Walking through the streets of Ponyville was unreal. The color, the vibrance, the sheer thrill of it was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. While it was easy to keep up with Lyra, I kept stopping to marvel at all the sights that were there for me to see; there was Big Mac with his apple cart, just like the show! There were Time Turner and Derpy, messing about with some kind of phone booth! I could even see the top of Twilight’s library poking up over the horizon. I slapped myself on the cheek. This was way too good to be true. I was living every brony’s dream, walking right through Ponyville! I could barely keep myself from jumping up into the air and whooping with joy!
“Come on, Jaxxon, if you keep stopping like that, we’ll be out till sundown,” called Lyra from the end of the street. Ponies all around were stopping to wave at me, which I returned happily, but none of them seemed all too shocked about a human just appearing in the middle of their village. I guess it had something to do with grandpa. Reluctantly tearing my eyes away from Cheerilee’s schoolyard, I jogged ahead to keep up with my rescuer.
Lyra and I walking together in silence for a while, her picking her way expertly through the maze of cottages and stores, and me following her and just…living. For the first time in months, I felt alive. The air smelled clean, the sun was shining down like a huge disc of gold, and I was in Equestria. Life couldn’t have been any sweeter.
Except…
Who were those gunmen who had come for me back at my house? A shadow seemed to fall over my mind. Without a doubt they would have searched through my computer by now and figured out that I was the one they were after. Probably booby trapped the place too. Maybe placed a sniper on the apartment opposite. Bastards.
I felt something on my leg. I looked down at Lyra, who was staring up at me in concern.
“You okay?” she asked.
I forced a smile back onto my face. “Yeah. I’m just a little shaken, that’s all.”
There was more to it than that, and it must have shown on my face but the mint green pony just nodded understandingly and started walking again. I followed suit, shoving the memories of the men in red out of my mind for now.
Arriving at Lyra’s house, I was ushered in, much to my excitement. Even on the show, they’d never shown the inside of Lyra’s house! Now, I’ll just get something out of the way. I love Lyra. She’s my favorite pony of all time, so you can probably get how pumped I was if you can imagine being invited into the home of your favorite pony like an honored guest.
Yeah. I wish it has stayed like that. But I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you; shit went down pretty fast after that.
Anyhow, once I entered, I was pleasantly surprised to see another familiar face: a beige colored earth pony with a deep blue and pink mane and tail, and a cutie mark that depicted three sweets on her flank.
“Welcome home, Lyra!” Bon Bon chirped. Leaving the flowers that she had been arranging on the table, the beige mare hurried over and gave Lyra a hug. “And you’ve brought home a guest!” She turned to me, giving me her biggest smile. “My, what a tall human you are! Welcome to our home, Mr....?”
“Uh, Jaxxon.” I said. “Jaxxon Citadel. It’s great to finally meet you, Bon Bon.”
Bon Bon was in mid nod when she suddenly gave a start. “How do you know my name?”
Now, I had two options here. Either I could tell her that her whole world was actually just a cartoon that a toy company back on Earth had made to sell their products, or I could make something up. Not willing to get myself thrown in in mental asylum quite so soon, I grinned nervously as my eyes darted around the room.
There! An envelope, sitting on the mantelpiece! I couldn’t read it, but for sure it had to have an address on it.
“Uh, well, I just read it on that letter over there, so since I’ve already met Lyra, I figured you had to be Bon Bon.”
Bon Bon glanced at the fireplace then back at me. “You have remarkable eyesight, Mr. Jaxxon,” she complimented. “Listen, I need to go to Sugarcube Corner to pick up a little something, but I look forward to getting to know you as soon as I get back.”
“That sounds great. And please, just call me Jaxxon.”
Nodding once more, the beige pony trotted off to get her saddlebag. As for me, I followed Lyra into the living room and at her behest, sat down in an armchair that was noticeably bigger than the rest of the furniture.
Lyra took a seat opposite me, grinning like she had just won the lottery. While I was still inwardly beaming at the idea of having made it into Equestria, it also brought up a whole host of new questions, not even counting how Lyra knew my granddad or how those gunmen had been involved.
Neither of us seemed to know what to say; I definitely didn’t. Smiling awkwardly, I gestured to a photo hanging over the fireplace.
“Nice photo.” I ventured, then instantly cringed at how dorky that must have sounded.
Lyra, however, didn’t seem to think so. Lighting up her horn, an aura of magic enveloped the frame and levitated it over between us. “It’s a picture of the last Winter Wrap-Up,” she explained, smiling fondly at it. Captured by the photographer were Lyra, Bon Bon, Roseluck, and Lily, all crowded around a freshly de-iced pond and all looking like they were having the time of their lives. “Princess Twilight put together a whole new schedule for Ponyville, so we actually finished ahead of schedule that time.”
“Cool,” I said, trying to share in her enthusiasm, although since I hadn’t done a Winter Wrap-Up before, I felt as though I couldn’t really relate.
I chewed my lip while Lyra replaced the picture. This wasn’t quite how I would have planned my first trip to Equestria. Not at all. But when life gives you gun toting gangsters, you make polite conversation with ponies.
“Look,” I said as Lyra finished hanging up the photo. “You saved my life back there at my house. I owe you big time for that, Lyra.”
She blushed lightly and waved a hoof half-heartedly. “Hey, what was I supposed to do, just let you get killed? I’d have let down your grandfather if I had.”
There is was again, the mention of my granddad. I couldn’t hold back any more.
