//------------------------------//
// Meet and Greet 
// Story: A Party For All Ages 
// by PropdowPony 
//------------------------------//

	Twilight Sparkle has read several medical journals on the subject of sleep deprivation. She’s well aware that a lack of regular REM sleep can result in impaired judgment, memory lapses, tachycardia, decreased reaction time, immune system failure, short circuiting in unicorns, and wing spasms in pegasi. In the past, she’s endured many an all-night study session. Last summer, she stayed awake for five solid days in a determined search for one of the Lost Spells of Mangus Illusionhoof. She never did find it, but in the space of six hours, she introduced herself to a zebra ambassador as “Nightlight Spackle,” turned Spike into a fire hydrant, and accidentally teleported into an occupied stall in a stallions' restroom. Now, contrary to what she'd told Pinkie, she hadn't actually been awake for an entire week. She probably wasn't aware of how many microsleeps she'd taken by the sixth day, or that staring for three hours at the Horsehead Nebula was actually a dream. But Twilight's sleep debt had certainly reached critical levels. 
Which is why Twilight gazed for fifteen seconds without blinking at the banner above her head, trying to determine if she was hallucinating. Meanwhile, Applejack had decided, of the three ponies and one dragon which had recently popped into existence into town hall, she should probably go to the one she knew. Plus, it looked as if Twilight had been through a horrendous ordeal.
"Twi! Are ya okay? You look terrible!"
Twilight shook her head to focus her attention on her friend.
"What? Oh, you mean the clothes, the eyepatch, the scorched mane, the bandage, and the...um...what was the other thing?"
"A scar?" guessed Applejack, noticing the lilac gash on Twilight's cheek.
"Right, right. No, it's not what it looks like. It's a long story." She sat down and massaged her temples. She was not ready to ask this question, but she had no choice:
"AJ...is it really 1219?"
"I'm afraid so, sugarcube." 
"I don't understand it. The spell was only supposed to send me back a week for just a minute, then bring me right back to the Starswirl the Bearded wing."
"Well, we're still tryin' to figure that out, too," she said, glancing over her shoulder at Eureka. He was wiping punch off of the strange egg-shaped metal thing with several paper napkins.
"So does that mean I've been gone for...almost two years?"
"No," said Applejack, putting a reassuring hoof on her shoulder. "You were back in Ponyville that same day. You went home and slept for somethin' like two days." She glanced at Twilight's spiky manedo. "An' now I know why you wore a baseball cap that whole week after. But, you've been with us ever since."
And grew wings and became a princess, thought Applejack. She'd known Twilight as a regular unicorn for three years. She was genuinely happy she'd become a princess and everything, but just the same, seeing her now without wings gave Applejack a pang of nostalgia for that Apple family reunion when Twilight and Spike walked onto their farm for the first time.
"Then, sooner or later, I'm going back to 1217," said Twilight. "But how? The time spell could only be used once!"
"It's my bad," called out the yellow unicorn in the technicolor suit. "I'm really sorry about this!"

"R-H-I-N-D-L-E. Rhindle."
Pinkie wrote his name nice and big on the sticker badge. The dragon produced from his waistcoat pocket a handkerchief big enough to be a blanket for Gummy and blew his pointed nose with a miserable brrrk! 
"Nice to meet you, Rhindle, I'm Pinkie Pie!" She shook the end of his tail. He didn't seem to notice, and was more intent on pouting.
"So, what year are you from?"
"1985," said Rhindle absently. He sighed and stared at a wall.
"Oooh! You're from really far away! In fact, I'm giving out prizes for things like Flashiest Time Machine and Fastest Hoverbike. I don't know yet if you've won the Longest Distance prize yet, but I'd say things are looking good! Now you're just a teeny tiny bit late, and you might have noticed that most of our guests have already gone home, but I'm sure we can still find fun things to do!"
She bounced up and stuck the name badge onto his forehead. Rhindle didn't even blink.
"Oops!"
She bounced again to peel the badge of his head. Then one more bounce to stick it on his waistcoat. Rhindle frowned and looked at Pinkie for the first time.
"Wait, how did you know that I -- "
A cyan pegasus interposed herself between them.
"'Hey. 'Scuse us one sec," Rainbow said to Rhindle. The dragon just shrugged, sat down, and buried his face in his claws.
