//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 - Town 
// Story: Contact 
// by Gron 
//------------------------------//

“So­… what do you think?”
 
“Huh?” Twilight asked confusedly. She had been staring at the alien vessel for a while now, unable to tell how long she had just stood there in silence, letting her thoughts drift by.
 
“About all this,” Rainbow repeated and waved a hoof over the ship in front of them.
 
Twilight averted her eyes from it and looked back at her friend, sighing before shaking her head. “I don’t know,” she admitted and slowly turned around, getting ready to head back to Ponyville. “He gave me so much to think about, I have to sleep on all of this.”
 
“Same for me,” Rainbow agreed as she trotted alongside Twilight over the meadows that separated them from the dirt road back to their home. “I always thought that ponies who really believed in aliens were a bit nuts, and now this...”
 
“I know,” Twilight replied. “To be honest, I had been thinking about that sometimes, but never really believed it. This was something more suited for a fiction novel than real life, but here we are, having just talked to an actual alien and brought him back to his spaceship. It all feels so…”
 
“Unreal?” Rainbow helped her out.
 
“Kind of. And I have to admit that it wasn’t quite like I imagined it to be.”
 
“How did you expect it to be?” Rainbow Dash inquired.
 
Twilight remained silent for a while. “I don’t know. I have never imagined things that he described. The ability to fly through space alone. Do you even know what is out there, in between all those stars?” Twilight asked and pointed at the night sky. With the sun having almost completely set by now the stars slowly began to appear.
 
“Nah, not really,” Rainbow replied and shrugged. “What’s there?”
 
“Nothing, not even air to breath,” Twilight explained. “And think of the distances. Even at your fastest, I doubt you could reach even the moon within a week of straight flying, with no sleep or rest whatsoever. And he said he came from much further away.”
 
Rainbow remained silent, a thoughtful look on her face telling Twilight that she seemed to grasp the concept now. After a while Twilight spoke up again. “These humans seem… strange. From a technical point of view they seem to have surpassed us by thousands of years, but what he told us about their world? Starvation? This is something Equestria hasn’t seen since before the unification. And they are so incredibly many…”
 
“I know,” Rainbow agreed again. “That sounded really horrible.”
 
“I still hope to learn more about them though. I think it would be greatly beneficial for both our nations. And he seemed interested as well, being a scientist from their world. I think we will both learn a lot from each other,” Twilight said eagerly.
 
“Got a new egghead friend, huh?” Rainbow asked with an impish grin. “Finally someone you can talk about all that boring science stuff of yours with.”
 
“Hey! It’s not boring! It’s very interesting and if you would just take some time and read a book or two about it you could learn a lot and…” she replied hotly but got cut off by Rainbow’s waving hoof.
 
“Easy there Twi, just a little teasing,” she said, although her grin only widened at how easily she had riled up the unicorn. “So what do you have planned for tomorrow?”
 
“I have to await the response of the princess first, I still need to inform her of all my findings today, but I think the best course of action would be to show him around town. But first I need the other ponies to not run away in fear,” Twilight replied and sighed, her temporary foul mood swiftly departing as she began to consider how she could accomplish her goals.
 
“Do you want some help with that?” Rainbow offered. “I can help you spread the word or something.”
                                  
“I don’t think that will be necessary. If we just do the same as we did with Zecora, which was just having her around town proving that she wasn’t posing any threat to them, it should work. I just had hoped they had learned a bit more from back then,” Twilight replied, recalling the event with some embarrassment.
 
“If you say so. I’ll probably be a bit busy tomorrow morning anyways. Looks like we’ll get a bunch of clouds in that need to be cleared soon,” Rainbow returned as her gaze trailed off over the Everfree Forest, where a bunch of clouds were hovering near the border. “Gotta keep the weather like today for a while longer, so you chose the perfect time for a tour.”
 
“This might be a great point for our tour,” Twilight suddenly exclaimed. “Would you mind if we come by at some point so you can demonstrate a few weather tricks?”
 
“Sure thing.” The rest of the way the two ponies spent in silence, both wrapped up in their own thoughts, and a while later they stood in front of the door to Twilight’s house. Rainbow Dash hadn’t even realized that she had been going all the way back with Twilight, but since she could reach her house in under a minute from basically any point within the city she didn’t mind.
 
“See you tomorrow then. I hope the princess agrees with my plan,” Twilight said eagerly
 
“Alright, see ya tomorrow then. Night Twi,” Rainbow bid her goodbye, lifting herself off the ground and heading for her house in the sky slightly northwest of the city, barely hearing the ‘goodbye’ from Twilight. What she could still hear quite clearly however was the name of a certain dragon as Twilight was calling for her little assistant.
 

***

 
Steve muttered some unintelligible words as he slammed his hand on the alarm clock that was integrated in the wall next to the head of his bed. Sleepily he looked at it and the glowing red letters told him that it was half past six, presumably in the morning. Sarah must have had the clocks adjusted to the local time sometime last night as he couldn’t recall them stating a time when he went to sleep.
 
“Did you have to set the alarm that early?” he grumbled a bit louder so that the AI could hear him. He had never been a very long sleeper, but 6:30 was rough, especially after the long day yesterday and today would probably be just as packed.
 
“Yes,” Sarah replied calmly. As a matter of fact Sarah was speaking the exact same way all the time, in her monotonous robotic voice, he just presumed that she would speak calmly. Would she even fill her voice with any sort of emotion? Does she even know what emotions are? Quickly Steve shook his head. It was too early in the morning to think about that. “I went over the audio logs from yesterday and since you were invited for a tour through their town I figured I should plan in enough time for you in the morning to finish the repairs on the ship.”
 
Steve rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, stood up from the bed and stretched himself. “Fine, fine. Well done.” He sighed. He would have preferred to sleep in a bit today, but she was right, he had to fix the ship before Twilight would arrive. She hadn’t specified at what time she would come, but judging by the eagerness of the purple unicorn she would probably be here soon. “Just give me a few minutes to get ready.”
 
A habit he had developed sometimes during the journey here was to always start the day with a short amount of morning sport, even if he always had to force himself to do it. At least he was awake afterwards and it also helped somewhat in keeping him fit. Reluctantly he laid down on the floor and went through his usual routine of push-ups, sit-ups and the worst part of all, stretching.
 
Shortly after he made his way into the bathroom, but not before stopping by the command centre, from where he could get a great view of the sunrise above the forest to the east. He was a bit too late to see the sunrise in all its glory, and part of him wished he would have woken up even earlier. He hadn’t seen a real sunrise in years and that would have been a perfect sight now, but the sun was still standing low, bathing the forest in a deep orange glare as the celestial body slowly rose in the distance.
 
He stayed there for a couple more minutes before going about the rest of his usual morning routine and a little later he stood fresh and fully dressed in front of the bathroom mirror, checking his image one final time. He had slight rings below his eyes, and the short stubbles on his chin didn’t justify a fresh shave just yet. Seems acceptable, he nodded it off and left the small bathroom again.
 
“I have finished analysing your samples in the meantime,” Sarah suddenly spoke up.
 
“And?” he eagerly inquired. He was hoping for some good news right now.
 
“Every sample is edible, although a critically high level of sugar has been found in one, which I advise not to consume. The complete test result can be seen on the main computer terminal,” the AI informed him, bringing a wide smile to his lips.
 
“Perfect! Just what I was hoping for,” he cheered and quickly made his way to the terminal. He took a quick glance over it. Everything was looking perfectly fine, but then his eyes fell on the report of the cupcake sample he had thrown into the machine. “That thing is sixty percent sugar?!” he shouted out in surprise. “How is that even possible?”
 
“No data available.”
 
Didn’t horses on Earth get sugar as a treat? I guess these ponies just like sugar as well, but I think I would get diabetes if I ate that. Too bad, it looked really good, Steve thought sullenly but quickly shook off the thought. Everything else in the bag was edible and was about to serve as the first fresh breakfast he’d had in years, so his saddened mood was immediately lightened up again.
 
He looked one last time over the report to see if he missed anything important, but that didn’t seem to be the case, and before long he found himself in the small kitchen, getting the items out of the fridge again. In retrospect it might have not been his smartest idea to store fruit in a fridge overnight as they had gotten quite cold, but that didn’t seem to occur to him yesterday.
 
He lined up everything that Twilight had given him on the kitchen counter. Next to the cupcake from Pinkie, which unfortunately he couldn’t eat, were two apples, a few slices of dark bread and some tomatoes. Not insanely much, but it would do for a tasty breakfast.
 
With the last of the apples in his mouth he left the kitchen a few minutes later. His initial thought had turned out to be correct, the apple was incredibly juicy and slightly sweet, yet a bit cold due to his method of storage. “Sarah, I’ll take a look at the communication array now, I need a full report,” he ordered her. Slightly sheepishly he added, “And probably your help to fix it.”
 
A short while, but still plenty of bumps later Steve crawled out from underneath the floor of the ship again. Most of the floor tiles were removable and covered up the sensitive electronics underneath, giving an easy way to access them in case they needed repairs. Fortunately for him there were only a few cables that had gotten loose and a circuit board that had cracks in it. With a bit of guidance he was able to fix it quickly, but the space underneath the floor had been so narrow that he still bumped his head at every possible occasion.
 
“Ouch,” he said to himself as he rubbed the back of his head and took a look at the watch that he now wore around his wrist. Not even eight o’clock yet, he thought to himself. “Sarah, can you try to contact the Columbus now?”
 
“I am already on it. I will inform you once I have established contact.”

“Good, they won’t believe what’s going on here,” he said more to himself and grinned, before trying to think of anything he could do before Twilight showed up. Waiting here inside while there was a whole new world outside to see wasn’t very entertaining, but he figured it would be best to wait for her.
 
“I am detecting a heat signature approaching from the northwest. Approximate distance: two hundred metres,” Sarah suddenly spoke up, ending his thoughts.
 
Ah, speak of the devil, Steve thought and was about to make his way towards the airlock, but not before taking a quick stop in the cargo room again to pick up one of the audio recorders to document today’s findings again. The airlock was already opening as she now approached him and he said goodbye to Sarah before stepping out into the world again. This time he wasn’t blinded that much, as the sun was still standing low in the southeast.
 
Quickly he went down the ramp and just as he arrived on the ground he saw a purple unicorn coming around the hill. “Good morning, Twilight,” he greeted her and waved at her with one arm. As she was getting closer he could see a saddlebag hanging over her back, with a buckle that looked a lot like the star of her cutie mark, if he recalled correctly from yesterday.
 
“Oh, good morning, Steve,” Twilight replied slightly surprised. “Were you already waiting for me?” she asked as she came a bit closer and looked at him standing in front of his ship.
 
“No, I already saw you coming.”
 
“Ah good. So, how has your first night in Equestria been?” she asked, sounding a bit nervous.
 
