It was a fairly generic day, in a fairly generic, tranquil town, on a fairly generic planet that had witnessed the rise of equines (primarily ponies) as the dominant species. Which is to say, it was a normal day for anyone who had lived on said planet for any significant length of time.
One such "anyone" was currently trying not to resort to acts of violence against her council as she tried to run a nation. Celestia, half of the Diarchy in charge of said nation, said nation being Equestria, had been sitting at the head of a large table in the council chambers, listening to one particular individual seated at said table take around three and a half hours to go from point A to point B in a long-winded speech about the adjustment of taxes on beets and other taproot vegetables. This particular winged individual is called "Fiery Zephyr", although behind his back, the much more apt nickname of "Hot Air" is used by anyone who has ever had to sit through a meeting with him.
"Councillor Zephyr," interrupted a golden-maned unicorn sitting near Celestia. This would be Prince Blueblood, the only pony in the room who felt self-important enough to interrupt without feeling rude or disrespectful. He continued on. "I find it rather dull to sit here and discuss a mere two percent tax adjustment to goods that have remained at the same tax rates since the Nightmare Incident." Celestia grimaced, and had to restrain herself from introducing her head to the table in front of her. For someone of royal blood, that stallion has absolutely no diplomatic skills, and is about as subtle and crafty as a boulder rolling down a hill.
However, he was great for spearheading things that nobody else would dare. Several other councillors voiced agreement, and (thankfully) the council adjourned for the day, having weighed in on the more immediate issues quite some time ago. After the last set of hoof-steps faded from hearing, Celestia conjured a cushion, floated it up to her face, and screamed into it in frustration. After a moment of collecting herself, she decided that perhaps a walk in the gardens would calm her. A quick glide later, Celestia stood in the center of the gardens, near a small lake, which was fed by a stream, and fed out to become one of Canterlot's many waterfalls. The sound of the gently lapping water quickly helped calm the vexed princess.
Considering what was about to occur, this is a very good thing.
As Celestia sat near the edge of the lake wishing that something more interesting, but less changeling-invasion-y would happen, the sound of birdsong was soured slightly by the faint sound of music coming from somewhere to her left. This was odd, considering that to her left, there was a wall, and then empty air that went down for a considerable distance. Stranger yet, it seemed to be moving closer. Momentarily, she considered the possibility of Discord being involved, but she knew for sure he was entirely too busy foiling any plans the changelings were coming up with. The polka-dotted emissary they sent last week was enough proof of that.
The music was no longer faint. It was a bit odd, to Celestia. It was certainly not pony fare. The lyrics, although she strained to hear them, seemed to consist of a conversation between a joker (a jester?) and a thief. By this point, the music was rather loud, and seemed to be coming from about three, maybe four feet from her left. The air rather suddenly began to crackle with the unmistakable force of static electricity, and a feeling not unlike the heavy air before a storm settled around Celestia.
With a crackling noise, the air rent open, and as Celestia squinted, trying to see what was inside the rift, she could make out a figure walking towards here from inside the blinding tear in reality. By this point, Celestia had assumed a ready pose, not knowing exactly what was going on, or the intent of the figure, who seemed to be singing along to the music, which was rather disarming.
"Two riders were approaching... And the wind began to howl! Hey!" sang the figure. "All along the w- oh. OH. Hello!"
With a click, the music stopped, and Celestia was left staring at a rather odd being. Standing at about the same height as Celestia, maybe a couple inches shorter if you squinted, a rather gangly, furless, ape-like thing wearing a bizarre outfit stood in front of Celestia, holding a large, metallic box in one hand, and roundish bag in the other. In addition to this, said naked-ape looking being had a large bag strapped to its back, filling out the look of what Celestia would come to refer to as "Cosmic Space-Hobo." Yes, with capitals.
That being said, at the moment, Celestia was at a loss for words or action at the extremely unexpected appearance of an extremely unusual looking being more-or-less appearing out of nowhere, in the middle of a heavily-warded city. As she did not recall adding anypon- Anyone? Anyone. Anyone like who (or what) stood in front of her to the wards, this in itself was troubling. Her thoughts were interrupted by a quiet splash. She turned back towards the... ape-thing, and nearly bugged her eyes out of her skull. It had somehow pulled a fishing rod out of a bag, and was now fishing out of the lake. The lake in the royal gardens. The lake full of exotic, and EXPENSIVE fish. The lake full of exotic, expensive, and occasionally very poisonous (when eaten, which it looked like this... traveler intended to do) fish.
"CEASE AT ONCE!" bellowed Celestia, a bit more loudly than she had intended. The ape-thing tumbled comically onto it's backside, as its fishing rod slipped out of its hands and spiraled away over the edge of Canterlot.
"Aww, I've had that one for fifteen hops..." spoke the ape, sounding rather sad.
"Explain at once why and how you have appeared in the royal garden, whatever it is that you are." Good wording on my part, though Celestia, all the weight of royal punishment, but no indicator that it's me.
"Well, I'm in your garden because it's where I showed up obviously." Wait, how did it know- Celestia face-hooved as she realized she was still wearing her crown. "Also, I'm a human. Alexander Navad, rift-jumper. At your service." At this, the human reached out with an arm, looking a bit unsure, before Celestia realized his intent and shook his hand.
"And I am Princess Celestia, one of the rulers of the realm. Now that we've been introduced, how did you get here, and what are your intentions?"
