Nothing felt right to Twilight. The first time she came through the mirror, she could feel her finger and toes and any other body part. Even Rarity, who had never been through the mirror and changed into one of these human things, knew something was off. Both of them still felt like a pony. They both could feel their hooves and their horns. Twilight even tried to stand her hind legs, but it was too hard to walk. Rarity tried too, but she felt a sharp pain in her back left.
“Ow!” she exclaimed as she fell to her knees.
“Are you okay?” Twilight asked as she ran over to her friend.
“No,” Rarity said as she tried to get back up. Her legs were shaking and she eventually fell to her knees again. “Ow. It hurts to even stand.”
“I’m sorry, Rarity, but we have to go back. Some pony needs to look at you.” Twilight began looking around for the portal. Last time she ended up in an open area in front of a high school. This time, however, they were in an alley. It wasn’t too narrow or too wide. The two mares could stand next to each other and touch a wall. She didn’t even think about it at first, she didn’t even think about her still being a pony. She just wanted to see some humans and get back to Equestria.
Twilight quickly looked around the alley for anything that could even be the portal. She observed an old mirror that looked like it had been sitting there for a year, sitting on the opposite wall that Rarity was next to. She tried to put her hoof through it just to make sure. She smiled as she watched her hoof go straight through it.
“Come on, Rarity.” She said. Twilight looked over her shoulder and saw Rarity struggle to stand up. She ran over to her injured friend under and put Rarity's front left hoof around her neck and threw her front right around Rarity.
“Thank you, darling,” Rarity said. The two mares slowly made their way to the old mirror.
“Ready?” Twilight asked.
“No, but do I have a choice?” Rarity said with a bit of a smirk. Twilight smiled back.
Rarity and Twilight tried stepping through the mirror, but they were too late. The portal had turned back into glass.
“Oh no,” Twilight said when she realized they were too late. She tapped her hoof around the mirror, hoping that it was just that one area. It was all just glass. No part of it was a portal. Twilight looked up at the moon. After some quick calculations, she figured that the moon as at its highest point. Rarity had easily caught and realized that the portal had closed for 30 moons.
“Did the portal…” Rarity said
“Yes.”
“Does that mean we’re…”
“It does.”
“Are you about to freak out?”
“Do you mind?”
“Just don’t scream in my ear.”
“Thank you.” Twilight turned her head away from Rarity and let out a loud scream.
“Feel better?” Rarity asked.
“Much, but we’re still two ponies in a strange world and you’re still hurt. What are we going to do?”
“Hello. Is anyone there?” said a voice for the end of the alley
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“You know you’re my best friend, right?” Brandon said as he laid down in his bed.
“You owe me one,” Cole said before he left his drunk friend pass out. This was a normal thing since college. Brandon would usually spend the night partying and Cole would spend Sunday nights studying for class the next day. He would always end up having to pick up his drunk friend.
Cole Stinger had always considered himself to be normal. He was a 29, 6’3, 175 pound, white American who grew up in southern California. He could only get a small tan in the summer, but that would fade by the end of fall. His face and nose were a bit longer than other’s but everything else was average. His light brown hair was parted a bit off-center.
Cole had always excelled in school, but not by much. He wasn’t very athletic in high school and he wasn’t very good at math or science, but excelled when it came to English and Literature. He had always set the bar in those classes. Even in college, the other student frequently got mad at him for throwing off the curve.
If there was one final that could be said about Cole, it’s that he is a good friend. People naturally gravitated toward him due to his personality and attitude. His friends found him funny and supportive, but a bit cynical. They didn’t care. All his other traits were so positive that they made up for other faults he had.
That’s what landed him at Brandon’s apartment complex. It was the cheapest thing that Brandon could find, but it was what he could afford. It was dirty place and Cole was almost positive that someone had been murdered there. The quicker he could get out of there the better.
Cole quickly walked to his car, a black 2010 Honda Civic. It was early fall, which meant that it was finally cooling down. He turned up his collar on his coat and checked his watch. Midnight. He would be angry with Brandon if his first class wasn’t until 10:30 in the morning. He was about to unlock his car when he heard a loud scream.
His first instinct was to run towards the scream. He would always try and help people in every way. It didn’t matter if it was driving a drunk friend home or walking a girl home form a party. It was his nature to help people in need. No one screams that loud unless they need help. His only hope is that it wasn’t a dead or defiled woman. He ended up at the end of an alley next to the complex, but it was too dark to see anything.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” he shouted down the alley. There wasn’t a response at first, but eventually a feminine voice responded.