“Quiet,” he just replied with a smile. “Slept like a log.”
 
“No problem with the wildlife?” she asked and glanced over at the forest.
 
“My ship has very good insulation, I can’t hear anything that is going on outside,” he explained quickly and Twilight just nodded. “So… what is the agenda for today?”
 
“After returning to my home yesterday I wrote a report to Princess Celestia to inform her about my findings.” Steve raised a brow but kept his question of why a librarian in some small village would write a report to the allegedly immortal and all-powerful ruler of the country to himself. “She was quick in her response and informed me that she wants to meet you.” Twilight cleared her throat and began to recite a text she probably had memorized word for word. “Hereby I cordially invite you to visit the city of Canterlot, capital of Equestria, in order to meet with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.” With an eager grin on her face she looked up at him, awaiting a response.
 
A meeting with their princesses? he thought to himself with mixed feelings. He wasn’t a real diplomat, he didn’t even know what to tell the princesses, besides them coming in peace and for purely scientific reasons. There surely would be a lot of angry people if he just took over the duty to represent Earth, but on the other hand there was no way he could just decline an invitation from their ruler. “I accept and feel honoured,” he replied.
 
“Perfect.” Twilight clapped her hooves together. “We will take a train tomorrow. For today she has agreed with my plans to show you around Ponyville.”
 
Steve just nodded and together they began to move back across the field to the dirt road that would lead them into the town. “There is one thing I’m wondering,” he suddenly spoke up, finally giving his confused thoughts sound. “How come you have such contact with the princess that she can send out official invitations through you and lets you show me around town?”
 
“Oh, I completely forgot to tell you that yesterday, I was just too excited. I’m Princess Celestia’s personal student.”
 
“Her personal student?” he repeated baffled. Oh damn, and here I thought I was just speaking with some librarian and her friends.
 
“Correct. When I was just a little filly and enrolled in Princess Celestia’s School for gifted Unicorns she offered for me to become her student. From there on she has taught me the ways of magic until she sent me here to Ponyville to learn more about the magic of friendship, a valuable asset that I had so long failed to understand,” she explained with a smile on her lips. “I also report all my findings to her so I’m in close contact with her.”
 
The magic of friendship? he just thought to himself and looked at her, irritated, but the way she was speaking about it, with a special look in her eyes stopped him from questioning that rather peculiar sounding term, especially in a world where magic actually exists. Also once again he couldn’t believe how lucky he was. At first he thought just some ordinary pony had found him here at first and he had made a more or less good first impression, at least with Twilight who seemed to be extremely fascinated by what he had to say, but now it turns out that she was the personal student of the princess of this country. That would surely positively influence future diplomatic actions.
 
“Anyway, before we go to the town I would like to show you the outskirts to the south for a bit,” Twilight announced as they arrived on the dirt path. With a hoof she pointed “Back there is the farm of Applejack and her family. Since we are already so close to it I figured it would be a good place to start.”
 
“Sounds good to me,” he agreed and turned left so they both were walking down the road southwards. “Oh, and before I forget it. I analysed the food samples you gave me yesterday.” Curiously Twilight looked at him. “It turns out that your food is perfectly edible for me, although some of it contains a bit too much sugar for me.”
 
Twilight nodded. “That’s good to hear, I hope you liked the taste as well.”
 
“Oh yes, it was wonderful, thank you very much,” he replied and gave her a smile. The rest of the way they both spent in silence as they were already arriving at the outskirts of the orchard. Countless apple trees were lined up next to the road, only with a short wooden fence between them. Most of the apples had a shiny red tone, just like the ones Twilight gave him yesterday. In the distance he could see a red barn rising above the tree line. Shortly after they arrived at the main entrance, where a large sign read ‘Sweet Apple Acres’.
 
“Here we are, I hope Applejack is nearby, she could be anywhere in the orchard, and you’ve seen how big it is,” Twilight said and began to look around as they walked up the road to the barn. Now that they were closer Steve could actually see that there was also a large red farm house next to the barn, which was probably where Applejack and her family lived. A couple of smaller wooden buildings stood around the back, probably either storage rooms or shelters for the animals.
 
“Howdy there, you two!” the farmer in question greeted them as she trotted around the barn, two baskets full of apples at her sides, both held together by a strap that was lying over her back. Steve’s eyes widened as he saw her, but mainly because the apples in the basket were piling up about a metre high and he didn’t even want to imagine how heavy they must be, and only a few drops of sweat that were glistening from her body here and there were evidence of the hard work she was doing here.
 
“Hi Applejack,” Steve replied amicably and raised a hand in greeting as they both walked over towards the farmer.
 
“Hello Applejack,” Twilight now greeted her. “I thought it would be a good idea to show Steve a bit more around town today and I figured this would be a good place to start.”
 
“Ah, that does indeed sound like a good idea,” Applejack confirmed and put her two baskets down on the ground. “We sure as sugar like visitors here at Sweet Apple Acres. Everypony can see that we treat our apples here with nothing but intensive care and love. Speaking about that, did ya like the apple that Twilight gave ya yesterday?”
 
“Oh yes, it was great. Unfortunately I stored it in the fridge last night so it was rather chilly, but it was still good.”
 
“Well, then ya have to try a fresh one,” Applejack said as she swung her tied-up tail, only to wrap it around the apple at the top of the pile and shoot it over to Steve. Too confused by that display of agility the apple hit against his chest, but he reacted quickly enough afterwards to catch it before it fell to the ground.
 
He looked down at the red apple in his hand and then back at Applejack who eagerly waited for him to take a bite, and so he did. Oh wow, that’s so much better than the cold one, he thought, and let out a little moan. “This might be the best apple I ever had, thanks.”
 
Pleased with his reaction Applejack tilted her hat and replied, “Glad ya like it. It’s always nice to see that our effort shows in our product.”
 
“It does,” he agreed and took a second bite of the juicy fruit. “So, who is running this farm? I haven’t seen anyone else yet.”
 
“Usually it’s just me and mah brother, Big Mac, but he’s busy right now ploughin’ the fields in the south, but he should be done with that soon.”
 
“Are you only harvesting apples here at this farm or something else too?” Steve wondered now.
 
“Nah, just apples, there are more farms north of the town that have other stock, but we specialize in apples. That doesn’t mean of course that we’re just selling them like they are, we also bake all kinds of pies and cakes and such with ‘em. If ya’d like to try some ah think we have a bit of apple pie left over from breakfast,” Applejack offered.
 
“Thanks for the offer, but I’m afraid I have to decline. I just had breakfast, and while I believe that the pie surely tastes amazing if it was made with an ingredient like this” – he held up the apple in his hand – “I’m quite full. Also I didn’t want to bother you too much and distract you from your work, it seems like you’re quite busy at the moment,” he said and glanced over at the filled basket. “And also Twilight and I have a bit to do today, right?”
 
Twilight nodded. “Correct. And while I’m already here, Princess Celestia has invited all of us to Canterlot tomorrow. I have booked tickets for the 9:30 train already.”
 
“Sure, ah’ll be there, Twi,” Applejack replied and looked somewhere behind their backs. “Ah, there’s mah brother.”
 
Steve turned around to see a large red pony with a short brown mane coming out between two apple trees behind him. He meant large compared to the other ponies. This pony would probably reach up to somewhere around his upper chest, but every pony he had seen so far would only reach a little over his waistline, so that was quite a difference. Now that the stallion came closer Steve saw that he wore a big wooden yoke around his neck.
 
“Big Mac! Come here,” Applejack called for him and the massive red stallion calmly trotted over to them. “That’s Steve, ah told ya ‘bout him yesterday. He’s the human, wasn’t it?” She quickly glanced at Steve who just nodded.
 
“Ah reckon. Howdy, ah’m Big Mac,” the stallion said in a deep, steady voice.
 
“Hello,” Steve greeted him back. “Applejack told me that only you two run this whole entire farm together.”
 
“Eeyup,” Big Mac confirmed.
 
“That seems like a mighty lot of work for just two ponies,” Steve queried, trying to get the stallion to elaborate a bit. This was the first male pony he saw here so he was curious as to what he had to say.
 
“Eeyup.”
 
“But not too much for you to handle?” he tried again.
 
“Nnope.”
 
Sheesh, not much of a talker, eh?
 
“Well… it was nice to meet you, but I think we will be on our way then, we still have a lot to do.”
 
A short exchange of goodbyes later Twilight and Steve found themselves back on the path towards Ponyville.
 
“Is Big Mac always that quiet?” Steve wondered and raised a brow.
 
“Mostly, yes,” Twilight confirmed. “But he is still a friendly and very reliable stallion.”
 
“Ah, okay,” Steve just replied and nodded it off. “I was a bit afraid that it was because of me,” he added sheepishly. “Usually I’m more the quiet type as well.”
 
“Oh really?” Twilight blurted out, surprised. “You did talk quite a lot yesterday.”
 
“Well”- awkwardly he scratched the back of his head -“it all depends on the subject,” he replied self-consciously. “I like to explain things, especially to someone who shows genuine interest and listens, like you.”
 
“Of course, there is so much to learn, how could I have not paid attention to that?” Twilight exclaimed, beaming at him with a wide smile. “What you have told me about Earth is still on my mind.”
 
Steve sighed. “Something specifically?” he asked hesitantly, afraid his efforts of not letting the dark parts overshadow all the good things he had told her had failed.
 
Twilight looked to the ground and added a bit more quietly, “It just sounded like a grim place.”
 
He sighed again and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it dishevelled. “That is true for some parts, yes. But don’t forget all the good things I told you about. So far I could only give you a brief glimpse of our technology, but that should give you a small idea on how progressed our science is, and our culture is in no way inferior to it.” He made a brief pause and Twilight expectantly looked up at him again. “It’s just a mixture of good and bad. Of course negative memories generally stick out much more than positives one, making it seem darker than it really is.“
 
“I see,” Twilight replied slowly. “It’s just that… we were a bit shocked after what you told us. Especially about starvation. It was something we only experienced in our worst times of mistrust.”
 
So they assumed that it must be the same situation on Earth right now, he concluded and nodded slightly. That makes some sense then. “I’m sure I can give you a better image of Earth once the rest of the team is here. As I said before we were on a mission to find new life forms, and of course we have taken a few bits of our culture with us to show to any possible sentient life we encounter.”
 
“I can’t wait for that to happen,” she responded eagerly, but soon a worried expression crept on her face. “But speaking about that, have you talked with the other humans already? You were saying something about repairs needing to be done first?”
 
“Fixed everything this morning. I sent out a message, it might take some time to reach them, but don’t worry, everything is under control,” he assured her and put on the most confident smile he could. He sure was hoping that everything indeed was under control. He knew that it was on his end, but the state of the Columbus was still completely unknown to him and he could only hope for the best, but this wasn’t the time for him to bother his head about that, for all he could do from this point on was to wait.
 
