Steve’s mind was racing faster than ever before. During the few moments between Sarah’s announcement and the opening of the doors he had imagined just about every kind of alien he ever heard of, from Asari over to Martians to Xenomorphs, but the six pastel coloured ponies that stood in front of him caught him completely off guard.
Ponies. He let the word ring through his head again after uttering it out loud. Well, not real ponies, their faces are shorter, their bodies smoother and damn, with eyes that size they could be coming straight from some anime. And I’ve never seen such colourful coats either. But that probably means that they are more dangerous than they look, I doubt they could hide very well from predators.
His eyes quickly wandered over the six equine creatures in front of him, scanning them to gain more knowledge, and from the looks of it they were doing the same.
His attention was immediately caught by the rainbow-coloured mane of the cyan blue one, but his eyes went even wider as they went further down her body and he spotted wings at her side. Oh they have wings, that’s probably useful for escaping and could explain their colours, although… He skimmed over the other ponies. Only two of them have wings. So there seems to be different kinds as well. They also look really small from here, maybe they are just for very short flights, he concluded but suddenly stopped.
Hold on a minute… winged horses? No way… that’s a pegasus! he had almost shouted out as he realized the connection. There are freaking pegasusus… uhm… pegasi standing in front of me and… He stopped again as he noticed a feature of two other ponies. Unicorns? he asked in disbelief, his eyes locked onto the horns of the purple one that stood at the front of the group and a white one at the side. Okay, that’s it, I quit. There is literally no way I am not high right now. Pegasi and unicorns? What’s next? Fairies and dragons?
He shook his head and tried to calm himself down. It surely was just an insane coincidence that were two mythical creatures from Earth here, nothing more.
Okay, okay, he said to himself to clear his mind. At least the other two seem normal, well, as normal as a pink pony with a fluffy pink mane can be at least, he commented as his eyes fell on a different pony at the front of the group who was leaning forwards and stared at him with wide open eyes. And the last one could just go through as normal pony. I bet orange goes as a regular coat colour and so does a blond mane as well, but is that a hat on her head? he wondered as he noticed the accessory of the last group member. Interesting. That means either that there are even more species here, maybe some with hands or something similar, or their hooves are more agile than they look so that they can craft something that requires agility.
He didn’t know how long he had been staring at them now, but he figured that it was time for a proper introduction. Since Sarah told him that they came from a settlement he had to expect them to be part of the local civilization and even if they turned out not to be, he would definitely not do wrong by introducing himself. Now he only hoped that they were communicating verbally. Just as he was about to open his mouth he realized something and closed it again. Damn, I almost forgot the translator isn’t working yet. What to do? Didn’t the mission protocol say something about this? I should have read that more carefully.
Before Steve could think of anything, one of the ponies, the unicorn with the purple coat that stood at the front of the group made a step forward. Her horn was showing out of her dark purple mane that was traversed by a light pink stripe.
This must be their leader, or spokesperson at least. Looks pretty nervous, Steve thought. But to her I’m an alien twice her size that just stepped out of a spaceship. Of course she is nervous. But it seems like she wants to say something. Perfect, something for the translator to work with, he thought and patiently waited for the unicorn to take the first word, while he tried to switch from his own surprised expression to a comforting smile.
“Hello. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I welcome you to Equestria,” the unicorn said in absolutely flawless English and now with a small smile on her face, her voice sounding clearly female.
Although the words were spoken softly they still hit Steve like a hammer and his mind was barely able to keep up with the information it had to process now. WHAT! HOW?! English? How can she speak English, that can’t be possible! This has to be a dream! And also what kind of name is Twilight Sparkle? Seriously.
He tried his best to keep the thoughts confined to his mind instead of shouting them out, but he was sure that the shock had returned to his face as the smile on that of the unicorn was fading away, only to be replaced by worry.
She must be thinking I can’t understand her. Quick, say something!
“Uhh… hi.”
Nailed it.
The unicorn, or rather Twilight’s face was now beaming with a wide grin and she opened her mouth again to talk, but his brain was functioning properly again so he could introduce himself properly.
“A pleasure to meet you, Twilight Sparkle. I am Doctor Steve Murray, technical engineer of the Columbus and official representative of planet Earth,” he announced and stood straight for a moment before slowly walking down the ramp until he stood in front of the group. Of course that’s due to the lack of any humans around, but they don’t need to know that just yet, he added in his thoughts.
Twilight stared at him with open eyes, processing his words.
Most likely she’s never heard most of those words before, Steve thought as he considered a less formal introduction.
“Earth? I have never heard of that place before. So that means you are…” Twilight paused and pointed up to the sky, while expectantly looking at him.
“Correct, I’m from another planet,” he replied firmly and nodded. In that moment he could have sworn he saw a small sparkle in her eyes.
“Wow,” she just whispered and he nodded again. “A real alien! I never thought they actually existed!” she exclaimed happily and leaned forward, her eyes growing even wider as she looked up and down his body again.
“Me neither,” he just replied and looked over the rest of the group again who now seemed more relaxed, but still eyed him cautiously.
“I have so many questions!” Twilight burst out. “What is this Earth and Columbus you were talking of? How did you get here? Why…” she stopped herself and grinned sheepishly at him. “Sorry for bombarding you with so many questions right away. I’m just so excited and there is so much to ask that I couldn’t hold it in any longer. We didn’t even really welcome you. Allow me to introduce you to my friends. This is…”
Twilight was cut off as the pink pony with the fluffy mane that had caught Steve’s attention before jumped forward, grabbed his hand with both her hooves and shook it so rapidly he feared that his shoulder would be dislocated. At the same time she said, without taking a single breath and at an even higher speed than her handshake, “OHMYGOSHyoureallyareanalienwelcometoponyvilleimpinkiepiebutyoucancallmepinkieandimgoingtothrowyouaspecialwelcometoponyvilleparty!”
What the heck? How can she talk so fast? he thought, irritated, and looked over to Twilight again.
His body was too surprised by the sudden action, so he simply stood there shaking the pony’s hoof.
“… Pinkie Pie,” Twilight said and put a hoof on Pinkie Pie’s shoulder, causing her to stop, but not without giving her a stern look. “I’m so sorry, but she always gets excited about newcomers and wants to give them a joyful welcome, including a party,” Twilight apologized for her and nervously bit her lip.
I bet she’s just as excited as I am and wants this meeting to go well. Since she came here with a group from a town, she probably has some kind of leadership position, maybe she’s even a diplomat since she was the first to come here. Or she is just generally curious, I shouldn’t be making any assumptions that might lead to misunderstandings, he chided himself. “Oh, thank you very much for that,” he turned towards the pink pony who only replied with a grin. “I haven’t been expecting such a warm welcome,” he said towards Twilight again who breathed out in relief. And it was true. There could have been a much worse greeting than an overly excited pony.
“Well, that’s how we do it here in Ponyville,” the orange pony with the hat now spoke up in a strong southern accent as she tilted her brown hat forward. Only now he noticed that her long blond mane and tail were both tied up into a ponytail. “Howdy there, partner,” she said and held out a hoof to him as well.
Glad to see that a handshake, or rather hoofshake, was a familiar way to greet someone here. He grabbed the hoof with his hand and shook it slightly, but just like the pink pony she seemed to have a lot of power in her hoof as she shook his hand. He kept his smile up and returned the greeting.
“This is Applejack,” Twilight introduced her before pointing over to the other ponies in the group.
“This is Fluttershy.” She pointed towards the other pegasus, a yellow one with a long, smooth pink mane that covered most of her face.
“Hello,” she whispered in return, so quietly that he could barely understand her.
I wonder how she got her name, Steve thought to himself and grinned.
“Rarity.” She pointed at the other unicorn who had a bright white coat, as well as a long, flowing purple mane.
“Hello, darling,” Rarity greeted him and blinked a few times. If he didn’t know any better he would have said that she was wearing makeup, making her eyelashes look slightly blue, fitting with her ice-blue eyes.