“Yes and my friend is hurt.”
“Alright, I’ll get my car. Stay right there.” Cole head some other talking in a lower tone and he couldn’t make it out.
He was able to get the car back to the alley in less than a minute. Cole honked his horn twice to tell the woman and her friend that he was there. He got out of his car and ran down the alley hoping to help the friend, but didn’t expect what he saw. In the alley way was a white and purple unicorn that came up to his thighs. The purple one had wings, but he didn’t really know that was a deference between unicorns with wings and unicorns without wings.
“Please, can you help us?” The purple unicorn said. “My friend is hurt and she can’t walk.” Cole jumped back when he heard the unicorn talk. He lost his footing and landed on his back. He sat up and started to scoot back.
“Is everything okay?” The white unicorn asked.
“Y-You’re talking horses,” Cole said in complete shock. “N-N-Not just horses, unicorns.”
“Yes, we are,” The white unicorn said.
“It’s not normal for animals to talk,” The purple one said quietly to the white one, “And as far as I can tell, there are only earth ponies here.”
It was hard for Cole to get his head around the idea of talking unicorns. It was impossible. Animals can’t speak any human language. Sure there were some parrots who could say some words, but they don’t know what they’re saying. The fact that there were two unicorns in front of him didn’t escape him either. Unicorns were something that a little girl plays with, not standing in an alley.
“Please sir,” the white one said, “is there anything you can do to help us? I’m hurt and I can’t walk.”
Even if he didn’t completely understand the situation, a living creature needed Cole’s help. There was no way that he would be able to resist helping something that has conscious thought. Cole got back to his feet, walked over to the two unicorns and picked the white one up. She was light, but Cole expected as much.
“Come with me,” Cole said to the purple one, “I’ll take care of you two.”
Cole led the unicorn to his car. He struggled to open the back door, but he eventually got it. He put the white one in down on the passenger side seat. Her friend got into the seat next to her and Cole got into the driver’s seat.
“Thank you,” The purple one said before Cole closed the door.
He wasn’t sure what to do about this whole thing. He was going to help the white one in any way he can. His first thought was to go to the vet. He didn’t know much about animals, so he wasn’t sure how much he could help. That thought was quickly dismiss when he thought that they would just run experiments on her. With no other ideas he decided to take them to his apartment. Maybe horse anatomy isn’t too far off from human anatomy.
“I’m Twilight Sparkle,” The purple one said
“Sorry, what?” Cole said. He was too busy thinking about what just happened.
“I just thought that we should introduce ourselves. I’m Twilight Sparkle and this is my friend, Rarity.”
“Charmed,” Rarity said
“Alright, I’ll play along. I’m Cole Stinger.”
“What did you mean ‘play along’?” Twilight asked.
“I’ll be honest with you two, I don’t think you two are real.”
“Excuse me?” Rarity said with an offended tone in her voice.
“Let’s think about this logically. You two are talking unicorns. First off, unicorns aren’t real. They’re just something for Hasbro to sell to little girls. My cousin played with things like you when we were younger. And even if you were real, you wouldn’t be able to talk. Not a lot of animals can speak any human language, and those who can don’t even know what their saying. To quote Charles Dickens: ‘You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.’”
“How could we be ‘a blot of mustard’?” Twilight asked. Although she was a pony of reason and logic, it was annoying for some pony to question her existence. “You picked her up and put her in this thing.”
“You got me there, unless this is like a Fight Club thing. No, I’m not that crazy. So, if you two are real, where did you come from?”
Twilight and Rarity told Cole all about the events of that night. He had other questions and the two were happy to answer. They told him about Equestria, their friends, and their adventures.
“Wow,” Cole said after they told them about their encounters with Discord. He was pulling into his personal garage at this point.
“It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” Rarity said.
Cole’s apartment complex was way nicer than Brandon’s. You have to go up a flight of stairs to get to the actual apartment from the garage or front door. Facing away from the door there was a three seat sofa and a sofa chair at an angle. They were facing a large HD TV and a coffee table in between the seats and the TV. Connected to the TV was a Wii U, a Playstation 3, and an X-Box 360. Further right was a desk with Cole’s laptop on it and a large DVD collection. There was a window above the desk which gave a beautiful view of Los Angeles. To the left was a small kitchen and a breakfast bar. Between the rooms was a door way which lead to a small hallway. On the left was a lining closet and a bedroom. On the right was another bedroom and a door to the apartment’s bathroom. At the end of the hall was Cole’s bedroom. His was bigger than the other two and it was the only one that was connected to the bathroom.