After a while of quietly walking on the path they arrived at the same crossway where Fluttershy had left them last night.
 
“Let me guess, we are visiting Fluttershy,” Steve said as they stopped at the crossway.
 
“Correct,” Twilight confirmed and took the turn to their left. “She’s living slightly out of town, right next to the Everfree Forest. Her home doubles as an animal care shelter for where she looks after all kinds of injured woodland critters.”
 
“Oh?” Steve was surprised, not only by how altruistic Twilight made her sound, but also that the timid looking pegasus would be living right next to the forest that she had made sound so dangerous. “That is very nice of her.”
 
“Yes, that is Fluttershy, the kindest pony in all of Equestria.” Twilight’s sincere tone made it clear that she meant exactly what she said.
 
Before too long they had reached the end of the alley and a small cottage appeared at the edge of the forest. They crossed a bridge over a stream that ran alongside the forest before Twilight knocked on the wooden door of Fluttershy’s house. As they were waiting Steve curiously looked around and spotted an array of small wooden shelters for various kinds of animals standing around in what appeared to be the garden of the house.
 
“Uhm, hello,” a quiet voice pulled him out of his thoughts before he was able to spot any of the animals that were living there, and as he turned back to the entrance he saw Fluttershy standing in the doorway.
 
“Good morning, Fluttershy,” Twilight greeted her back and Steve just raised a hand as a greeting. “I have offered to show Steve a bit more of our town.”
 
“Indeed,” Steve joined in. “Twilight told me you are caring for injured critters, and from the looks of it you do have a few visitors here,” he added as he peeked over the pegasus’s head, into what looked like a living room where various rabbits, birds, rats, squirrels and several more critters had gathered around the couch, all looking astonishingly calm as they looked over at the door as well.
 
“Uhm, yes,” Fluttershy said and looked back into her house. “They are just a bit scared, nothing serious, but I still need to calm them.”
 
For a moment Steve wondered if they were scared because he had landed near to the forest. His ship surely hadn’t been quiet when it landed so it might not have been too far-fetched that they ran away because of that. Before he could further think about that however Twilight spoke up again, “Oh, I see you have your hooves full right now, so we better leave you to it, right?” She looked up at Steve who just nodded. “But we do need you tomorrow. The princess has invited us to Canterlot and I have booked us train tickets for 9:30. Can you make it?”
 
“Of course,” Fluttershy replied quickly and nodded, making her long pink mane bounce up and down a little.
 
“Well, good luck with your animals and until tomorrow then, Fluttershy,” Steve bade her goodbye.
 
“Bye,” the yellow mare whispered in response and closed the door again. He simply shrugged and together with Twilight made his way back over the path they came from and towards Ponyville.
 

***


 

Only a couple of minutes later they both stood at the border of the town and Steve looked around pleasantly surprised. It seems like Twilight did talk some sense into them, he thought as his eyes wandered around the various ponies walking through the streets. A few of them had noticed him, staring with a mixture of curiosity and fear, but otherwise made no attempts to run away.
 
“Good, that went far easier than with Zecora, but I still think it would be best if you stay close to me,” Twilight told him as she stopped just before they entered the town. He just nodded.
 
It didn’t take long for all the ponies in the main street, which they were walking down, to notice him and stop whatever they were doing to silently stare at him. Steve tried his best to keep up a friendly smile while watching the ponies around him in turn.
 
Smile and wave, boy. Smile and wave.
 
It didn’t take too long before business was back on track, although a bit slower than before and with a few eyes wandering over to him every now and then.
 
“Better than yesterday?” Twilight asked and expectantly looked up at him.
 
“Yes, very much so,” he replied, feeling slightly agitated from being stared at this much, but it was far better than them locking themselves away in their houses, and it also gave him the possibility to watch the ponies going about their daily work. I wonder how they can hold things so firmly in their hooves. They have no fingers or anything to form a steady grip, he pondered as he saw an earth pony wielding a hammer in one hoof and slamming it down on a wooden sign to drive it deeper into the ground before what appeared to be a hardware store.
 
He was about to ask Twilight but she was the first to speak, “See that building over there?” She pointed at a large two-story building with blue walls and a bright purple roof that stood slightly away from the main road. Somehow it reminded Steve of a very large, oriental tent. “That is Rarity’s house and boutique, and the next stop on our list.”
 
Putting his question aside for now he just nodded and together they left the main road and made their way towards the boutique. As they opened the door and stepped inside a bell rang and he could hear Rarity calling, “I’ll be right with you! Feel free to take a look around!”
 
Steve did as she said and took a look around the pink dream he had entered, quite literally. Various shades of pink and purple were by far the most dominant colours in the circular room. Plenty of curtains hung all around, probably hiding some clothes behind them as he could see some hallstands with dressings hanging out beneath the curtains. On the opposite side of the room stood a small stage surrounded by four golden-framed mirrors. A couple of pony-shaped mannequins stood around, some with finished dresses on them, others completely empty. Several doors in the room were leading to other parts of the house, but they were all closed so he couldn’t see what was behind them.
 
After a few moments one of the doors swung open, revealing Rarity standing in it. He caught a quick glance of what seemed to be a kitchen before the door closed behind her again.
 
“Oh, hello darlings,” the white unicorn greeted them both as she stepped over to them. Looking at Steve she added, “What brings you here? Maybe looking for a more magnificent attire?”
 
Steve looked down at his body. It does look more functional than stylish, he agreed. But that will have to wait. “No, maybe another time,” he declined the offer and pointed over to Twilight next to him. “Twilight is just showing me around your neat little town and she figured this to be a good stop for now.”
 
“A splendid idea. But tell me, is the rest of the town still…” – she waved with a hoof through the air – “reluctant to meet you?”
 
“Not so much, no,” he replied and looked over at Twilight. “Twilight said she had talked to a few earlier, telling them that there is no need to be afraid, and while I got a lot of curious looks they didn’t seem to be afraid of me.” Twilight just nodded.
 
“That is good to hear, Darling,” Rarity said and eyed him a bit closer. “But are you sure I can’t interest you in an outfit?” she prodded him. “Of course I have never made something for a human, but I do like a challenge from time to time and I have a couple of ideas in mind that might work.”
 
He took a look at the various dresses around him again. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I have to pass,” he declined her offer again.
 
“Oh alright then”, she huffed disappointedly. “But at least let me take some measurements, just in case,” she added in a tone that told him she wasn’t about to accept no as an answer.
 
“Okay, okay, if you insist,” he gave in, not wanting to test to see how far her patience stretched.
 
A happy smiled beamed over Rarity’s face, as she pulled him over to a small stage and levitated various items from some nearby drawers over to him. Steve tried his best to hold still as he saw this as the fastest way to get through the process. “Also you simply must show me some more of your fashion. A world where everyone always wears clothes, I can only dream of what marvellous attires have been produced there.”
 
 Steve was busier watching the unicorn going to work with her magic rather than listening to what she was saying so he just made some acknowledging sounds. A variety of measuring tapes and needles, very sharp looking needles, flew by close to his face, causing him to shiver occasionally and hope that she knew what she was doing. Multitasking at its finest, he just thought to himself while trying to relax in this rather uncomfortable position. Thankfully for him it was over as quickly as it began and Rarity levitated all her tools back into the drawer.
 
“Done,” she announced happily, presenting a rough sketch of his body with various notes scribbled next to it. “That wasn’t that bad, was it?”
 
Steve shook his head quickly, his legs shaking a bit after his ordeal.
 
Twilight took the opportunity of Steve’s silence to speak up herself. “Before I forget it, Princess Celestia wants to see us all in Canterlot tomorrow. I’ve booked a train for 9:30.”
 
“Canterlot?” Her eyes opened even wider. “Oh why certainly I shall be there.”
 
As Rarity was dreamily looking into the distance Twilight turned towards Steve. “Do you want to see anything else here or shall we go on?” He looked around the room again. As much as he was interested to see how magic would be at work here he wasn’t exactly keen on playing model for the fashionista, so he just shook his head. “Very well, Rarity? We will be on our way then again,” she said towards her friend.
 
“So soon?” Rarity looked at them slightly disappointed. “Oh well, enjoy your day through the town then, and don’t forget to come back here so we can have a little longer talk about human clothing,” she said as she showed them the door.
 
“Will do, goodbye,” he just said as they both stepped back outside to be greeted by the warm sunlight again. It was still not even noon yet, but the sun was already standing high in the sky, promising a hot day, so he wasn’t very surprised to see a whole lot of ponies wandering through the streets, despite the town being quite small.
 
The same procedure from his earlier arrival here repeated itself, with the ponies staring at him for a while before resuming their daily work, but Steve didn’t really mind at this point. Stares were understandable and if that progress would keep up it wouldn’t take long before they wouldn’t mind him at all, at least that’s what he hoped.
 
As they moved through the relatively quiet streets of the village Steve had time to think as he looked around to watch the ponies’ daily work. From the houses he saw so far it seemed to be a common practice here to live where you work, at least when you own the store. At least that’s what Rarity’s boutique and the couple of two-story workshops and stores were indicating.
 
“We will be coming by my library shortly,” Twilight Sparkle interrupted his thoughts. “But I would suggest we leave that today and instead visit Pinkie Pie next.”
 
“Lead the way,” he just replied, his eyes still wandering around the crowds of ponies around them. So far none of them made an attempt to say anything towards him. Looks like I have to make the first step then, he thought and gave Twilight a quick sign to wait for a moment. His eyes fell on a certain mint green unicorn that had been staring at him for much longer than the other ponies, and was still doing so. From the looks of it, she appeared to be a mare. After seeing more stallions in the town he could see the differences between them and the mares a bit clearer. Stallions appeared to be larger, although most of them not as large as Big Mac, and their snouts were longer with a sharper edges instead of rounded off chins.
 
Carefully he approached the unicorn mare, whose eyes went wide as she realized that he was coming closer to her. He couldn’t quite make out what she was feeling, but he was sure it wasn’t fear, rather excitement. “Hello,” he eventually said as he came to a halt in front of her and looked down at her. He waited for a while for her to respond, all the while trying to keep up a friendly smile. As she remained silent and just stared up at him with her mouth slightly opened he added, “My name is Steve. What is your name?”
 
“L-l-lyra,” the mare stammered and averted her eyes from his face.
 
Lyra, he repeated in his head and his eyes fell on the golden lyre that she had as a cutie mark. Who would have guessed, he thought dryly.
 
“Hello Lyra, nice to meet you,” he said in a friendly tone, dismissing the thought and reaching out his hand for a shake. Lyra watched his hand in awe for a while before grabbing it with both of her front hooves. Out of instinct he almost jumped back, but he stopped himself just in time and now looked more than just confused at the pony standing on her hind legs as she held his hand in her hooves and inspected it, fascinated.
 