"Pinkie, I'm gonna go after Fluttershy. She probably just went to hide under her bed. In the meantime, maybe you could, I dunno...hide Mr. Sunshine here?"
"Yessiree, Dashie!" said Pinkie with a salute. Rainbow swooped out of an upper window, into the moonlight night. Fluttershy could only have gotten a third of the way back to her cottage by now.
Pinkie scrunched her face with momentary concentration, tapping her hoof to her chin. How hard could it be to hide a dragon? 
"Aha!" said Pinkie. In a flash she disappeared down one of the corridors. Scant seconds later, she returned and bounded onto the stage improbably balancing a movie projector, a screen, and a film reel in her hooves. Applejack and Twilight watched as she set up the projector on one side of the stage and the screen on the other. 
Rhindle felt another tapping on his tail. The pink pony was back.
"I've got a super-special surprise for you," said Pinkie. "If you'll just follow me, please." She bounced up onto the stage. Rhindle slunk after her, nearly dragging his claws behind him, his stovepipe hat carelessly slipping off his head. Pinkie attached the reel to the projector and hastily fed the film through it.
"I thought you might like to learn a little something about our fair town of Ponyville," she said, pulling down the screen. "So  I found a movie in the archives you might enjoy while I get the other guests ready to meet you! Doesn't that sound like fun?"
Rhindle sat down obligingly, clasping together his claws in his lap. He quietly sulked in a most un-reptilian fashion.
"Let me just get it all darky-warky so you can see!" She found the appropriate rope just off stage right and lowered the curtain. Rhindle let the darkness envelop him, and sighed like a wind blowing through a cave. Pinkie turned a knob on the antiquated projector and it buzzed to life. The reels turned slowly, and a dusty white rectangle with a black fluttering hair illuminated the screen.
"Enjoy!" chirped Pinkie. "I'll be back soon with some delicious gummy bear cake!"
A reversed gray "4" appeared on the screen, followed by a backwards "3" and then a flip-flopped "2." As usual with these kinds of films, a "1" did not come next, like you'd expect, only a boop sound. A black-and-white panoramic pegasus' eye view of Ponyville's humble skyline faded in with the title 

!ELLIVYNOP OT EMOCLEW

superimposed on top of it. Cut to a youthful Mayor Mare happily speaking to the camera. Silently, since the soundtrack printed on the film was on the wrong side. The hair flickered in front of her face.
Rhindle preferred to stare glumly at the wooden boards of the stage.

On the other side of the curtain, Eureka set down his errant machine and trotted up to meet the mysterious mare in black.
"Hi there," he said, offering a toothy grin and offering his hoof.  She tentatively shook it.  "I'm Eureka. I wish we had met under less awkward circumstances, but that's my doing. You see..." He froze, keeping his leg extended even after she released it. His eyes widened slightly with recognition.
"Oh! Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you! You're -- "
He had just begun to bend his front knees and lower his head when, for once, his analytical mind outpaced his mouth. He cast a surreptitious look at Twilight's sides and horn. He straightened up and gave his throat the tiniest of clearings.
"You're...Twilight Sparkle. Student of Princess Celestia, if I'm not mistaken. Right?"
An indigo blush painted Twilight's cheeks. By now, she should be used to the fame. She had helped save Equestria twice now, as any tourist visiting Canterlot Castle would know when they saw the likeness of her and her friends on the stained-glass windows. Though she wasn't wearing the eyepatch or the spysuit in those windows. 
"Yes, that's me," said Twilight.
"May I be too presumptuous to ask," said Eureka, having trouble avoiding a formal tone, "if you had recently attempted some form of journey though time?"
Before Twilight could answer, Pinkie materialized next to her just long enough to stick a name badge on her chest proclaiming her home time as 1217.
"Yes, I was using a rare time spell to go back a week and tell myself not to worry about the future."
"Really?" said Eureka, fascinated. "And how did that go?"
"Terrible," said Twilight, with a grimace. "All I did was make myself worry about the future." Eureka nodded sympathetically. "Speaking of which. Applejack, where am I right now? The me that lives here?"
Credit is due to the Element of Honesty for looking so casual on the outside during her internal struggle for words. She settled with:
"You an' Spike are with the Princess meetin' some important ponies from Saddle Arabia." She breathed a sigh of relief that what she said was, in fact, the truth. 
