Ponyville was a city of contrasts, Daniel concluded.
They had electricity, but their lampposts still used oil and almost everypony preferred candles. Even the Rich family, one of the richest families in Equestria, used chandeliers to illuminate their enormous mansion. While printing press was an old invention and somehow they managed to make typewriters with a sophisticated array of keys easily manipulated with hooves due to two big circle keys above the letter keys and a small one for spaces, they still used quills and ink bottles for individual papers –and pencils for foals-.
Ever since the reappearance of the Crystal Empire, there has been a big progress in energetic crystals science. Using those crystals, ponies were able to power machines for longer and more efficient use. Yet in Sweet Apple Acres they still used tractors pulled literally only by horsepower. While there were modern electric devices such as portable videogames consoles, ponies never wondered how easy life would be with simple but helpful wristwatches.
And even if Twilight had her own scientific laboratory in the library’s basement, with all sort of sophisticated machines that Daniel didn’t even dare to ask what their purpose were, she still used a simple telescope for stargazing.
Though it wasn’t a problem for Daniel to get used to it, since he never was the kind of guy that couldn’t get out of his house without his cell phone. And his biological clock always made him wake up at six in the morning, and somehow he always knew what time of the day was. So he never really had the need for watches or alarm clocks. And he found it rather interesting, the use of quills. That was a hard thing to learn, being used to pens all his life.
Yes, life in Ponyville had been a whole adventure through these weeks. He still didn’t feel comfortable with being surrounded by over colored magical talking mini horses, but every day he got a little more used to them. Maybe because they all were really nice and friendly with him. Or maybe because they all were really hygienic. Daniel strongly believed that it was the second.
His first days in ponyland he truly feared that the streets would be filled with manure, or that, since they were horses, the smell in the air would be unbearable. But his fears were unfounded. Ponies had clean restrooms as humans to fulfill that necessity. And they were as clean too. For example, every time he was showering in the library’s painfully small bathroom, he could see all the hygienic products they had. The first time he laughed his lungs out when he saw the anti-fleas shampoo Twilight used.
That day, a week after he got his new archery field just for himself, he learned something… different. It was snowing since the early morning, and it was scheduled to stop until past afternoon, and the boutique was closed due to a trip Rarity had to make to Canterlot. So Daniel was idly lying near the small fireplace. At first he freaked out because fire inside a tree didn’t exactly seem as a good idea, but Twilight told him that it was magical fire, it didn’t even burn the lumber, it just provided light and warmth.
Daniel was resting on his back crossing a leg on the other for better comfort. He was reading the last of Daring Do’s adventure books. It wasn’t exactly the kind of genre he was interesting in, but Twilight suggested them, and soon he found himself enjoying the story, book after book. But when he was getting at the good part, an uncommon sound caught his attention.
At first he tried to ignore it, but the quick sound soon became faster, if not a little louder. It wasn’t really annoying, but it didn’t let him concentrate in his reading. So he closed the book and slowly stood up. The repetitive sound came in and out at irregular intervals of time. Curiosity at its best, Daniel soundlessly tried to follow the source of said sound. Initially it sounded as a scratch. The human had to suppress a giggle thinking that maybe Spike was scratching himself as a dog would do. But then he could hear something that seemed a quick and soft gasping between scratches.
Daniel finally located the source of said interesting set of sounds: Twilight’s bedroom. He froze in place. Was she doing what his mind was telling him she was doing? But her door was open. He wouldn’t care if a mare was scratching that kind of itch, he would just turn around and leave. But then again, the sounds were anything but the ones one would expect of that kind of act. He knew he was in a completely different world, but it wasn’t that hard to tell that whatever the princess was doing, it couldn’t be something that private.
He gulped and decided to investigate anyways. Twilight wasn’t the kind of careless pony that would leave her door open if she was having some fun with herself. With that in mind, Daniel dared to casually walk to her door and slowly poked his head to see the inside of the bedroom.
And then his heart stopped for a second.
Sitting in the middle of the room, Twilight had her face buried in one of her wings. At first it seemed that she wasn’t moving, but then she leaned her head, and Daniel could see that she was carefully biting one of her feathers. She was giving that one long feather quick and soft bites sticking out her tongue from time to time, thus spreading her saliva through it. And once in a while she needed to quickly breathe in without stopping the whole action.
She was preening her wings. Daniel remembered that Rainbow Dash told him something about it. Pegasi needed to keep their wings clean, but it wasn’t enough just taking a shower. They had this kind of ritual where they needed to extract every foreign object such as insects, dirt or twigs, things small enough that a normal cleaning wouldn’t help with. In fact, their saliva had the effect of waterproof the feathers and prevents them from damage. He knew the blue pegasus talked about it for ten minutes straight, but he stopped paying attention.
Twilight moved her head a little and started with another feather. At first he thought that she just picked a random one, but the alicorn turned her head away from the wing and spat a tiny twig just to move again to it. Daniel wondered if watching her doing a cleaning ritual was right. Granted her door was open, so it couldn’t be such a private thing to make him look like a stalker, but somehow he felt like he was doing a bad thing. And yet he just couldn’t stop watching her.
She looked just way too adorable. The way she lifted a foreleg in order to get more comfortable. How her eyes were so narrowed that they seemed to be closed. And that cute sight as she got below to work with the smaller feathers, making the wing hide her head underneath. Her tail waved and twirled in a sign that she was, in fact, enjoying the ritual.
