I kept my hand on the rim of her hat while Applejack led me through Ponyville behind her friends. While passing through the crowd outside Sugarcube Corner, I accidentally bumped into several curious ponies who Applejack tried to shoo away. “Now, y’all get back to yer business, y’hear? Twilight’s gonna fix him up and then we’ll bring him out for a meet’n’greet.”
I wondered if any of the ponies I could feel and hear were ones I would recognize. Despite my comparatively new fandom, I had already milked the internet for fan-named background characters. Was Lyra watching me lethargically from a bench? Was Doctor Whooves aware of my humanity? Did Derpy have any idea what was going on?
If this was all real, I thought to myself, would any of those characters even exist as bronies had imagined them? I was excited to find out how much the musings of our world reflected this one.
Finally, the cacophony of rattled ponies vanished behind the door of the library. “Spike!” Twilight called through the great hollow tree. I heard the patter of scaly footsteps as the baby dragon obediently descended the staircase.
“What is it, Twilight? What happened at—” He cut off, as did his running. “Wha… what is that thing? Why is it all… bulgy?”
Thick? Bulgy? These Equestrians sure had a warped sense of obesity. I was one of the skinniest people I knew.
“We don’t know where he’s from,” Twilight explained quickly. “He’s promised to tell us just as soon as he gets his sight back. I need you to find every book I have on eyes, optics, sight and light… whatever you think will help! Everyone, start looking!”
“Found it!” Pinkie Pie yelped within milliseconds. “Right here: Eyes, Optics, Sight and Light: A Guide to Understanding and Aiding Blindness!”
I laughed, just as I would have if that line had been in an episode. Nobody else found it very funny. Twilight’s horn buzzed with magic; she must have been holding the book open before her eyes, and she started reading immediately.
“ ‘Visible light is divided into seven spectrums,’ ” she read aloud. “ ‘Physical objects absorb and reflect various wavelengths depending on their chemical constitution, giving every material a unique and informative color.’ ”
“Not for nothin’, Twilight, but I learned all that in school. Can’t you jump to the aiding blindness section?”
“Hold on, Applejack. It says here—” (my hypersensitive ears identified the sound of her hoof tapping the page) “—that some creatures observe light beyond the visible spectrum.”
“Perhaps that is poor David’s problem,” Rarity offered.
“But I’ve seen color before,” I reminded. “Red, yellow, green, blue. You know, the rainbow. I’ve always seen in the… uh… visible spectrum, or whatever.”
“Hmm.” Twilight mumbled to herself, magically flipping through pages. “Ah-ha! This certainly looks interesting.”
“What?” I called out, accompanied by four other voices. The cartoony unison surprised me to the point of more delighted laughter.
“It says that there may be more than one visible spectrum.”
The responses were various this time around. “What?” “Huh?” “Wow!” “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“ ‘There have been records found in ancient Equestrian ruins that document interactions with creatures of unusual depth,’ ” she began, catching my full interest. “ ‘The animals, most often rabbits and other small mammals, wandered aimlessly and collided often with obvious obstacles. The magicians who studied these mysterious creatures labeled their blindness as interdimensionary, believing that their subjects originated in distant rings of the universe hosting alternative spectrums.’ ”
“Interdimensionary?” repeated Rarity.
“Distant rings of the universe?” questioned Applejack.
“Small mammals?” Pinkie Pie criticized. “Does the universe have something against large reptiles?”
“Does the book say anything about finding a cure?” I asked. “Did the magicians give the animals their sight back?”
Again, the noise of fluttering pages preceded an answer. “Why, yes it does! It looks like Star Swirl the Bearded himself once restored sight to what he recorded as a ‘particularly rotund robin’. He even wrote down the spell!”
I took a few cautious steps in her direction. “Try it! Try it!”
Twilight whimpered. “It looks terribly difficult. I don’t know if I can perform something this complicated on such short notice.”
“Please just try it!” I exclaimed desperately.
She sighed. “All right,” she submitted sheepishly, and ordered me to sit down and stay still. I obeyed, kneeling restlessly on one of the library’s woven rugs. Suddenly, I felt a round, ivory-like point on my hairline and dropped my jaw as I realized Twilight Sparkle’s horn was pressed against my head. The mystical sound of active magic buzzed through my skull and I started to quiver uncertainly. The noise grew louder and louder until there was another great flash of white light. I yelped at the painful exposure and covered my eyes with my hands.
Twilight backed away, breathing heavily.
“What happened, Twilight?” Applejack asked with concern.
