"So wait, you don't have any friends back in your world?"
"Nope."
"None at all?"
"That's right."
"And you're okay with that?"
"It doesn't bother me, if that's what you mean."
"Have you just never made any friends?"
"No." I sighed, as I let my head fall to the table with a clunk. After she put Spike to bed she immediately started questioning me about my lack of desire to make friends. "Like I said, I have had friends, it's just that all of my relationships ended up turning sour."
"Why?" Twilight asked, for what felt like the thousandth time.
"Urrrrg....they just did okay? Various stupid reasons. I'm probably the reason for it, but I don't care." Unfortunately, I knew that they all were my fault. Technically. While I like to imagine my split personalities as different consciousnesses that are somehow trapped in my mind, I know that everything they do is a result of my deep hidden desires, or some other psychological crap like that. So when I lash out at someone, or thoughtlessly say something horrible, while I perceive it as one of them taking full control of my body, I know that deep down it's still me doing them. I am just legitimately insane. I think. Besides, if anyone here finds out, they might stick me in an institution, or worse, send me back to Earth.
"Twilight, the bottom line is that I simply am not good at making friends, and on the rare occasions that I do, I can't maintain them for long. Hell, even my relationships within my family broke apart. It's why I live in a crappy apartment with barely enough money to feed myself. I just want to move on from that and start a new life here. If I make friends, then that's fine, I'm just saying, based on my track record, it probably won't last long." Twilight was silent for a few moments.
"Okay," she resigned. "I guess nopony can force you to try to make friends, but I still want to have you read a book I wrote about how friendship can change your life for the better....and please get off the table."
"But it's comfy." I complained, but I lifted my head anyways. "Say, speaking of books, where's the bag I had with me? I had like twelve books in there along with my laptop."
"Is that the black rectangular thing? I tried figuring out how it worked, but I didn't want to break it. It's over there, on the sofa."
I walked over to the sofa and found my laptop lying on it, next to a small hill made out of my books. "...wow, Spike wasn't kidding."
"Quiet, you." She said as she trotted up behind me. "After I gave up on your lap-thing I tried to read some of your books, but they aren't written in any language I recognised."
"Really?" I asked, surprised. "But we speak the same language, all of our words mean the same thing. The only thing really different seems to be how we say certain words, and all that is is cultural differences."
"I know! I really wanted to read something from a different world, too."
"Well then we probably need to teach each other our alphabets sometime. God knows I'll need it if I want to stay here." I picked up my laptop and took it's place on the couch. Twilight moved the pile of books over telepathically and sat next to me.
'Still need to ask her about that.'
"So what does this thing do anyway?" she asked as I opened the computer.
"The simplest answer? It stores data and information, along with a variety of other pointless things." I powered it on, and the Windows logo showed up. "Oh good, it still has power."
"Power? What do you mean?"
"Hmm..." I rubbed my chin, trying to come up with a way to explain how it works. "Do you have light bulbs here?"
"Of course."
"How do they work?"
"Each light bulb has a small gem built into it that has been filled with magical energy. The strength and amount of magic that goes into it determines how bright it is and how long it lasts. Is that similar to how they work for you?"
I rubbed my temple. "Oh dear. No, no they do not. Uhh, you know electricity? Like from lighting?" She nodded. "Well, we've found ways to generate and harness it to power various things. A power plant generates the electricity and cables go along everywhere to all the houses to power all of their stuff. Of course it isn't free, but nothing is where I'm from." I logged on to my account and opened up My Documents. "See, it can hold everything from written documents and spreadsheets to video games and movies."
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Movies? You have entire films in that thing?"
"Hundreds. Or, at least a hundred. I never really counted them. The shift from film to digital recording really set us forward in terms of storage. As well as sharing."
She gawked at my laptop, shocked. "Wait," she said as she snapped out of it. "Sharing? You mean you can take things from this and instantly put it onto another?"
"Well, not instantly. You usually have to use a mobile storage device to transfer files, and it still takes time to copy over."
"Is the storage limitless?"
"No, it's limited to how many memory drives it has, and how large they are. I'd tell you more, but I honestly don't really remember much more than that. Probably shouldn't have slept through my IT classes." I closed my laptop, much to Twilight's chagrin. "But enough about that, I want to learn about magic."
She perked up at that, and instantly dived into a detailed explanation of magic and how the biology of most creatures in this world utilizes it. A very, very detailed and long winded explanation. I drifted in and out as I felt my brain turn to mush, but I'm fairly certain I heard her mention things like pegasus ponies controlling the weather, friendship and kindness driving away uncontrollable blizzards, and that their goddesses control the sun and the moon.
My brain re-solidified itself. "Wait, what? I thought you were a scientist. You believe that a goddess raises and lowers the sun and moon?"
"Uhuh. Princess Celestia just controls the sun though. Princess Luna controls the moon."