Cole got out of his car and picked up Rarity. He told them to be quiet, as his two roommates were sleeping. He cared the pony up to the living room and put her on the sofa. She was laid out so all four legs were completely stretched out. Twilight got up onto the sofa chair
“Alright,” Cole whispered to Rarity, “where does it hurt?”
“My left hind leg,” She whispered back. Cole wrapped both of his hands around her leg. Rarity was kind enough to move her impossibly curly tail out of the way, but that was just to make sure that he didn’t accidentally garb a stand it and ruin the hard work she put into it this morning.
“Okay, I’m going to apply some pressure. Just tell me when it hurts.”
Cole started to press down a little at first. He saw that there was some discomfort, but Rarity didn’t say anything. He put a little more pressure and the anguish on Rarity’s face grew, but she still didn’t say anything.
“Ow.” She said after Cole put more pressure on it.
“I think the mussel is only little strained. She should be walking around by the morning. You two can sleep on the sofa for the night.”
“Wait,” Rarity said before Cole left the room. “I can’t sleep on a sofa. It would wreak havoc on my mane.” Twilight rolled her eyes, but expected nothing less from her.
“I don’t know what you want me to do about that.”
“Is there a bed I can sleep on?”
Cole thought about it for a minute. There was an extra bed in one of the bedrooms, but he couldn’t let his roommate know that a magical pony is staying with them. There was only one thing he could do that would make her happy.
“Good night, Twilight.” Cole said as he picked Rarity up.
“Good night, Cole Stinger, and thank you for everything.”
Cole’s room was the only one with a balcony. The room had a king sized bed and a night stand on either side. Both had a lamp and the one furthest from the door had a picture of Cole with a woman. They looked like they were in a park and happy. There was a TV hanging from the wall across from the bed and a dresser under it.
Cole put Rarity down on the far side of the bed. He grabbed a pair of pajama pants and a black tank top and changed in the bathroom. Although Rarity was a pony, he still felt weird getting naked in front of her.
“Who is this girl?” Rarity asked when Cole came out of the bathroom.
“That’s just my ex-girlfriend, Trina. She’s the reason why I have a king sized bed. She used to live here, until we broke up so she could find herself. She’s probably somewhere in the mid-west.”
“You two look happy. Do you ever miss her?”
“A little, but we were growing apart towards the end.”
“Do you two…”
“Rarity, I have to get some sleep.”
“Alright. Good night, darling.”
“Good night, Rarity.”
Before he went to sleep, Cole but a small pillow wall between them. It was mainly to make sure that her horn doesn’t stab him the middle of the night. He was able to fall asleep, even with everything that happened tonight, but he knew that it was just the beginning.
----------
“Good Night, Twilight.” Cole said as he picked up Rarity.
“Good night, Cole Stinger, and thank you for everything.”
Twilight got down from the chair and laid down on the sofa. She tried to fall asleep, but she had one final thought that made her cry. She won’t see Flash Sentry for 30 moons. She looked out the window at the full moon. Every full moon, she and Flash would always stay up and just look at the moon. This would be the first time in a long time that she wouldn’t share a full moon with the love of her life. Twilight cried herself to sleep that night, but she also felt weird inside.
----------
Flash Sentry walked home that night. All he could think about was Twilight. To be fair, all he ever thought about was Twilight and he would always be happy whenever he thought about Twilight. This time, however, he started to cry whenever he thought about Twilight.
Flash unlocked the door to his apartment. Without Twilight, the whole place just seemed empty. He took off his guard uniform and tried to fall asleep. Out of habit, he tried to put his hoof around an invisible Twilight, but it just landed on the bed. He opened his eyes to find the other half of the bed empty.
He got up and looked out his window at the full moon. Right then it hit him. This would be the first moon that he didn’t share with Twilight. It was something that they would do together. Everything, he would put his wing around her and sneak in a kiss. It was something he would look forward to every full moon. He completely broke down crying this time because he missed Twilight so much. He only hoped that Twilight was doing the same in the other world. He eventually fell asleep, cuddling with a pillow that he pretended was Twilight.