“And Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said and pointed towards the last pony of the group. Rainbow Dash lived up to her name, as it was the pegasus with the rainbow coloured mane and tail that immediately stuck out to him earlier.
“THE one and only,” Rainbow Dash said, a sly grin on her face. Her voice sounded a bit rougher than those of her friends, almost tomboyish, but that wasn’t what Steve was thinking about, he was still fascinated by her mane.
Must have been one hell of a dye job, or could this be her natural hair… mane colour? he wondered. Definitely is an eye-catcher.
“Nice to meet all of you,” Steve just greeted them back and waved at them with his hand. Somehow he was happy that Twilight introduced them all so quickly, that way he wouldn’t have to shake that many hooves, as his hand was already aching a little, but he didn’t want to let it show.
“Wonderful, I still can’t believe that this is really happening,” Twilight said, excitement still filling her voice. “Would you excuse me for just one moment, I have to discuss something with my friends.”
“Go ahead,” Steve replied calmly. I suppose she wants to discuss what to do next. Somehow makes me doubt my theory of her being a diplomat then. But that doesn’t really matter right now, so far the whole introduction has been running perfectly. Too happy to bother about any minor thing like that he just stood there with a smile on his lips as he watched the ponies quickly gathering into a circle, and muttering a few words which he was unable to understand.
After a short while Twilight turned around again and said, “I thought it might be a good idea to continue our meeting in Ponyville, that’s the name of our town. What do you think?”
Ponyville, so that’s what the orange one meant with that earlier. Boy, I wonder what complex mechanisms are hiding behind their naming conventions, he thought sarcastically. But that should also answer the question of what this species calls itself. Ponies, who would have guessed. I still have no clue why we are speaking the same language, but that makes things easier for me and I’m sure I will find out soon. Steve shook the thought out of his head. He would have time to think about these bizarre facts later, now he had to focus on the important parts that needed his immediate attention. And now I even get invited into their town. Things are going really fast, I wonder how these ponies are living. It would be a perfect start for a diplomatic relationship if I know all these things already when the rest of the team gets here.
“Sounds good to me,” Steve agreed after a while and nodded. “Lead the way.”
***
The walk to the town went by quietly. The six ponies had formed a circle around Steve, Twilight in the front with Rarity and Pinkie Pie beside her. To his left trotted Applejack, while to his right Rainbow Dash was hovering over the ground. Fluttershy was behind him, but he couldn’t see her.
His eyes were trailing over the body of the pegasus and he watched carefully how she was flying. There must be more to the wings than I initially thought. She doesn’t even need to flap them often and doesn’t show any signs of exhaustion. These ponies must be way stronger than their appearance may indicate.
What’s this? he wondered as he watched Rainbow Dash for a bit longer and his eyes fell on the image of a tri-coloured lightning bolt that came out of a white cloud. Is this a tattoo? It looks like her coat is coloured there absolutely perfectly in the shape of the symbol.
A quick glance around showed him that all the ponies had symbols of the same quality, but of different designs on their flanks.
Must be something cultural then, he concluded and shrugged it off for now. Twilight can surely tell me something about it later.
Now that he was looking around he actively noticed the formation the ponies had taken around him for the first time.
Why did they form this circle around me anyways? Do they think I’m dangerous? No, they wouldn’t have offered for me to visit their town if they thought so. Is it to show the other citizens to not be afraid of me? Or is this maybe even to protect me? I’ll probably see that in a moment, I guess that’s the town over there, Steve thought as he spotted a cluster of buildings ahead of them. From the distance they seemed like simple one and two story tall wooden buildings with thatched roofs. That does require at least some skill in carpentry. I wonder if they do this all with their hooves or if there are even more species here that…
Twilight and with her the group stopped just as they were about to enter the town, interrupting his internal monologue. She cleared her throat and turned around to him. “The ponies in this town can be somewhat… nervous when it comes to strangers. Please don’t take it the wrong way, but they are probably a bit scared of you, since they haven’t seen someone like you before. I hope that they will be calm when they see us with you,” she explained and nervously licked her lips.
So that’s the reason for the formation, Steve figured. Well, good thing the more open minded ponies came to greet me then, but I can’t really blame them for being scared. Steve nodded and replied, “It’s fine, I can understand, this is a new situation for all of us.”
Twilight let out a relieved sigh again and quickly added, “Don’t worry, once they get used to you they are all very friendly.” With these words she turned around and they continued their way.
Twilight wasn’t understating it. The town looked completely deserted. The streets were empty, and the only noises were the muffled sound of their steps on the dirt road, which was only slightly more fortified than the path they had taken so far. The blinds of every window were shut, so Steve couldn’t see if they had glass windows or just holes in the walls.
From time to time Steve thought he saw some movement behind a corner or a blind opening slightly, but as soon as he looked over there was nothing to be seen.
Nervous when it comes to strangers, he repeated Twilight’s words in his mind. That about captures it. Well, I hope this changes though, it would be a shame if I never see any of them.
After a few minutes of walking through the empty streets of the town, they finally arrived at a large tree, at least three stories tall, and with multiple windows and two balconies. Here Steve could see clearly that they were able to craft glass, as the windows were not covered by the blinds. A wooden sign with the picture of an open book stood next to the red door. A library inside a hollow tree. Now that is irony. Unless they don’t use paper.
“This is the Golden Oaks Library, Ponyville’s public library and also my home,” Twilight announced as they stopped in front of the tree.
“Are you a librarian?” Steve asked as he looked up at the tree again. “And how exactly do you live inside a library?”
“As a part-time job, yes. But only the first floor is the library, I live up in the second,” she explained and pushed a door open with her hoof. “There isn’t that much of an interest in books here anyways, so I rarely have somepony come in and my librarian duties are relatively small.”
As the door opened and they stepped inside, Steve saw what she meant. They stood inside a large, circular room, about the entire size of the ground floor. The room itself was very plain, a tree stump in the middle stood out of the floor and formed a small table. A wooden statue of a horsehead stood on it. Entire walls were filled with bookshelves, which seemed to have been cut into the wood. Besides that there was only a small desk near the entrance, a staircase to the higher levels that Twilight already mentioned and two more doors, one of which was open and revealed a small kitchen behind it.
“Here we are,” Twilight announced and looked around a little nervously again.
“Looks nice,” Steve just said, still inspecting the room.
“Glad that you like it. Do you want something to drink?” Twilight offered.
Would it be impolite to say no? I don’t really want to risk an infection or worse by drinking something unknown from a different planet. “No, thanks, I’m not thirsty,” he politely declined and shook his head.
“Okay, then we can get started with the questions. I’ll just ask Spike to bring us some cushions real quick. This might take a while and it’s more comfortable to sit than to stand.” Before Steve had the chance to ask who this Spike is, Twilight was yelling at the top of her lungs. “SPIKE! WE ARE BACK! COULD YOU BRING US SOME CUSHIONS PLEASE?”
Shocked, he looked at the small, purple unicorn who just stood there with a smile on her lips as she looked up the stairs. Ouch, my ears. And that was just her calling for someone. I don’t want to hear her shouting in anger. He shuddered at the thought.
Soon Steve’s initial question of Spike’s identity was answered, as he heard the sound of a door opening from the upper floor, and a pile of cushions with two short, purple legs coming down the stairs. Curiously Steve took a closer look. The legs didn’t end in hooves, but in short feet, each with three long claws. Looks like a different species, Steve thought excitedly, eager to find out what other creatures this world was hosting.
The pile of cushions arrived at the ground floor and dropped to the ground, revealing a small, bipedal and scaled creature. The scales from his chin, across its belly and up to the end of the tail, though, had a greenish tone, while the others were of the same purple as its legs. A row of green spikes ran across the back of his body.
Their creativity with names is beyond my realm of comprehension, he thought dryly. Reminds me a bit of a lizard, Steve commented as he finished his inspection.
“Here you go. Did you find any… Woah! Who’s this?” the lizard stopped in its tracks and shouted in surprise as it pointed at Steve. Judging by the voice he figured it to be a male. That would be the first male creature he found on this world.