I scratched my head. Of all the things that might have happened that might make people hate me, a religious debate was not very high on that list. But since I'm an idiot, i decided to start one anyway. "Yours seems like a moderately advanced civilisation. I would have thought for sure that you'd have discovered that the planets orbit the sun by now."
She looked at me incredulously. "What? No, the moon and the sun are pulled around our planet through the sky by magic! A large group of unicorn ponies did this until five thousand years ago when the alicorns Celestia and Luna came and rescued the ponies of that time from a drought! Because alicorns have much stronger magic than any normal pony they can each control the sun and the moon by themselves, so they offered to take care of that so the ponies wouldn't have to worry about that, and the ponies made them their princesses!"
"Okay, I know that's what you were brought up to believe, and I do try to respect others beliefs, but do you realise just how much larger the sun is than the Earth? It is over one million times the volume of the Earth, and contains more than ninety nine percent of the mass of the entire solar system. Anything that can move that around the planet from one hundred and forty nine million and six hundred thousand kilometres at one hundred kilometres an hour every day would have the power to literally split the Earth in two. If they were so powerful, then they would be moving the sun and the moon around from this planet and would still be alive."
"They ARE still alive!"
"Yes but...wait what." I sat there, brain struggling along.
"They're still alive! They're living in Canterlot right now! I'm Celestia's student, and I'm in contact with her at least once a week!"
"Oh....and you're absolutely sure that she raises the sun, and is five thousand years old?"
"Well, I don't know exactly how old she is, but yes, she's at least five thousand years old. AND I know for a fact that she controls the sun." She sat with her forelegs crossed, glaring at me. It would have been menacing if she wasn't pouting, making her look adorable.
"Huh. Well that's different then. You should have just said that right from the start. I thought you were just mindlessly believing in something someone told you about something that happened five thousand years ago with literally no evidence of any kind. My bad, sorry."
Her face softened. "Apology accepted. But why would you think that?"
"Because that's how religions work where I come from. People believe in wildly outlandish stories that have been edited thousands of times and translated from one language to another without the faintest amount of evidence. I guess it's 'cause they're scared of death and need something to believe in to make the world seem like it actually has meaning."
"Hmm..." She seemed to think about this for a moment before brushing it aside. "Hey JD, could you go upstairs and get Spike? I'm going to start dinner soon."
I smiled and stood up. "Sure." I climbed the stairs and went into what I assumed was a bedroom. It looked more like a study, honestly, but there was a bed up on a landing, so I guess it counts. I climbed the stairs that led up to it and found a basket with the sleeping dragon curled up in it. So freaking adorable.
'I hope there's nothing cuter than this in this world. It might give me a heart attack.'
'And, of course, since you said that it is destined to come true. I wonder if they even have hospitals.' That was actually a legitimate concern, despite it being Ataxia who said it. I'd have to ask Twilight that during dinner. Didn't want to get an infection from a splinter and have to amputate my arm.
I nudged Spike. "Wake up, kiddo. Twilight's making dinner."
He yawned. "Just five more hours." I smiled. Then I lifted him up by his tail. "Urrg..fine, I'm up." I set him down and started downstairs, making sure he was following me and not just going back to bed. We left the room to find that the main library was pitch black.
"Oh god, we've entered the realm of darkness! Our souls are forfeit to the unspeakable terrors from beyond our earthly realm!" Spike ignored my ramblings and just made his way downstairs. I followed him, grumbling something about no one appreciating a good joke. As I stepped away from the staircase the lights suddenly came back on.
"SURPRISE!" yelled a large group of ponies who had somehow managed to silently sneak in. I had no time to react as Pinkie bounded up to me.
"Hey JD! I gathered everypony here for a surprise party for you! Were you surprised? Huh? Huh? Huh?"
I looked around the room There were a few dozen ponies strewn around the room, dancing and chatting, along with balloons, streamers, banners a few snack tables, one which held a large cake, and even some speakers hooked up to a turntable, playing what seemed to be tuba music. I turned back to Pinkie.
"I was up there for less than three minutes. I'm not even going to attempt to figure out how you did this, but you legitimately frighten me, Pinkie Pie." Her smile dropped. I looked at the cake. "So what flavour is that?" I asked, hoping to lift her spirits.
Her smile came back instantly, thankfully. Sad Pinkie is worst Pinkie. "It's a triple choc-mint-strawberry swirl cake with butterscotch icing! Do you like it?"
I went over and took a slice of it and bit into it. Somehow Pinkie knew my taste buds better than I did. "This cake is god."
"God?" she asked from behind me.
"God." I replied. It was a very good cake.
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After tearing myself away from the god-cake I mingled and talked with some of the ponies. They were nice, if a bit put off by my height. And my teeth. And my fingers. Actually, now that I think about it, they were all fairly anxious around me. They must rust Pinkie a lot to agree to do this. Though I suspected they didn't really have any choice.
