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// Introductions 
// Story: Working Out the Kinks 
// by TritiumAge00 
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C'mon you little..."

With your hands completely full, you struggle and curse through the process of retrieving the small keyring from your pocket and making the proper selection. Getting the deceptively slippery implement into the keyhole and turning the knob truly test your patience as snow continues to patter down around you from the slate grey sky above. You smile with relief as the the familiar jingle of bells signals victory over the stubborn door granting access to the cozy entryway of your home and shop. The place was pretty big and you know for certain it never would have been in your budget were it not for your very specific circumstances. Being the lone representative of an entire race in a decidedly foreign land had put you into almost overnight contact with the ruling class.

After managing to discharge the entire contents of a commercial freight train battery array through your body, you had found yourself spiraling through a dizzying plane of shapes and colors. Your first guess of the afterlife proved incorrect as the tube soon ended in your being dumped gracelessly through a cloud a horrible distance above the most stunningly crystal blue lake you had ever seen in your life.  As if you really needed two doses of guaranteed death in less than a minute.

Miraculously, your seemingly much more resilient than usual body survived the flailing plunge.

You dragged your sputtering, bedraggled self all the way to shore swallowing at least a gallon of lake water along the way. You must have laid there starting up at the almost perfect summer sky for an hour wondering just what the holy high hell had happened. Somehow you managed to doze off, only to be awakened by who would be the first of your new friends in this bizarre world.

Rarity later explained to you that her reaction to finding what she thought to be a half drowned shaved minotaur was completely dignified and rational. Of course, she admitted, it may have helped with all the screaming and shouting had she not inadvertantly tripped over your prone form and landed her active horn directly into your navel. Imagine ten tons of dynamite going off in a fireworks factory and you'll draw an accurate picture.

Once your, how do you say, informal introductions had been sorted out, and your mind managed to come to terms with a land of colorful talking ponies, Rarity had calmed considerably and offered to cut her beach day short and bring you back to Ponyville with her. You still chuckled from time to time thinking about the town's incredibly appropriate name. Most of the citizens had been amazingly welcoming of your presence, so much so that you sometimes suspected larger forces at play. That suspicion eventually gave way to the realisation that these ponies, people, were just naturally trusting and friendly. It was incredibly refreshing considering the accepted social norms of the world you unexpectedly departed.

You fondly remember meeting practically every resident of town over the course of a single night courtesy of a certain pink party pony. There was the proud and loyal cyan pegasus Rainbow Dash. She hadn't exactly extended the olive branch upon your arrival and watched you like a hawk for the first month or so. Come to think of it, she had even give to the extent of hiring an actual hawk to keep tabs on your no doubt nefarious dealings while she was on weather detail.

It took a botched expedition into the eerily familiar shadows of the Everfree Forest with the adorably driven and sometimes socially detached Twilight Sparkle to convince Dash of your trustworthiness. For one reason or the other Twilight had insisted she absolutely needed your unique attributes to render assistance on the retrieval of an exceedingly rare flower to study its medicinal properties. You of course argued that the only unique attributes in your possession were your hands, and that she had managed quite nicely on her own without their aid long before your arrival. She had blushed cutely and babbled for a few minutes about interfering with the plants' innate leylines. You had a feeling it was a load of BS, but you acquiesced anyway after letting her squirm for a while.

So, you accompanied the miniature Jane Goodall on her trip wielding your trusty machete to act as glorified menial labor hacking through the dense foliage blocking your progress. Eventually, Twilight found a nice grove of the admittedly beautiful flowers and with much fanfare you proceeded to pluck them out by hand. Twilight tried to act annoyed, but your show of miming super dense impossibly heavy flora soon had her cracking up in heady peels of laughter. Everything was going great until the return trip.

Apparently your charades had eaten up more daylight than anticipated, as you had soon found yourselves trekking through a darkness that felt almost physical. Twilight continually assured you that everything was fine fine fine, but you could tell she was making a show to distract herself from the very real dangers lurking in the night. Your luck eventually ran out when a horror pulled fresh from your foulest nightmares ran shrieking and roaring at you from the maw of a cave. It wasn't until later in safety that you discovered the name for such an abomination; Manticore. It lunged for Twilight first, and you found yourself taken as if possessed to protect her. Your sanity was screaming at you from somewhere in the corners of your mind that you had a snowball's chance in hell of beating this behemoth with nothing more than a machete. That didn't matter though. As you ducked and wove your way mere inches from death, only the life of your new friend seemed important. As you gradually discovered in your time since, the fact that your body had gone through an unspecified toughening, something far beyond the human thresholds, was the ultimate reason for your survival that day. Twilight recounted your heroics to the rest of her closest friends when you had returned in the early hours of morning and even you couldn't explain this otherworldly durability. Suffice to say, there would be nothing more left of you than a smear on some trees had you arrived in Equestria as you had departed Earth.

Ever since then, Dash had trusted you implicitly, as if it had been her life you saved. You had to admit that once on your side, Dash made one hell of a friend.

That was nearly three years ago. Dropping your bags full of groceries and pressed flowers in the alcove off to the right, you sigh contentedly and shrug off your heavy winter coat and boots before returning to the door and flipping the 'Sorry We Missed You' sign around to face you. It was late Friday afternoon trailing steadily towards evening and you doubted any other customers would be gracing you with their presence. But still, business hours were what they were. You hummed to yourself while placing your groceries in their respective spots and hanging the flowers above the kitchen window. Looking out onto your now snow blanketed backyard, you mentally curse at the inevitable morning of shoveling you had to look forward to. Ah well. Honestly you didn't find yourself ruminating on the outdoor necessities as you may have back on Earth. The enthusiasm exuded by your neighbors as they worked to clean up after some of nature's nastier temper tantrums was infectious.

Speaking of infectious, you found yourself still absentmindedly humming along to the tune of the mystery song from earlier. Where had you picked that up? Probably something Pinkie had been singing on your last visit. Shrugging, you grab an apple and put the water on to boil. You were really looking forward to try some of the newly stocked tea you had picked up earlier at the market.

The tinkle of bells from the room behind ring out, distracting you from your routine. A customer? Could be. More likely just a friend stopping in to escape the weather. Pulling another mug down from the cabinet, you make your way to meet your guest. No matter guest or customer; you could use some company on this cold winter night.

Palming open the swinging door, you exit the kitchen with your signature greeting and a wide smile on your gave. "Good evening and welcome to Simple Pleasures! How may I service you?"