Amazing! He can talk too. That looks like a clear confirmation of my theory of multiple intelligent life forms on this planet, Steve thought happily. And he has claws instead of hooves. That makes him useful for tasks that require dexterity. Just taking a look at these books, I doubt you could hold a pen with a hoof and write something with it. Nothing legible at least.
“Spike, this is Steve,” Twilight introduced him before waving her hoof around a bit. “He… uhhh is… uhm... new to town,” Twilight finished her sentence, struggling to find the right words. “We're going to have a little chat with him. In the meantime, could you please inform the princess that we have returned and I will write her a detailed report later today? You can take the day off after that.”
“Okay, will do,” he said slowly and inspected Steve from top to bottom. “I’ll just be upstairs taking a nap. Call me if you need something,” Spike said walking up the stairs again, still staring at Steve, fixating him with a curious look. Steve tried his best to keep up a smile.
“So, you’ve met Spike. He’s my personal assistant. I got him when he was still in an egg,” Twilight explained. “He is very useful. His dragon fire breath can send letters directly to the princess and he helps me organize my library. It can get quite messy here sometimes.” She grinned sheepishly as she began taking the cushions from the pile and formed a circle with them.
DRAGONS? That was a dragon?! Steve couldn’t believe what he had just heard. I’m in a fantasy world of talking unicorns, pegasi and dragons?! What the… Steve was more than mildly irritated and definitely stunned. Okay, at least that didn’t really look like a dragon I would imagine. He didn’t even have wings, and being a reptile seems the only relation to what I would imagine a dragon as. Also, what did she say about a princess? They have a monarchy?
“Do you want to get started?” Twilight asked and pointed to the cushions. Steve jerked his head towards her, realizing he must have zoned out longer than he thought.
“Sure,” he replied and sat down. Twilight wasn’t lying, the cushions were comfortable. “Since we both have a lot of questions I think it would be only fair if each gets one question, then we swap.”
“Sounds good to me,” Twilight said, nodding her head in agreement.
“Okay. You can go first if you want,” he offered graciously.
Twilight grinned, obviously happy that now her questions would be answered.
“Perfect. First question. Where are you from?”
“I expected that to be the first. As I stated earlier my planet is called Earth. It’s the homeworld of my species, known as humans. It is about two light-years away from here in the solar system. These names probably won’t mean anything to you already, so I’m just going to quit on naming towns or countries.” Twilight’s head was leaning forward as she was lying on the cushion, her two forelegs in front of her, as she was hanging on every word that he spoke. As he finished she still looked at him expectantly, wanting to know more, but he wasn’t going to answer all of her questions at once, he wanted to get a turn as well.
“Can you tell me more about Earth and humans? What is your culture like? How…” She stopped mid-sentence as she realized that she was already wanting to break their little agreement. “Sorry, your turn,” she said sheepishly, a faint red tinge appearing on her cheeks.
“Thanks, my question” – he stopped for a short moment and thought about what was on his mind the most – “ is the same as yours. Where exactly am I and what are you called? I know your names, but not your species.”
“You are in Equestria, which is our country on the planet Equis. We are all ponies, but of different tribes,” Twilight began to explain while Steve tried to keep a straight face and just nod instead of showing his confusion. The same language was irritating enough, but then everything was named the exact same as well. “The name for our planet and country both derive from an ancient word that meant pony. It’s no longer used today, besides from labelling our country and planet.”
Twilight pointed over to the white unicorn with the flashing purple mane. “Rarity and I are unicorns.” She continued by pointing at her other friends. “Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are both pegasi, meaning they have wings, while Pinkie Pie and Applejack are earth ponies.” A surprised look appeared on her face. “Not the same earth as your planet, it’s just a word we use to describe the ground here. It symbolizes their special connection to nature.” Steve just nodded it all off, his mind too baffled to make his mouth form any words to express his thoughts.
“You have met Spike, who is a dragon, and there are plenty of more species here, like zebras or gryphons, but this town’s population consists almost entirely of ponies like us.”
This is just going way too far now. I would have accepted the looks that match our mythology slightly, but also names, not to mention that they even have the same language, Steve thought, a feeling of confusion and irritation washing over him as he tried to make sense of what Twilight had just told him. I really hope my mind isn’t playing a trick on me here and this is the wildest dream I ever had.
“My turn,” Twilight cheered, once again cutting off Steve’s thoughts. “How did you get here?”
“By ship,” he replied bluntly. At the sight of Twilight’s unamused face, he quickly added, “Just kidding, or actually, kind of. I was travelling in a machine we call a spaceship. It allows us to travel through space, and although it doesn’t look like a ship we just called it that. I am part of an expedition that was sent out to investigate distant planets that may host life. The name of our ship was ‘Columbus’, the name you were wondering about earlier.” He noticed the curious looks on all the ponies’ faces. Even though Twilight was the only one of them to talk, they all seemed interested in his story. For a moment he stopped, considering whether he should tell them that is arrival here was not as planned as it may seem.
He sighed before continuing, “The travel was going well for the most part, but recently we were having some troubles. Turbulences you could call them. Anyhow, the ship you saw earlier where I came out was not the Columbus, it is far bigger than that, too big to be safely landed on any planet, so instead it was loaded with a set of smaller ships, like the one I came here in, that could form a base on the planet.
“When the problems hit a new level I was currently on board of one of these ships to repair some damage to the board computer there. But the system of the entire ship was confused so much that it shot me out into space. I became unconscious after some time and when I woke up I was here. Well, you know the rest of the story. Basically I unintentionally crash-landed here, otherwise we would have completely overseen your planet as we had not planned stop here,” he finally concluded his tale. The ponies stared at him with shocked looks, none of them saying a word.
“Oh, darling, that sounds dreadful,” Rarity was the first to speak again. “Does that mean you are here completely alone?” He nodded. “But your friends know you are here?”
“Not that I know of right now. My ship got damaged slightly during the landing, and the communication array, something that I need to speak with them, isn’t working right now. I have to repair it first, but as soon as that’s done I will inform the main ship about where I am. Don’t worry about it, this will all resolve in a couple days,” he assured them and chuckled. At least he hoped it would. He knew that his ship was only slightly damaged, but what happened to the Columbus? There was the chance the board computer had failed completely and the electronics fell out, which would lead to a disaster that Steve didn’t even want to imagine. So all he could do was play it down for now, not only to assure the ponies that everything was alright, but also himself.
The ponies were still not looking quite convinced, but weren’t looking at him as shocked as before, so he decided to move on, “Next question!” Twilight looked up at him, concentrated. “You were talking about a princess earlier. What kind of political system do you have here?”
A useful thing to know once I get to talk to an ambassador.
“Equestria is ruled by Princess Celestia, Guardian of the Sun, and her sister Princess Luna, Guardian of the Moon. There is also Princess Cadence, Princess Celestia’s niece, who rules over the Crystal Empire far to the north.”
“Do they get elected?” Steve continued his question. And what does she mean by Guardian, he wondered but kept that part to himself for now. Questioning a title could be seen as inappropriate and she might answer it anyways.
“You already had a question. It’s my turn.” Twilight shook her head and raised a hoof.
“Technically, yes, but that still is an important part of my initial question,” he replied with a sly grin.
Twilight just rolled her eyes before she continued. “Fine… no, they do not get elected. The princesses are alicorns, another pony species. They have both horn and wings, while also being significantly taller than any other pony. Also they are extremely powerful and immortal.” Steve raised a brow at the last word, but he didn’t wanted to interrupt her.
That probably has a different meaning here, or it was meant figuratively. There is no such thing as immortality. He had to resist the urge to shake his head.
Meanwhile Twilight continued. “It is an ancient bloodline that flows through everypony. Once a pony is showing the values required to rule a country they can transform into an alicorn. This has only happened three times in our history.”
Transformation? Steve could only raise a brow again. This sounds like… magic, but that can’t be. “Sorry,” he interrupted Twilight. “But I don’t think I quite understand what you mean.”