"I am?" said Twilight, one eyebrow raised. 
"Yep. Very important stuff. Won't be back for three days."
"Wow, I've never even seen a pony from Saddle Arabia. They have a most fascinating culture."
"Don't they just?" Applejack wasn't even sure she could find Saddle Arabia on a map. She swallowed hard. Twilight had one of those far off looks. Was she suspicious?
Twilight actually had one of those far off looks because she was experiencing a two-second microsleep. Eureka was about to ask if she was okay.
"That's perfect!" announced Twilight. 
"It is?" asked Applejack.
"Yes! Now I don't have to worry about having to meet my future self."
"Exactly!" said Eureka, all caught up. "Don't want another one of those messy paradoxes, do we?"
Applejack turned her head to hide her relief.
"Besides, my past self was kind of a pain. She wouldn't shut up! Do I really talk that much?"
The psychedelic colors in Eureka's suit and tie flickered, then faded to static black. Eureka frowned at the sleeve of his coat.
"Well, crans, those batteries didn't last long," he said.
"Excuse me," said Rarity from the cake table. "But I think this one is waking up."

Rarity had carefully laid the blue mare on the floor and placed Eureka's saddlebags under her head as an impromptu pillow. She cleaned cake off her face with a levitating embroidered handkerchief. The mare groaned and slowly opened her orange eyes.
"Just take it easy, darling," soothed Rarity, offering her a cup of water. 
The mare took the cup in her hooves automatically. She sat up and sipped. Rarity stroked her back.
"There you go, dear, you'll be alright."
The earth pony rubbed her eyes and tried to make sense of the white, yellow, orange, and purple faces above her.
Her eyes widened and her pupils shrank. She dropped the cup, spilling the water, and looked frantically around her.
"Travo brishen an rad welemcrovi!" she shouted. Questot en draiconicot?"
"What?" said Applejack.
"Calm down, darling!" said Rarity, trying to steady the frightened mare.
"Questot en draiconicot?" 
"I don't recognize her language," said Eureka, "but I think she might be talking about the dragon." He looked over his shoulder to confirm that the curtain was still closed and concealing the visitor on the stage. He also noticed Pinkie, humming to herself and slicing a piece from the un-smooshed side of the cake.
Rarity held the mare by the shoulders and locked eyes with her.
"No dragon," said Rarity calmly, shaking her head. "No dragon here. The dragon is gone." 
That seemed to help. The strange pony stopped panting and laid down on her belly.
"Corenzarfa wogonet. Frondor en aixid." she mumbled.
"I've never heard anypony talk like that," said Applejack.
"I can't understand any of it," said Twilight, "but it sounds so familiar. It's definitely not a modern Equestrian language. It's...archaic. Old."
"Very old, I'd say," said Eureka, picking up the water pitcher with his magic and pouring another drink. "Wish I'd brought my data engine with me."
"Which means," said Twilight, with academic enthusiasm, "that she's from the past! Like me!"
"But from a lot longer ago than two years," said Eureka, magically passing the cup to Rarity, who offered it to the mare. The mare reached for the cup, then looked suspiciously at the blue aura around it, and the other aura around Rarity's horn. She stood up and backed away.
"Noter boggol, unipona," she warned Rarity. Her defiant stance tried to convey courage, but a break in her voice betrayed nervousness.
"What's eatin' her now?" said Applejack. The mare turned to the farmpony and trotted over to her side, keeping a conspicuously wide berth around Rarity, Twilight, and Eureka. 
"Perhannis, arthepona. Trofan ges paratavo in towiestic. Questicot en ov?" she asked, a gleam of faint hope in her eyes.
"Why's she talkin' to me like she knows me or somethin'?"
Without warning, a thump! resounded from the roof. Everyone flinched at the noise, especially the blue earth pony, who most likely feared the arrival of another dragon. A shiny scarlet helmet with an opaque, silvery visor poked through the hole in the ceiling. With the smallest of buzzing sounds, the visor lifted on its own and exposed the creamy-white face of a stallion.
"Hey!" he called, "can anypony tell me where the hay I am?"
"Ponyville," Twilight called back.
"Ponyville? You're kidding, right?"
"No. It's Ponyville," hollered Applejack.
"How in the blue heron did I end up here? That's hundreds of miles off course. Maybe I blacked out."
