Time to go
Chapter 4
The Walk Home
It was time to go, and so Twilight landed.
“Well, that was magical.” Hunter said chuckling, sitting up as he looked at this sudden appearance.
There was no way. There was no way in the vastness of the universe that he was really looking at what he was looking at. Hunter rubbed his eyes and Twilight rubbed her hoofs.
“Wow, that landing was not very forgiving.” Twilight said groaning. Twilight was still standing on the tracks and Hunter had just stood up in his disbelief. “What?” Twilight said, “Did you like the view so much you just can't wait to get another...” Twilight started to say, with more than a little indignation, but then was interrupted by the human. He was hugging her. She wanted to return the pleasantry, but she was being leaned on more than hugged.
“I can't believe, there's just no way.” Hunter said. He started to cry. His world was just so hopeless until this point, and he had thought that there was no way out. Just as he had reached the apex of his hopelessness there she was. Twilight bucking Sparkle. Had she come to rescue him from the darkness, or was she just there, appeared to him by happenstance? Which ever one it was he was happy beyond belief and he sit there on the tracks. Crying his eyes out on the back of a unicorn whom he had been hugging for the past few moments.
“Hey, it's alright, please don't cry... uh... human.” Twilight tried to say reassuringly but without a name, she really didn't know what to say. She did know one thing however. This was the human that needed her help. The emotion this human was feeling was definitely what she had been feeling when she went through the portal.
“I'm sorry I just... I can't believe this is happening." Hunter said backing off a little "How did you get here? How is this even possible? Are you here to stay or are you going back? What about your friends are they...” Hunter seemed more excited than ever and then suddenly his eyes widened. “Holy crap.”
“What?” Twilight said turning around. For the first time her time in this world, she saw something really bright. Was this some kind of portal back? For some reason she heard the sounds of a train. Maybe she was getting some kind of magic train back?
Then she remembered where she was standing.
She would never have had enough time to get out of the way, even her teleportation spell took too much time. Fortunately Hunter was on it. He had already grabbed her and jumped to the side. The train sped by undisturbed, and the two who had been on the tracks just moments before, were only little worse for wear.
“That was a close one.” Twilight said out loud. “Thanks,”
“No problem, Twilight Sparkle. No problem at all.” Hunter said, wiping a couple more tears from his eyes. He stood up and after staring at her stunning beauty for a couple more seconds, that seemed like a good couple minutes, he introduced himself.
“My name is Hunter. It's a pleasure to meet you, Twilight Sparkle, Student of Princess Celestia, Keeper of the Elements of Harmony, Owner of a baby dragon, and the Element of magic.” Hunter bowed, before putting out his hand. Hunter had never been so pleased to meet somebody... Somepony in all his life.
Twilight's jaw dropped a little. “I... uh... How is it... that you know so much about me?” Twilight said before moving her hoof to greet Hunter with a handshake.
“To be completely honest I thought you were made up, a figment of my imagination trying to cheer me up.” At this Hunter seemed to get emotional again, but after a few seconds he swallowed his sadness and continued.
“I should probably tell you that there's a very famous T.V. Show here with you as the main character. I absolutely love it, and I was just wishing I could go there. To Equestria I mean, it's so much better than here.” Hunter seemed to have calmed down finally. He was however fighting the urge to throw his arms around her again, or an even smaller urge, to jump on her back and yell “To Equestria!”
“I know about the T.V. Show, Princess Luna told me about that, but what I didn't know is that it contained all of those things!. Does this show have my whole life in it? It apparently knows about Spike...” Twilight said, running this recent discovery through her mind.
“Spike is actually a favorite character of mine.” Hunter interrupted, as a grin worked it's way across face. He still couldn't get his head around the idea that Twilight was standing in front of him and he was having a conversation with her.
“A favorite? You mean that you pick favorites?” Twilight stared at the human. She seemed a little put off by this for some reason. Maybe she just wanted to know if she was a favorite of this T.V. Show.