“Which part?” she inquired.
“The whole alicorn thing. You said they are immortal? Immortal as in the live forever? That’s impossible. Also transformation when they have shown these required values, how does that even work? They don’t just grow a pair of wings or horns, right?” In disbelief he looked around the group, but he was just met with blank faces. Right? he repeated in his mind and nervously licked his lips.
“That’s not impossible. How else should they reign for thousands of years?” Twilight returned and looked at him like he just asked the stupidest thing in the world. “And the actual transformation process hasn’t been witnessed in so long, but essentially yes. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were born as unicorns, Princess Cadance as a pegasus. As Celestia and Luna proved their worth they became alicorns and ruled Equestria ever since, taking over the responsibility for raising the sun and the moon.”
“But… but,” he stammered, even more confused than before. “How? Raising the sun and the moon? You can’t mean that they move the sun and the moon.”
“Well, but of course,” Twilight returned and now she looked confused, like she wasn’t understanding what he meant. “I mean, how else would we have a day-night-cycle if not for somepony actively moving them? How do you do it on your world then?”
“We don’t,” Steve blurted out. “That’s what planetary rotations and orbits are for. Earth is spinning on its own axis, so the sun only shines down at a certain part while the rest is in the darkness. Meanwhile the moon is orbiting around the Earth, making it look like it rises and sets again. The way it works on every planet.”
The only thing he got as response was complete confusion that stood on the faces of the ponies. What’s going on here? They can’t really believe that their princesses are raising the sun and the moon. I haven’t seen any sign of modern technology yet, but they must have at least basic knowledge of astronomy.
It was silent for about a minute or so, all the while the ponies were exchanging confused glances and Twilight stroked a hoof over her chin while she had her eyes closed, making her look like she was in deep thought. “I suppose that system could work as well,” she eventually said.
“What do you mean ‘could’? That’s how it is,” he pointed out. At this point he had to actively try to keep his voice in a normal tone as he was faced with this ignorance.
“Not here,” she just replied and shook her head. “I’ll write this down later and have a closer look at it. It might prove useful someday to know that some planets were working differently.”
“But… but…,” he stammered again, unable to find the right words. He stopped for a moment and took a deep breath. “Okay, then explain to me please how exactly they raise the sun and moon?”
“Sorry, I don’t know the spell. It has been done by the princesses for so long that no unicorn is training to perform that task anymore. Before the first alicorn this duty was performed by a larger group of unicorns.”
“But that sounds like magic,” he pointed out and shook his head in disbelief. This time all the ponies looked at him like he said something stupid.
“Uhm, because it is?” Twilight replied cautiously.
“But there is no such thing as magic.”
If he weren’t sitting on the floor he would have jumped a step backwards now as Twilight’s horn suddenly began to glow a deep pink colour. The same colour that was now also surrounding one of the books from the shelves as it quickly flew over to her, only to stop shortly in front of her face, levitating in the air
Steve had stopped counting by now how often he thought he heard or seen the most irritating thing in the world, but this display was sure to top it all off. Right there in front of him levitated a book. With the usage of magic. Magic, which he had known was only an illusion, created by sleight of hand and invisible threads. And just like that, what he had known for so many years was proven wrong.
“What do you call this then?” Twilight asked, a satisfied smile on her lips while Steve stared at the floating book with a wide open mouth.
“I-I…”
“Do you want to tell me you have never seen magic before? Don’t you have it on your world?” she wondered and raised a brow.
“No,” he just stammered and shook his head.
“Oh,” she just said and thoughtfully looked into the air for a while. “That might explain a few things. I’m sorry, I thought you knew about magic, but now it’s clear why you didn’t understand what I meant.”
Magic, he let the word sound through his head again. “How does it work?”
“Well, I’d love to explain it to you, but that would take a while and you had your turn already.” She gave him a sly grin and finally his bewildered expression was replaced by a smile again.
“Very well.” He nodded it off. “But we kind of drifted off from the original question. So you have these alicorn princesses that somehow move the sun and the moon and are immortal, right?” She nodded. For the moment he would just accept this. Sure, he had just seen magic, something he thought was impossible just a few minutes ago, but there was huge difference in levitating a book and moving an entire planet. This was a question for another time, and he didn’t want to keep stuck on this subject for too long, there were still a lot of other things on his mind. A short explanation of magic as answer to his next question would have to do.
“Are they in complete power, or is there something like a parliament?”
“No, there is not.” She shook her head. “They have advisors of course, but ultimately they make all the decisions. But since they became alicorns because they represented all the values that it takes to lead a country their leadership is greatly accepted. Also everypony has the right to make a proposal to the princesses, as they receive any visitors for a certain period of the day.”
Slightly worried, Steve nodded it off. So they have a diarchy, with two allegedly immortal and basically all-powerful beings. That… sounds worrying, he concluded. But maybe this will all be clearer once we have talked more about their powers.
“Everything clear now?” Twilight asked and looked expectantly at him.
“Basically yes. Next question?”
“Tell me a bit more of Earth and your civilization,” Twilight’s question came quick as a shot. She seemed to have been waiting to ask that for a while.
“Well, that is a rather general question, but I guess after my last one that is just fair.” She just nodded eagerly. “Good, where should I start? It’s hard to capture this in a few sentences, we are way too diverse for that. Generally our lives are quite busy, sometimes even stressful, at least in the larger cities. I mean there are over seven billion people on the entire…” He didn’t get any further as he was interrupted by surprised gasps of the ponies.
“Seven billion?!” Twilight Sparkle shouted out.
“Yes,” he confirmed the question, slightly confused by the extreme reaction to that number. Sure, it was not a small number, but was it really as high as they made it sound?
“A billion, as in a thousand times a million?”
“Yes, of course,” he confirmed again and looked around the group. “Why?” he asked as he saw the bewilderment on the faces of the ponies.
“Oh my, so many…,” he heard Fluttershy whispering.
“Wow! So many birthdays have to be on the same day. Just imagine all the parties that calls for every day!” Pinkie Pie instead cheered.
“How is that even possible?” Twilight wanted to know.
“Is that really such a huge number for you?” The ponies nodded. “How many ponies are living here then?”
Thoughtfully Twilight stroke her chin for a few moments. “Well, we are three hundred and fourteen ponies and one dragon here in Ponyville, and a couple of pets. According to the last census all of Equestria is just shy of a million ponies. I don’t really know the exact numbers for the rest, but I doubt we would even reach seven million.”
“Oh, wow, and here I am, coming from a city with about as many humans as there are ponies on this world,” Steve said and couldn’t hide a grin. Now it was clear to him why they were so shocked by this number.
“One city?” Twilight repeated even more baffled.
“And by far not our largest. It is quite a sight to see it from above, especially at night. At some point it just seems like an endless ocean of lights.”
“I can’t even imagine how that works,” Twilight said and just stared off in the distance.
“Well, not all of our cities are that large of course. There are plenty of small villages, many the size of Ponyville or even smaller. Also for a long time that number wasn’t nearly that high. It was around two hundred years ago that we hit the one billion mark, from there on it went really fast,” he explained, immediately catching Twilight’s full attention again. “Medicinal and technological advances made it possible that we could support such large cities, and generally a far greater number of people, granting us an extremely high growth rate. I think it is safe to say that the population had a large impact on our lives. In a small village you sooner or later know everybody there at least a bit, and it is common to greet them if you see them on streets, but that would be completely impossible in a larger city, making the social life often focus more on a smaller group of friends. Well, at least for me.”
“But how can you feed so many people? Almost your entire land would have to be used for agriculture to grow so much food,” Twilight made her confusion vocal.
“Well… that can be problematic sometimes,” he admitted and looked down at the floor. “The population isn’t divided equally over the planet. Some countries are having big problems with overpopulation, leading to a general poverty and an inadequate lifestyle for the population there.” He tried to keep the subject short, he didn’t want to give them a too negative image of Earth, that would have been a very bad start for any future diplomatic actions, but he also didn’t want to leave it out completely.