“Hands…” he could hear her muttering to herself, and it felt like she was massaging it gently too. Too baffled by this reaction he just stood there motionless for a few moments, before he slowly wriggled out of the unicorn’s grasp, noting the disappointment in the mare’s eyes.
 
“Uhm… it was nice meeting you. I have to go...” he said and slowly backed away as the unicorn remained silent and still stared at the point where his hands had just been. After a few metres he turned around and marched back to Twilight.
 
“What was that?” she just asked, seeming just as baffled as he was at the bizarre display that had just occurred.
 
“I have no idea,” he admitted and shrugged. “I was thinking about having a quick talk with one of the other townsponies and she seemed to be interested as she had been staring at me for a while, but I’m not sure if that was the right call or not.” He shrugged again and looked back at Lyra who seemed to slowly have caught herself again now as she began moving again, but often looking over in his direction.
 
“Well, from what I heard Lyra is travelling around Equestria quite a bit, so she probably was just fascinated to see a completely new species,” Twilight explained and shrugged. “While we do have a good amount of tourism here in Ponyville it is almost solely limited to ponies. A lot of the ponies here are not even aware how exactly some of the other species on Equis look.”
 
“I see,” he just commented and nodded his head before beginning to look over the streets again. But something seemed to have changed. Apparently his encounter with Lyra hadn’t gone completely unnoticed as the ponies were no longer looking at him with a mixture of curiosity and slight fear, but after seeing him talking with someone else other than Twilight Sparkle, a few smiles were shot in his direction as well.
 
 “See? They’ve started accepting you here,” Twilight said next to him and let out a sigh of relief.
 
“Yes, it’s…” he started but his voiced trailed off as they turned around the corner, unable to believe what was ahead of him. Before them stood a large gingerbread house, with icing on the roof, candles lit on the highest place on the roof, and large sugarcanes framing the door. On a sign next to the house was a picture of a cupcake.
 
I hope there is no evil witch eating little children inside, he thought to himself and chuckled.
 
“That’s Sugarcube Corner. It’s not lunch time yet, so it shouldn’t be that crowded,” Twilight announced and they both stepped inside.
 
Surprisingly the inside looked relatively normal. There was a counter with a kitchen behind it on the opposite side of the door, while the rest of the room was filled with various tables. A stairway leading to the upper floors could also be seen behind the counter. So it really is common for the ponies to live where they work and… His thought was cut short as a pink mane suddenly filled his sight.
 
“HEYA STEVE! Here for your party?” Pinkie Pie cheered. The pink mare somehow had found her way onto his head without him realizing and was now standing on it, while bending over far enough that he could see her face close in front of his. Strangely he wasn’t even feeling her weight.
 
Startled, Steve gasped for air and stumbled a few steps backwards. HOW THE HECK DID SHE GET THERE?! He had to try hard to not shout this thought out loud.
 
Meanwhile Pinkie had jumped off his head and was standing next to Twilight now who was looking over at him concerned, while Pinkie just had the widest grin on her face. “Oh, did I scare you?” she asked and her grin got even wider. “Sorry about that, here, have one on me!” she cheered and jumped over the counter, grabbing something from behind it before jumping back to Steve, handing him the treat.
 
Steve was still recovering from the sudden assault so it took him a few seconds before he could reply, “It’s okay Pinkie, I’m fine.”
 
“You’ll be even finer if you take a bite!” she said, holding the cupcake even closer to him while shaking it enticingly in front his eyes.
 
“It looks really delicious,” he said while looking at the tantalizing treat covered in icing and sprinkles. “But if it is like the last one then I can’t eat it. Unfortunately my tests have shown that it had too much sugar for the human body to handle,” he explained.
 
“Too much sugar?” she asked confused. “That’s impossible. I sometimes eat it pure!”
 
No doubt there. Her energy must come from somewhere.
 
“Humans can’t. We could even get sick,” he replied, shaking his head
 
“Sick?” she repeated in disbelief, her smile turning to a frown and her usually fluffy mane beginning to fall flat.
 
“But… uh… I…,” he stammered. “I’m sure it tastes absolutely great, and I would love to try something that just has a bit less sugar,” he said carefully and in an instant Pinkie Pie’s head spun around, scanning the counter. Within a heartbeat she picked up a plate with a different baked good on it from behind it and presented it to him again. Her movement was so quick that Steve could only see a brief pink blur before the mare stood in front of him again, an expectant look on her face.
 
“That’s some fresh banana bread I made a few minutes ago. Almost no sugar, Pinkie promise!” she explained and held the bread even closer to his face. Her grin grew even wider as he slowly reached out for the slice of bread and took a small bite of it.
 
Mhmm… she certainly knows a thing or two about baking, he thought as his mouth was filled with various tastes, the most distinguishable one being bananas. It was still a bit too sweet for his liking, but tasty nevertheless.
 
“Do you like it?” Pinkie Pie chirped. With his mouth still filled by the banana bread he just simply nodded. “Fantastic! Then I’m gonna make you some more for your party! Speaking of which, when do you want yours? Tomorrow? Today?!” She leaned forward as she was speaking in an ever so slightly higher pitched voice.
 
He could only smile at that overly enthusiastic display and raised a hand to calm her down. “That sounds like fun, but I don’t think I have much time left today and Twilight told me that the princess wants to see us tomorrow in Canterlot, right?” he said, looking over to Twilight.
 
“Correct,” she confirmed and nodded. “And she would like all of us to come.”
 
“Okie dokie lokie! We’ll have the party when we come back then. Or we can have it there!” she gasped at the possibility, “And we can even combine it with your first-meeting-with-the-princess-party! And…” she was going on but Steve managed to cut her off by raising his hand.
 
“That sounds great, but please, you don’t have to worry yourself too much about that,” he replied calmly. “Something small and simple is more than enough.”
 
“If you say so.” She shrugged. “It’ll still be totally fun because all your new friends will be there!”
 
“I’m looking forward to it,” he assured her and took a look around the bakery again. “Are you running this whole place by yourself? It looks pretty big for just one pony.”
 
“Oh, the bakery’s not mine; I’m just helping out the Cakes. They don’t have much time for it since they have gotten foals so I’m here more often but I live upstairs anyways so it’s not too much trouble for me,” Pinkie explained.
 
“You’re doing a pretty good job,” he said and took another large bite of the bread.
 
“Hehe, I hear that sometimes. You want another slice?” she offered.
 
Steve nodded quickly, his mouth too full to answer and Pinkie jumped back into the kitchen wrapping a slice of the banana bread in a bag.
 
“Thank you very much, Pinkie Pie,” he said as he gulped down the bite and took the little paper bag. The mare only replied with a grin.
 
“Yes, thank you, Pinkie, but I think we should be going now. It will be lunch time shortly and I know how full the place is around that time so I’d rather show him the rest of the town in the meantime,” Twilight spoke up and nodded over at Steve.
 
“Okie dokie! Have fun! See ya tomorrow!” she replied cheerfully as she bounced back behind the counter, preparing for the hungry ponies soon to come.
 

***


 

Twilight and Steve stood back out on the streets of Ponyville in front of Sugarcube Corner. Steve was still confused about that visit. Whatever Pinkie Pie did, be it the sudden appearance on his head which he didn’t notice, the lightning fast movements or the ability to deflate her mane, was hard to explain, even now that he knew about magic.
 
“So,” Twilight spoke up and slowly began to trot down the road again. “I hope you weren’t startled too much by Pinkie, she just likes to surprise everypony.” She grinned awkwardly and scratched the back of her neck.
 
“Oh no, it was something… different,” he replied and for him that was probably the best way to describe it since he couldn’t find the right words to capture that energetic pink bundle of fur. “But in a good way, although I am mighty confused. I thought you said that only unicorns can directly cast magic, but it almost seemed like she was teleporting with as fast as she was moving and suddenly appeared on top of me.”
 
Twilight giggled. “She is an earth pony, so she can’t use any magic, especially not teleportation, but I know what you mean. It feels like she does sometimes. I have never really understood how she does what she does. It is not magic, I can assure you that. I tried to figure it out once but… it didn’t turn out well.” She shrugged.
 
“What happened?” Steve inquired, his interest being sparked now.
 
“Let’s just say that I came to no logical explanation,” Twilight answered, turning slightly red at the recollection.
 
“Uhm, okay,” he replied, confused at her reaction. “But you said earth ponies can’t teleport. Does that mean you can?”
 
“Yep,” she said and stopped for a moment. Her horn began to glow and in a bright flash of light she disappeared only to reappear a few metres in front of him. She turned around with a small grin on her face as she noticed his disbelieving stare. “It is limited in range and exhausting, even for me despite all my training. It is very dangerous for an untrained unicorn, so I had to wait years before Princess Celestia eventually taught me how to do it. She had to be sure I was ready for it.”
 
Steve thought about her words for a moment. “Did Princess Celestia directly teach you your magic, or was it just for the more advanced topics like this?” It seemed to him a bit stressful to find the time to be a personal teacher while having to rule over a whole country. Admittedly a small one, but still.
 
Twilight shook her head. “As ruler of Equestria she didn’t always have the time to teach me everything herself, so I attended many of the normal classes of her school and spent a lot of time in the royal library. I did finish school a few years ago and from there on my studies began to change. Princess Celestia often just showed me a rough direction so that I could find my way. A lot has changed since then, but all for the better,” she explained and a smile crept on her lips as she stared somewhat dreamily off into the distance while they were walking back across the main street of Ponyville, which was a bit emptier now. The ponies seemed to have gathered around the few restaurants, bakeries and bistros that stood here and there to have their lunch.
 
After a moment of silence Steve inquired. “How so?”
 
“I didn’t have a lot of time aside from studying when I was younger, so I grew up in the thought that I wasn’t in need of any friends. I used to think it would just be a waste of time.” Twilight turned a bit red and kept her eyes locked on the road in front of her. “But Princess Celestia knew how important and strong the bonds of friendship can be, so that’s why she sent me here, to Ponyville. If that wouldn’t have happened, we might have not been able to stop Nightmare Moon.”
 
“Nightmare Moon?” Steve perked up at the strange sounding name. So far the ponies had incredibly descriptive names, so Nightmare wasn’t sounding very friendly.
 
Twilight cleared her throat and began to tell him briefly about the transformation of Luna into Nightmare Moon over a thousand years ago, the question how this was even supposed to work he kept to himself. From there she jumped forward to a point about two years ago, telling him about her first day in Ponyville, the return of Nightmare Moon and these so called Elements of Harmony, some kind of powerful magical artefacts and how her friends and her represent them.
 