“It was like his eyes were searching for the wrong thing,” she nearly whispered, “like they were trying to capture the wrong kind of light.”
“Did you fix it?” Pinkie Pie asked shrilly.
“I think so,” Twilight said hopefully and turned back to me. “Uncover your eyes. Can you see us now?”
Nervously, I lowered my hands, keeping my eyelids shut tight. They were pink with sunlight; no more grueling blackness. Hesitantly, I popped my right eye open, waiting for the pupil to perfectly adjust.
There they stood: four confused ponies and a dumbstruck purple dragon, staring at me with their giant, sparkling eyes tilted in confounded expressions. My left eye flew open to join its brother in focusing on each one individually: Pinkie Pie, gaping with anticipation; Rarity, irises small with distress; Applejack, holding her hat over her heart; Spike, wringing his tail between his claws; and Twilight, hunched with exhaustion, biting her lip uncertainly.
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” I rattled off, jumping back to my feet and grinning wildly.
Pinkie Pie giggled. “You sound like Rainbow Dash!”
“Rainbow Dash!” I squealed, bouncing up and down with all my renewed energy. Everything was too clear for it to be a dream: the inside of the Ponyville Library looked exactly as it did in the show, but every book and shelf and table was tangibly there in front of me. I could barely explain the scene in my own mind, though I was especially excited about my perspective. My view of the room wasn’t limited to the camera’s—I could look around freely and soak in every corner.
“This is unreal!” I shouted, spinning on my heels to see the whole room. “No… it is real!” I didn’t quite understand how it was possible for everything to look animated, but it did. How could I stand inside a drawn tree with a bunch of drawn, pastel ponies? Conversing with them? Receiving magic spells from them?
Who cares? I was in Equestria! I had bridged the gap between our world and every brony’s dreamland! I had never been so happy in my entire life.
“Please, calm down!” Twilight urged, catching me by the thigh with her hoof. She was about three and half feet tall and rose to the center of my torso. I was amazed that we could interact so normally. Scenes from Who Framed Roger Rabbit bounced around my mind as I listened to the purple pony’s plea. “Now you have to explain how you already know so much about us.”
I swallowed hard, unsure if I should tell the truth or make something up. Unintentionally, I glanced at Applejack. Her great green eyes glimmered with genuine interest. As I stared into them, I couldn’t help but remember her Element of Harmony. If I was going to be friends with these ponies, I had to be honest with them.
“I’ll tell you everything I know,” I promised, “but it might take a while. Are you sure you want me to start right now, or would you rather have everybody hear it?”
“Everybuddy?” Pinkie asked, giggling uninhibitedly. “That’s a silly word!”
I chuckled at myself, scolding the weakness of my undeveloped bronyism. “Sorry… I meant everypony.”
***
After some constructive debate, Twilight reluctantly agreed to postpone my explanation until everypony was present. And dear little Pinkie Pie was adamant that it be absolutely everpony. In true Pinkie fashion, she loudly decided to host a town party dedicated to my arrival that very night. I was flattered, if not very surprised, and could hardly say a word as I watched her zoom about the library excitedly, describing her mental vision of the near-future party’s décor. Rarity suddenly became fascinated with my clothes, and on her request I bumbled my way through the definitions of “shirt” and “pants”, unable to take my eyes off her stunning violet mane.
“Somepony ought to inform Princess Celestia,” Twilight pointed out. “She’ll certainly be interested in a sentient being from another dimension.”
Like I’ve said, I really didn’t understand dimensions at the time—neither did Twilight—but I was too absorbed in the first half of her statement to ponder them. “Princess Celestia? The Princess Celestia? Ruler of Equestria? Raiser of the sun?”
“Of course!” Twilight confirmed, smirking. “I’m eager to find out how you know her already.”
“We’ll have to wait until she gets here!” Pinkie’s sing-songy voice drifted from across the room. Twilight groaned.
“Then we’d better invite her immediately. Spike, take a letter!”
As her assistant penned the detailed invitation, I went over the individual parts of my slip-on shoes with Rarity. As he wrote, Spike seemed jealous of the personal attention, shooting me several spiteful glances… but I very well could have been making that up. A large part of my mind was still distracted by the prospect of meeting the glorious alicorn. I could already envision her ever-flowing mane, and pled with my brain’s filters to block any giggle-inducing Trollestia memes while I was in her presence. I wanted to impress the regal pony; since her appearance at the end of the second episode, I had harbored a special affinity for her appearance, wisdom, and playful personality.