“Oh uhm... actually...” Hunter stuttered. There was no use he might as well just tell her the truth “Well you see, when it's a T.V. Show it's not like you think it will really matter that much to the characters if you have a favorite. It's not like I have a favorite friend, or a favorite person, I just didn't think much of it until I just realized that you actually existed.”
“Oh... There are so many things I don't understand about this whole thing.” Twilight put her head in her hooves and rubbed her eyes. “And I am just so tired I don't think I can understand any of this.”
“Oh!” Exclaimed Hunter. “Don't you worry Twilight I have just the thing. You might as well follow me, I'm not sure how you got here, but I'm thinking that you might as well have a nice warm bed to stay the night in. Come on, I'll explain things to you on the way there it isn't that far.” Hunter urged as Twilight stood motionless on the road.
“Alright, I don't see why not.” An exasperated Twilight followed Hunter, and they started on their way to Hunter's house.
“You know, it's always been my dream to talk to you.” Hunter blurted. He half wished that he hadn't said it, because now it sounded like he was some kind of crazed fan who had just met the member of their favorite band. He thought about it for a moment, and realized that this was actually kind of the same.
“Well I guess that's how Luna decided which unicorn she should send.” Twilight said flatly.
“Does that mean that Luna entered into my dreams?” Hunter asked, now pondering what that could mean.
“Yes, apparently Luna has the ability to not only enter dreams of ponies, but the dreams of humans as well, that's how she found you. She saw that you were having troubles, and she wanted to help you.” Twilight said, walking as her eyes got heavier.
“So Luna was entering my dreams?” Hunter thought back to his dreams that he had been having recently. He started to blush a little as he remembered a particular dream, but he was sure that she would have skipped out on that one. He remembered dreaming about friends and adventure, he remembered dreaming about the destruction of all around him, only to be a light in the darkness. He had always dreamed about being a hero, or all in all just a good friend to everybody.
“That's right” Twilight said. “So you watched this 'show' in which my friends and I take part, what exactly would happen in this show? How long has it been following my life?” Here she blushed “Does it intrude upon our privacy?”
Hunter got a smile out of the implication, “Heavens no Twi, the show is for kids. It would never show things like that.”
“Well I don't know that much about humans and kids, but I would think that you are not a kid. So why would you watch this show of ours?” Twilight inquired.
“Well see that's the thing,” Hunter started. “Your show was originally for little girls, or filly's I guess, but as time went on grown men and teenagers who had watched it with their children found the show to be totally awesome. They began to watch the show themselves, and eventually this became a nation wide thing. Bronies, bros who liked ponies, had come into existence, I had a couple of friends who liked your show so much that they got onto a social media site, and made an account based off of your friend Vinyl. I thought one day I should see what all the hype was about. I started watching your adventures and immediately I fell in love. Er... with the show that is. I never really told anyone because it isn't exactly the most normal behavior.”
“Well that explains a lot, but that just brings up more questions.” Twilight started, but Hunter wasn't done.
“Well then let me answer your previous questions first. What happens in the show? Well basically the show follows you and your friends as you learn your lessons about friendship. The show has shown you and your friends when you were only filly's getting your cutie marks, but it mainly follows how your lives are right now. Starting right about when you left Canterlot to make some friends. To about just now I guess.”
Twilight was listening intently to what Hunter was saying, but her mind seemed focused on wanting sleep, and she only seemed to absorb half of it. What did she know now? She knew that her close friends and herself were being followed by some T.V. Show, and that their lessons in friendship were being used to entertain human children. However, older humans also enjoyed watching. Twilight seemed just a little bit put off by this, but was assured that it only followed moments that were appropriate for fillies. She was too tired to think anymore.
“We're here.” Said Hunter proudly, “It isn't exactly thatched roofs, or a tree library, but it's what I call home.” and with that he brought her to the door “Alright there isn't enough room in my room for you to sleep, and I would rather you not see that anyways, until I cleaned it up.” Hunter chuckled, before continuing with his plan “So I am going to have you sleep in the basement”
“The basement? That doesn't sound cold and unwelcoming in the least.” Twilight snapped.