The stallion leaned forward, slipped through the hole, and floated down to them.
"What in tarnation?" Applejack said aloud what the others were thinking.
The pegasus who descended towards them wore a red and white skin-tight garment, like a spysuit, but made of some spongy, pliable material Rarity could not identify. The letters EAC and TMRN were stitched in gold along his sides, and patches of various colors and shapes adorned his front legs. But what made the ponies below gawk in awe were the enormous wings, formed by a skeletal frame of steel and swathes of white fabric, which extended from his sides, affixed to his natural wings by a complex matrix of clamps, wires, and cables. His mechanical wings gleamed, stretching to a wingspan more than twice as wide than he was long. He floated with uncanny grace and a faint whirring of servos, like an angel pony from a clockwork heaven, and alighted with keen precision in front of his audience, a landing engineered to be impressive. Save for the WELCOME TO 1219! banner which the tip of one wing tore down.
He flashed them all his winningest smile. His metal wings neatly folded themselves against his body with a hiss.
"Well, it doesn't matter because I did it!" announced the pegasus. His deep voice echoed around the hall. He spoke mostly in shouts.
"No doubt you'll read about this in your local newspaper tomorrow, but I'll just spoil it for you now." He snapped his forehooves together, standing at rigid, practiced attention.
"I am Bravo Zulu, Major of Their Majesties' Royal Navy, and Senior Test Flyer for the Equestrian Air Corps."
He paused to let this wash over them, but was met only with blank stares. He grunted at the lack of recognition, privately annoyed that he had dropped into such a backwater town of yokels.
"Just moments ago, I have completed an historic trial run of the latest in -- "
"Come on, Fluttershy!" came a voice from above. Rainbow Dash braced herself against the window frame and yanked the pink tail in her teeth. "I told you, the coast is clear. I don't see the dragon anywhere." She gave one hard pull, and the rest of her yellow friend emerged, her hooves covering her eyes.
Bravo gritted his teeth and ignored the interruption. 
"An historic trial run of the latest in hyper-flight technology. They said it could never be done, but I have proved them wrong! Because the brave mares and stallions of the EAC strive to make the impossible a reality! For I have just -- "
Rainbow dangled the uncooperative Fluttershy by her back legs.
"Let's just go talk to Twilight and...who the hay is that?"
"Ahem." Bravo would not deign to give the noisy interloper the satisfaction of turning around. "As I was saying, I have just now broken, by a long shot, the pegasus air-speed record, and have achieved a top speed over five thousand wingpower!"
Bravo closed his eyes to bask in the adoration. He expected hoof-stomping, applause, maybe even for that lovely white unicorn to swoon or perhaps even to kiss him. Mares can get pretty weak in the knees, after all, at the news of an act of such fortitude and skill. But only silence followed. For two seconds. Followed by raucous laughter from behind him.
"Bwwaaaaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
There was a thud and a squeak. He turned around to see a rather pretty yellow pegasus getting to her hooves and rubbing her flank. But the source of the laughter was twenty feet above, clutching her stomach.
"Five thousand wingpower? Are you sure it wasn't a hundred thousand? Or a billion? Ha ha ha ha!"
Bravo's face turned a deep red. He seethed, grit his teeth, spread out his shimmering wings, and brought himself to the blue joker's altitude with a fraction of a flap. He opened his mouth to unleash a tempest of vitriol at her. Then stopped. He looked at her face. Her mane. Her cutie mark.
Rainbow wiped a tear from her violet eye, her laughter fading. Then she frowned at him.
"What are you looking at, dude?"
Bravo gave a cursory look around the room.
"Oh, I get it," he said with a smug smile. "It's a costume party, huh?"
"A what?" said Rainbow. Bravo studied her admiringly.
"I'll say this for you, my little nimbus. That's the best Rainbow Dash cosplay I've ever seen. The dye job is top notch. Though I think your cutie marks might be backwards."
Rainbow pressed her snout right against Bravo's snout. Bravo remained impassive as a statue.
"First," growled Rainbow, pounding her front hooves together. "I am nopony's little nimbus. Second, there's no way you could fly anywhere near five thousand wingpower, even with your big phony wings. And third, I have a late-breaking news report for you. I'm wearing the perfect Rainbow Dash 'costume' because I've been wearing it all my life! I am Rainbow Dash, the one and only." She jabbed her hoof at his chest.
