"Did I mention how much I hate being teleported?" I muttered as I got to my hooves and shook my head, accidentally smacking the hilt of my sword.
"You'll get use to it," Twilight said with a small smirk.
Before either of us could say anything else, Pinkie appeared out of nowhere and gave us a bone crushing hug. "You're finally back!" she said with a big smile.
"Pinkie we were only gone for a few hours." Twilight struggled to say.
"But what if you never came back? You didn’t even say goodbye." Pinkie insisted, her ears lowered against her head.
"Pinkie… you know I wouldn’t leave forever to Canterlot. This is my home, here with you and everypony else." Twilight said, trying to soothe the upset pony.
She stared at Twilight, her lower lip quivering a little. "Promise?"
"Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." She said, doing the motions. Pinkie smiled and gave her a hug, which Twilight returned.
"I hate ta break up the touching moment, but don’t we got a Winter Wrap Up ta start?" AJ asked.
"Oh, right," Twilight said with a little blush. "Then we should get started if we're going to finish on schedule." She said, her horn glowing. Suddenly a scroll appeared out of nowhere. She looked at the girls before tilting her head slightly. "Where's Fluttershy? We can't start without her."
The room grew slightly colder as they quickly gazed at the ground, avoiding Twilight's gaze. Twilight and I shared a quick look while Dash looked at everypony before groaning. "If no other pony is gonna say it fine. Fluttershy found this human outside her house a few days ago."
Both mine and Twilight's eyes grew. "Another human?"
"Yeah, but he turned into a unicorn soon after she met him. She's been taking care of him since. Says he was barely conscious and had the same wounds Leon did when he landed."
"Then what are we waiting for? We have to go see them!" Twilight said, her horn glowing.
"Twilight wait!" I yelled, startling everypony and I chuckled. "Sorry, but I'd rather fly there then teleport."
She pouted for a moment as she looked at the others. "Why don’t we just walk there?" Dash suggested.
Twilight sighed. "Fine." She said as the girls followed her, me and Dash the last two.
Dash looked at me. "So how was the trip?" she asked.
"It was… interesting."
"So what did Celestia want exactly?" she asked.
I sighed. "I can't say."
Dash glanced at me. "Why not?"
"I was sworn to secrecy."
Dash rolled her eyes. "Oh I see, another secret between you and Twilight, gotcha."
"Dash, that’s not what I meant."
"Whatever," She said, flying ahead towards AJ and started to talk to her.
I sighed and stared at the ground for a moment. "Leon, I mean Emerald?" A voice said next to me. I looked up and it was that gray pegasus from the party… Derpy, I think.
"Hey." I said, giving her a small smile.
She tilted her head slightly as she walked with me. "Why do you go by two names?" she asked. "Isn't that weird?"
I chuckled. "Yeah, but where I come from, it's a common enough name so I came up with Leon as a nickname."
"Oh… that makes sense." She said with a little laugh. Her right eye seemed to be trailing off again. "So where are you guys off to?"
"To go visit Fluttershy, apparently she found something that she wanted Twilight's help."
"Oh…" She said, trailing off.
"Yeah, I'm not sure what's going on either."
She giggled. "Don't worry; I'm like that a lot."
There was a comfortable silence as we made our way to Fluttershy's house. As soon as we entered the park, however; "Watch out!" Some filly yelled.
Derpy and I turned towards the voice as three small fillies collided with the two of us. I groaned as I smacked the back of my head and opened my eyes and saw nothing but orange fur. "I'm so sorry!" The fur said as it moved to get off me. I recognized the little pegasus, it was the thing that ran into me as soon as I got out of the hospital… I think her name was Scootaloo, or something.
"It's okay Scootaloo." I said with a small chuckle.
She paused. "How do you know my name?" she asked, glaring at me. "I've never seen you except at your Welcome party."
I froze. "Uh… Dash talks a lot about you…"
Instantly, all suspicions are tossed out the window as her eyes grew huge. "Really?" She says in a small voice.
"Yes?"
She instantly jumped back and put her hooves on my shoulders before launching into a tirade of questions. My brain didn’t register a single one. Huh… I think I set her off, I guess she likes Dash; something we got in com- stop thinking like that! She doesn’t like you like that. I sighed, only to notice that Scootaloo was still staring at me.
"Yes?"
"Were you even paying attention? What did Dash say about me?"