Intrigued, Steve listened to the story with ever growing interest. And now he knew that not only was he greeted by the personal student of the ruler of this land, but also by some sort of national heroes. “And she was banished to the moon for a thousand years?” he asked, rather sceptical about such a claim, after Twilight had finished the tale.
 
“Yes.” She nodded. “As I told you yesterday, alicorns are immortal, and don’t require air or food to live, so that was possible. But also was she banished in the moon, not on it, meaning that it was a prison to her where she couldn’t do anything for all this time.”
 
“That must have been terrible. Alone and isolated for a thousand years. A horrible fate.” he shuddered at the thought of having to spend so much time in the bleakness of space, all alone. He had spent just a few years in space, plus he had company and he had found it infuriating and boring at times. He could not begin to imagine how she must have felt.
 
Twilight nodded. “I agree, but Princess Celestia did what was best for her country. She saw the danger and reacted to it,” Twilight explained, firm in her agreement to the actions of her leader.
 
So not everything is as shiny and happy as it seems here. Sending her own sister into exile for a millennium, that must have been a tough call. 
 
He decided to leave it at that, in case it was uncomfortable for Twilight to speak too much about it, and he didn’t want to give his opinions on sending siblings to the moon to avoid offending the lavender unicorn.
 
“So umm…. you can teleport and levitate with your magic,” he said, trying to change the subject. “Is there anything else special you can do with it?”
 
“These two things I perform the most but yes, there is more I can do. I’m quite good at shield spells. My brother used to practice with me when I was younger and they are his specialty. Perhaps my most advanced spell was a time travel spell,” despite herself, a hint of boastfulness came through her voice. Steve though, was preoccupied with the last thing she had said.
 
“Time travel?!” Steve spluttered, amazed at the extent their magic could go. Soon though, his incredulity gave way to curiosity. “Did you go backwards or forward?”
 
“In the past, why?”
 
“I believed traveling backwards through time to be impossible.”
 
“Why should that be?”
 
“Just think of all the paradoxes that you could create,” he pointed out rather confused that she would need an explanation for that. “You would literally be in two places at once and how is that supposed to work? Just imagine you would go back into time and make it so that your parents would never meet. Then you would never be born, but then you could have never travelled back into the past to make that happen and would have been born nevertheless, and so on.”
 
Twilight thought about that for a moment. “It still worked,” she then just said and shrugged.
 
Steve was about to raise an objection, but let it slip by. Maybe it was just something with magic, he said to himself and shook his head. “And how did it work out in the end?” he wondered.
 
“It was just a mess. Turned out I warned myself not to be worried about what would have happened next Tuesday but the spell didn’t last long enough for the complete message so I was worried the whole time and on the named Tuesday I travelled back into time to warn myself not to worry,” she grimaced, ears flattening in embarrassment at her actions.
 
“Sounds like quite a loop,” he said, his mind running over the scenario.
 
“It would have been better if I never used it. The spell was put away deep into the archives with very restricted access afterwards,” she told him. “It’s probably for the better.”
 
They continued to wander through the streets while Twilight pointed out objects of interest from time to time, like the school, hospital or the local market where the biggest crowd of ponies was now after lunch. From the looks of it this town didn’t seem much different from a village on Earth, only with less technology, but the infrastructure was there, including the most important public buildings.
 
“Are we heading anywhere specific or just wandering through town now?” Steve asked as they strolled past the town hall.
 
“There is only one pony left that you met yesterday that we haven’t visited yet.” She looked at him, as though expecting him to answer.
 
“Umm… Rainbow Dash?”
 
“Correct.” Twilight gave a strong nod. “I suppose she is outside of town and relaxing there. She should be done with her work now,” she explained and looked up into the clear blue sky. “Looks like it. Anyway, we have most of the town covered for now. It’s not that big so there isn’t a whole bunch to show you.”
 
“Sounds good to me,” Steve agreed. “What is her job then?”
 
“She works at the local weather patrol but most of the time she sleeps or practices stunts,” Twilight replied, slightly annoyed. “But at least she gets the job done so they tolerate it.”
 
For a while they both walked quietly through the town, until the houses began to clear and they stood in a wide open field to the north of the town. The field transitioned over into soft green hills and light forests further up north, where he could see a lone mountain far in the distance. Steve couldn’t make out any more cities between there and the mountain, only a train rail running through the landscape.
 
“That must be Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said and pointed up to the sky. The sky was clear blue except one small, low flying cloud at which Twilight was pointing.
 
“Where?”
 
She answered the question by shouting at the top her lungs, “RAINBOW DASH! WAKE UP!”
 
“ZZZ … Wha - huh? What’s up?” the cloud shouted back.
 
What?
 
“Come down here, Rainbow!”
 
Steve couldn’t understand the mutter coming from the cloud but a few seconds later Rainbow’s head peeked out from it.
 
Oh right, she said something about walking on clouds, he remembered and chuckled.
 
As soon as Rainbow Dash spotted who was calling out for her she let herself drop from the cloud and unfolded her wings at the last moment to stop her fall. “Hey guys. Whatcha doing here so early? I thought you were gonna show him around town,” she said to Twilight.
 
“Early? It is two in the afternoon already, Rainbow. Have you been sleeping since lunch?” Twilight asked in return and raised a brow.
 
“Maaaaybe,” Rainbow replied, grinning sheepishly. “Whatever. Twi told me to save a cloud for a little weather working demo. Sound interesting?” She turned towards Steve.
 
“Yes, definitely,” he replied immediately.
 
“Good. Sit back and enjoy.” Rainbow Dash smirked and shot back up into the air.
 

***

 
“So, what ya think?” Rainbow asked after finishing by vaporizing the cloud with a strong kick of her hind legs in mid-air. The last ten minutes she had spent showing Steve how to make the clouds rain, split them up and combine them back together, create thunder with them and she even formed a small hurricane with it by rapidly flying circles in close angles around it.
 
“That was amazing,” he replied, fascinated at this display of manipulation of the environment. “Oh, we could use something like this on Earth.”
 
“Do you just have the weather controlling itself or what?” she returned and he nodded. “Man, that really sucks. I mean we kinda have these problems here as well sometimes, since we’re so close to the Everfree Forest sometimes a few clouds from there fly over and they behave freely, but I can still clear them.” She shrugged.
 
“It’s not that bad. I wasn’t spending that much time outside anyways, so I didn’t mind bad weather,” he said and scratched the back of his head. “But being able to make the sun shine on a certain day would surely have helped a couple of times, or having snow during the winter. Speaking of which, can you make it snow too?”
 
“Sure, but I need special clouds for that. There is only so much you can do with a normal cloud, so we have to make a lot of them ourselves in the weather factories in Cloudsdale. We’re gonna order some with snow soon. You have to book them months in advance otherwise they can’t keep up with the production, and everypony wants snow during winter.”
 
“Wow that sounds amazing, I’d love to see how these factories work. How do they store the clouds? How do they prepare them and make them ready for travel? Or how…” he began but stopped at Rainbow’s adorable snicker.
 
“Heh heh, I was right! You’re the perfect study buddy for Twilight. I bet you stay up ‘til three in the morning too to catch up with some books you’re reading,” she laughed and let herself drop into the grass.
 
Steve just looked with a raised brow over to Twilight who rolled her eyes and snorted, “I believed you would have noticed how tight my schedule can get from time to time, and sleep is just the easiest part where I can cut some time.”
 
“Sleep is for the weak anyways,” Steve commented quietly.
 
Rainbow just waved her off with a hoof. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”
 
“So… to answer your question. No, I was spending my nights a bit differently,” Steve said after a few seconds. He felt the need to say something as Twilight was glancing angrily at Rainbow who didn’t seem to notice.
 
“Like what?” Rainbow inquired, shooting him a sly grin.
 
That totally didn’t sound even the littlest bit strange. Nice play, brain! he scolded himself before trying to come up with a good answer. “Mostly hanging out on the internet or playing some games… also on the internet,” he replied with a shrug.
 
“What’s an internet?” Rainbow asked, and he could see the same question standing on Twilight’s face already as well.
 
Thoughtfully he stroke his chin for few moments. “That is hard to explain. Basically it is a giant network that is spun over our whole planet and you can interact with anyone else who is on there. Either talking with a friend who is far away, or discussing just about every topic there is with strangers who all have opinions to share and much more. It is easier if I could show you, but that’s not really possible here.”
 
“That sounds absolutely fascinating,” Twilight said and stared at him with wide open eyes.
 
“That’s far from all. You also have access to almost every book that has ever been written,” he added, sure that the unicorn would like to hear that. But instead of a reaction she just continued staring at him. “Uh, Twilight? You okay?” he asked after a few seconds and snapped his fingers in front of her face.
 
“Give her some time,” Rainbow waved it off and ruffled a hoof through her friend’s mane, but she just stayed motionless. “You’ve seen her like that before, she’ll be with us in a few moments.”
 
Still a bit worried he turned away from her. “I hope so.”
 
“Nah, don’t worry. She’s fine,” Rainbow waved it off again. “So, how did you like the town so far? Talked with anypony?” she asked out of curiosity.
 
“Yes, I did actually. It wasn’t much of a conversation but I exchanged a few sentences with some unicorn called Lyra. Do you know her?”
 
“Yeah,” Rainbow replied and scratched the back of her head as she looked away awkwardly. “A bit.”
 
“Anyways, when I walked through the town the ponies there didn’t seem to be afraid of me. I got a lot of stares, but that was about it,” he continued and Rainbow Dash nodded happily. “And the town itself was nice as well. Not much different from a smaller town on Earth.”
 
“Good to hear, and I… oh hey, Twilight.” She turned towards her friend again who seemed to have awoken from her trance.
 
The unicorn shook her head once before looking first at Rainbow Dash then at him and her cheeks turned red. “Sorry,” she said and grinned sheepishly. “I was just too overwhelmed by the thought of having every book always available.”
 
“Hehe, it’s fine really,” he returned. And a bit adorable too, he thought to himself. “I mean, if you are really interested in that I could show you a bit of my ship.” Now both ponies looked at him expectantly. He knew that he wasn’t allowed to just let aliens into the ship, for that he didn’t have the authority and the time he had spent here was way too short to make such a decision anyways, but on the other hand it would greatly increase his reputation with Twilight Sparkle. With her being such a close link to the ruler of the country it surely would pay off in the end to break the rules this one time. “Technically speaking I am not allowed to do that, but I just remembered that I promised you one of the audio recorders as a gift and I definitely wasn’t allowed to do that either.”
 
“Oh, I don’t want it if brings you any trouble,” she offered quickly.
 
“No, no, I think I’ll be better off if I just cut that part out of the recorded audio, and while I’m at it I could also delete all records of you visiting the ship. This then just has to stay our little secret, okay?” he asked and put on a sly grin.
 
