The sounds of heavy rainfall and the occasional thundering in the distance leaked into the room from the thunderstorm outside. Canterlot was due for a rainstorm that day, moved aside because of the nobles bickering and protest to this day. Now, there was no avoiding it. The storm drenched the city and some frantic ponies outside with a nonstop downpour of water. The ponies outside who didn't take heed to check the weather schedule handed out by the Canterlot weather committee covered their head with what they could find.
A three day old newspaper on the side of the road.
A walker-by who was lucky enough to be passing by a store that sold umbrellas.
Their own wings.
But many of the ponies in this once busy and bustling city were enjoying a nice day inside with either their families, or a good book. Nice, warm, and dry.
One of the many who enjoyed the constant sound of falling rain rested comfortably in a hospital bed. Though conscious, he was not. IVs and other tubes ran into his body, giving him substance and medicine at a constant pace.
"...uhhh..."
The occupant of the hospital room stirred from his slumber. Dazed and tired. He could not see his surroundings like regular ponies.
He was as far away from that word as physically possible.
He heard the calming sound of rain outside of his room, he smelled the sterile scent of the clean gauze surrounding his body. He knew he was in a hospital bed, past experiences attested to that.
To his right he caught the scent of...strawberries. Strawberries and plastic. He reached out to the scent and grabbed a hold of a tiny plastic cup, with a ridiculously large handle. The inside of the cup didn't exactly smell like strawberries, another dominating smell...vanilla.
It was a plastic cup filled with vanilla ice cream, was his guess. He felt around the tray, and soon enough, he found a spoon...
From some odd reason, there was a loop of cloth around the tip of the handle.
'Wait...hooves. The loop of cloth around the spoon and the overly large handle is for hooves,. They put the loop on and tighten it so that they can use utensils...smart.'
That little spoon and cup reminded him of a larger than life fact...he wasn't in his world anymore. He was in the land of magical talking ponies, completely different from his own world...
'This ice cream is delicious!'
He attacked the the medium sized cup of ice cream with vigor. Pleasantly savoring the strawberries that were cut into halves and added to the delicious dessert. Strawberries were always his favorite fruit, seconded only to bananas.
As he scraped the last remains of ice cream from the bottom of the cup, he noticed the distinct smell of...apples.
Apples were his third favorite type of fruit.
He reached out slowly, as to not tip the apple scented food off the tray in case of a surprise contact. His hand made contact with another ridiculously sized handle.
'Apple juice.' he guessed.
He brought* the cup to his lips and tilted it. He was right...
'Sorry bananas, looks like you've been replaced.'
The apple juice that he drank was the sweetest, refreshing, and downright best cup of apple juice he has ever had. It blew bananas out of the water, and into the moon the cup was so good....
"Gak! Ugh!"
The cup of apple juice was so good that he wanted to down it as quick as he could, leading a tiny stream of apple juice straight up his left nostril.
He coughed a little before using a finger to cover his right nostril and blowing the apple juice out with one sharp exhale.
"Still better than bananas..." he said as he, slowly, finished the rest of the apple juice.
He felt movement in his bed not his own, starting from his right foot, soon after that he heard a little groan. The voice and the smell were familiar.
"Hello, Button. Had a nice nap?" He asked with a smile on his face. He knew that Button was there the moment he woke up...
But a man has got to eat, and he was starving.
'That reminds me, I gotta see if they can-'
"M-mister Alien?" the tiny, quivering voice of Button asked as he looked up to see the human lost in thought. The colts question derailing his train of thought, he focused his head to Button's general direction. Still giving him a smile as warm as the room they were in.
"Yes, it's me Button. Do you know any other tall bi-whoa!"
His sentence was cut off when Button lunged at him and slammed into his chest with a tackle hug. He knew he was going to do that. The sudden depression in his bed meant that he put his hoof on it, hard. The sudden change in the rooms air meant that Button had moved suddenly, and the quivering voice meant that he was on the verge of tears. He spread his arms out and took the, surprisingly strong, hug that Button gave him. He winced in slight pain.