"Scoots, we got ta go back to crusadin' remember?" A southern drawl that I recognized as Applebloom made me turn my head to see the little filly. She visited me a few times with AJ in the hospital.
"I know AB…" She looked at me. "If Dash thinks you're cool, then we'll have to hang out sometime." She said before running to catch up with the other crusaders.
Derpy helped me up. "Well, that was interesting." I said with a small chuckle.
"You okay?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine." I insisted. "Come on; let's go catch up with the others." I said, gently grabbing her hoof as we flew to catch up.
By the time we caught up, Twilight was already knocking on Fluttershy's door. Dash glanced at us and saw me letting go of her hoof, her eyes held a hint of sadness. Before I could get another look, she looked away.
The door slowly opened and Fluttershy's head poked out. She eeped and hid behind her mane when she saw all of us standing out here. "Hello…" She whispered, her voice barely audible.
"Hey Fluttershy, how is he?" Twilight asked.
"He's stable but the transformation wasn’t as smooth as Leon's… he still can't really move."
"Can we come in and see?"
"Oh… um… yes." She said, moving out of the way as everypony started piling in.
Derpy paused. "Well it was nice talking to you Leon, but I gotta go pick up Dinky from Carrot Top's… I'll talk to you later." She said, before waving goodbye and flying away.
I waved goodbye as I watched the strange mare fly away. I chuckled as she seemed to dip towards the ground but somehow kept herself afloat. I followed my friends inside Fluttershy's house. It was strange to go inside as a pony, everything seemed to be normal; I remember coming here after she broke up with her boyfriend and everything was too small. It was also my haven when I crashed onto the planet… I guess I've grown to like the house.
The couch was occupied by unicorn, his body covered in cuts and bruises. His seemed to have a midnight blue coat, but it was hard to tell with numerous purple blotches and his coat seemed to be laced with cuts. They all had bandages on them, however, so it looked as if he was blue and white. His black mane was slightly longer than the stallions I've seen here… his bangs covering his eyes. His tail seemed to be normal length. His cutie mark was a lightning bolt. He groaned in pain, his voice nearly on par with Fluttershys'.
"Is he okay?" Rarity whispered.
"I'm… not sure. He seems to keep coming to then passing out again. I've barely gotten him to eat or drink anything in the last two days." Fluttershy said sadly.
Twilight's horn was illuminated in a deep purple glow as it projected her magical aura that encased his body. The bandages were removed as she healed his body, the bruises disappearing as he seemed to become more relaxed. I walked forward to get a better look and both me and Rarity caught Twilight as she cut the spell of and sagged down to the floor.
"Easy Twi," I said, gently patting her back with my hoof.
"There… I think… that ought to do it." She panted. She glanced and us and gave us a small smile. "Thanks."
The unicorn was starting to come around, his eyes frantically moving underneath his eyelids. Finally, they opened to reveal bluish-green orbs as he looked around the round. His jaw dropped and he started to hyperventilate.
"Whoa… hey, easy there buddy. It's okay." I said, walking slowly towards him as he flinched.
He stared at me for a moment. "You're… sentient?"
I blinked. "Well yeah… we all are." I said, waving my hoof towards the girls.
"But… horses can't talk." He said flatly.
"Give yourself a good look in the mirror and tell me that afterwards." Dash said from behind me, an eyebrow raised. The girls glared at her. "What?"
The unicorn looked at himself and his eyes got even bigger as he raised a shaky hoof in front of his face. His eyes rolled into the back of his head.
“Wait!" I tried to stop him, but he passed out again and I facehooved. "Great."
We waited for him to wake up again before Twilight realized how late it was and she started to panic. "We have to do the Winter Wrap Up now!" Before we could even argue against it, she grabbed all of us in her magical grip and teleported us to the center of town.
We groaned as Spike saw us and blew on the horn that alerted the ponies of the town, causing them to converge on the town center. Twilight split us up into groups and the townsponies nodded as she gave the groups objectives. She sent me to work with Fluttershy, but she was too distracted with the unicorn to really direct me anywhere.
I wandered around the place, holding a bell in my mouth as I walked up to a little hole in the ground. I gently shook the bell. "Time to get up, winter's over." I whispered as I heard several ponies starting to sing. I looked over as the entire town seemed to be involved, expect Fluttershy. Dash was in the sky, looking happy as ever. That truly was her element. I felt a slight pinch and saw a small garden snake attached to my hoof. "Get off me ya crazy snake." I said, shaking my hoof slightly till it let go.