“Of course,” Twilight immediately agreed and Rainbow Dash next to her nodded eagerly as well.
 
“Then that’s settled. I’ll give you a tour around my ship later today.”
 
“Really!?” Twilight exclaimed happily. “Oh that’s gonna be so great. You have to show me everything! I want to see that computer thing and what else you have stored there and…”
 
“Easy there Twi,” Rainbow interrupted her and giggled. “But I think it’s kinda cool to see this thing from the inside as well.”
 
“Heh, I’ll be happy to show you everything. It’ll be nice to have some company around. I mean, I’m not completely alone, Sarah is there with me but… well…”
 
“Who’s Sarah?” Twilight cut him off. “Is there another human here? I thought there you were the only one?”
 
“Oh, no. She isn’t a human, but the artificial intelligence of the ship… It will probably be easier to show than to explain,” he said at the looks of their confused faces.
 
Twilight opened her mouth again but closed it before asking another question. It seemed like she didn’t want to waste a single second, so instead she just asked, “Can we go there now?”
 
“I don’t know. Is there anything else interesting out here?”
 
“Nothing really important. To the east is the Whitetail Woods, with a swamp behind it. The path to the west will lead you to a small mountain chain. Rarity sometimes goes there to search for diamonds. Way back on the big mountain over there to the north is Canterlot which we will be visiting tomorrow. Beside that there’s nothing else to see here. Ready to go?” she replied quickly pointing out into different directions as she named each new landmark and now looked at him with a wide grin.
 
Patience isn’t one of her strengths. On the other hand I would’ve wanted to visit an alien’s house as well, he thought to himself and couldn’t resist a bemused chuckle. “Yes.”
 
Happy with his words, Twilight led a fast pace back to Ponyville. They arrived back at the town in no time, where the crowd appeared to be picking up. It seemed that most ponies had finished with their work today and wanted to catch the last few hours of the day as the sun was slowly descending.
 
A glance at his watch told Steve that it was shortly after three o’clock already. Time’s flying by. And I’ve barely eaten anything today, he thought, his inner monologue confirmed by his growling stomach.
 
“Can we stop by the market or anywhere else to buy food? I’m starving and I would prefer some real food?” he asked but realized that he didn’t have any of the local money to buy something. “Ugh, forget it. I don’t have any money to buy some. Speaking of which, what kind of currency do you use anyway?”
 
“Oh don’t worry about it, I’ve got it covered,” Twilight waved it off. “The princess is funding my studies here, so I’m not exactly short on bits. Also that’s the least I can do to repay you for the tour.”
 
She levitated a small bag from her saddlebag, opened it and let a gold coin fly into Steve’s hand. “That’s a bit, the currency we use for everything,” she explained as he studied the coin.
 
The coin had a sun on one side and a moon on the other. Must refer to their princesses or something. But it feels like solid gold, he thought while weighing the single coin in his hand. “Thank you for the offer, Twilight. I’ll gladly accept.”
 
“No problem. Let’s just hope the market is still open.”
 
Soon the market came in sight. Some stands were already closing down, but it looked like they came just in time to make some last minute purchases, and with almost no ponies around here anymore, they didn’t even have to stand in a line.
 
“Wait!” Twilight spoke up as they strolled around the place, looking at the available food. “You don’t know if you can eat most of the food here.”
 
“I’m not too worried about that. The tests showed nothing that was even close to being toxic, if anything everything so far was far healthier than anything I have in store, aside from the cupcake maybe, so I’ll just stick with the food that I know for now and I should be fine.”
 
“Well if you say so,” Twilight replied, not entirely convinced. “What would you like to buy?”
 
“Hmm,” he let out, wandering through the stands inspecting the food and thinking of any good meals he could cook without too much effort. Most of them required meat which he didn’t think he would get here. He noticed some eggs on another stand.
 
Hmm, these eggs look fine. Easy to make and usually taste good, although I’d usually eat them for breakfast. Ah, screw it, I can’t really think of anything else purely vegetarian to cook right now anyways. At least nothing that’s done without much effort.
 
“Okay I got an idea,” he turned towards Twilight and listed the items he needed.
 
“What are you cooking?” Rainbow wanted to know.
 
“Just some scrambled eggs, I know it’s nothing fancy, but I remember a good recipe and often heard that it tastes good and I can’t think of anything else right now. With enough ingredients I can make enough for all of us.”
 
“Sounds good to me. I’m a bit hungry as well, and I’d like to see if you humans cook differently than we do,” Twilight declared.
 
“Count me in too,” Rainbow Dash threw in.
 

***

 
A few minutes later they were out of town again, walking down the road to the south that would bring them to his ship.
 
“Hey, Rainbow, can I ask you a question?” Steve interrupted the silence that had fallen between them. Twilight looked far too excited at the moment for some small talk, and Rainbow Dash seemed to have found some amusement in her friend’s antics as she was hovering next to her.
 
“Yeah, sure. What’s up?”
 
“I was wondering how often do you practice your stunts, or flying in general.
 
“Uhm… about two or three hours a day. Sometimes a bit more, depending on how much stuff I have to do. Why?”
 
“Oh, that’s quite a lot. I was just asking, because the wing size of pegasi so far seems a bit small compared to their bodies. I was really surprised to see you flying at high speeds, especially with your little hurricane demonstration earlier. I know Twilight said something about pegasi magic supporting their flying abilities, but I still figured that this would take a lot of strength.”
 
“That impressed you already? That was nothing,” she boasted and waved it off with a hoof, though he thought he saw a faint tint of red around her cheeks. “The hurricane one is based off my very own trick, the Rainblow Dry. Perfect for drying things quickly. Even used it on Twilight once when I first met her, so it’s even safe to use on ponies.”
 
What? Rainblow? So did she blow Twil… okay, enough of that thought, he said to himself and had to resist a grin. “Uh huh,” he just said instead and nodded. “What other special things do you have in store?”
 
“Tons of stuff. I have to. I’m going to be a Wonderbolt someday and they don’t just let any pegasus in,” she exclaimed, sounding very excited this time.
 
“Who are the Wonderbolts?” he asked.
 
“Who are the Wonderbolts!?” she repeated in a mixture of surprise and confusion. “Oh yeah. Of course you don’t know them,” she added sheepishly as she remembered he only knew of Equestria what they already told him. “The Wonderbolts are not only the most amazing ponies in Equestria but also the best flying group that ever existed! And soon I’ll be one of them. Still got a lot of training to do though, but I already completed their basic training and impressed them with my moves, so yeah. Just have to wait ‘til a spot is free now and I’m sure I’ll be the first pony who will be offered to fill it!”
 
Rainbow’s excitement began to grow as a grin widened on her face and her eyes became distant, imagining herself being a Wonderbolt.
 
“Sounds pretty cool. So that is your life goal then?”
 
“Yes. And I know it’s gonna be so awesome!” she said, putting so much excitement in her voice at the last part that it began to pitch up a few notes.
 
“We’re here!” Twilight had awoken from her trance again and loudly declared their arrival. Steve looked around a bit confused. He hadn’t even noticed that they had left the road already and stood in front of his ship.
 
“Okay let’s get inside then,” Steve said, walking straight towards the ramp, the two ponies following closely behind him. The airlock was already opening and they stepped inside the small chamber. Not designed for being used by multiple persons at once, they stood pressed together a little bit in the chamber until the second door began to open.
 
“What’s this?” Twilight asked curiously.
 
“It’s called an airlock. Two airtight doors between rooms of different environments. It adapts the pressure or can be used for decontamination, but that’s not necessary here. It takes a bit of time to open, but it’s the only way in and out of the ship,” he explained as the second door was now finally open. “Welcome to my home,” he said as he stepped out of the airlock and motioned them both to step inside.
 
The two ponies quickly complied and of course took a look around at first. Admittedly it was quite a plain view. Besides the computer terminal with a few glowing screens it was just a grey and white hallway with a few doors here and there.
 
“Hello Steve. I see you brought some visitors.” Sarah’s voice resonated around them. “At this point I am obliged to remind you of paragraph twenty three in the aliens-interaction section of the mission protocol.”
 
“Woah! Who’s there?!” Rainbow yelled, surprised, searching for the source of the sound.
 
“Hey Sarah, I had a good day too,” Steve sighed and turned towards the ponies. “This is Sarah. She is an artificial intelligence, AI in short. She controls the ship and is able to communicate with me. She is some sort of machine or robot if you know what that is.”
 
The ponies nodded, seeming to understand the explanation.
 
“Good. Sarah, you can tell me more about my violation of the rules again later, for now I don’t really care. These are Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle and I’m going to show them around. I don’t wish to be disturbed during this time,” he said in a sharper note than intended towards the AI.
 
“As you wish.”
 
“Did you manage to contact the Columbus yet?”
 
“I sent out the signal but so far I have received no response.”
 
“Okay, carry on.”
 
“Isn’t this a bit harsh?” Twilight asked, raising a brow.
 
“Nah not really. As I said, she is not alive. She doesn’t have any emotions or feelings I could hurt. She is a machine. Well, a very advanced one that is able to make decisions on her own but still has no emotions,” he replied with a shrug. “And from what I know of voice commands, it’s usually best to use as few words as possible, while stating exactly what you want. Just makes it easier for both of us.”
 
“Hmm, okay if you say so,” Twilight said, the questioning look on her face not quite disappearing. “So, are you going to show us around now?”
 
“Sure. Let’s start at the kitchen. You can place your bags there so you don’t have to carry them around all the time.”
 
A few seconds later they were inside the kitchen, Twilight putting down her saddle bags and he the results of their little shopping trip. Quickly he went over the kitchen’s inventory, but based on their reactions they must have had essentially the same equipment here, which lead to only a short duration of their stop here.
 
Next on the list stood the entertainment room. The concept of movies wasn’t completely new to them, but they were relying solely on cinemas for that at the moment and it was without sound, so a much smaller, and better version of that seemed interesting to them, especially Rainbow Dash. Briefly he tried to pass by the fact that it is also possible to play games with that, but that was maybe something for later in the tour, if they still had the time for it then.
 
Rainbow Dash followed slightly disappointed as they continued the tour and ended up in the bedroom. “That’s where I sleep,” he announced and waved with a hand over the room. The ponies were withholding their enthusiasm at the sight of the plain, yet messy room. I should have fixed the other beds, he just thought to himself as he took a look over the scattered blankets, mattresses and pillows.
 
“Looks quite… empty?” Twilight carefully said.
 
“Yeah, don’t you have pictures or anything here?” Rainbow Dash added.
 
“Unfortunately not.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t allowed many personal items to begin with, and all of them are now still in my cabin on the main ship.”
 
“Oh my, I’m sorry,” Twilight said, her ears flattening, regret in her eyes from Rainbow asking the question. “Do you miss them? It must have been a while since you’ve seen them.”
 
