"Who's a pretty pony?"
"Stop that."
"You's a pretty pony!"
"I mean it. Knock it off."
When the guard was first stuck in the cell with Conrad he had been terrified beyond measure. But terror gave way to boredom, as it does in situations like this, and then to full-blown annoyance at Conrad's antics.
At first the guard had been terrified that the human would do intolerable evil to him. Eventually he realized that Conrad was merely intolerable.
"Ooh, I know!" Conrad said. "We could have a mask party!"
Brave Heart stared deadpan at Conrad.
"A mask party," Brave Heart said.
"Sure, a mask party! We each put on masks and pretend to be somebody else! Here, take this!"
Conrad threw a mask at Brave Heart, who caught it and examined it.
Brave Heart said, "This is a mask of you."
"Uh huh!" Conrad said, putting his mask on. "And mine is a mask of you!"
"That's not the point of a costume party!" Brave Heart yelled. "You pretend to be some pony well-known and important, like Princess Celestia or Fancy Pants or some pony. You don't pretend to be the only other person in the very same prison cell as you!"
"Oh. Well that's too bad, because I only have these two masks."
"Yeah, I- wait, where did you get these?"
"Over there," Conrad said, vaguely gesturing somewhere else in the dungeon.
Brave Heart sighed and put the mask on. "Fine, if it makes you happy."
"Yaaaaay!"
"Now what?"
"Well, now we try to guess who each other really is underneath the mask!"
"You can't be serious."
"I am! Are youuuuuu... Princess Celestia?"
Brave Heart facehooved.
There was a bright white flash of light. Celestia had teleported into the dungeon.
Conrad-wearing-a-Brave-Heart-mask smiled and waved at Celestia. "Hi!" He said cheerfully.
"Quickly!" yelled Celestia. "I'm here to rescue you! There is no time to talk! We must be off!"
There was another flash of light and Princess Celestia disappeared along with Conrad.
There was a long pause.
"Okay, what the hell just happened?" Brave Heart asked.
---------------------------------------------------------
"Though it pains me to admit it," Celestia said, "I have done you wrong. I let my fears get the better of me and forgot my responsibilities to you. My sister reminded me of my duties and obligations, while you were stuck in that cell with a horrible monster."
Well, that's a bit harsh to Brave Heart, thought Conrad.
"Tell me, my little pony," she said with eyes shining with unshed tears, "can you ever forgive me?"
"Okay!" he said cheerfully.
Princess Celestia sighed with relief.
"I'm very glad to hear that," she said. "Now please tell me, is there anything I can do to make this up to you?"
Conrad looked at a map of Equestria hung up on one of the walls.
"I'd like to travel," he said. "It's always been a dream of mine."
"Of course. Where would you like to travel to?"
"I don't know!" he said. "Let's find out."
*Thunk!*
Faster than Celestia could react to, Conrad tossed a throwing dart at the map. He then walked over to the map and inspected the spot the dart landed on.
"'Ponyville', huh? Well, I guess that's where I'm going! I hope it's a boring place."
---------------------------------------------------------
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!"
The giant squid monster had rallied its flying monkey troops and was rampaging through downtown Ponyville. Twilight, Applejack, and Rarity had been taken out an hour earlier by Trixie's unexpected treachery, and Spike had been knocked unconscious in the first few minutes of the engagement.
"Don't worry, every pony! I got this!" yelled Pinkie Pie, coming over the hill with a large vat strapped to her back.
"It's Pinkie Pie!" yelled Twilight from her containment globe. "And she brought the chocolate-chip frosting!"
"We're saved!" yelled Rarity.
---------------------------------------------------------
"'tis a rather boring, normal place," Celestia said, speaking honestly as far as she knew. "You'll like it there. Additionally, there is the matter of restitution. When the crown has been found guilty of crimes against its citizens, the leader may choose to give the victim money to compensate him or her for their loss. It can never truly make you whole, but please accept this weregild as a sincere token of my regret."