I wandered around, waking the creatures that usually attacked me as a response. It didn’t help when the Cutie Mark Crusaders decided to help me; they unleashed a bear that I had to get Fluttershy to subdue. It was quite horrifying and afterwards, I went off on my own. Finally I sighed as a beaver smacked me in the face with its tail. I glared at the creature as it seemed to stick its tongue out at me. I walked away and returned the bell to Spike before flying off towards the edge of the forest, watching the ponies sing their song.
After a while the ponies seemed to be ending their song as Twilight helped a few of the earth ponies, passing a few water canteens to them. I sighed as I shuffled my hooves on the now snowless ground, making sure I was out of the way of everyone.
"Leon? What the hay are you doing over here?" Dash's voice asked from behind me. I heard a pair of wings flutter and heard her land next to me.
"Just out of the way." I said as we watched the rest of the town continue with the wrap up.
"What's that suppose to mean?"
"Think about it Dash, since day one all I've done is cause everyone nothing but problems. And for this 'Winter Wrap Up' thing, I don’t know how to lure the animals out or clean their homes. Nor do I know how to clean the snow or anything else that they do." I sighed. "Hell, I don’t even belong here."
She paused. "You may not know any of the Winter Wrap Up techniques, but neither did Twilight till she found out that she could use her organizational skills to help. You just got to find what you're good at."
I raised an eyebrow. "And what's that?"
"From what I've seen, you’re a good flyer, not as good as me obviously, but you could help me out."
"Oh please…"
She grabbed my hoof. "Come on, give it a shot. What do you got to lose?"
"Okay…"
We started to fly towards a cloud that was hovering over Pinkie as she ice skated across the frozen lake. "All you want to do is kick towards the center of the cloud and disperse the core." Dash said, pointing to where I was supposed to kick.
"I'll kick it and the cloud will disappear?" I asked, bewildered. She nodded her head. I sighed. "Why not?" I muttered to myself as I aimed my back hooves towards the center and gathered my strength before I kicked with all my might and felt the cloud explode. I looked back and there was no more cloud. "Huh… I did it."
Dash smiled and pushed my back hooves down. "See? You just gotta try new things till you find something that sticks." We smiled at each other without realizing it, blushing when we did. In the silence that followed Dash cleared her throat. "Hey Leon?"
"Hmm?"
"I'm… sorry about earlier."
I glanced at her. "Earlier?"
"Yeah… about the whole secret thing with Twilight; that was uncalled for and I'm sorry. I know if you could tell me, you would." She looked at me. "Right?"
I gave her a small smile. "Of course, I'd tell my best friend."
She looked at me, surprised. "Best friend?"
"With all we've been through, of course." I chuckled.
She blushed. "True…"
I gave her a brief hug. "Thanks Dashie… for everything." I felt her wings stiffen slightly and I blushed, but ignored it. As I pushed myself away, I saw her face was bright red.
She stuttered. "And don’t you forget it; now come on and let's finish these clouds. The one that has the least buys the winner something from Sugarcube Corner?" she asked.
I laughed. "Sure." Now how in the hell am I supposed to pay? I don’t have any bits…We flew off and spent the rest of Winter Wrap Up dispersing clouds together.
Sometimes she'd surprise me by flying through a cloud and kicking it into my face. Several times the cloud stayed on my face as it disappeared, giving me a long white puffy beard; Dash laughed pretty hard each time.
As we continued to clean up the clouds, it finally gave me time to think. It amazed me how much pain and happiness hanging out with Dash could be. I haven't laughed as hard as I do around her in a long time, almost like when I was with Ash- My eyes grew. That… that’s not right, it can't be… I looked over at her as she burst through a nearby cloud, the moisture sticking to her fur, giving it an almost angelic glow in the warm sun. I stared at her with my mouth open a little as I realized; I have a crush on her. I sighed and started to wonder what to do about it, only to realize it'd never work. She's so energetic and athletic and I'm… not. In fact, I'm pretty sure we're complete opposites.
The day seemed to fly by as the entire town seemed to wrap up removing winter. Dash, not very surprisingly, quickly beat me in the contest, having an easy 100-30 cloud ratio. I chuckled as she puffed her chest out at the end, saying it was easy.