Despite the rather general descriptions the ponies still seemed shocked at the news.
“Oh my, that sounds awful,” Fluttershy spoke up, voicing the unspoken opinion of the ponies.
“It is, but this is not how all of Earth is like. Like I said, we are diverse. I mean, just me being here, on a planet light-years away from our own, just shows of what we are also capable of,” he pointed around the room. “Please, don’t think that Earth would be a horrible place because of what you just heard, because we also have so much beauty there. It is hard to just describe our species. I believe that once my colleagues have arrived and I have access to more material I will be able to give you a better understanding of our world.” The ponies didn’t look completely relieved, but at least the mood felt a bit lighter than before. “Can I ask the next question then?” he asked.
“Sure,” Twilight signalized. She still seemed to be deeply thinking about what she just heard, but her initial shock seemed to be gone.
“Good, you could have probably guessed already, but I want to know more about magic. How does it work? What exactly is it and how do you use it?”
Twilight took a deep breath. “I think I’ll only go over the basics, that should just give you a rough idea.” Twilight stopped for a moment, searching for the right words to explain to someone who has never seen magic before what it is, before she began to talk, “Magic is the physical outcome of our mind. On the most basic level it is a manipulation of energy by our will, but we have to differ between multiple forms of magic. Every pony is able to perform magic, just not on the same level. Unicorns “ – she pointed at herself and Rarity – “have the most versatile and direct form of magic. By using our horns, which are directly connected to our brains, as a catalyst we can put our thoughts into action. This requires a lot of training to get really good at it, and most ponies never master more than a few tasks, mostly simple levitation of everyday items.” She stopped as Steve raised his hand.
“Is it exhausting?” he asked as Twilight expectantly looked at him.
“Yes, but that can be trained just like your stamina.” Twilight quickly nodded. “It also depends on what you are doing. Levitating a book like I did is quite simple, it’s a small and light item. If I would have to lift a boulder I would have to concentrate and couldn’t do it for very long.” This just brought up the question how exactly their princesses should move an entire planet then, but he kept that thought to himself for now.
“Anyways, that’s for unicorns,” Twilight continued. “Pegasi can’t directly cast magic, but it flows through their entire body, especially their hooves and wings. That way they can walk on clouds, and manipulate them with a bit of training, so that they can create weather. It also improves their flying, and grants them resistances against heat and cold.” She looked over at Rainbow Dash who just nodded it all off. “Lastly, earth ponies. Like pegasi the magic is running through their entire body, only there’s much more. It makes them physically stronger and allows them to form a special connection with nature, making them skilled farmers and craftsponies.”
Now it makes sense why that rainbow one could fly so easily and the normal ponies had so much power in their hooves. Magic, or rather an extra amount of energy, Steve concluded. “This sounds fascinating. Would you mind sometime in the future letting me study that? For science!” he cheered, causing Twilight to giggle at his enthusiasm.
“Sure, for science,” she repeated and thoughtfully stared into the air again. “My turn again. Let me see…”
As Steve was waiting for her to form her next question Rarity cleared her throat. “Twilight, dear, would you mind if I asked a question?” Rarity inquired.
“Of course not, go ahead,” Twilight Sparkle agreed and she looked over at her friends. “If any of you have a question just go ahead, that brings in a bit more versatility.”
“What would you like know?” Steve addressed Rarity.
“I was wondering about your clothes,” she said and waved with a hoof over his body, casting an inquisitive eye at his apparel. “I can’t remember seeing a material like this before and wondered why do you wear them?”
What does she mean, why am I wearing it? he wondered for a moment before it dawned on him. Right, they aren’t wearing any clothes, they have their coats.
“Well, you could barely find anyone with less taste for fashion than me, but I’ll try,” he chuckled, scratching the back of his head. “First of all, as you can see on my hands and face, humans don’t have fur like you, which means that we are wearing clothes all the time to not get cold. We basically always wear clothes when in public, only taking some of them off in special cases, like when we go swimming, or sunbathing.
These clothes are made from some kind of synthetic fibre, but that’s about all I know. They are comfortable to wear both when it’s warm and cold, but they are also very strong and easy to maintain. But this is just a uniform for our mission, normally I would just wear some shorter and lighter clothes, but I only have these here with me. They are coloured accordingly for each team. The technical crew is wearing blue, like me, the pilots wear orange and there’s black for security, and so on,” he explained while pointing at the blue parts of his suit.
“And what about those black things then?” Rarity pressed on, pointing at his chest.
“This here,” he said and looked down at his body. “Is what we call a bulletproof vest. It’s a light type of body armour, also made out of some kind of synthetic fibre, I think it’s called aramid, and with some small metal plates inside it.” With a few quick grabs he took and off and put the vest down on the floor. “As you can see, it has a lot of pockets so I can carry many things with me, and it’s also very light so I can move freely and if I were attacked it would protect many critical body parts.”
“Were you expecting to be attacked?” Twilight now spoke up.
Damn, poor choice of words, Steve berated himself.
“I was unsure what to find,” he admitted and looked her straight in the eyes. “When I put it on I didn’t know if I would be meeting wildlife instead of civilization.”
“I understand,” Twilight just said and inspected the vest on the ground. “But what’s inside the vest and there’s also a lot of stuff in your belt, if I see correctly. What is that?”
“Well,” he began and took off the belt, placing it next to the vest, pulling out the audio recorder and the translator from it first. “As you now know we humans don’t have magic, so instead we invented machines to do tasks for us that our bodies alone are just not capable of. One of our more simple inventions is this audio recorder.” He held the little black box up in the air. “As the name implies it records noises. It even does so right now, as you can see here.” He tilted the recorder and showed them a glowing green light. “At least I hope that means that,” he muttered to himself. “Anyways, it stores the audio inside there and I can listen to it later again. Very useful for a lot of situations, if you can’t write it all down on paper. And you can use it to record music as well.”
Twilight peered at the recorder in fascination, her rapt attention on the object causing him to note how unintentionally adorable she looked right now. “I can’t even begin to imagine how much that would help me with my studies. It would be so much faster than to write everything down,” she said, leaning forward a bit to get a closer look.
Steve looked between her and the small device in his hands a few times. “You know what, I have so many of these things, I think I can probably spare one,” he offered.
Twilight beamed in excitement. “Really? That would be so great. Thank you!”
“No problem,” he just waved it off. “But not this one, I still need it.” Twilight just nodded, still with a wide smile on her face. “Let’s move on. This here is a translator,” he announced and held the almost identical looking box into the air. “And as you might have guessed, it translates. I have to say I am more than just mildly surprised we speak the same language, so it’s actually useless now.”
“Hold on!” Twilight shouted, staring at him with open eyes. From the looks of it she just had a great revelation. “How can you speak Equish?” she whispered faintly.
She only realized now that we were actually speaking the same language for about an hour? He had to resist the urge to slap his hand against his forehead.
“I could ask you how you can speak English, but I think our answers will be the exact same,” he returned. “I have no idea.” He shrugged.
“But… but…” Now it was Twilight’s turn to stammer in confusion at this correlation.
“I’ve been thinking about that since I first heard you talk and I have to admit I thought I was dreaming at first.” But his words seemed to have hit deaf ears as Twilight was just blankly staring at him.
“Uhm, Twi?” Applejack who sat on the cushion beside her spoke up after a while and waved her hoof in front of her eyes. Steve had been focused so much on Twilight since she was asking almost every question that he had been barely paying any attention to them lately.
“Nah, she’s gone, give her a sec,” Rainbow threw in and simply waved it off with a hoof.
Slightly confused, Steve stared at the absent Twilight, but the other ponies didn’t seem to be too unfamiliar with that sight. Does that happen to her regularly? he wondered. I mean I kind of zone out too sometimes, but she’s like, gone.
“Should we wait or can I just go on?” Steve asked around cautiously after a short while. Rarity was about to open her mouth to reply, but then Twilight suddenly shook her head again.
“Welcome back, Twi” Rainbow Dash greeted the unicorn with a laugh and nudged her with the tip of her outstretched wing.
