The café was mostly empty at that time of night. Two younger ponies sat the counter having some pie. A white pegasus came in a few minutes after Vinyl and I and sat against the wall. The cook seemed to be tired, and didn’t talk much.
It was quiet at the table near the back. As Vinyl and I waited on our order, she stared at me curiously. I was coming off the high of my previous confession and trying to figure out how to keep going. It was a little easier now that the subject was out in the open, but I wanted to at least sound cool.
“I’m not from this planet.” At least that made me sound like some kind of space traveler, rather than just a confused guy from Baltimore.
Vinyl nodded, showing surprising calm. I suppose once she made her mind up to accept what she was learning, it got easier. I went through something of the same thing when I first got to Equestria.
“And you aren’t a pony?” she asked.
“That’s right. I’m a person. A human being, homo sapien is the scientific species name if I remember correctly.”
“Are you…some kind of shapeshifter, or do you just normally look like a pony?”
“No, I don’t look anything like a pony,” I laughed. I tried to think of some way to describe a person to Vinyl. “I guess…picture a bald monkey.”
She leaned across the table and whispered, “Can I see?”
I jerked backwards. “No, you misunderstood. I didn’t mean to become a pony. It just happened and I can’t do anything about it.”
“What happened?” she asked. “Some kind of spell?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I woke up in a hospital bed. The nurse said they found me unconscious in the street. The whole idea of magic is new to me. Where I come from, it’s just a legend or something. People also don’t have wings.”
“So no flying and no magic,” Vinyl mused. “What can people do?”
I struggled with that for a moment. “We build things.”
“So it’s basically like your special talent, but all of you do it?” she asked, gesturing to my cutie mark.
“Well, maybe. We don’t really have special talents that are specific to the individual. No cutie marks, either.”
Vinyl considered that. She was about to ask another question but our food arrived. Inspired, she asked, “What did you eat?”
There were a lot of ways to answer that. I picked a rather benign one that didn’t make me look like a cannibal. “Basically everything you have here, although with fewer varieties of flowers and grass.”
After chewing a bite and swallowing, Vinyl said, “So you’re not some researcher that came here to study us?”
“No.”
“You aren’t some monster that’s going to kill us all one by one?”
I hesitated for the shortest instant. “That’s not what I want to do. I’m just some guy in a bad situation, okay?”
Vinyl concentrated on her food for a moment. “At least you can get away and go home.”
“I wish that were true. I have no idea how.” I suddenly remembered the letter I had left back in my apartment. I prayed that it was from Spangles and contained a solution.
Viny looked up apologetically. “I don’t know why I assumed that you could just go if you wanted to. I’m sorry, dude.”
“I’ve been working on it. Maybe something will happen soon.” I went back to eating.
After a few minutes, Vinyl had finished. She looked thoughtful. “So what kind of music do you have?”
“Well, I’m not a musician and don’t really feel qualified to reproduce any, but I think you’ve heard some of it.” I smiled.
“You’re a freaking alien and you don’t have crazy stuff I can turn into techno?” Vinyl demanded playfully.
“Or dubstep,” I laughed. “Come by tomorrow. I’ll see what I can do.”
I paid the bill and we walked back to the building. Vinyl gave me a smile like I hadn’t seen for days and disappeared into her apartment.
I sighed contentedly. Telling her my secret hadn’t been as difficult as I thought. There was a tap on my shoulder and I turned to face the white pegasus from the café. Now that I looked at him, I thought it might have been the same guy I’d seen on the street earlier in the day. It was hard to forget somepony who looked so serious and well-muscled.
“Mr. Miller, my name is Detective Ice. I’m with the Canterlot Police Department. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
I was somewhat more wary of him than I had been of the fat cops. He gave off an aura that made me not want to mess with him. Also, there were no spectators around and we were alone in the hallway.
“Would you like to step inside?” I asked, gesturing to my apartment.
He quickly shook his head. “Here is fine.”
Hmm, was he nervous about being alone with me?
“What would you like to talk about?” I asked.
“I communicted with some associates of mine in Vanhoover,” he said. “You were there today. I’d like to know why.”
“I was making a delivery.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know for sure, I just delivered it.”
Ice stared at me in annoyance. I wasn’t sure if he thought I was being difficult or just stupid. Trying a different tactic, he asked, “Where are you from?”
“Are you just asking me the same questions the Vanhoover police did and expecting me to answer differently? Didn’t they tell you I already passed a truth-teller test?”
“The truth-teller is a useful tool, but not faultless,” said Ice calmly.
“It agreed with me when I accused the two cops of being overweight.”
Ice either didn’t have a sense of humor or possessed a very good poker face. I saw his eyes tick downwards to my side. He pointed. “Mr. Miller, what’s that on your wing?”