“Hey, this is my grandma's old house, her basement is the most welcoming basement on the planet.” Hunter stated proudly. “However my mom is asleep, so we have to be as quiet as we can, but don't worry if you make some noise, she's as out of it as could be.”
Hunter then proceeded to creak open the two doors at the front of his house. Twilight seemed kinda confused about why they needed two doors on human homes, and decided to ask Hunter about it later. As Hunter opened the doors he held them open for Twilight, ushering her down the stairs that were directly in front of the entryway.
As she entered the home she realized that it wasn't too different from a normal pony home. There were plants for décor, pictures on the walls, and nice carpeted floors. To be honest she didn't think humans and ponies had so much in common until that point. As she walked down the stairs she couldn't help but notice the smell that seemed to take hold in the house. It was a good smell, like the kind of smell you would remember from when you went to your granny's house when you were a filly. It comforted her and reminded her of home.
“Not such a bad place you got here.” Twilight whispered.
“Oh, uh, thanks.” Hunter said. Not really sure how to respond. People had commented on his house before, but this was different.
When they reached the bottom Twilight saw that the basement wasn't actually as bad as it sounded. She saw 3 separate beds, and a couch, all equipped for sleeping in, and there was actually some kind of set up in the middle of the room, that had a great big, unfinished, quilt in the center.
“Does your grandma like to quilt?” Twilight asked. She knew that Granny smith liked quilting, and that Granny loved to quilt with her cousins during the apple family reunions.
“Well, yeah, she used to, she actually owned a quilt shop in the middle of town.” Hunter replied quietly.
Twilight was so tired that she just barely caught on to what Hunter was saying. She had wondered why Hunter had not mentioned his grandma being asleep.
“Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't know.” Twilight apologized. “This is a great quilt, she must have been good at what she did.”
Here Twilight turned to face him, and saw only lingering sadness in his eyes. He must have lost a few loved ones recently and she wanted to comfort him, but didn't think that anything she did would make it better, if anything it would just bring up bad memories.
“Yeah she was, but it's fine. She was old and it was her time to go, my grandpa passed away a year before she did and she didn't exactly feel like the happiest person anyways. It's good that she passed on.” Hunter said with a smile. He had accepted it just as he had every other death in his family. Twilight could see that in his face, and knew that he would be alright.
“Well, we better get you a place to sleep, I'm not sure what kind of blankets you use, but I'm sure that I'll be able to accommodate.” Hunter said as he began crawling underneath the quilt until he reached the beds. “Here you might as well just blink on over here.”
Twilight was confused by his terminology “Blink?”
“Yeah blink, it's what I call a teleportation spell that only takes you short distances, usually that are within sight.” Hunter stated
Twilight was a little surprised by his knowledge of spells, but did what he said anyways, and in the next second she was on the right side of the quilt.
Hunter had already begun making the bed for his new guest, and wondered if the bed would get ruined with a pony sleeping in it. He thought better of it after remembering that they had their own beds, and pulled back the blankets for her.
“Well, this will be where you stay for the night, if you don't mind I'll just situate myself on that couch right over there, if you need anything go ahead and wake me.” Hunter crawled back under the quilt and onto the couch, where he pulled out some pillows and a light blanket and laid down.
“Thanks,” Twilight said, “I guess I'll just have to figure out how to get home tomorrow.”
“You mean Luna didn't tell you how to get home?” Hunter asked, “Maybe she'll enter your dreams and tell you.”
Twilight wondered why she hadn't thought of that, climbed into the bed, rested her head on the softest pillow she had ever had the opportunity to sleep with, and fell asleep almost immediately.
Hunter on the other hand, was not having such an easy time. It wasn't the couch, he had slept on this thing plenty of times, but his thoughts were racing, and it didn't help that his sleep schedule was set to where he went to sleep in an hour.
"I can't believe this is happening," Hunter thought, "just today I was thinking about just how great this would be, but how terribly impossible it was. Yet, there she lay." The unicorn that he had grown to love throughout the show along with the rest of her friends was sleeping right there, in his house, in a spare bed. This. This was just too much to take in at once.
It was time to go, and so his brain gave up trying and instantly slept.