"You mean there's another human around!?"
"It would appear so, little one. A young one like yourself named Anders appeared a few weeks ago. Oddly enough he was a pony for some reason but I returned him to his true form. He is still residing with Vinyl Scratch and that one with the cello...Octavia, that's it. They're all in Canterlot." Nova explained.
"We were just on the way to Canterlot actually!" Fleetfoot said out loud.
"Ah, it would certainly be good for you all to meet him..." The blue dragon's voice trailed off as though an idea had suddenly come to mind. "Hm...Fleetfoot, would you mind if I invited your mate as well as Anders to my home tonight? I have something to teach him that could benefit all of us."
For a moment Fleetfoot's eyes seemed to pop out and she coughed into her hoof loudly.
"Oh! Um...we're not mates! We just met and-"
"Don't fret, my dear. It's natural and I don't judge you. He seems nice." Nova said with a warm smile. By now Fleetfoot was about as red as a tomato and I was all but shocked into the silence, also because of the fact that I was talking to a dragon was finally kicking in and I had to resist the urge to hide.
"No no no no no... we haven't "mated" or done it or anything!"
"Oh. Well are you courting him? I have a friend that might like to meet him. A dragoness about his age." She looked between us as if she was trying to detect any chemistry between us.
"I...yeah...I suppose. We haven't actually gone any dates or anything yet..."
"It wouldn't hurt to meet her, who is she anyway?
"Telara. She lives around Ponyville near Valerian, if you just find him he could put you two in contact."
"Oh, neat." Out of the corner of my eye I would have sworn I saw Fleetfoot's eye twitch for a second.
"Anyhow. I digress. I would very much like for you to come, just you and Anders however. Fleetfoot I'm sorry but with what I'll be showing him anyone not participating but nearby could get hurt."
"Oh...it's alright, it's not like I own him. I'll just hang out with Vinyl." She said with a hint of discomfort.
"Wonderful. Just talk to Anders. He should be with Vinyl. Leave with him tonight and he'll take you. He knows the way fairly well."
"Cool. What will we be doing?"
"That's a surprise." She smiled. "But you'll like it, trust me. Anyway I should go. I need to prepare a few things for tonight. Farewell to both of you." The dragon nodded and with a strong beat of her wings took off well ahead of us towards the mountain in the distance.
After she was gone I could tell Fleetfoot seemed as though she had something on her mind.
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah. Just fine." She huffed without even looking at me.
"You sure?"
"Yeah...just...it's nothing."
Was it something I said? Did I do something?
"So what do you think about dragons?" I asked as Nova finally began to disappear from view.
"They're alright. Some can be rather frightening though." She said with a wave of her hoof.
"I think they're just so cool. Flying and breathing fire and stuff? I mean that must be awesome."
"Yeah, sure. Pegasi can fly too, with the right spell from a unicorn they could breathe fire for a while too. And fur is softer than scales." She responded with her head pointed to the ground while she lead against the side of the basket.
"Yeah but scales are cool too, they're all shiny and it looks bad-ass."
"Maybe you should go out with one if they're so great." She let out a long breath and continued looking at the ground. Then something clicked in my head.
Dumbass! She's probably jealous about how you're going on about how cool you think dragons are and you're missing every hint! That must be the answer, still...she's jealous? No one's ever acted like that with me...no one else I dated really cared enough to get jealous whenever I talked to another female friend of mine or something like that. Wow...
"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that! Please understand that-I come on, you know you're the only one that...I..." I sputtered nervously.
She just looked back at me with barely open eyes and sighed before looking away again.
"You know you're the only one that I care about like that! Please...I've never met anyone like you and I-"
In the span of a second Fleetfoot was holding me with her hooves around my neck.
"You talk too much." She whispered softly and held her head on my shoulder. We remained like that for a long moment until she backed away with a gentle smile.
"You're a little smelly and you look a bit like a monkey." She said simply but continued before I can respond.
"You have no common sense and you're a dork. A love-able dork. You're also my love-able dork and don't you forget that. You're stuck with me, mister." She tapped her hoof on my shoulder.
"Heh. Thanks, I think...you really think I smell?"
"A little, but in a good way, I actually kinda like it. Smells kinda like a fuzzy bunny."
I gave her a mock look of betrayal.
"I'm kidding. You smell...I don't know, strong but not in an over-bearing way, like a "you'll be safe with me" smell...if that makes any sense at all. I can't really explain it."
"Oh, um alright."
"I wonder if Soarin and Spitfire told anyone about...you know."
"Don't worry about it. And I don't think Spitfire would do that after I helped her, she really seemed to appreciate it."
"Yeah, you're right. Anyway I got dirt on them if they do." She flashed an evil grin.
"Oh ho ho. Fleetfoot plays dirty?"