I glanced over my shoulder, wondering what he was referring to. When my head was turned, Ice quickly pulled up my other wing—the one that was concealing my scratched side. It was a dirty trick.
“Hey, watch it!” I pulled my wing back. What was with these pushy Equestrian cops?
Ice stared at me. “Those look like talon marks. As it happens, we found a dead griffon today, strung up like a tetherball. Maybe he got in a lucky shot.”
“Are you kidding? Yeah, okay, I got hurt today, but see how the scabs are already closed and the blood washed away? This happened hours ago.”
Ice smiled thinly. “I never said when we found him.”
I took a deep breath and tried to focus through my rising panic. “So are you saying that he died recently? Good, that corroborates my story. You’ve been following me since the café. You know that I didn’t have any time to clean up a wound like this."
For the first time, Ice appeared to lose his cool. He glared at me. I’d managed to somehow wriggle out of all his questions, albeit barely, and we both knew it. Still, he hadn’t been as much of a dick about it as the other two cops, so I didn’t go out of my way to bug him. Something had been bothering me, though.
“Was that your feather in my apartment?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Breaking and entering a citizen’s residence without cause would be illegal, although you might be a little more careful of what you do if you thought somepony could easily get in.”
“I am well aware that the lock on my door is not very effective."
Ice gave me a last look and turned to go, his hooves stomping a little harder than necessary.
“Hey, wait!” I took a few steps after him.
Ice paused. He still looked pissed, but clearly hadn’t expected me to call him back.
I took a breath. “I don’t want you to hate me. This must be frustrating for you because I know what kind of bad ponies you have to deal with. It’s pretty clear that you suspect me for some reason, but if you had enough evidence to do something about it you wouldn’t be waiting around. That must be frustrating, too. I’m sorry for putting us both in this situation.”
Ice stared at me for several seconds. It looked as if nopony had ever said anything like that to him before. He shook his head. “What kind of nutcase are you?”
I looked away meekly. “Sorry again.”
He gave me one final look and turned around. His steps were not as angry as before. That seemed like a good sign, despite his last comment. I went into my apartment.
It was very late. I pulled out the cot and blankets. I found my wallet and opened it as I lay back in bed.
I would give quite literally anything I had to go home to Earth. Days like this didn’t happen to me there. I didn’t feel like the bottom of the food chain. Jenna would be with me.
I stared at her smiling face framed in the photo pocket of my wallet until I fell asleep.
The night did not pass all that pleasantly. I had some bad dreams. Maybe it was caused by eating so close to bedtime. Maybe it was the stress of the past few days.
I wasn’t really rested when I woke up, despite the fact that I had forgotten to set my alarm clock the night before and was late. With a curse I jumped up and tried to get ready as quickly as possible.
My eyes fell on the letter I had received and I stopped everything. It had sat there forgotten all night. Despite my rush, I picked it up and opened it. I was just sliding a piece of folded paper out of it when I heard something loudly crash from down the hall.
For perhaps three seconds I hesitated, listening to two loud voices shouting in the wake of the smashing sound. Then, I bolted for the door.
It was not difficult to locate the source of the disturbance. Octavia’s door was open, and I recognized Alto’s angry voice. I entered the apartment, stopping short as I saw the two of them squaring off. The remains of a china plate was scattered over the floor. Octavia held up another, glaring angrily at Alto who had his back to me.
She glanced up when I came in. “Miller! What are you doing here?”
Alto spun around. Somehow, his face went white, despite being covered in hair just like the rest of us. “I thought you were at work!”
I opened my mouth to reply, but Octavia smashed her cello, case and all, over his head. The next few seconds were silence. I was actually glad how things worked out. It was the least bloody fight I had seen since coming to Equestria.
Alto was breathing, but out cold. Octavia blew out a breath and gave me a faint smile that was part apology and part embarrassment. “I hoped Alto wouldn’t come back.”
“I’m sorry for just bursting in like this,” I said, stepping backwards towards the door. I felt awkward for walking into the middle of a broken-up couple fighting.
“It’s fine,” said Octavia. Her expression had dropped a little, and I thought perhaps it was because she’d wasted her good china on her loser ex. She was still looking at me, though. “We were actually just discussing you, Miller.”
“Oh.”
Her smile had now inverted. “Also, the police came by yesterday to ask me a few questions about you.”
I gulped. It had not been easy, but I managed to get Vinyl to believe that my problems were all caused because I wasn’t a pony. Could I convince the more down to earth and non-drug-using Octavia of the same?
“I’d like to talk to you about that,” I said.
Octavia’s expression changed quickly as if she’d suddenly realized that she was standing in her apartment with nopony except her unconscious ex coltfriend and a suspected murderer.
“If you’d like, we can go for coffee or something,” I put in quickly.
Octavia visibly relaxed. “All right.”
She glanced downward. “What are we going to do with Alto?”