Fluttershy was floating along gently, talking to the birds on the path as she led Wayland out of the forest. She was leading him Ponyville, the home of the ponies, who seemed to be the dominant species in this...dimension? Was that the right word? Meh, close enough. He'd figure it all out later.
The trees cleared and the sun shined down on a quaint little town a few hundred yards away. He could see a couple ponies milling about the streets, but it was still early morning, so he guessed not many were up yet. He and Fluttershy walked up to the town, where she began showing him around.
"Welcome to Ponyville, the happiest little place in Equestria. Over there is Quills and Sofas, where they sell sofas and quills. To the left is Sugarcube Corner, where Pinkie - the pony from last night, you remember? - lives." Fluttershy was drifting back and forth as she talked, but Wayland wasn't paying as much attention. As the morning was progressing, more ponies began to inhabit the streets. Sort of.
Every pony they passed took one look at Wayland and either went the other way, turned down an alley, or just plain went back inside. He could see the fear and confusion on their faces plain as day.
"Guess humans really are some kind of fantasy here.." He said, ducking his head a little lower, his eyes doing their best not to meet the gazes of the onlookers. "Hey, Fluttershy, how come you don't see me like all the other peop- err, ponies do?"
"Oh, uhm, th-thats because I want to be friends with every creature, no matter what." God that smile could have melted a block of ice three feet thick. Though.. I'm still seen as a creature..
Half an hour later, at the end of a rather nice, albeit uncomfortable, tour, Wayland felt anything but fairly nice. Rather gruesomely socially awkward, to be exact, given the amount of ponies left on the street behind them - exactly two, and one of them was blind. But, they had ended their tour at yet another tree house/house tree. This one was located more towards the center of town, and seemed a little more, how would he put it, urban.
"This is where my friend, Twilight, lives. She's the smartest among all our friends, so I'll leave you in her care so you can learn whatever you need, i-if thats alright with you, um, Wayland, was it?" The small yellow pony shuffled awkwardly behind him, hiding behind her hair yet again.
"Yes, thats right. And you were Fluttershy, yea?" Wayland stuck his hands in his tattered pockets, looking up at the tremendous tree. It was like a force of nature combined with inventive ingenuity. These kinds of things always interested him; he was always trying to figure out how things worked and the best way to process situations. Strangely enough, he was processing this entire situation fairly well. Maybe it was just a calm demeanor, maybe it was some kind of fate, maybe it had yet to finally click and when it did would send him a spiraling depression of panic and unholy fear. But he guessed it was just because he never felt like he belonged anywhere when he was in the other world, so the feeling kinda persisted in this one.
Nodding and smiling at his last remark, Fluttershy knocked on the door and, a few moments later, a small purple dragon (Wayland guessed it was a dragon, it fit at least the description, though not the size) opened the door.
"Hi, uhm, Twilight...?" Wayland waved, a little awkwardly, but it just shook its head and turned around.
"Hey uh, Twilight..? I think you better come here.." The dragon said nervously, closing the door a little and walking back inside. Voices could be heard arguing back and forth inside, and a few minutes later, the door opened of its own accord, and a purple pony stepped out. This one had a darker mane, and wings too, but the horn on her forehead caught his attention a little more, remembering the odd dream he had when he had first arrived.
"Spike, this had better be good if you're interrupting my- oh. Well then." Twilight said, walking out of her house, a look of utter astonishment on her face, and began spinning around Wayland, looking him up and down. "Just what are you? I've never seen such a fascinating creature in Equestria before!"
"I'm a human. And my name is Wayland, so, its nice to meet you," he said, noting again her initial reaction of gaping mouth wide eyes. "So are you Twilight, or are more ponies gonna come walking out of there?" He stuck his hand out to shake, not really knowing what else to do, but then something else happened.
Instead of from inside the house, a blue blur came flying out from the sky, landing on the ground and kicking him square in the back, sending him flying away from the others. "Get away from my friends, whatever the hay you are!!"
After rolling around with the grass and obscenities, Wayland looked up and saw a sky blue winged pony with a rainbow mane and tail glaring at him, charged up to strike at him again. "Yea you wanna go??" It kept yelling at him, taunting him.
