Before long, accommodation was found for you in a spare room in a house belonging to one of the ponies you saw in the crowd. Thankfully, she'd been one of the ones who you'd managed to convince that you weren't a horrific mutilator.
Still, she wasn't overly excited about having you there.
The time went by slowly. You gained a decent amount of knowledge about this world, enough for you to get by, but the locals weren't exactly thrilled that you were here to stay, often receiving piercing glares as you made your way around.
Days melded into weeks, that melded again.
And every day you wished your efforts were coming to fruition.
-----
It had been a whole month since you brought that pony back, and you had been waiting ever since. Not knowing how she was doing was driving you insane. In the meantime, you'd learned all that you really needed to about this world.
You'd learned the name of the pony you'd cared for.
Lyra. Lyra Heartstrings.
Whatever life you led back on Earth was practically forgotten. Which gave you a troublesome thought. When all this is done, what will you do? With a reception like this, there's little way you'd be able to stay here and live a good life. But back home, things wouldn't be much different either.
Things weren't peachy at all. The locals that didn't believe your story still despised you as much as they did when you arrived here. And the ones that did were still weren't the nicest of people towards you. As a result, you'd not made many friends. Well, you'd not made any at all. But the thread of hope that Lyra was okay was all that kept you going.
One day, you were out taking a walk. Receiving those glares, and ignoring them with your gaze fixed on the ground beneath your feet. You'd tuned out all of the background noise long, long ago. All that you could hear was the rhythmic tapping of your shoes on the ground.
All the background chatter fell on deaf ears.
Save for one word.
'Lyra'.
-----
You hear her name, and your trance is shattered. All the talk of those around you, once silenced, now violently cascaded upon your ears. Keeping your head low, you look around, desperately trying to identify where it came from.
Your vision comes to rest on a large group of ponies all surrounding one in the center with ceaseless chatter. As hard as it is, you try to look past the others and get a look it, and what you see confirms it. You see mint green.
As happy as you are that she's okay, you're still hit by a wave of sadness. The locals hate you. As long as they're with her, there's no way you're getting anywhere near.
You'd done so much for her, and she had no idea who you were. The hope that had powered you had been proved to be well-placed. But now, that was gone. You knew she was okay; there was no need for that hope anymore. But she'd never know you. So what else was there to look forward to?
Covertly watching the group, you see Lyra emerge as a much more beautiful sight than last you saw her. You see her speak to the others, and are able to identify her voice from the others filling the air. And she had a wonderful, sprightly, cheery voice.
But every good thing was offset by the grey truth that loomed over you.
With a few short words from her, you see the rest of the group break off from Lyra, heading off where-ever. Growing tired of being plagued by the inevitability, you go back to staring at the ground.
You see a shadow come into view on the ground. And of all the voices that you could've heard, it was that one.
"Y-You're one of those...those things...right?"