"Rainbow!" called Applejack. "Take it easy now! He didn't mean anythin' by it!"
"Very funny, missy," said Bravo to the earth pony. "And you," he whispered to the impostor flapping in front of him, somehow still shouting at the same time, "you ought to drop the act and show me some respect. Do you know who I am? I happen to know a lot more about Rainbow Dash than some rude young miscreant like you."
"What did he just call me?" said an irate orange pony. 
"C'mon, you guys," whined Pinkie. "Don't fight. This is supposed to be a party."
"And what do you think you know about Rainbow Dash, you faker?" she screamed hoarsely into Bravo's face. "That she helped kick Discord's skinny flank? That she triggered a sonic rainboom when she was only a filly? That's she's the best flier in Equestria?"
Bravo stared hard at her, watching her quiver with rage. He shook his head. Then he calmly unbuckled the strap under his chin, put a hoof on either side of his helmet, and pulled it off. His sweat-slicked mane unfurled. It was a colorful mane. With six colors. Purple and blue bangs hung just above his eyes, a patch of green sprouted from between his ears, and yellow, orange, and red cascaded down his neck.
"That she was my great-grandmother," said Bravo. For the first time, quietly.
Rainbow's jaw would have plummeted straight to the center of the planet had not the floor been in the way.

In the sustained shocked silence that followed, Fluttershy heard a plaintive sob from behind the curtain. Anxious for any excuse to slip away from all the shouting, and from the pegasus with the big scary wings who did not seem nice at all, she glided onto the apron of the stage, and listened carefully. Yes, somepony on the other side was crying. Driven by her maternal instincts, she slid her head under the curtain to see who was so distraught.
When she saw it was the dragon, she clasped a hoof over her mouth to suppress a scream. Bathed in the harsh white light of the film projector, Fluttershy could see him laying on his belly, his face buried in his hands, weeping. By his side sat an untouched slice of cake and a plastic fork on a paper plate. The tail end of the forgotten film flapped loosely in the rotating reel. 
The pegasus had reached an impasse. On the one hoof, she could see the tiny puddle of tears that pooled next to him. On the other, when the dragon lifted his head, she could see the slit-pupiled red eyes from which the tears fell. She hated the pitiful soft moans of a creature in pain. But the sulfuric smell, the blood-red scales, the sharp talons and, worst of all, the white daggers that were his teeth all sent a wave of primal horror crashing over Fluttershy.
She didn't fly away. She didn't say anything to him. She crawled the rest of the way under the curtain and sat there in the dark, watching him through her pink mane.

In the same sustained shocked silence that followed, the blue mare, unable to comprehend the bizarre things and even more bizarre ponies around her, turned her focus to the tall upper windows. Luna's stars shone, clear and bright. Her heart began to pound, not with what she could see through the windows, but what she couldn't see. She galloped around the rows of tables to the main entrance. She shoved at one of the wooden doors with a grunt, and it creaked open. 
This creaking diverted Applejack's attention away from the rainbow-maned pegasi. 
"Now what's she up to?" she said to herself.
The mare stepped slowly off the porch and into the night. She gazed up into the starry sky and the moon as if she'd never seen them before. She breathed in the fresh air. She knelt down and dragged one hoof through the grassy soil of the lawn. A broad smile was born.

A flash of purple broke the same sustained shocked silence as Twilight teleported herself onto a balcony near Rainbow and Bravo.
"Okay, that's it!" she said, entering lecture mode. "We all need to do our best to avoid spoilers! We've already said too much! If you're from the future, don't talk about anything from your time! The consequences could be disastrous!"
In a flash of blue, Eureka appeared at Twilight's side. Her eyebrows raised; she'd never met another unicorn who could teleport quite as well as she could.
"Actually," said Eureka, somewhat sheepishly, "my research would indicate that time travel wouldn't actually cause paradoxes. Natural Time has a way of working things out. For example, you said you met yourself a week in the past, right?"
"Yes."
"And you remember the week before when you were visited by future-you. Did that moment when the two of yous interacted play out exactly the same way? Was your conversation identical, word-for-word?"
"Now that I think about it, yes. The first time around, I was so excited that I had discovered time travel, I didn't give myself a chance to talk. And the second time through, I was so intent on telling myself not to worry, I wasn't really listening to what I was saying!"