Daniel didn’t know how much time he’d been there, just watching how an awfully gorgeous, tiny pony was doing the cutest thing he’d ever seen. It could be mere seconds, minutes or more, and certainly, he didn’t care. Twilight had changed the wing a while ago. Every time he saw a pony sitting, it was on their hind legs and he swears he saw one actually sitting in the butt. But right now, Twilight was using her flank for better comfort, crossing that leg beneath her body.
He was marveled with the sight, he couldn’t think of anything else. If just the act of preening made the alicorn look painfully beautiful, the foreleg she used to support her upper body was sliding in the wooden floor, so every once in a while she had to make a little and quick jump backwards with that leg to accommodate herself again.
And then, something in Daniel’s mind snapped. He realized that he wanted to hug her, but not with the same emotions he had when he did so his third day in Equestria. That time he was lost and angry, with nobody but with everybody at the same time. He had been confused beyond everything. He had been upset when he convinced himself that he wouldn’t ever be able to return to Earth.
But not this time. He was getting used to living there, just as if he moved to another country without a return ticket. He had been living in a hollowed tree used as a library, but to this moment he didn’t even think about it anymore. He couldn’t say he was happy, but he somehow enjoyed his job at the boutique, he enjoyed his own archery field, he enjoyed that ponies were so nice to him. And above all, he knew, deep down, that he enjoyed Twilight’s company more than anything else.
She was really smart, and she was always talking about a topic no one would ever understand, but Daniel always listened to her given that her voice was always enthusiastic and loud enough for everyone to hear, but not much so it never felt as if she was yelling. The weekly reorganization of the library’s books was an exhausting activity, but he would always be there helping. And then there she was, cutely sitting in her flank with one wing opened, her mane a little messy and her big and sparkly eyes laid upon him. Wait…
“Daniel? Did you hear me?” Twilight asked with concern in her voice. Her expression quickly passed from surprise to speculative.
He didn’t move, his jaw slightly dropped. “Uhh…” He wasn’t able to pronounce a logical word. He felt how many feelings were rushing to his brain at once: Surprise, guilt, joy, fear, and a too familiar sensation that children had when they were caught doing something bad. “I… uh…” By this moment, Twilight had folded her wings and was sitting normally on her hind legs. “Sorry” He finally said.
“It’s okay” Twilight said with a warm smile. “That happens to me a lot.” She lifted a hoof in the air. “I asked if you need something”
This was the most awkward moment in Daniel’s life since his mom caught him in a private session with little Daniel when he was 15. Why she wasn’t upset? He had been staring at her for minutes without saying a word while she preened her wings, and she didn’t seem concerned about it.
“Did I… interrupt something?” He asked watching at the small stack of dirt in the floor that once had been in the princess’ wings.
She blushed a little but her smile remained. “I was just preening my wings” She said and her flight limbs shook a little. “I’m still not completely used to it, but how could I be? Pegasi learn to self preen in a matter of years, and they have all their lives to get used to it. I have had wings just for six months” She let out a nervous giggle.
“But I thought that it was something private” He said without thinking. If only he had listened to Rainbow…
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s not something you will see a pegasus do in the middle of the street” She waved her hoof trying to give her words less importance. “Preening requires to be done in a closed place to avoid other things being carried by the wind to keep sticking in our feathers” She then tilted her head a little and Daniel felt how his heart started to beat a little faster. “But it’s not something necessarily private”
Daniel sighed in relief and heard a funny giggle coming from Twilight. She looked at him with a friendly grin. When she noticed that the human was standing there she was surprised since she didn’t hear him coming. But right now she was feeling funny. The sight of Daniel with a faint blur of red in his face made her blush as well and she didn’t know why. Her heart was beating really fast, but she attributed it to the surprise of earlier.
And a quick thought crossed Twilight’s mind. In Ponyville dresses were used just in formal and very special occasions, in Canterlot, ponies liked to wear something at all times, but hardly full dresses. But Daniel always wore clothes. She could understand the coat and gloves because of the cold, but she had never seen him without at least a shirt, pants and socks. She asked him once about it, and he only told her something like ‘human kind requirements’. Twilight had decided not to ask about it, but her inner curiosity always made her wonder how he looked without clothes. It was always to satisfy the scientific part of her brain, but right now, she had to admit that there was another reason. She couldn’t tell what was it though.
And that made her blush a little more. Why was she thinking about that? They were talking about preening and she just started to wonder about his body? What was wrong with her? Why the sudden interest in something like that? Ponies were always naked, it wasn’t something taboo. But somehow, thinking on Daniel without clothes made her feel that something was wrong, and the fact that she couldn’t tell what was it only made her grow uncomfortable.
Several seconds passed in silence. They were only watching each other with awkward smiles. And finally, Daniel decided to speak first. “Well, I’ll let you finish your preening. I’m going to finish my reading” He said and when Twilight only nodded, he turned around and walked away.
He went straight to his room, locked the door and let himself fall on his bed. His mind a hurricane of thoughts, his heart beating faster and faster and his stomach humming. “What the fuck just happened?” He said in a whisper with his face painfully buried in his pillow. He closed his eyes and didn’t move, trying with all his will to relax a little. And after the longest five minutes in his life, he finally rolled over to face the ceiling.
For a moment he only stared at the wood, following with his gaze the irregular patterns in it as darker lines finished and crossed roads with others. He finally hid his face with both hands, breathing heavily as a cold breeze infiltrated through the window and made him shiver just a little.
Daniel snapped his hands on both sides of his body and forcefully sighed. “What is wrong with me?”