Twilight blinked a few times and stared at Rainbow Dash for a second before her eyes went back on Steve. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I just can’t believe I haven’t noticed that until now.”
“It’s fine,” he waved it off. “And like I said, I have no explanation for it, so unless you found something that I’ve missed” – he stopped for a moment, but Twilight just shook her head – “I would suggest that we just continue where we left off.” Twilight nodded. “Good, so where was I? Ah yes, the translator. Well, it’s useless now – “ He shrugged “ – but in theory I would have recorded your voices and then your language would be analysed and I’d have a lexicon that can talk.”
“How does that even work? I thought you said you didn’t have any magic?” Twilight asked, sounding just as curious as before.
Steve chuckled slightly at her words. “No, we don’t, but we have the next best thing; technology. A full explanation on how it works would take a very long while, we would still be sitting here tomorrow.” For some reasons Twilight’s enthusiasm only seemed strengthened by that. “But I think we should keep this short today so we get through more questions, don’t you think?”
The purple unicorn didn’t seem happy with that, but still agreed. Steve looked back down at his equipment and was looking a bit concerned. The rest he was carrying with him were weapons of some sort, mainly defensive ones, but still. Good thing I left that rifle in the ship, he thought to himself before pulling out the knife from the belt.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked as he lifted the sheath with the knife in it, lifting the knife a bit so they could see the blade.
The ponies just nodded quietly. Good, that didn’t seem too worrying to them, he encouraged himself and took a look over the remaining items.
“And how about this?” he asked as he raised the flashbang into the air. “Does anyone know what this is?”
“Oh! Oh! Is this a guessing game?!” Pinkie Pie cheered and immediately stood up from her cushion. “I love guessing games! Is this a can?”
“Uhm, no Pinkie Pie, this is not a guessing game, sorry,” he said and shook his head. The pink pony looked a bit saddened as she sat back down again. “But this is what we call a flashbang or stun grenade.” He rotated it in his hands to see if there stood anything on it. “An M84 stun grenade,” he read off the top the metallic cylinder. “It explodes in a very bright light and loud noise by pulling that thing here.” He pointed at the pin. “Which I don’t want to do now, but it is relatively safe. It’s unlikely that there are permanent or severe injuries, it would just disorient anyone near it when it goes off for a while.”
A quick glance at the faces of the ponies confirmed his thought. So far they are taking this very lightly. That’s good. I just hope they don’t overreact on the next item though. With a sigh he held up the holster with the pistol in it. “This here is an actual weapon that I carry with me. And I’m very sorry to have brought it here, I just didn’t know what I would be facing.” The ponies eyed it closely, but he could only see confused looks on their faces.
Twilight was the first to voice what they seemed to think. “That doesn’t look like a weapon to me.”
He pulled the pistol from the holster, making sure that the safety lock was still on and released the magazine from it. “It doesn’t look like much, but it shoots these small metal projectiles here…” He stopped for a moment, putting down the holster and showing the inside of the magazine. “With a high enough speed for them to simply pierce through any light materials, including a body.”
As expected the ponies now were shocked at his words. They didn’t seem to expect to be expecting much from that little piece of metal and plastic.
“Why would you need something like that?” Fluttershy whispered, cowering slightly as Steve turned towards her.
“I hope that I never will. I never have aimed at anything that was alive and I plan to keep it that way. But as I said earlier, I had no idea what was expecting me, and if I would have gotten into a dangerous situation it could have saved my life. In retrospect I should have just left it at the ship,” he replied slightly guilty.
“I think it was the right decision to take it with you,” Twilight returned.
“Yeah, I know, I’m sor… wait, what? You are okay with that?” Steve asked, confused at her statement. Out of all I would have expected her to freak out for bringing an alien weapon into her home.
“Yes, of course,” she confirmed and nodded her head. “You haven’t seen any yet, but we have weapons as well and as you correctly stated you didn’t know what to expect. Instead of my friends and me you could have been found by a manticore or worse.” Twilight looked around the group and they seemed to be convinced. Before Steve had the chance to think about where he heard the word manticore before Twilight continued, “Now I wouldn’t want to have a weapon with me, especially one as powerful as you described it, but you weren’t going to use it unless you absolutely had to, right?”
“Of course not!” he immediately replied. “Thanks for your understanding, Twilight.” He looked around the group and noticed that by this point they seemed completely relaxed again. They must trust Twilight a lot, he thought, impressed at how the situation had quickly changed again. It would probably a good idea to have more contact with her until I get to meet an official representative of their country. She might be just the per… pony to help me make a good first impression here.
“I have another question,” he spoke up again. “If it’s not too personal, that is, but what do the symbols on your flanks mean? I see you all have a different one.”
“These are cutie marks,” Twilight replied immediately. “Don’t you have them?” He shook his head. “Well, everypony has a very special talent, something they excel in. Once they find out what this talent is their cutie mark appears to show it to the world. For example my special talent is magic, though it may not be quite clear from the symbol. But Applejack for example” – she pointed over at the orange mare with the hat, on whose flank he saw three red apples – “is the best apple farmer you can find in all of Equestria.” Applejack just tilted her head over her face to hide the faint blush that appeared on her cheeks.
Steve had to hold back a chuckle at the thought that Applejack, with the image of apples on her flanks, was good at farming apples. “And what happens if you don’t like that special talent you have?” he asked instead. “Or what happens if you are also really good at something else?”
For a while Twilight seemed to ponder over the question before she replied, “I have never heard of a case where somepony doesn’t like their special talent, after all, it is what they are the best at. But being the best at one thing doesn’t mean they can’t be good at anything else. There have been cases of ponies getting two cutie marks, but that is extremely rare and I would have to look up what exactly happened to them after they got their second one.”
“I see, so it basically tells you if you have found the right path for you?” he inquired.
“Correct,” Twilight confirmed. “But since you have no cutie mark could you tell me a bit of how you know when you have found what you excel in? Most species on this planet don’t have cutie marks, it’s just that I never really gotten the chance to talk with any of them about it and I’m just curious.”
Steve thought about it for a moment. Having something telling you when you were right instead of a trial and error procedure seemed much better. “To be honest, we don’t know it. I just hope the paths I chose were correct. There is always the chance that if I had decided otherwise I would have maybe found something that I would have like more, but as for now I’m happy, and I think that’s all that counts.”
“And what’s the path you chose?”
“I’m an academic,” he exclaimed. “But before I name specific numbers, I have a quick question about the units you measure time in. Do you have days and years?”
“Yes. A day is twenty four hours long, an hour is sixty minutes, which again is sixty seconds long. I have a clock over there to that can tell you how long a second is, just watch the long hand,” she said and pointed behind him. He turned around to see an actual clock hanging on the wall.
I probably should take an exact measurement, but looks pretty much the same as the second that I know.
After Steve turned back around to her again, Twilight continued, “Thirty days form a month, and twelve months form a year, making a year three hundred and sixty days long. “
“Perfect, almost identical with how we have it, only that our months vary in length and we come to a total of three hundred and sixty five days, usually.” He got himself in a more comfortable position on the cushion before he continued his story. “As I said, I’m an academic, meaning that I have spent most of my time in some sort of school or university. I always was fascinated by technology and math, and for eleven years I was in school, which basically teaches a bit about various subjects. Near the end I found a great interest in computer science.” He saw that Twilight was about to ask a question, so he beat her to it by giving the answer already. “I’ll explain to you sometime what a computer is, this will really take me days to fully explain.” The unicorn just closed her mouth again and nodded. “Well, from there I continued with university, there you can specialize in a certain subject, but they also want you to take a look into a field that is closely related to your own. There I choose mechanical engineering. This went on for a good eight years until I finally graduated with what we call a doctors degree. I was just twenty six back then but most of my life I had spent on education.