The party was to be held in and around Sugarcube Corner, according to Pinkie’s endless string of details. “…and we’ll have Rainbow Dash pull a big cloud above the store and we’ll hang your banner there so everpony in Ponyville will see it and come to the party as soon as they can, and we’ll hang streamers and I’ll bring out all the balloons I blew up last night, and I’ll help Mrs. Cake and Applejack prepare all sorts of super delicious sugary dishes…”
I interrupted her there, leaving Rarity at a table to magically examine my Vans. “Hold on, Pinkie Pie,” I started with a tremendous grin at just addressing the curly ball of energy, “there’s something you should probably know about humans. We can’t eat flowers or grass or hay or… well, anything like that, really.”
Pinkie’s eyes grew even wider—or perhaps her irises narrowed. I couldn’t quite tell, she was still halfway across the main room. Suddenly, with a speedy whoosh, she was right in my face, startling me so badly that I almost fell over backward.
“Well, then, what do humans eat? Gemstones?”
“No, I’ll leave that for Spike,” I said, winking at the nearby dragon. I wanted to stay on his good side, and all that time with Rarity had probably put him off. “We eat meat and bread and fruit and vegetables—”
“Meat?” Rarity asked from behind me, her voice warbling with fear. “As in… the carcasses of animals?”
I froze nervously. “No, no, no!” I immediately denied, turning to face her. “Well… actually, yes, I guess that’s about right. But not every kind of animal, just… just pigs and cows and…”
“Cows!?” cried Applejack. “You eat dead cows?”
Rarity fainted. I started to panic.
“No, Applejack, please! In my world, cows can’t speak like they can here. They aren’t friendly or even intelligent. They’re there to be eaten.” I smacked myself in the forehead, angry at how stupid I was sounding. “And we don’t just rip them apart and eat them. We cook the meat first to make sure it doesn’t have—”
“You cook dead cows?” Applejack nearly screamed.
I groaned and covered my face with my hands. “No, it’s not like that. I’m just… I’m trying to be honest with all of you, I don’t want to make friends by lying. I promise, where I come from, it’s very normal and customary and even healthy to eat the right amount of meat.” I perked up, finding Pinkie Pie to my left and looking sincerely into her glimmering eyes. “But I would never eat an animal in Equestria. Never ever ever! I know they’re different here, that they have hearts and minds and friends and family. Please, you have to understand, I…”
“Okee dokee lokee!” Pinkie Pie said cheerily, flashing me a genuine smile. “Don’t worry, David, I totally understand! You probably think it’s awful that we eat flowers!” Her expression dropped comically into one of terror. “Do humans eat cupcakes?”
I shuddered, trying to heave the immediate images from my mind. Not all fan fiction was true, I reminded myself, especially the deranged kind. “Yeah, yeah,” I finally answered, donning a weak smile. “We definitely eat cupcakes. Normal ones, just like you. No meat.”
Pinkie beamed. “Then I’ll make lots and lots of those!” she decided. “We’re going to have the best party ever!” As she bounced away, I thought I heard her mutter to herself, “Hmm… meat cupcakes…” but hoped desperately I was wrong.
To redirect my mind, I turned to Applejack. She was attending to the fallen Rarity lying dramatically on her conjured red fainting couch. Instinctively, I hurried over to help.
“I’m sorry, Applejack,” I said quietly, lifting her little white-coated friend into a sitting position. “I didn’t mean to… I mean, I hope you don’t think…”
“Oh, David, don’t you worry about that,” she said, patting my back with her hoof as I was bent over Rarity. “I’m sure it’ll take a right while before we all understand one another, being from different rings of the universe and all.” She chuckled at herself; I was glad that I wasn’t the only one who found the phrase amusing. “But I can promise you right here and now that I will not judge you for anything you did before coming to Ponyville. I only ask that now you do your best to fit yourself to the way we do things.” Rarity twitched and Applejack rubbed the top of her head fondly. “Can’t say the same for this’n, I’m afraid.”
I sighed happily, grateful for her understanding. “I will do my best, Applejack. I promise. And please let me know if I do anything, uh… unacceptable. By pony standards.”
“Will do, partner,” Applejack said with a hearty laugh, and I felt like I had firmly forged my first Equestrian friendship. While she revived Rarity, I thought forward to the party, to meeting all the ponies, to bowing before Princess Celestia. As my smile reached its widest limits, I knew without a doubt that this was going to be the best night ever.
Or, at least, I thought I knew.