Wayland stood up, ignoring the pain in his chest, cracking his neck and hands and sneering back. "If you're gonna be an asshole and attack me for no reason, then yea, come at me, bro!"
"Bro?? I'm a girl, genius!"
"Really? I couldn't tell!"
"Oh, now you're asking for it!"
"Try me!"
Wayland would have blocked the blue pony's charge, but they were both suddenly being levitated in a strange purple aura, with Twilight walking up between them. Wayland flailed around and spun awkwardly in the air, not having been exposed to magic before. "Enough of this you two. Obviously you both got off on a bad hoof, so just sit down and behave." She set them both back down, turning to the other pony. "Rainbow Dash, this is Wayland, he's a friend of Fluttershy. He was introducing himself, not attacking us."
Rainbow dash just grumbled and agreed with her, then turned to Wayland. "Alright, but I'm watching you." She then took off, leaving a rainbow trail behind her, looping around the clouds and off into the distance.
Fluttershy had left in the chaos, so Wayland was invited inside to talk things over. The inside of the house was a lot different than he expected; it was humble, and comfortable, but the mountains of books everywhere attested to the personality of their owner. He sat down in the library, with Twilight opposite him, hovering a notepad and quill as she looked him up and down, taking notes.
"Before you start the interrogation," Wayland spoke up, calling her attention and pointing at the notepad, "Just how are you doing that? And what happened outside too, that was you?"
"Oh this? Unicorns can use magic to do all sorts of things, from levitation to teleportation." Twilight was so excited, she kept grinning and taking notes constantly, observing his every tiny movement.
"Teleportation...so, then it was you that brought me here, to this..Equestria world??" He glared at the oblivious pony, to no effect. Wayland looked down, going through all the memories in his head of the past day and a half.
"What?! Well first, no, I didn't, and second, you're from a different world?? Whats it like there? Are there other humans? What are they like? Do they look like you? Can they-"
"Whoa! Hey, one at a time. I'm not magic." Wayland sat back, noticing the dragon, Spike, was sitting on the stairs watching them. "To start, I guess, yea, I'm from a different world, I think. My world is a lot different from yours. There's no magic there, so we have to do everything by hand, or with tools. But that world seems to have progressed scientifically a lot faster than this one. There are no unicorns, or pegasi, or mythical creatures that we know of living there, but they exist in stories. Yea, there are more humans, a whole planet full, and no, I'm the only me there is , I hope." He was looking up at the ceiling, but his mind was very far away, traveling among the cloud of a still familiar, now far off land. "As for the rest of us...we're all different kinds of people. Big, small, smart, dumb, some friendly and some... not so much."
A trail of smoke was rising from Twilight's quill as she took notes, flipping through pages so fast it made a breeze. "So tell me, Twilight," Wayland spoke up, leaning forward a little. "You said unicorns can use magic, but I've never heard of a unicorn with wings?"
Twilight kept writing for a minute, then looked up at him, flexing her wings. "That's because I used to be a unicorn, but because of the Princess' magic, I'm now whats known as an alicorn."
"Alicorn.." Rolled off the tongue easy enough, but it was the first he'd heard of the term. "So, you're the only one of your kind too, huh?" Wayland stretched his legs, looking a little sympathetically at her.
"Nope." Aaand no more sympathy. "The Princesses, Celestia, Luna, and Cadence, are all also alicorns. I myself, am the Princess of Friendship. We each have some aspect we reign over." Twilight was looking a little prideful, being able to teach yet another person something they didn't know, when she was interrupted by a noise from the corner.
"*BURP* "Uhm, speaking of the princesses, you have a letter from them, Twilight."
Twilight and Wayland both turned to see Spike walking up with a rolled up piece of parchment, a little smoke curling out of his nostrils. "Guess word travels pretty quickly, huh?"
Twilight read the letter, then turned back, looking excitedly at her strange guest. "Well, it would seem the Princesses want to meet with you! How exciting!"
"i'm more interested in how they already know i'm here.." Wayland stood up, cracking his neck and grinning slightly. "Though I've never met royalty before. I guess I better learn some manners, huh? Don't wanna declare war on an entire dimension."