He started bawling into the humans chest, hugging him as if he was going to vanish into thin air. His bandages were getting soaked in the boys tears.
He was confused, he only met this little pony for a short few hours. Granted, their friendship flourished when they met officially, him not being under the influence of some horribly tasting medical concoction, it still didn't explain to him why...
A sniff of the air made it clear that Button has been here for quite some time. His scent is everywhere in the room.
"Button, are you alright? How long have you been here?"
Button tried to answer his question between his nasal sounding sobs, but his answer was interrupted by constant inhales of breath.
"Button, please, calm down. I can barely understand a word your saying." he rubbed the back of his head, that was missing its trademark hat, and held him there for about 10 minutes for his sobs to go down.
When they did, he took several deep breaths. Still hugging onto the human, but with a marginally less powerful grip.
"I...*sniff* I've been here for about three days." he finally said.
"...Three days? I've been out for three days?" the human replies in shock. He knew his fever was bad, but it didn't feel like being worthy of a three day resting period.
'Why would they even let him...'
"Y-yeah. A-after you saved us from the changeling..." Button told him everything that happened after he fainted. When he reached the part about his injuries, the humans face grew an expression of shock. Button barely held his breakfast down when he remembered it, so he only told him that they were...green. But that was enough for him to guess how bad his wounds were.
"I...I didn't know my injuries were that bad..."
"It...it was scary. Most of the class..." Button didn't know if he should tell him about how the class reacted to his...wounds. He didn't want to hurt his feelings. That, and he didn't want to relive that day. The times he did he got queasy when he remembered how bad his wounds were, and it made him want to throw up, "never mind. You'd be better off if you didn't hear it..."
"I...I understand. I don't want you remembering anything you don't want to. Is there anything you can tell me though?"
"Celestia came and saved you with her magic. It was amazing, she cleared up your...green in like 5 seconds!" Button practically yelled. His loud nasal voice coming back at full strength. Which caused the hearing sensitive human to cringe slightly.
"Oh...sorry, am I too loud?" Button asked in a quieter voice.
"No, it's alright. It's not like I'm overly sensitive to the tiniest little sounds, that would pretty annoying. Though if you could lower the volume a little, I'd grateful."
"Okay." Button said with a smile.
"...You can come in now." The human said, much to Button's confusion.
The door leading to the alien's room opened, revealing two royal guards. The one on the left had a white horn on his head, a Unicorn. The one on the right had white wings on his sides, a Pegasus.
"I told you he could hear us, you're buying lunch today." said the royal guard on the right.
"But, we were standing completely still...how'd you..."
"I heard your heart beat and breathing, that answer your question?"
The guards didn't say anything. The one on the right just smirked at his companion, and a roll of the eyes was his response.
"Oh, and before you go back to whatever you were doing, could you get us some food. I'm starving here." the alien said.
"We'll you heard the..."
"Man."
"You heard the man, get him some food!" Righty said to lefty.
"Me!? Why do I have to do it?"
"Not it."
"What!? Wait you-...*sigh* fine."
He could hear the guards hoof steps as he walked down the hospital hall.
"Fricken' aliens..."
"I heard that."
He could hear his hoof steps get faster. All three of them laughed.
"He's got your number, Bronze!"
"Shut up!"
And another round of laughter.
The alien turned his attention to the only window in the room.
"How long has it been raining?"
"The rain started at 12 last night and is scheduled to stop at about... 12 A.M.
"Spoiled nobles wanted to push it off forever. Don't have a sense for tradition like most ponies."
"Tradition?" the alien asked.
"Oh, can I tell him sir?" Button asked the guard. The guard laughed.
"Kid, you don't have to call me sir, that's my dad's title. Just call me Silver."
"Oh, okay."
He turned to the human and began his explanation, "Most of the other cities in Equestria need rain for their crops and stuff, so they get scheduled rain. But Canterlot, being a city mostly run by unicorns, doesn't need rain to nurture what little plants they have. Most of the plants in the city are in the castle gardens, and are catered round the clock by gardeners hoof-picked by the princesses themselves.
