hands.”
“I wish I had a horn,” he replied.
These were the best conversations she'd ever had with a stranger. There was a weird tingle inside her that she'd never felt before. Was this what talking with someone was supposed to be like? It was so nice and easy.
“Got it. Now what?”
Flurry screwed up her face. “Um… Oh yeah!” She abruptly teleported them from the scene again and into a special cloister.
The alicorn gestured ahead of them. “This is the Crystal Heart; it’s powered by the light inside the crystal ponies and protects the empire from evil forces. If enough ponies become unhappy then we're more susceptible to attack.”
Anon quickly snapped a picture of the slowly bobbing heart which levitated atop a pedestal. It shimmered as the light played over its form and it produced a comforting melodic hum.
“It’s really pretty. Can I touch it?” he asked, looking at her.
Flurry shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. I touch it all the time.”
Anon cradled his camera with one hand and reached out the other to stroke the heart with the other. The moment his fingers grazed the crystal, he let out a pained scream. His whole body shook like he was electrified.
Flurry covered her eyes in terror and screamed too until his screaming abruptly stopped. When she opened her eyes, Anon was standing calmly, his hand resting on the heart.
“Just kidding. It's actually kind of nice. Surprisingly warm… Did I get you?”
“Yeah, you did,” Flurry giggled. “I thought you were dying horribly.”
They looked at each other and shared a laugh.
“I really like the blue stripe in your mane,” he said from out of nowhere.
Flurry Heart was aghast. She couldn't remember the last time she heard something like that. There came a bubbliness in her gut that felt like overflowing champagne. “Oh, thank you.”
“Will you take a picture with me with the heart?” he asked.
“Sure.”
Anon slipped the strap off of his head and gathered in with Flurry as they flanked the Crystal Heart on both sides. He fumbled with the camera as he tried to aim it at them with one hand.
“Here, let me do it,” said Flurry, grabbing the device with her magic.
“Oh, good idea.”
She floated the device into place. “Say cheese.” The shutter clicked.
“See? That's why I need a horn,” he laughed. “Man, I'm hungry. Are you hungry?”
“Yeah, actually,” she nodded. “I forgot. I haven't even eaten today. That was weird, she thought; she never forgot to eat. She just hadn't thought about it at all, despite being quite hungry.
“We should go eat something,” Anon proposed with his ever present joviality.
Flurry smiled. “Okay. We've seen most of the stuff in the castle so why don't we go into the city for something?”
“Yeah!”
“Okay, uh… Oh, I got it.” Her horn lit up again and they appeared in the bustling downtown square. “This is the best place to go for street food,” she explained, a little louder now to speak over the commotion.
Anon looked around them. The plaza was packed with food carts and vendors selling practically everything.
“This looks amazing,” he gushed, eyes wide with desire.
“Yeah but we have to hurry. They're going to start closing up soon.”
They started down a row of pop-up stands. Already Anon was getting a few surprised looks from crystal ponies but he was too distracted by all the curios to pay it much mind.
“I want one of these corns on a stick,” he declared vehemently.
“Oh, that sounds good; I want one t-”
Flurry’s expression soured as her eyes fell on a tabloid publication sitting on the news rack behind Anon. The cover was a full page photo of her crazed and standing in a bush at the park. The headline above it read Princess Flurry Heart Yells at Tree. She quickly flipped the paper over with her magic. “I was not yelling at a tree,” she grumbled.
“What did you say?”
“I said… are all humans as tall as you?”
He shrugged. “I’m not really that tall for a human. I like Equestrian castles though because I don't need to duck as much when going through doors.”
Anon waited for her to get her cob on a stick. “Corn toast!” He held his corn up and smiled expectantly.
Without missing a beat, Flurry smacked his corn with hers.
They continued down the strip, eating their corns and catching stares from market goers. Anon stopped before a particularly large snack bar, eying the drinks. “Gonna get a mineral water and some C-twos for later. I ate all mine on the trip.”
Flurry's eyes widened. “C-twos?”
“Yeah. Did you ever notice how granola bars are always C2 in vending machines? Everything else moves around but they're always C2.”
“Yes,” she blurted emphatically. “Yes I did notice! Who keeps doing that?”
Anon raised a finger. “It's some kind of psyop I'm sure but I haven't figured out who does it or why… So I'm still gonna eat ‘em.”
Flurry's heart fluttered with long awaited validation of her conspiracy discovery. She sidled up to Anon as they wandered aimlessly down the sidewalk with their food.
“So, how long are you in town?” she asked, hoping it was a while.
“Like a week. Twilight's actually here doing some research so I'm not sure that's even set in stone. He threw his corn cob in the trash and started on his nachos. “This was fun. Thank you. Did you have fun too?”
“Yeah,” she breathed, reflecting on her day and how it was totally different than how it started.
“Want to do… stuff in the city with me tomorrow if you're free?”
Stunned, Flurry could hardly believe someone would ask her that. “Yes,” she replied breathlessly.
“Great! This is going to be the best week ever!” He smiled with a childlike gleam in his eyes and chip crumbs on his face. He suddenly pointed across the street in excitement. “Look, a park! I love parks!” He turned back to her. “We should go walk through the park.”
Flurry looked across the street and chuckled nervously as she vividly recalled having her face attacked by the angry squirrel that lived there. “Uh, maybe one of the other days we could do that. Should pace ourselves.” - - -
Cadance laid stretched out poolside in a deck chair, soaking up the last of the sinking late afternoon sun when her daughter pranced onto the baked cement beside her.
“Mom,” she cried in elation.
Cadance rolled her head lazily toward the disturbance to find her daughter grinning ear to ear and all but vibrating. “Oh, there you are. I was beginning to wonder if you’d lost Anon.”
“I had such an amazing time with Anon today.”
“I'm so glad.”
“He’s so much easier to talk to than most ponies and he even cares about the stuff I like and say. And and he even asked me out on a date. I don't even know what that is. I forgot,” she giggled.
“That’s so exciting,” gasped her mother. “You're going out tomorrow?”
“Yeah, in town.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don't know; I have to come up with something. It's still kind of an extended tour.”
Cadance sat up. “Oh, don't downplay it. A date is a date. See? I knew this would be a good experience for both of you. Anon's a great guy but I don't think your Aunt Twilight fully appreciates his… whimsy.”