“So once I finished studying I had to get work. I applied as an aerospace technician at a space agency back on Earth, where I also got accepted. Apparently they thought I had been doing a good job, so when I heard about the mission we were starting with the Columbus I applied and after a long selection process I had found my place on board. Having someone with a background from computer science instead of physics or engineering was valuable for them as I had to make sure that the systems were working correctly and would be able to fix them if they weren’t.” He was aware that it was a waste of time to get too technical with them about this so he tried to keep his description as brief as he could. “Anyways, it was a very big honour to be accepted, since I could have been one of the first humans to discover alien life, which I turned out to actually be.” A wide grin found its way on his lips. “And that’s how I spent the last two years of my life. Travelling here.”
“Two years?” Twilight blurted out.
“Space is big, planets are very far away from each other and even though we travel fast it still takes a lot of time.” He shrugged. “Sometimes it felt even longer than it already was, but now that I am here, having found exactly what I was hoping for I can say that it was worth it. This is a truly amazing place.”
“I’m glad you like it,” Twilight replied with a soft smile before taking a quick glance at the clock. “It’s getting quite late,” she pointed out and Steve looked out of the window. The sun was setting already. “I still have more questions left, but I think we should call it a day for now. Maybe we can continue this tomorrow?”
“I’ll be looking forward to it.”
“Wonderful. I don’t know about you,” Twilight began and stood up from the cushion, stretching herself. “But I’m starting to get hungry. How about you?” She looked all around the group.
Now that she mentioned it, Steve could hear the grumbling of his stomach. “I could eat a bit now too. I haven’t had anything since breakfast.”
“I have to admit that I’m not that good of a cook, and I don’t think we can go to a restaurant right now, but I have enough in the house to at least make some sandwiches,” Twilight offered and made her way into the kitchen already.
“Silly, Sugarcube Corner has always been open for my friends! You can all try my newest cupcake as well. Twily did earlier today and she loved it, right?” Pinkie Pie chirped, a grin on her face.
“That does sound great, but I’m afraid I have to decline. I don’t know yet how my body will react to your food. I would have to analyse it to find out if it’s safe. So if you’re okay with it I would just take a few samples.”
“Okie dokie lokie! I think I even have one right here with me,” Pinkie Pie replied and pulled out a dark cupcake from underneath the cushion, handing it to Steve, whose jaw had dropped. “Here you go!”
Steve stammered a few unintelligent words before coming to his senses again. “How did you do that? I thought earth ponies don’t have magic like that. It surely wasn’t there before!” Pinkie Pie just responded with an even wider grin.
“It’s just Pinkie being Pinkie,” Twilight replied and shrugged. The rest of the ponies showed similar reactions.
Okay, maybe I just don’t get that magic thing yet, he tried to calm himself.
“Anyways, if you like I can prepare you a little basket with some foods,” Twilight offered and grabbed the cupcake from Pinkie’s hoof with her magic, letting it glow in the same dark pink light that had surrounded the book before. Steve just nodded faintly. “What do humans eat by the way?” she shouted over her shoulder as she had entered the little kitchen he had seen earlier.
Aren’t horses herbivores? he tried to quickly remember. Well, what counts for horses that I know, not necessarily for the ones here. Also there was a dragon. I doubt a dragon would eat grass, even if it’s just a small one like Spike.
“Humans are omnivores, if that’s what you mean. So basically everything,” he replied, earning him quizzically looks from most of the ponies.
“What’s that?” Rainbow spoke up.
“It means that he eats both plants and meat, Rainbow,” Fluttershy calmly replied for him, turning the confused looks turned into suspicion, or in Rainbow Dash’s case hostility.
“Why would you eat an animal?!” she shouted furiously.
Argh, this is bad, he thought and panic began to rise.
Again Fluttershy stepped in before Steve could try to defend himself. “Rainbow Dash, I expected you to know better,” Fluttershy scolded her friend and gave her a stern look.
“Huh?” the pegasus just returned and now looked rather baffled at Fluttershy.
“You remember Harry, the bear, or your gryphon friend, Gilda, don’t you?” Fluttershy pointed out, the timidity in her voice suddenly disappearing. Steve just watched the scene in silence.
“Yeah, so?” Rainbow shrugged. She wasn’t seeing where Fluttershy was going with this.
“Then you know that both of them eat meat as well,” Fluttershy said bluntly and now Rainbow looked at her with shock. “And they are not the only ones. You know how many critters I tend to, and many of them eat meat. It’s in their nature.”
“Hold on…” Rainbow raised a hoof and stared blankly at her friend for a while. “How come I’ve never seen Gilda eating meat then?”
“Because she never did it in the open, like every other gryphon in Cloudsdale,” Fluttershy retorted slightly confused. “Have you really never noticed? I mean, it wasn’t sold at the local markets in town, but surely you had noticed it sometimes?” Rainbow just shook her head in disbelief. “Oh my…”
Awkwardly Rainbow Dash began to scratch the back of her head with a hoof and looked over at Steve. “Uhm, sorry for bursting out like that,” she pressed out awkwardly and tried to overplay it with a chuckle.
Steve let out a relieved sigh. “It’s fine. To be honest, I expected a reaction like this, and am surprised that you are all taking it rather well.” He looked around, but none of the other ponies had anything to object.
“Oh, well of course, dear,” Rarity piped up. “I have stopped counting how often my lovely little cat has brought me dead mice by now, but I have gotten used to it.”
“Same here, Sugarcube,” Applejack joined in. “Ya don’t have to live on a farm for too long to see that that’s just the way it is sometimes.”
Meanwhile Twilight has returned from the kitchen, an open bag with what looked like various fruits levitating in a purple aura behind her. “Sorry, I couldn’t quite catch your answer back there, but from what I heard from Rainbow,” she stopped and shot a quick glance at the cyan-coloured pegasus, who still looked a bit ashamed. “I believe you told them you are an omnivore. Am I right?”
“Yes,” he replied a bit irritated at having to bring back the unpleasant topic so soon. “You expected that didn’t you?”
“Yes, based on your sharper teeth I concluded that your kind is omnivorous.”
“So you are okay with it?” he asked, hoping she would say yes.
Twilight nodded, his irritation once again diminishing as he sighed.
“Great,” he gave her a short nod of acknowledgement, stood up and walked to the bag Twilight had prepared for him. “I do have to say that looks fantastic, I really hope I can eat it,” he said eagerly as he glanced over the bag. “My ship is well supplied, but only in numbers. Unless they packed different rations in here, which I doubt, it will all just taste bland, so this I’m really looking forward to for a change. Thank you a lot, Twilight Sparkle and all of you for this warm welcome, it’s the best I could have hoped for,” he exclaimed with a smile on his lips.
“Oh, it’s nothing, and just call me Twilight,” she replied, blushing a bit at the compliment. “Is there anything else you need help with now, or do you just want to go back to your ship?”
For a moment he considered. “No, I’m good, thanks,” he replied and shook his head as he took the bag that Twilight had still been levitating. “We can continue this tomorrow, maybe I can also show you a bit of my ship, if we have the time.”
“That would be great!” she cheered with an enthusiasm that just brought a smile on his lips.
“It’s settled then. I should be going before it gets dark.” He took a glance out of the window. “I will see you tomorrow then.”
Before he could reach the door he heard Twilight's voice again. “Wait!” she called out. “I think we should come with you through town,” she added sheepishly.
“Oh yes, I almost forgot,” he replied, scratching the back of his head in slight embarrassment.
“I’m coming with you,” Twilight announced and turned towards her friends. “Any of you want to come along? I don’t think we all have to be there, but maybe somepony needs to go in the same direction as well.”
Applejack stepped forward. “Mah farms in the same direction, so ah’ll come along too.”
Rainbow shrugged. “Yeah sure, I’ll tag along. I want to see this ship of yours again. You said it can fly, but it doesn’t even have wings or anything,” she pointed out, incredulity creeping into her voice.
“Unfortunately it can’t fly at the moment. It runs on hydrogen, but the small amount that fits in the fuel tank was used up during the landing. But as soon as the rest of the crew gets here you can see it in action,” he explained to her.