"Some of the population of Canterlot moved here from other cities in Equestria, and they missed the rain that would come down. So, they signed a petition to have at least one day where it would rain in Canterlot. Even though most of the nobles downright hated the idea, Celestia, one of our rulers, thought it was a nice change in the schedule. So, once a year, Canterlot has a "Rainy Day." It's basically a city wide day off, even for the princesses."
The human had many questions after Button's little lecture. But the guard named Silver beat him to the punch.
"That's right, kid. I'm impressed, how'd you know all this?" he asked.
"Had to study for a history test last week, got a B+!"
He decided to leave the majority of his questions for later, because he caught the scent of something delicious coming closer to their location .
"Food." The alien said.
Silver and Button sniffed the air.
"Wow...that's one good nose you got there. I can't smell anything."
"Me neither."
"Years of practice. I can you what it is, but I'll keep it a surprise."
He arched his brow in thought, and asked something.
"Hey Button."
"Yes?"
"You and Silver said that the weather is "scheduled", what do you mean by that?"
Both ponies sported a confused look.
"You...don't have weather control in your world?"
The human snorted.
"No, our weather is...pretty hectic."
"Soups on." the guard in charge of getting food said as he came into the room with an assortment of food in him magical grasp.
"Care to tell me how hectic this weather is?" Silver asked. The guard called Bronze swiveled his ears to the human in interest.
"What weather?" he asked his colleague.
"Pull up a seat, and have a drink." he smiled, "this one's going to be...a shocker."
***
Cold, uncomfortable, scared.
These words could best describe the feeling that the giant changeling felt in the small interrogation room deep in the bowels of the castle.
But what scared him the most is the completely unreadable expression on the face of the only other being in the room.
Celestia.
She had a stack of paper on the table in front of her, it was about six inches tall.
Celestia inhaled, and slowly exhaled. Usually the sound of rain would calm the nerves of most ponies, but it had the opposite effect on Celestia. For the rain reminded her of a very annoying fact.
It should be her day off.
One of the few days she had completely to herself, to relax, to unwind, to decompress, to have genuine fun, had to be spent with this changeling, and doing a mountain of paperwork. And on a more major note, this changeling led an invasion to Ponyville that hurt her ponies, and destroyed thousands of Bits in homes and work.
And she made sure she was forthright about her state of mind.
"I'm not happy, changeling." she stated with her eyes closed.
She pointed a quill that she brought with her straight to the changeling. With her tone of voice, it felt like that quill could suddenly shoot down the table and stab it in the heart.
If bugs could sweat...
"Not. Happy." she said, emphasizing both words.
"Not only did you lead an invasion to my personal student's town of residence, with starved and dying changelings I might add, you had the audacity-" she levitated the dead, gray apple that Applebloom showed her. The shriveled husk was placed inside a magically sealed plastic bag for preservation, "-to try to use ancient, forbidden, black magic to steal the life force of an 8 year old foal."
Inhale...exhale.
"I must say, I haven't been this angry in well over 300 years, and the last pony who angered me this much..." she opened her eyes and gave the changeling a smile so cold that it made the emptiness of space feel like a hot summers day.
"...Is dead." she said with an almost happy tone.
The changeling knew that no pony can live that long, and it would be obvious that the pony that angered her would have felt the hand of time long ago...but, the changeling didn't know how the pony died. And that wasn't a question he would be asking her anytime soon...
But that same question would haunt the changeling for the rest of its life.
"But, I am not the only one you have angered. " she looked behind the magically one way glass that separated the interrogation room and the outside hallway, "my sister has also been awakened from her slumber in order to deal with this...situation.
"Now, you must know of my sisters 1000 year banishment. This means she has a more...traditional way of gaining information."
She deactivated the one-way enchantment on the window...
To reveal Princess Luna magically holding a large, metal, spike. She breathed on it, and brought a black cloth, with her cutie mark on the lower left corner, up to the black spike, witch also had her cutie mark in the center of it, and started polishing it.