"Oh, right. I'm just passing through, really. I didn't know I was going to wind up here, Did you know your whole plane of reality has an intrinsic layer of defensive magic that makes it nearly impossible to enter?" A beat. "Neither did I until I ran into it mid-jump."
"When you say jump, what do you mean?" The terms that Alexander were throwing around were nagging at the back of Celestia's mind, but she couldn't quite place why. It would appear, however, that he had used some form of teleportation.
"Oh, that's when I generate a rift in space-time and toss myself to the winds of the multiverse." Wait, what?
Dimensional travel. Oh, how Twilight would love to hear this. "Oh, speaking of, did you see a big, sorta pyramid shaped container land anywhere? It would be about... four, maybe three and a half times as tall as you are and- well, basically big. It would..." With a poof, a letter appeared in a gout of emerald flame. Speak of the devil. Alexander was still describing the container in the background. Sighing, Celestia began to read the letter.
Dear Princess Celestia-
I THINK A METEOR HIT MY HOUSE.
IT'S BEEPING, AND SHAPED LIKE A PYRAMID!
SPIKE, ARE YOU GETTING THI-
The letter ended abruptly with a splash of ink and some light scorch marks.
"..and if it starts beeping that means the stabilizer rockets are about to kick in so it might be a good idea not to get too close unless you feel like getting a tan. And by tan I mean minor burns."
Celestia groaned. Why did these sort of things always happen whenever she just wanted some peace and quiet?
Midway through trying to decide if extinguishing her favorite student trumped preventing a dimension-hopping and possibly unbalanced human from causing some sort of diplomatic incident, Celestia's train of thought was derailed when she realized that Alexander had turned his boombox on again, and was now singing. Again. At this rate, someone was going to hear him and come investigating before she could get this under control.
"Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my name! But what's confusing you is just the nature of-"
An extremely frustrated glare and incomprehensible bout of angrish quickly prompted Alexander to sheepishly turn off his music.
"I uh... Shouldn't you do something about this person's house?" Alexander had somehow nabbed Twilight's letter unnoticed. "Oh hey, that sounds like my tag-along!"
Alexander had never been able to describe rift-jumping with an emotion. When Celestia teleported both of them unexpectedly to a burning tree-library? He was reminded of a spaceship he once had a chat with: The Ue "Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath". Which is to say, barely contained anger and a heaping dollop of unresolved frustration restrained behind a facade of calmness. The latter of which Celestia was currently lacking. Which was likely his fault. Whoops.
A small, purple and green scaled reptile was the first thing to catch Alexander's eye. It was hiding under a pile of flaming wood that may have been a chair at one point. It wasn't doing a good job of it. From a short distance away, a rapid series of noises could be hear that sounded vaguely like a fire extinguisher being used. Celestia walked (trotted?) off to go talk to "Spike", and Alexander stuck his head around the corner to try to locate the source of the fwooshing noises. He was met with a blast of fire-retardant foam. A quick few seconds of spluttering and a wipe with a sleeve later, he found himself making eye contact with a slightly singed, and extremely agitated-looking horned pony. Midget unicorn? Whatever. Looking past her (at least, Alexander assumed the pony was female.), he quickly spotted a familiar shape. "Oh hey! That's where it went!"
The unicorn looked over her shoulder at the flaming crater near the tag-along, then back at Alexander. Then back at the tag-along. This continued for several seconds, before she developed a nasty eye-twitch and began to grind her teeth together. Alexander began to slowly back away, but bumped into something. Turning around slowly, he was met with a truly agitated glare from Celestia, and a confused (and a bit scared) look from Spike, who was standing behind her.
"Twilight, please have Spike send a note to the palace informing them I will be busy for an as-of-yet undetermined period of time."
That didn't sound good. Sensing great pain in his near future (or a prison sentence), Alexander quickly began to weave the complex patterns of the rift-jumping spell behind his back, while trying to distract Celestia.
"So uh, sorry about the whole nearly burning down someone's house... library? House-library. Sorry about that." The only answer he received was a continued glare. "Uh. Well, nobody died, right? So there's that."
Celestia maintained the glare and said, "You nearly burned down the home of one of our nation's heroes, which could have harmed her or worse. You trespassed in the royal gardens, from an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT DIMENSION. As if those weren't bad enough, you DID THIS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ONLY TIME I HAVE TO TAKE A NICE, CALM BREAK AWAY FROM THE IDIOCY OF THE NOBLES AND POLITICIANS THAT I HAVE TO DEAL WITH EVERY! SINGLE! DAY!" As Celestia continued her rant, Alexander looked back at Twilight, who seemed more concerned about Celestia than angry at Alexander at this point.
"Well, excuse me then, Princess. Didn't mean to intrude. I was just passing through, so I'll be on my way." Realization dawned in Celestia's eyes just as Alexander finished weaving the Rift-Jump spell. "Bye now!" he exclaimed, as he jumped through the rift.
Celestia finally lost the last shred of calm she had held onto so far. With a roar of pure anger that was completely unfitting for a princess, a pony, or any combination thereof, she launched herself through the portal after Alexander. Twilight was shocked at this, and quickly yelled to Spike.
"Spike! I'm going after the princess! Rift spell! No time to explain! I can get back, probably!"
And with that, the rift-jumper, the princess, and her personally-mentored prodigy disappeared from the face of reality with a thundering crack and flash of light.
Spike was left staring at the empty room as fires continued to crackle merrily around the metal box that had slammed into the library just a few minutes prior.
"WHY DO THINGS LIKE THIS ALWAYS GET LEFT TO MEEEEEEEE‽"