I noticed Fluttershy in the corner, trying to make herself as unnoticeable as possible. She wasn't doing a very good job. I decided to go over to talk with her. "Hey Fluttershy."
She looked up at me and smiled. "Oh, hello JD. How are you?"
"I'm fine. Utterly confused, but I suspect that will not be a rare occurrence." I stood there waiting for her to pitch in, but she just stared at me. A conversationalist she is not. "....so, what do you do for a living?"
"Oh, um....I take care of the woodland creatures." She said meekly.
"Oh, so you're a veterinarian?"
"Um, no. The veterinarian helps ponies pets when they're hurt or sick. I help the animals who don't have anyone to look after them, like the ones in the wild."
"Oh, that's cool. You're like the doctor for the forest. That;s nice. I've always liked animals."
She perked up at this. "Oh, you like animals? Do you have any pets? What's your favourite animal?"
"I've had several dogs and a few cats. And I like all animals, really. It's just the ones that don't try to eat me tend to be more enjoyable to be around. How about you? What kinds of animals do you look after?"
"I look after all kinds of animals. I look after rabbits, mice, birds, chickens, bears, beavers and a lot more woodland animals."
I stared at her. "You look after bears." She nodded. "And they don't try to eat you or the other animals?"
"Oh no, I make sure they get all the fish they need."
"You catch fish and feed them to bears." She nodded again.
"Oh, and, um..." she lowered her voice to a whisper. "Twilight told me you're an omnivore. If you wanted, I could catch some fish for you to eat."
I shook my head. "No thanks. I had to live on almost nothing but fish for about three years. It kind of put me off it. Besides, I don't know how to gut or scale them or anything I need to do to make it safe to eat. I always just got pre-cut fillets. And no, I do not eat things raw. I cook them. Kills the germs."
She nodded before catching sight of Rarity and left to go talk to her. With nothing else to do, I returned to the cake.
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The party lasted for a couple more hours until people started to get tired and had to leave. Pinkie was the last one out the door, having helped clean up. By which I mean somehow cleared everything out extremely quickly. "Bye bye, Pinkie! Be sure to make more of that cake!" I waved her goodbye and shut the door. I turned around to find a once again sleeping Spike lying on Twilight's back. It was really cute.
"I'm gonna take Spike upstairs to bed. I've set up a spare mattress downstairs. If you need me, I'll be on the upstairs balcony with my telescope."
My eyebrows shot up. "Telescope?"
She nodded. "Yeah, I was going to look at some constellations tonight. Do you want to join me?"
"Sure." She led me upstairs to the balcony, leaving me to wait while she tucked in Spike.
'Jesus, it's cold. I wish I had warmer clothes.'
'You think we'll be able to see Twilight's nipples?'
'I-wha-no, you moron. Equines don't work that way.'
'Centaurs do.'
'Twilight isn't a centaur!'
'How d'you know? She might just be keeping it a secret.'
'I-that doesn't even-how are you so-urrg, Wrath can you just hurt him please?'
'Already am. I'm forcing him to think about cats.'
'Good. I know it doesn't change him but it's still satisfying to have him squirm.'
'I hate you both so much right now. They're all just staring at me. Hundreds and hundreds of cats. Damn our broken psyche!
"JD?" Twilight had shown up with the telescope and two mugs while I was conversing with myself. "I brought some hot cocoa, if you want some."
"Yeah, thanks." I grabbed the mug and took a sip before looking up at the stars. "You know, in my world you'd never have a night sky with so many stars. Not unless you're away from a city."
"We have the same problem in some of our larger cities. Light pollution. It doesn't affect us here in Ponyville since it's such a small town, but I know that the town will grow eventually. I suppose it's inevitable."
"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll figure out space flight sooner or later."
"Your species has space flight?" She asked, wide eyed.
"Yeah, but it's really expensive. Our greatest space achievement was landing and walking on the moon, but that was fifty years ago, and no real progress has been made since then."
"YOU LANDED ON THE MOON?!"
"Shush. You'll wake Spike." She blushed at her outburst. "And yes, we landed on the moon. But that was the result of a race between two of the world's larger nations. It was to relieve tension from the Cold War so they wouldn't destroy each other and bring about the end of the world."
She didn't say anything for a while. "That place is really bad, huh?"
I snorted. "You'd go insane from the horrors that my people can do to each other."
"How have you coped?"
"I didn't. Like most people I knew that all that stuff happened, but I just detached myself from the world so i wouldn't have to constantly think about how horrible my own species is. If they found a way here they'd try to enslave you or use your magic for their own goals, just like they tried to to in your ancient history. I'd like to give humans the benefit of ignorance, but I know the planet would be better off if we never existed." I finished off my cocoa with a large gulp. "But enough of that. Let's look at some stars."
She smiled. "Okay."
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NEXT TIME: WHAT NOT TO DO IN PONYVILLE!