"You see?" Eureka lightly touched a hoof to her side. "No paradox. A stable time loop was formed."
Twilight almost looked disappointed that the fabric of space and time was not in grave danger.
"But still...I just don't think it's right to know too much about the future."
"I won't argue with you there," said Eureka. For once, he looked quite serious.
With a single flap of metal wings, Bravo swept around and landed on Twilight's other side.
"Forgive me!" he said. "I did not recognize you before." He knelt down and lowered his head with one hoof to his chest. Eureka rushed past Twilight to catch Bravo in mid-supplication.
"Yes, yes, I didn't recognize her either at first," said Eureka quickly to the puzzled pegasus. "But yes, that's her,Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic and all that. She defeated Nightmare Moon, Discord, and the changli -- the change -- the changes...to Equestria...were for the better, right? Right? Heh heh." He grinned at Twilight and hoped she didn't notice the bead of sweat rolling down his forehead. Bravo looked at him as if he had three heads, but before he could say anything else, the two vanished in a puff of blue and teleported back on main floor, on the far side of the room. 
"Major, I wonder if I might have a word in your ear?"

Rainbow Dash sat on the floor, eyes bulging. Her cutie mark might as well stand for "thunderstruck." 
"I'm gonna be...a...a...?"
She paid no attention to Pinkie who orbited her with bounces.
"Yay! Family reunion party!" said Pinkie.

Applejack wasn't sure how she felt about the tight hug the blue mare gave her after she galloped back inside.
"Grazar pelfanin, aerthpona," she said into Applejack's neck. When Applejack gently ducked out of her embrace, she saw the joy in her moist orange eyes. 
"Ma'am, I'm sure happy for...whatever yer happy about, but -- "
"Travas netce en Chancololles fascot."
"Yeah, uh, same to you, ma'am."
Twilight teleported into their company. The mare recoiled at the brusque intrusion.
"Vantagas pror eroavon, unipona!" shouted at the purple pony.
"I dunno what she said, Twi, but that didn't sound too nice." 
"If only I could get to my library, I might be able to find something that would help us understand her."
"Here, let me help you with that."
All heads swiveled towards the source of that statement. The red dragon's head poked out from under the curtain. The blue mare gasped and backed towards the door, but before she could make her escape, the dragon extended one of his claws and raised his index talon. A red, twinkly aura formed around it, humming with magic. Another wrapped around the mare's throat.
"What is he...?" murmured Twilight. "How is he...?"
The auras faded away.
"There you go," sighed Rhindle, and he crawled back behind the curtain.
The mare put a hoof to her throat. Had she just been cursed? Maybe not, she felt fine. She took a breath.
"What did you do to me?" she said.
"Oh my gosh!" said Twilight, astonished.
"What is a gosh, unicorn? Wait a moment, I understood you! What dragon sorcery is this?"
"And we understand you, too, sugarcube!" said Applejack. Rarity and Pinkie joined them. Rarity held the mare's conical hat in her magic. The earth pony snatched it out of the air and set it on her head.
"It appears," she said, facing Applejack, "that I truly have been transported to a far away land. And I am frankly shocked to find a place inhabited by other ponies instead of an empty wilderness. I do not know who you are, but your land is a paradise!"
"It is pretty cool, huh?" said Pinkie.
"Quite the contrary, pink one. It is so very warm. The sky is clear. The air is fresh. The soil is fertile. My home was once like this." She sat on the floor with sad poise and looked up at the starry sky through the windows. "For more than six moons, my homeland has been ravaged by an endless winter. The snow, the wind, the ice, they never cease."
"Oh my gosh!" said Twilight again, her eyes wide with excitement. The mare put an arm around Pinkie and pulled her close.
"So my tribe has decided to seek out a new land," she murmured conspiratorially. "Our spies infiltrated the mansion of a unicorn alchemist and brought back with them...that." She pointed to the vial of purple fluid with which she had arrived.
"Oooo, I gotcha," said Pinkie, who actually didn't get it, but sharing secrets was fun.
"I was informed by the council that this potion has the power, with one quaff, to transport a pony over a vast gulf of distance, and then return her home with a second quaff. I was...volunteered..." She rolled her eyes. "...to test the potion and scout ahead for a new land. I must confess I had serious doubts about the veracity of this tale, and was reluctant to indulge in the product of arcane unicorn magic, and yet...here I am, now, in your strange company, with a talking, magical dragon close at hand, in a beautiful country which would suit our needs perfectly." 