Lastly Fluttershy stepped forward, whispering something about her cottage being on the way as well, the determination she just had when telling off Rainbow Dash had vanished. With no one else joining them, the small group was back out on the streets a few moments later, and just like when they arrived the streets were deserted.
Steve heard Twilight sighing before they got on their way. “Is it always this bad with strangers, or is it worse in my case because they have no idea where I’m coming from?” he asked cautiously. The contrast between the ponies that had welcomed him and the residents of the town stood out clearly, confusing Steve.
“It is more of the latter,” Twilight admitted. “We had something similar a while ago. Zecora, a zebra, is living in the Everfree Forest. That is the forest that begins south of the town, just where you landed. Anyway, when she first came into town everypony was afraid of her as well, and it looked just like it does now. Most ponies didn’t know what a zebra really was, with them living far to the south, well beyond the Everfree Forest, and it is rare to see one even in the larger cities,” Twilight told him and curiously he was hanging on her every word. “This wouldn’t have been much of a problem if she wasn’t living in the Everfree.” He raised a brow. “Oh, of course, you don’t know,” she quickly added as she noticed his look. “The Everfree Forest is a dangerous place, filled with many wild creatures. Nopony would choose to live there, so they all expected Zecora to be dangerous as well, which she wasn’t at all, in fact she is one of the most helpful and wise creatures you could find, but it still took time for the ponies here to properly accept that.” Twilight took a short pause and Steve gave a nod. The way she was putting it made sense to him. “For you they don’t even know what you are or where you came from. They may not even realize that whatever we all saw falling from the sky was a ship that carried you in it, but an unknown creature coming from the south, where there is nothing but the forest, is a reason for them to be scared.”
“Ah, so you have helped her integrating here as well?” Steve asked and lightened up a bit. If Twilight and her friends have helped this zebra then they were sure to help him, making a perfect start for the other humans that would be coming soon.
“Well… uhm… actually…” Twilight began to stutter and looked at the ground. “At first we tried to attack her because we thought she kidnapped a foal,” she eventually admitted, her face turning red in embarrassment.
“But we’re totally cool now!” Rainbow Dash quickly threw in. “That’s behind us and we learned a lot from it.”
“The rest of the town didn’t learn as much as we did but ah’m sure they will like ya too. They are really nice ponies once ya get to know them,” Applejack said.
Let’s hope so… was Steve’s final thought.
***
The rest of the travel went by quietly. They followed the same small dirt road that had led them to the town earlier today and when they arrived at the first crossway Fluttershy parted from the group, taking the path to the west where she said her cottage was, and a while later they arrived at the point in the road where Steve had just to pass the field to get back to this ship.
“Well, ah gotta go a bit further down the road, that’s where our farm is,” Applejack said and pointed towards the south. Steve realized that he hadn’t even looked in that direction yet, and now with the slightly dimmer light it was a bit hard to tell, but from the looks of it there was a large field full of apple trees, completely surrounded by the forest in every direction but from where they were looking from. That must be the farm she was talking about. “Have a good night y’all.” The orange pony tilted her hat one last time before she continued walking down the road.
The remaining group went straight across the field, heading towards a hill near the beginning of the forest behind which Steve’s ship was waiting. As they came around the hill they saw the ship standing there just as expected, only this time due to the quickly setting sun, with loads more small lights glowing everywhere.
“What is all that on the outside, and how do you make the lamps glow if you don’t have magic?” Twilight asked him after she inspected the ship for a short while. Rainbow Dash had quickly taken off and was flying around it, inspecting it from all sides.
Steve took a closer look as well. “To be honest I don’t really know what each of these things does from the top of my head, basically they are either some sort of scanner, meaning they measure things in the area. I was informed about your arrival a few minutes before you were here because the heat of your bodies was showing up, but it also can analyse the air, temperature and so on,” he began to explain and waved with his hand over the ship. “Some of them are antennas, I need these for long range communication.” He saw in her eyes that Twilight had even more questions now, but she let it be for now since it was getting quite late already. “And the lights… are either there for identification or safety. There are lists about what a light in which colour on what position means, but I never bothered to read it, so yeah…” He shrugged. “As for the how, let’s just say electricity, that’s a form of energy that powers our machines. I get it from the sunlight with these things there,” he said and pointed at a few large black plates that were standing away at the side of the ship. “They are solar panels, they generate electricity from sunlight.”
“Fascinating,” Twilight simply stated and inspected the ship a little further. Shortly after, Rainbow Dash landed in front of them. “I guess I say goodbye to you know. Thank you for answering our questions, it has been a very informative day.”
“Likewise,” he quickly added.
“I hope you have enjoyed your first day in Equestria, and we will speak to you tomorrow. Do you mind if I just come by and pick you up?”
“Not at all. I’m looking forward to it. Goodnight you two.” Unsure what to do he offered them his hand for a final handshake.
“Have a good one,” Rainbow said and shook his hand with her hoof.
“Goodnight,” Twilight said and repeated the gesture.
Steve turned around to the ship, the airlock was already unlocking as he stepped on the ramp, waving a final goodbye for the day to the two ponies that still stood there and were watching, fascinated as the door opened.
Never thought that an opening door could be interesting to someone, or somepony in this case, he thought and stepped inside the airlock, the door locking behind him.
“Welcome back, Steve. I hope you had a good day,” Sarah greeted him immediately as the inner door opened and he set his first foot inside the ship.
“Hey Sarah. You could say that. It was very informative. You received the audio data?”
“Affirmative. I took the freedom of saving it in the mission logs. Do you wish to add anything to it?”
“Not really, I’m just gonna write a quick report linking to the file, naming everyone involved and so on.”
“I already have,” Sarah replied.
“Really? Well, that’s great then,” he said, slightly surprised by the initiative the AI had shown. Maybe she’s not as bad as I thought, or all the hours I’ve spent in here fixing everything have really paid off. He raised the bag that Twilight gave him. “I have some samples here that I need to analyse, but I don’t know how to use the lab equipment. Can you help me?”
“Of course,” she replied, much to Steve’s pleasure. “During your absence I have finished further scans. Light damage of the communication array detected. Required spare parts are aboard.”
“Very good. I think I’ll do that tomorrow though, I’m a bit exhausted and will go to sleep early. I can’t wait until the rest of the team hears of this place, they won’t believe what’s going on here.” Sarah remained silent as he made his way into the cargo room, searching through the supply boxes until he found a conserve that sounded appetizing.
Goulash with potatoes, and fruit salad. Well, there isn’t much that can go wrong there.
One tasteless meal later, Steve found himself in the laboratory. His inspection here this morning had been more than brief, so as he opened the doors to one of the cabinets he was relieved to find no shattered glass or other signs of immediate damage on the machines.
“Which one do I need to use to analyse food samples to see if they are edible?” he asked over his shoulder.
“One cabinet to your right, middle shelf,” Sarah guided him. Opening said cabinet he spotted a blank, white machine with four drawers inside it. “Open the drawers and insert the sample, I will take care of the rest.”
Well, that was easy, Steve thought as he cut of a small part of every item in the bag and inserted it into the drawer. Now I can only hope they will be edible. That apple sure looked juicy.
With that problem out of the way he left the lab to store the remaining items in the small fridge in the kitchen. Now there was just one thing left to do before getting his well-deserved rest for today. Cleaning up the bedroom which was still a mess. As he stood in the doorway taking a look over the chaos his motivation dropped, and for a moment he considered just grabbing a blanket and sleeping on the couch for tonight, but eventually he cleared one bedframe of everything that was on it, pulled one of the mattresses from the ground up onto the frame and just like that he had gotten a real bed for tonight. The rest of the room could wait until tomorrow to be cleaned up.
With a few grabs he took off his vest, belt and overall and let himself fall down on the bed, staring at the blank ceiling of the room. For a while he was just lying there, his mind going over the day once again. If anyone would have told him that he one day would land on a world filled with magical, talking ponies he would have laughed out loud, but here he was.
He pulled the blanket over himself and said to the room, “Sarah?”
“Yes, Steve?” the AI quickly replied.
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Steve.”