"Well...I did hear some noises from her room one night...and a sound that reminded me a lot of the kind Soarin makes when he's working out..." She wagged her eyebrows.
I blushed and did my best to not burst out laughing. "Oh shit! When was this?"
Probably about a month ago. I could be wrong though, not sure. But it was a while before they stopped.
"How long were you listening in anyway?"
Now it was Fleetfoot's turn to blush. "I uh...not long...really..."
"Fleet..."
"About an hour..."
"Damn."
"I know...I'm a bad girl...I should be punished..." She said with a sultry gaze.
"You're not right in the head."
Fleetfoot dropped the act and started laughing, after a couple seconds she accidentally snorted and then tried to cover her face with a gasp.
"Pffffft. I'm the dork?"
"Shaht ap!" Her muffled voice came from behind her hooves.
"Bad girl to dork in .2 seconds..."
"Silence!"
"Suck it." I stuck my tongue out in an immature gesture that usually only children made.
"Bitch, you suck it!"
"Haha, wow. Mature."
"You're just mad cuz mine's bigger."
"Classy. Hey, look!" I said, catching a glance of the area behind me. "We're just about there." Canterlot appeared to only be moments away. The only surprising thing was that I didn't notice it sooner.
Fleetfoot and I took the time to enjoy an up-close aerial view of the city until we landed at an area filled with other hot air balloons. We departed without a second glance and continued into the streets.
"Wow. This is...wow...big." I said quietly as I gazed up at the impressive towers and buildings.
"Yep. The beating heart of Equestria. Welcome to Canterlot. Home to countless artists, musicians and artists, along with species and groups of every stripe. Also home to some of the best strip clubs in the world." Fleetfoot said with a flourish of her hoof. I simply ignored the last part with a shake of my head and kept walking with her though the streets. We passed a variety of species as Fleetfoot led the way to Vinyl's club.
A minotaur, a handful of changelings, several gryphons, a zebra, a couple bipedal dragons and more walked right by in addition to more races I didn't even know about as well as the local ponies.
"This is just...beautiful in a way..."
"What do you mean?"
"All these different races, walking the same streets together, individual yet they all get along, there's unity and peace. It's just as amazing as the place they walk."
"What, have you never seen that kind of thing?"
"No...not really. Humanity is completely alone and even then it wasn't until in recent years that we really stopped discriminating against others because of beliefs or skin color. Wars and riots have happened over just that kind of thing.
"That's...really tragic actually."
"Yeah. It's like a utopia here."
"Eh...not quite but I do have to say...now that I think about it our world is pretty amazing." A moment of strange quiet passed until she spoke again, her hoof pointed up the winding road in front of us. "We're almost there, should just be a couple blocks now."
The conversation naturally died out until we reached the place. All along the way I watched in awe at the number of different peoples living together in harmony and signs of the impossible all around. A dragon flew acrobatically up in the sky. A unicorn danced nimbly as shards of glass whirled around her in unison, carefully controlled by her magic. Everywhere I looked was a prime example of how fact was truly stranger than fiction.
It was only when Fleetfoot knocked on the door of what I could assume was the club we sought that snapped me out of my trance.
A long moment passed before the door swung open. It wasn't vinyl that answered it, but rather a human about my height, with dark hair and a pair of bright brown eyes, blinking at the sight of my as I similarly looked back in surprise. In the background I could hear hooves hitting the floor until a white unicorn with electric blue hair and purple shades over her eyes.
"Hey, who's he-" She looked at me with her mouth open slightly.
"Um...hey..." Fleetfoot did her best to break the awkward silence between the four of us. This is James...James, meet Vinyl and um...Anders."
"Oh...nice to meet you, James...this is Anders. Anders...this is Fleetfoot and James."
While the two mares spoke, the other human and I remained silent out of an uncertainty of what to say. He almost looked like he saw a ghost. A second later I realized it wasn't just surprise as to the cause of his reaction. I saw a glimmer of recognition.
Wait...it...it can't be...I...how...
It felt like my heart stood still. "A-Anders?" I reached out for his shoulder as if to make sure I wasn't dreaming.
"James?"
"This can't be real...how are you-" I was cut off when he surged forward and hugged me.
"I can't believe the odds! I never thought I'd see you again!"
Powerful memories came to me like a great flood. Anders and I had been like brothers, as well as our friends David and Caroline. I hadn't seen Anders for over two years due to having to move away. We talked as often as we could online, though that was only a handful of times a month until about a month ago he just inexplicably stopped responding to my messages. I thought he just got tired of trying to keep a long-distance friend, which honestly hurt more than I'd care to admit. We were like brothers, we shared everything and the world wasn't as scary with him nearby. True friends for life.
"What's going on?" Fleetfoot and Vinyl asked in a confused unison to Anders and I.
"Are you okay?" Fleetfoot asked me.
I turned to look at both of them and smiled.
"I've never been better."