“Sometimes. It was quite hard at first, but as the travel went on I adapted to it, and made some new friends during the travel. I always liked to travel, but it was never for a really long time, so it was unusual for me and I felt homesick a lot at first. But as I said, I adapted,” he tried to say nonchalantly, though his voice hitched a bit.
 
“Why did you come here anyways?” Rainbow wanted to know. “I mean, why did you leave Earth?”
 
“There were a lot of reasons. The call for an adventure on one hand. Seeing things and going to places no human has ever seen before. To be the first one making contact with another species. We were celebrated like heroes before we left,” he smiled wistfully at the memory. “I can’t imagine how it will be like when we return from a successful mission. Then I had a massive fascination for space on the other hand. We had a lot of fiction about space and aliens and I dreamt more than once that it would be real. And then I got offered this chance. I left a lot of things behind for that, but I don’t regret the decision.”
 
“Well as long you are happy with it,” Twilight responded, although she still looked unhappy.
 
“It’s not like I’ll never return home or hear from them again. The mission was scheduled for around fifteen years, but now that we were so lucky to find a relatively close planet it will be much shorter. I’m only two years away from home. Admittedly that’s still quite some time, but I’m relatively young.”
 
“How old do humans get?” Twilight asked.
 
“That depends. With a healthy lifestyle, modern medicine and a bit of luck it is possible to reach up to a hundred years old.”
 
“That is about to same as ponies then. Earth ponies though usually get much older, thanks to their magically fortified bodies,” Twilight explained.
 
Steve nodded it off before he made a suggestion. “Shall we go look at the next room?”

“Yeah let’s go,” Rainbow agreed and followed him out of the door. “But why is everything so small here.”
 
“That’s a matter of perspective. Compared to what I was living in during the flight this here is pure luxury.”
 
“Really? Was it that bad?” Rainbow asked surprised.
 
“Spaceflight is very, very expensive. Space like this for everybody on board wouldn’t be possible. I, as well as most other members of the crew, had only a small cabin carved into the walls of very small rooms. We had to save space everywhere. I was very lucky to crash with this ship. Not only because it’s an autonomous system, but because it was supposed to host our highest ranked members and they were offered a bit more comfort than the rest of us on the ground. I mean they have a freaking kitchen and even a place to relax.”
 
“And how many humans were on your ship then?” Twilight now inquired.
 
“The total crew consisted of ninety two people, seventeen of which were awake during the travel.”
 
“Awake?” both ponies asked in unison.
 
“It would require a lot of room to store supplies for ninety two people for a fifteen year journey, most of which would have nothing important to do during the flight. So they were put into cryostasis. This means that their bodies were being frozen, so that they could sleep for the journey and wouldn’t require food for the time. It is relatively harmless, besides feeling weak and sick for the first couple of hours after waking up. I had to stay awake because they wanted at least one technician available, in case something breaks during the flight.”
 
“That’s so weird,” Rainbow pointed out and looked at him bewildered. “Freezing yourself so you can sleep for years.”
 
“Hehe, yes, a bit. But sometimes I envied them. Most of the travel was unbelievably boring,” he admitted. “Let’s go on then?” Rainbow nodded.
 
“You coming, Twi?” she asked and looked back at the purple unicorn that stood still in the hallway, a thoughtful look on her face.
 
“Uhh yeah, sorry. Zoned out a bit,” she replied and followed them down the hallway.
 
“These two over here are bathrooms,” he said and pointed at the two doors to his left. “Nothing spectacular to see there.” He moved on and pointed to the door to his right. “This is the Command Centre,” he announced and entered the room, the ponies following shortly after. “Here we would hold mission briefings and such things. Also one of the best places to eat your meal because we actually have chairs with a table here.”
 
“Looks pretty empty,” Rainbow noted as she looked around the bland room.
 
“Yes, it is,” he agreed and pointed towards the ceiling above the table. “But this little thing up there makes it a bit more interesting.” The ponies followed his arm. “That is a beamer. The lens on the side will let you project an image onto a wall, probably similar to how your cinema works, but the little lenses at the bottom are the more interesting parts. They allow you to create a hologram on the table.”
 
“Huh?” Rainbow made her confusion sound.
 
“I’ll show you. Sarah, can you give us a model of Earth here, please?” he ordered the AI. The ponies were watching in awe before them as the beamer turned on, and a few more lights on the table began to glow up. At first there were just a few flickering beams of light that travelled between them, but eventually there appeared a small projection of a planet. “That is Earth. This image is created via laser beams, showing you a three dimensional image of my homeworld. Neat, huh?” he announced and looked expectantly at the two ponies, especially Twilight.
 
“Wow,” Rainbow just muttered and took a few steps closer to the image.
 
Twilight needed a few more seconds before she could reply, “That is amazing! I can see it from every side!” Quickly she walked a circle around the table. “Oh, imagine the possibilities of what can be done with such visualization.”
 
Rainbow Dash reached out her hoof, but stopped herself shortly before she touched it and just threw a look at Steve. “Can I touch it?” she asked.
 
“Go ahead. The lasers are far too weak to do anything, as long as they don’t shine directly into your eyes.”
 
Eventually she put her hoof in and out of the hologram multiple times, watching fascinatedly as the picture got distorted by her touch and how it reassembled itself once she pulled her hoof out again.
 
“So this is Earth you say?” Twilight asked while watching Rainbow’s strange movements.
 
“Yes. This is based on various satellite images. As you might have figured it’s not possible to get a full view of a spherical object. Also the colour is not true. It only looks so bright blue because that’s the colour of the laser beams. While a lot of the planet is water, and therefore blue, it is a bit harder to make out the landmasses,” he explained and stepped over to the hologram, pointing at a small line, representing the split between land and water. Twilight took a step closer as well. “Just wait what you get to see next. Sarah, enable the interactive mode and screen the results on the whiteboard once I’m zoomed in. Thanks.”
 
“Acknowledged,” the AI replied.
 
“Now see some of humanity’s magic,” he said and shot Twilight a grin before moving his hands towards the hologram, performing a dragging motion with his fingers, causing the image to zoom in on a certain part. Now the actual beamer began to work and was showing a larger, and especially coloured image of the zoomed-in part.
 
“Is this a giant map?” Twilight asked surprised, her eyes switching between the hologram and the whiteboard.
 
“Correct, one of the best you can find. But let’s go a bit deeper,” he said and zoomed in closer. 
 
Landscapes became visible, as well as city outlines, the larger ones were even named already, as well as roads running between them. Both ponies now watched silently in awe as he zoomed in a bit closer onto the largest town he could see in the image, until the view was close enough to even see the cars on the streets.
 
“This is one of our cities, seen from about a hundred metres above,” he proudly declared and pointed at the projection on the wall.
 
“Did you live there?” Rainbow Dash asked curiously as she was moving closer to the whiteboard to inspect the image.
 
“No, I don’t even know where exactly we are right now. I think somewhere in America,” he replied as he noticed the numbered roads and the overall grid design.
 
“And you are from a different country?” she inquired.
 
“Continent even. We divided our world into seven continents, with each containing multiple different countries. In total there are about two hundred different countries on our planet, and they all vary quite a lot in size and population,” he explained as he zoomed out again and circled around the large landmasses that made up the continents. His guess turned out to be correct as he landed somewhere in the east coast of the USA. “You told me of two countries where ponies are living, Equestria and the Crystal Empire. Are there more?”
 
“These are the main pony inhabited countries, but there are of course more. Zebraica in the far south for example, or the Griffon Kingdoms in the east.”
 
Zebraica? I really need to go out on a limb here to figure out which species lives there, he commented dryly. “I see. There is another neat tool this map has to offer,” he announced and turned back towards the hologram.
 
“And that is?” Twilight inquired.
 
Steve didn’t respond, instead zoomed in closer into the hologram until he had the same view as before, but then went one step deeper and the entire image began to change. Instead of a bird’s-eye view it now showed them standing in the middle of the road. “An all-around picture, one taken every couple of metres, letting you virtually walk through a city,” he eventually explained. “Want to give it a try?”
 
“Yes!” came her quick response and she stood beside him.
 
He gave her quick instructions for the basic commands to move around the map, as well as zooming in and out again. The latter proved especially difficult for her, as she needed both her forehooves in the air and somehow had to balance on her hind legs. Having to stand on a chair didn’t make the whole thing easier for her. Rainbow could barely hide her laughter and Steve was struggling with keeping a serious face at the sight of the staggering Twilight.
 
Eventually she got the idea of it however and was able to move between the images of the town.
 
“Good. You can just play around with that, I’m going to make something to eat in the meantime. But please don’t touch anything else while I’m gone, okay?” He got an acknowledging sound in response from the ponies that seemed to be too wrapped up in their little trip to form a real sentence.
 
A few moments later Steve stood back in the kitchen and went over the contents of the shopping bag and tried to remember the order of the recipe. Okay, eggs and butter into the pot, bread in the toaster… which I don’t have. Well, a pan will do. Add some tomatoes and mushrooms, he thought to himself quickly as he went about his work, careful to not accidentally burn anything. It was a simple meal, and as such was finished quickly, leaving him with three plates of scramble eggs, some toasted bread, mushrooms and tomatoes. Mhmm, just like I remember it from home, he thought and grinned contentedly as he smelled the meal. Hope they’ll like it.
 
With the three plates and a couple of knives and forks in his hands he made his way back into the Command Centre, only to find the two ponies fascinatedly moving around Earth. They had left the town and were now on some lonely road in the middle of a steppe. “Hey!” he called a bit louder to get their attention.
 
Rainbow Dash almost jumped out of the chair as she heard his voice and spun around. “Oh, hey, back already?”
 
“Sorry for scaring you,” he chuckled and entered the room, placing the plates on the table. “But you two seemed so focussed.
 
“I wasn’t scared,” Rainbow said and waved him off with a hoof. “Maybe Twilight here was, but not me.”
 
“Huh? What?” Twilight asked. Her eyes had been locked on the screen before here, but now that she heard her name she seemed to have snapped out of it. “Oh you made something to eat already? Didn’t even notice you were gone,” she added after seeing the plates.
 
“I figured,” he replied and looked at the plates. “And I thought this was a good time to make some dinner. I hope you are hungry.”
 
 “As a horse!” Rainbow said earning her a small giggle from Twilight. “And it looks and smells pretty good to me,” she noted as she moved her muzzle a bit closer to her plate to sniff at it.
 
Why did I even bring any cutlery? They surely won’t use a fork, he asked himself, but much to his surprise Rainbow Dash didn’t start eating by digging her muzzle into the food, but leaned back into the chair, took a fork into her hoof and began to eat. Huh? How is that possible? A fork is tiny. How is she doing that?
 
“Yeah, tastes good,” she said after taking the first bite.
 