At the end of the day, the town gathered at Sugarcube Corner to celebrate another on time cleanup. I talked Mr. and Mrs. Cake to let me work off the smoothie I owed Dash by cleaning up afterwards. They consented as the entire town packed inside.
The Cakes and Pinkie scrambled to fill everypony's orders as they all seem to wind down from the cleaning. The remaining girls, minus Fluttershy, sat in a booth off to the corner, away from the main group of ponies, who were laughing and dancing in celebration. Spike was sitting on a stool by Twilight, talking to Rarity as she giggled at a joke. I noticed Fluttershy sitting with the unicorn as they looked awkwardly at each other, then blushed and looked away.
I sat by the door with a cup of chocolate milk as my companion. I lifted it up to take a sip when Dash sat across from me. "What are you doing over here by yourself?"
I glanced at her. "Just thinking."
"About?"
"Just random things."
She stared at me. "Okay…"
I sighed. "It's just… I'm not sure what to do." She tilted her head but remained quiet to let me continue. "Have you ever realized something but then not sure how to handle it?"
"Well yeah of course I have, plenty of times." She said.
"What do you usually do?"
"Well… I ask for a friend's advice and see what they say. If I think its sound advice, I'll do it." She paused. "Other times, you just gotta buck up and try and do whatever it is you realized. When everypony said I couldn’t do the Sonic Rainboom and it was just a myth… I knew I could prove them wrong. I practiced every day but in the end, I still couldn’t do it." She sighed, taking a drink from her cup. "Then I saw those bullies messing with Fluttershy and it got my blood boiling… I ran up to them and challenged them to a race. And… well, I did the Sonic Rainboom, got my cutie mark and the rest is history."
We stared at each other for a few seconds before I looked away. "You make it sound so easy though."
"Some things can't be easy. If they were, then some of the greatest things in life wouldn’t be worth it." Dash said, staring into her cup.
"Yeah…" I pondered.
Before either of us could resume our conversation, Pinkie appeared between us. She looked at me. "Do you wanna sing?" Pinkie asked.
"Not especially no."
"But it would be super duper awesome to hear a song from your homeland." She whispered.
"But I'm no singer; I'd just butcher it anyway." I insisted with my cheeks bright red.
She gave me her puppy dog face, eyes huge while her lower lip quivered. My god, does everypony have that? I knew if I continued to look, I'd fall for it so I closed my eyes.
"You can at least try." Dash encouraged, leaning across the table and gently nuzzled my cheek.
My face turned bright red as I sighed. Between Dash and Pinkie, I was doomed. "Fine." I muttered as I cleared my throat and walked towards the stage. The mic made a brief static noise as I gently tapped it with my hoof. "I'm not the most musically gifted pony, but I'll see what I can do." I blinked a few times, trying to think of something to sing. "Ok, I know a song but I don’t remember the entire thing, so consider this more of an abridged version." I rambled with a faint smile.
{Due to FimFic’s new lyric rule, click here for the song}
The ponies stared at me blankly and I sighed as I looked at Pinkie. "Another song then?" She nodded and I rolled my eyes. "Ok, so this is a very popular song back where I come from. But it's going to sound terrible without a background band." I chuckled.
"Oh no problemo Emerald, I got it covered." Pinkie said, grabbing Spike and putting him on a piano she had materialized. She handed him a stack of papers and he stared blankly at them before starting to play a very familiar beat.
I chuckled at her and shook my head before clearing my throat again.
{Once again click here}
Once I got to the chorus, Pinkie jumped in and started to sing along… somehow. I laughed as Pinkie winked at me.
Half way through the song, all the ponies in the building were dancing. It was quite funny actually. It was surprising to see the unicorn and Fluttershy nodding their head to the beat, with the unicorn lip singing the song. I laughed as Dash smiled at me.
Once I finished, everypony applauded and I did a short bow before almost running off stage. I wandered back towards Dash and sat down, my cup in hoof.
"Not bad," she said. "What was the first song though?"
"Oh, it was from a book I read a long time ago." I muttered.
"And the other?"
"'Don't Stop Believein' by a band called Journey." I looked at Pinkie as she was hopping along with a few ponies that I recognized as the Cutie Mark Crusaders. "I'm just wondering how Pinkie knew it."
Dash shrugged. "It's Pinkie, no pony will ever figure it out. She even got Discord once." She chuckled at the memory.