She picked up the vial and gazed into it, swishing the viscous fluid around. Pinkie giggled at the way the glass made her face look funny.
"This may have been the first time in her life the Chancellor has ever been right about something!"
The purple librarian couldn't stand it any longer. She beamed with egghead ecstasy. 
"Excuse me, but you wouldn't happen to mean...Chancellor Puddinghead, would you?"
"You have heard of our Chancellor, unicorn?"
"I knew it!" Twilight spread her forelegs wide in triumph.
"Well I'll be a warthog's auntie," said Applejack.
"This is simply incredible!" gushed Rarity.
"Yippie!" shouted Pinkie, performing two backflips. She was halfway through a third one and then stopped in mid-air.
"Wait. Why is this simply incredible?"
"Don't you see, Pinkie?" whispered Rarity. "That's Smart Cookie, secretary to Chancellor Puddinghead."
Underneath the poofy pink mane, gears turned.
"Oh, that's just silly," Pinkie said at length, still hanging in the air, "she doesn't look anything like Applejack!"

"Um...excuse me?"
Involuntarily, Rhindle raised his head and turned to face the meek little yellow pegasus. As far as he knew, dragons have been sentient for thousands of years and fully civilized for more than three hundred, but he conceded that deep in the heart of even the most cultured dragon lay the soul of a beast. The pegasus, in just a simple, barely-audible utterance, spoke not just to Rhindle's ears, but to his beast soul as well. What was it about that voice? There was just some ineffable quality about it that compelled the beast in him to listen. The little pony approached him at a snail's pace, one careful step at a time.
"I'm sorry...um...I didn't know dragons could do magic."
Rhindle wiped his nose on his arm, then instantly regretted it.
"Where I come from, everybody can do magic."
"Really?" asked Fluttershy, earnestly.
"Yes. Ponies, dragons, donkeys, mules, zebras, griffons, everybody."
"Wow. Um...what does 'everybody' mean?"
"Oh right, I forgot how long ago it is. Yes, at home, we all say 'everybody' because our kingdom consists of much more than just ponies. Everybody means, well...everybody."
Rhindle rested his head in one palm. His tail swished lazily. Fluttershy closed her eyes and swallowed hard. Then she crept around to Rhindle's front.
"So...what was that spell?"
"A translation spell. Once it's been cast on you, you'll understand and be understood by anybody, no matter what your language is."
"It sounds very useful. You must be so clever."
"Thank you," said Rhindle, making invisible circles on the floor with one talon. "It's not a well-known spell at home. Most of us speak the same language anyway." 
The corner of Rhindle's mouth crinkled ever so slightly with the shadow of a smirk. Fluttershy noticed this, forgetting for the time being that it was a dragon's smirk.
"I actually have it cast on myself right now," he said.
"You do?"
"Yes. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to understand me. See, right now, I hear you in my dialect, and you're hearing me in yours. I wasn't sure how foreign my dialect would sound in 1889, but I needed to blend in, so I figured...just in case...I would..." He trailed off, the smirk vanishing.
Fluttershy was completely unaware of the comforting hoof she placed on his arm.
"So, um, what's in 1889?"
Rhindle closed his eyes and took a deep breath, collecting himself. He reached into a waistcoat pocket and pulled out a gold watch. With a flick of a button, it swung open. He lifted a glowing red talon and magically held the watch before her. Fluttershy peered at it. A tiny oval photograph was set inside the lid. It was a photograph of a dragoness wearing a necklace of emeralds which matched her green eyes.
"She is." He said the word "she" with reverence. "Isn't she...breathtaking?"
"Ummmm...." said Fluttershy, awkwardly. "She seems...really nice."
"She's the love of my life. The one I'm meant to be with forever."
Fluttershy rubbed his arm a little.
"Aww, that's very sweet. What's her name?"
"I don't know," said Rhindle, "I haven't met her yet."
A blue flash heralded the arrival of Eureka.
"Hi there! Rhindle, is it? Nice to meet you. And you as well, Fluttershy. I hate to interrupt, but if you two would join me out in the main room, I think it's time I explained my monumental boo-boo to everypony."