“Listen,” I said, trying to maintain a pleasant expression. “You keep talking about my grandpa like you knew him, but I…I don’t…”
“You don’t what?”
“I…I don’t know where to begin,” I admitted, hanging my head. It was partly true. In my heart, I couldn’t bring myself to tell these ponies that they were nothing but the product of a corporate company’s marketing scheme. That would be cruel beyond measure.
I could feel Lyra’s eyes on me. Finally she spoke. “You’ve had a pretty rotten day, Jax, so maybe I should be doing the explaining.”
The unicorn slipped the book from her back and placed it on the coffee table between us. It was about half the size of a sheet of A4 paper, and about an inch and a half thick. The cover was browned with age and the bronze fittings were tarnished. Clearly this book was very old, but it still didn’t explain much at all.
“This book was given to me by your grandfather, Jaxxon. He arrived here a few years back, looking like he’d been hit by lightning and blabbering about some kind of parallel dimension. I found him and took him to Ponyville Urgent Care and they managed to save his life.”
I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Grandpa Stanley had been to Ponyville…before me? I was about to open the book when I remembered that I was still the guest here.
“May I?” I asked Lyra. She nodded somberly and continued talking while I cracked open the musty pages. I was a little disappointed; the pages were filled up from border to border with formulas and equations and glyphs, none of which I understood.
“While Stanley Citadel was recovering, Princesses Celestia and Luna came to meet him…he was our first ever human, after all,” Lyra chuckled. “I was able to talk with him a lot since I found him and all. He was a pretty cool human.”
“Yeah…” I wasn’t really paying attention. Flicking the pages left and right, the book seemed reluctant to yield its answers to me so easily. Finally, I shut it and went back to listening to the story about my grandfather.
“…he said that he’d used a prototype of some kind of book to get here, but the book wasn’t finished when he’d tried it so he almost got killed. Eventually he wanted to go home, so Princess Celestia had Twilight Sparkle help him complete the book so he could use it to get home.” Lyra pointed at the old tome. “That’s it right there. I used it to get to you.”
I frowned. If he’d arrived here a few years back, that would put it on par with when grandpa had reportedly gone through a major personality reboot. Was this book responsible for my grandfather’s death? And, I thought with a twinge of horror, what if using the book had some kind of negative effect on me?
“Uh…Lyra…the book is safe to use, right?”
“Well, sure. Your grandpa used to come here all the time after he perfected the book. In fact, that’s his chair you’re sitting in now; none of the normal furniture here was quite big enough.” She said with a smile. “Eventually he’d let ponies tag along with him to your world too, but only at night and under an invisibility spell. I even saw you a few times, but you were a bit shorter then.”
“Wait, grandpa took you to see me? When...why didn’t he tell me?”
All those years of watching the show, all those years of wishing at night that just one pony would pop out of nowhere and say hi to me, and it turned out that ponies had been spying on me the whole time while I was sleeping? I didn’t know whether to laugh or be indignant.
Lyra took the book back gently, cradling it like it was made of glass. “Probably because he promised the Princesses that he’d keep it a secret. After a few trips to your world, Celestia and Stanley quickly agreed that no good would come of too many humans learning that a whole new world was literally just a turn of the page away. No offense,” she added hastily. “Your grandpa also made sure no ponies stayed in the human world past sunrise, so it’s all even.”
“Oh.” Was all I could say. “So I guess when he died, my grandpa gave the book to you?”
“Yep. We were all devastated to hear that his heart condition had reached the terminal stage but he…” Lyra stopped to blink away some tears. “…he told us it was for the best and asked us to send him back and to leave the book here. He…he asked me to take care of it for him.”
“Why not the Princesses?” It seemed a more logical choice to me.
Lyra gave me a look. I couldn’t tell if it was doubt, puzzlement, or something else, but it was obvious I’d said something wrong. Damn it, Jaxxon. Get it together.
“Stanley Citadel was the first human I’d ever seen in my life, and I was the first pony he’d ever seen,” she explained. “I guess we were just best friends by the time he had to go.”
“I’m sorry.” I whispered. “It sounds like you knew my grandfather better than I did. I…I just wish he’d told me in person instead of hiding it in a note.”
Standing up, my host came over and patted me gently on the knee. “I’ll go get us something to drink. I figure we can both use it.”
“Yeah…thanks.”
She disappeared into the kitchen, and I was left alone with my thoughts. Grandpa Stanley had known about Equestria this whole time. I almost didn’t want to believe it. I’d hidden my love for My Little Pony from most of my family, including my grandfather, but once I’d moved out I had let it slowly slip into my online identity, using ponies as my chat room avatars, publicly liking pony related pages on Facebook.
How hard it must have been for grandpa to keep it a secret from me, and from everyone else. Inwardly, I knew that in spite of everything, grandpa had done the right thing, but part of me resented him for not telling me sooner. All those nights spent staring at fanart of Canterlot and Ponyville, separated from them by a computer screen, and it had all been right here, concealed within a magical book? It beggared belief.
...but in the end, grandpa had in a way, saved my life. By giving Lyra the book, she had been able to come to the human world and save me from the hit men just when it counted. I had to be grateful for that.
I had so many questions, but my body felt so warm, so comfortable in this armchair. Grandpa’s armchair.
I’ll just close my eyes for a bit, I thought sleepily. With the cartel thugs another world away and the smell of tea coming from the kitchen, I drifted off to sleep, thinking about what I'd been told.
In hindsight, I wish I’d stayed awake.