"Only Pinkie understands Pinkie." I said with a smirk.
"That's the spirit!" Dash agreed and we both laughed.
The rest of the party was spent with helping Twilight talk to the unicorn and somehow getting roped into helping the CMC, as they called themselves. They took me to their clubhouse and initiated me into the group, because I apparently didn’t have a cutie mark, which is some form of sin to them. I just chuckled as Scootaloo went crazy on the bongos. When we got back to Sugarcube Corner, most of the ponies had gone home. I helped Twilight converse with the very shy and quiet unicorn, Ivic. His name sounded strangely familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it.
He told us of the random inter-dimensional portal that appeared in his room and how it sucked him in and he ended up landing in Fluttershy's pond. Twilight gasped and went on a huge tangent about portals that only Ivic seemed to get, everypony else just stared at her. She blushed and explained it in simpler terms; apparently some cosmic rifts do happen every now and then but it's just extra energy the galaxy somehow creates. But it's strange to have one happen in a house… let alone absorb somepony and teleport them anywhere specific. Everypony nodded that they understood and talked to him a little bit to get to know the guy. He seemed nice, shy and quiet but nice. He reminded me a lot of a male Fluttershy… which I'm not sure is a good thing or bad. Anyway, the topic of where he's supposed to live came up and Twilight offered the library, which had an extra room. Ivic paused and looked at Fluttershy before nodding.
After that, we noticed that Luna had raised the moon a while ago and Pinkie and I still had to clean up the place. Twilight picked Spike up on her back, he'd fallen asleep a while ago and led Ivic to her house while everypony left for the night, expect me and Pinkie.
She giggled at me as she hoofed me a mop and I mopped up the floor as she gathered all the trash and threw it away. She started to hum a little song as she did so, hopping along the counter, pushing paper cups and plates into a large bag on the floor. After an hour or so of that, the Sugarcube Corner was back to its normal, non chaotic self.
I wiped sweat off my brow and I gave her a tired smile. "Well that was fun."
"Yes sir ye bob." She agreed.
There was a brief moment of silence. "Hey Pinkie?" I asked.
"Hmm?" she asked, glancing at me.
"How did you know that song?"
She giggled. "Well it is a very popular song." She admitted.
I sighed and chuckled. "That's what I thought." I headed towards the door. "Goodnight Pinkie."
"Wait just one stinkin' minute mister." She said, sounding a little angry.
I froze and slowly turned around. "Yes?"
She glared at me as she made her way towards me until she was inches away from my face. I started to back up until she broke out into a smile and gave me a bone crushing hug. "You didn’t give me a goodnight hug."
"…how could I forget?" I wheezed out before giving her a hug back. "Pinkie… crushing… ribs." I struggled to say.
She let go of me. "Whoopsies, sorry Leonie, I don’t know my own strength sometimes." She said with a smile. "Goodnight."
I nodded weakly and dragged myself out. I sighed as I looked at the town, cleaned of snow and winter. It was quiet, everypony asleep in town; the only lights came from the sparsely placed street lamps. I wandered around town for a bit, taking in the peace and quiet before finally taking off and gliding on a down draft towards my house.
I made it and took out the key Celestia had given me and opened the door; it was even quieter inside than outside. I poked my head and tried to peer into the darkness but couldn’t make anything out. I had to fly up to close the door behind as I rummaged around the house. I quickly realized everything was too tall for me to reach normally, having been made for when I was a human. I groaned and left the house quickly, favoring the clouds anyway.
I found a rather comfy looking cloud a little bit a ways from the town. I sat down and sighed, looking out over the Everfree Forest and the town. It's amazing how in the three odd months that I've been here, my life has changed so drastically. Between nearly dying, saving a pony, getting turned into a pony and finding out I had a crush on one... It must be a dream and I'm going to wake up in my bed with a Looney Tunes rerun on the television. I lay down on the cloud and got comfy, relaxing on the cloud. What a day… I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Well, with this equestrian diet, if I ever do go back to being human, I'm gonna be pretty healthily. I chuckled to myself.
What about Dash? Is it ok for me to like a pony? Granted, I'm a pony now… but only in body. I felt myself slip deeper and deeper to the sleep I wanted and my last thought before I succumbed to exhaustion was of Dash flying through that cloud, her body covered in the water and her bright magenta eyes staring at me, full of happiness.