She moved one eye over to the changeling and smiled...
She had fangs.
The enchantment was reactivated, and Luna disappeared behind a wall of black.
Celestia turned her attention to the changeling, who visibly shook in fear. She flashed that cold smile of hers and whispered to the changeling.
"You don't want to know where that goes."
She trotted to the chair opposite the changeling, and sat down.
"Now, the choice is yours... do you want to do it the easy way, and give your complete cooperation? Or..."
She deactivated the glass and reveal her sister again...
Who was now completely in her Nightmare Moon form.
She stared at the changeling, with a psychotic, borderline demonic, smile. Her fangs glistening in the darkness, and her spike lazily floated on her right side...
The spike pointed to him.
"Do you want to do it the fun way....because I have one of those spikes too..."
She came almost face-to-face with the terrified changeling. The changelings massive size did nothing to help it, even though it had the size advantage...
"And you don't want to know where that one goes either."
Ant, meet boot.
***
"So...the island is constantly being struck by lightning..like, all the time?" Button said in surprise, his eyes wide and his ears hugging his head.
"Yes, all the time."
"But how..."
"I don't know."
The human heard the distant sounds of metal hooves striking the tile floor...the ruffling of feathers was so light that he barely heard it.
"Someone's coming, they've got wings and armored hooves...it might be another guard to relieve you two."
The two guard ponies said their good-byes and returned to their stations outside the door...
Though, as the pony came closer, he notice several things about the mysterious pony.
1. The time in which each hoof lands on the floor suggests that this ponies is a tall one. He didn't have a base value, so he couldn't be sure.
2. The ruffling of wings suggested that said wings had to be much bigger than, say, the guard named Silver.
3. The smell...fresh soap and shampoo. As if the pony recently had taken a bath. The smell of lilacs suggested that this pony was female.
...
This pony was far different than any of the others he has met. He senses it, her power, it radiates outward. It felt like the sun was bearing down on him.
He heard the guards go rigid as the pony came closer to the room.
"At ease, gentleponies." he hears a motherly, almost melodic, voice say to the guard.
He could have heard their muscles relax.
They moved aside and opened the door for the pony.
"P-princess Celestia!" the human hears Button say as he feels him move on his lap. Most likely a respectful bow or greeting.
"What are you doing here?"
"Greetings my little pony. I have come to talk to the human. I'm sorry, but this is...not information that should be heard by the young. I must ask you to leave.
"You can come back when we're done, alright?"
"Yes, princess."
Button gives the human one last hug before coming down off the bed and leaving the room.
"So, you're this 'Princess Celestia' I've been hearing about." the human says as he leans back in his bed, "I can't really bow at the moment, so you'll have to forgive me."
"Pleasantries like that aren't needed here. You risked your health to save the lives of my subjects, I would like to consider you a friend, if you let me."
The man put a hand on his chin.
"Hmm, you're the kindest royal figure I've ever met, you completely blew my assumptions out of the water."
"How so?"
"I thought you were going to try to execute me."
Celestia almost reeled back in response to that, "why would you think I would do such a thing?"
"Your name. It reminds me of the...royalty back in my world. They seem to care more about money and material objects over actual human lives."
"I know my fair share of those..." Celestia responded.
"So, forgive my frankness, but why are you here? I don't think the ruler of an entire nation would just come for idle conversation with an extraterrestrial."
Celestia sighed, she prepared herself a long story.
"Yes...I have come to tell you something of utmost importance..."
"Let me guess, humans were on this planet before?"
"Hmm... care to tell me how you figured that out?" inside, Celestia was somewhat suprised, and impressed that this human could have deduced that.
"Easy. When those changeling beings invaded the town. I apparently had a giant bulls-eye on my forehead. I could sense their desire for my flesh, anyone could."
"It wasn't your flesh that they wanted..."
"Hmm...then, can you enlighten me as to the history of my race here? But, before you do..."
He brought his attention to the window.
"A "Rainy Day"...I wish we had that in the navy."