“Yes, I like it too,” Twilight agreed, who was levitating the fork with her magic.
 
“Thanks, but could you tell me how you hold your fork, Rainbow? I get it with Twilight’s magic, but hooves? I’ve seen that they were a bit more agile than they look, but holding a fork?”
 
“What you mean?” Rainbow looked at him confused. “I just pick them up like anything else.”
 
“But how? I mean you don’t have grip around them! They are supposed to simply fall out of your hooves!”
 
“Doesn’t look like falling to me,” Rainbow said and waved the fork in her hoof.
 
“Actually, he is right,” Twilight admitted, earning her a surprised look from Rainbow. “You remember that I told you that every pony has magic flowing through their body?” He nodded. “This magic is what gives us our grips. It is inherent and most ponies are not even aware that it actually is magic. It works similar to the magic of earth ponies and pegasi, therefore it doesn’t follow the same rules as magic. It doesn’t consume magical power for starters, but tires the body. Also it can’t be blocked or interrupted by any kind of shield or magic blocker.”
 
As Twilight was going on with her explanation, Steve occasionally glanced over at Rainbow, finding her curiously inspecting her hooves, but soon shrugged it off and returned to her meal.
 
A quick and quiet meal later, Steve leaned back in his chair, stretching his back. “Feels really good to finally get to eat some real food again,” he said and laid a hand on his stomach.
 
“What if not food were you eating during your travel then?” Twilight asked and raised a brow.
 
“Well, we of course had food, but it came in the form of preserved meals. Containing everything a human needs, except a good taste. But with them being relatively small and easy to store they are of course the number one choice of food for an expedition like ours. Hurray!” he exclaimed with as much faked enthusiasm as possible.
 
“Could I see them?” Twilight asked. “I’d like to see some food from your world.”
 
“Sure,” he agreed. “They are in the cargo room. We can continue our tour there.”
 
“Great, let’s go,” she declared eagerly and jumped out of the chair. Rainbow Dash followed her a tiny bit less enthusiastically, mumbling something about needing a rest after a meal. The cargo room was just the next door to their right, so only a couple of seconds later the group stood inside the room in which a large number of boxes were piled up in shelves. Quickly he went over to the boxes that contained the rations.
 
“Let’s see…,” he said more to himself than to them, as he went through one of the boxes. “Ah, here. Pasta with tomato sauce. Doesn’t contain any meat. You can try it if you want,” he told them and held a small, shiny box in front of them.
 
“Doesn’t it need to be cooked?” she asked.
 
“No, it’s precooked. Usually I’d heat it up to make it taste a bit better, but you’ll get the basic idea,” he explained and opened the cover. “Go ahead, try it,” he motivated the ponies.
 
With no cutlery, Twilight used her magic to cut out two bites from the box and levitated them in front of her and Rainbow’s faces. They looked at each other, shrugged and then took the bite. Judging by the looks on their faces they regretted that decision.
 
“Ugh, I think I prefer your cooking,” Rainbow said after she forced down her bite.
 
“Same here,” Twilight agreed with a sour expression on her face.
 
Steve could only chuckle. “That wasn’t even the worst, you should try the bread.”
 
“I think I’m good, thanks,” Twilight declined quickly and Rainbow nodded in agreement.
 
“I thought so. Well, back to our tour then. This is the cargo room. There isn’t much to see here really. Most boxes are filled with supplies, spare parts for repairs and some additional equipment like the audio recorder,” he explained and pointed around the room. “Speaking of which…” He reached inside one of the boxes and pulled out one of the recorders. “Here, I promised you this one.” He held it in front of Twilight’s face.
 
“Really? Oh thank you so much!” she cheered and beamed with joy.
 
“It’s fine, don’t mention it. I’ll keep it for now until we get back to your bags. It’ll probably be easier for me to carry it,” he offered and Twilight nodded quickly. “I’ll show you how to use it later too.”
 
“Thank you!” she cheered again. “But could you show me a bit more of what you have here?”
 
The next twenty minutes or so, he spent with pulling various gadgets from the boxes around them, presenting them to Twilight, who immediately inspected them from top to bottom. The last one, a Geiger counter, he nearly had to rip out of Twilight’s grip.
 
“I think that should be enough for now,” he said, much to Twilight’s disappointment. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get a second chance to inspect our equipment a bit closer, but I have to follow the rules at least a bit.” Twilight wanted to object first, but accepted the explanation and quietly followed him out of the cargo room again.
 
“What’s that?” she asked and pointed to her right.
 
“Our next stop. The heart of the ship and where the true magic lies,” he replied and put on a sly grin. “That is the board computer.”
 
Curiously Twilight approached the terminal. “So that’s how these computers you talked about look like.”
 
“They come in various forms, this is a less common one,” he explained and stepped next to her. “With that you can type things in-” he pointed at the keyboard “- and the computer will process your input. As a neat little extra it also recognizes voice commands, as you have noticed before when I was speaking with Sarah, though with her being an AI she can do a little bit more than just comprehend commands. But that’s a very new and rather experimental technology, so I have to admit that I’m rather unfamiliar working with her and don’t really know what she can or can’t do.”
 
“Anyways, on these monitors” - he pointed at the row of displays that covered the wall “- I can see the output. I think it’ll be best if I just show you.” He took the seat in front of the terminal and began navigating around the enormous database that the ship had stored. Having a rough idea of what Twilight might like he knew where to go. “Here, this you might like,” he announced and Twilight curiously looked up at him. “You can type in just about anything in here and it will show you a lengthy article about it. Like a large encyclopaedia.”
 
“Really?” Twilight asked surprised and looked back at the screen. “But where are all the books that it takes the information from?”
 
“There are no physical books here, they are all either stored electronically or magnetically. Both ways take up far, far less space than a physical book, but at the same time doesn’t directly let you see the data anymore. You have to use a computer like this to see them. I bet by now they’ve come up with something as large as my hand that could store a smaller library.”
 
“Oh! I need that!” Twilight immediately exclaimed. “That would be so perfect to organize. I’m running out of space so often that I always have to send a few books back when ordering new ones.”
 
“Sorry, Twilight, but I can’t really give you anything else but your recorder for now. Also it takes a while to store an entire book. Maybe sometime in the future.”
 
“It’s okay, I was just daydreaming a bit,” she replied, saddened.
 
“And what else can this thing do?” Rainbow Dash threw in, looking a bit bored by now.
 
“Well, this one is quite limited in functionality, but it controls the entire ship for example. If I was flying, I would be controlling everything from here. But I also might have a bit of knowledge here that you might find interesting.” Quickly he began to search the databases of the encyclopaedia for a flight show, and lucky as he was he found a very informative article, which even included a few videos. “As you have noticed, we humans don’t have wings like you, Rainbow, but that doesn’t limit us to the ground. And since I can’t show you this thing here flying, then maybe you’d like to see a few of our other machines do that,” he said and pressed the play button on the first video, showing a small segment of an air show where a group of jet planes were flying in formation and performing a few stunts like loops and others that Steve didn’t know.
 
“These things have wings, but they don’t even flap them to fly? Why not?” Rainbow Dash inquired after the video had finished. By the look on her face he seemed to have caught her interest now.
 
“The air, flowing around the wings at high speed, causes an upward trend, lifting the aircraft into the air. And they get their speed from powerful turbines.”
 
Thoughtfully she looked at him for a moment and then nodded. “I see. And they also look pretty cool but not very agile.”
 
“Well, the turning radii of our planes are quite high, especially at high speeds.”
 
“Oh yeah? How fast? I don’t think they are as fast as the Rainbow Dash!” she exclaimed and proudly puffed her chest. “Haven’t seen them perform a Sonic Rainboom.”
 
“Sonic Rainboom?” Steve asked, confused by the unknown expression.
 
“It’s when you go so fast the air builds a cone in front of you and then lets out a large explosion of rainbows shooting out in every direction. I’m the only pony who can do something like that,” she explained quickly.
 
“You’re telling me you can go supersonic? Is she serious?” He turned towards Twilight who nodded.
 
“Pretty cool, huh?” she smirked.
 
“Cool? I have never thought than this would be possible without the help of machines,” he said and stared at her with wide open eyes. There had to be a serious amount of magic involved in her flight, he needed to study that at one point.
 
“Mhm I think you have a wrong view of what’s possible here,” she said, shooting him a grin. “So your flight thingies can match me?”
 
“They do, the faster planes can go even twice that fast,” he told her, causing her grin to fade. “But no living thing on Earth comes even close to that speed.”
 
“Twi told me about the distance between planets or something and I should have guessed that you can go pretty fast too,” she mumbled and yawned loudly. Steve took the hint and looked at his clock, it was half past seven already. Still a couple of hours away from going to sleep, but it had been a long day nevertheless. “I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty tired,” Rainbow Dash said.
 
“You slept for half of the day. How can you be tired again?” Twilight asked and gave her friend an irritated look.
 
“Takes a lot of energy to be me,” she shrugged.
 
“Something like that,” Twilight muttered in response and rolled her eyes. “But I think we should be going then. We’ll be having a lot to do tomorrow as well.”
 
“What’s the plan for tomorrow?” Rainbow inquired.
 
“Oh right, I completely forgot to tell you,” Twilight answered and held a hoof against her face. “The princess wants to see us in Canterlot tomorrow. I’ll tell you the rest on the way.” Rainbow nodded before Twilight turned back towards Steve. “I will pick you up at nine o’clock tomorrow then, okay?”
 
“Sounds good to me,” Steve replied and lead the two ponies back to the door. As they passed the kitchen Twilight grabbed her saddlebags and he gave her a quick lesson on how to operate the audio recorder before placing it in her bag and bidding them goodbye as they headed back towards Ponyville.
 
With a sigh he turned around and marched back to the computer, searching for a way to delete today’s recording. “What are you trying to do there?” Sarah suddenly spoke up.
 
“Nothing!” he replied innocently.
 
“I have to inform you at this point that you are accessing data you are not allowed to…”
 
“Yeah, yeah. I know. You can teach me whatever you want tomorrow,” he cut her off and to his surprise she actually remained quiet. “Still no signal from the Columbus?” he asked.
 
“No,” came the quick reply
 
“Okay… carry on,” he ordered as he finally found today’s recordings and simply deleted them. There weren’t even any restrictions. I should report this! Anyone could just manipulate the data as they pleased. Not that I’m complaining right now, but still, he thought and got up from the chair, walking over the Command Centre to take a look out of the window.
 
The sun had set already, leaving him with a very limited view as his mind was puzzling about why he still had not reached the main ship yet. There had to be something wrong with them, but he didn’t even want to imagine what. He could only hope that they could fix whatever problem they were having soon. With a sigh he turned around, heading back towards his bedroom where a huge mess was still waiting to be cleaned up.