Celestia levitated a bag containing hundreds of bits to Conrad. As she passed him the bag he said, "Where gild? There gild!" and pointed to it.
There was an awkward silence.
"Well, I thought it was funny" he muttered to himself.
---------------------------------------------------------
Despite the fact that the Brave Heart mask was a completely inanimate object, with no volition of its own, it still somehow managed to decide that Conrad's life wasn't chaotic or awkward enough, and chose to slip off his face just as the train passenger in the seat in front of him had turned around and was facing Conrad. The passenger screamed loudly. Conrad slid the mask back into place as quickly as he could.
"Don't worry, ma'am," he said, "I'm just a normal pony, just like anybody else here."
"You said anybody! That's not a normal thing for a pony to say."
"No I didn't."
"Yes, you did!"
"No, I didn't."
"I swear you did!"
"I didn't."
...
"Well, maybe you didn't. But I still have my eyes on you."
The pony in question gestured with her hoof back and forth between her eyes and Conrad's in a "I'm watching you" gesture before turning back around.
"Well you don't need to worry about me," Conrad said loudly, "because I'm going to sleep now."
The pony sitting next to him piped up. "Why?" she asked. "It's the middle of the day."
"Well, I spent a lot of time in the dark and I'm not really adjusted to a proper sleep schedule yet."
"Oh. You spent a lot of time in a different time zone?"
"No, I've spent the last century and a half in the Canterlot Dungeons."
The pony giggled. "And why is that?" she asked playfully.
"You know," Conrad said thoughtfully, "I'm not really sure. The princess told me to surrender, and I did, and then she put me in the prison cell, so I just sort of stayed there."
The pony giggled again. "You're silly," she said. "So what are you doing out of jail? Was there a jailbreak?"
"Again, I don't really know. I was throwing a mask party with my new friend, and then Celestia set me free and apologized for throwing me in there, which I thought was rather nice of her to do. So now I'm travelling to Ponyville, because I wanted to explore and it's someplace I've never been before."
"Well you shouldn't go to sleep now, 'cuz then you won't be able to wake up on time tomorrow! You should talk to me instead!"
Conrad thought about this. "Okay."
Conrad and the pony (he learned her name was "Rose") talked for several hours. They talked about the world he came from, about Rose's family (two brothers, one sister), about their favorite things, and about whatever came to their minds. Eventually Conrad couldn't keep his eyes open any more and he slowly fell asleep. Rose smiled but said nothing.
---------------------------------------------------------
The ponies Ketchup and Mayo saw Conrad and started screaming.
"Please don't scream!" Conrad said. "I'm not a bad person!"
"Do you think he's telling the truth?" Relish asked Hamburger.
"For absolutely no reason whatsoever, I believe him," replied Condiments.
Conrad smiled. Was this all it took? Ever since he'd arrived here, Conrad had wished he knew the right things to say to make friends with these skittish ponies. Now, at last, it seemed that everything could be good and peaceful.
A fish floated by, wearing a top hat and monacle. "Good day," it said to Conrad, doffing its top hat as it floated past.
"Oh bugger," said Conrad. "This is only a dream."
---------------------------------------------------------
Conrad drooled a bit as he leaned against the window. Rose had fallen asleep as well, and she unconsciously snuggled against Conrad's body as she slept.
Mrs. Harshwhinny, the pony sitting in front of Conrad, poked her head over the back of her own seat.
They're both asleep. Excellent.
She climbed over the back of her own seat and reached out towards the mask that Conrad wore that no other pony seemed to notice. Closer and closer her hoof inched towards Conrad's face.
It was particularly unfortunate for her, then, that at that moment the train hit a particularly bumpy patch of track. She lost her balance and toppled towards Conrad just as Conrad slumped forward towards her. Their foreheads collided, knocking Mrs. Harshwhinny out and throwing her back into her own seat.
Conrad opened his eyes groggily, saw nothing but the back of the seat in front of him, shook his head, and went back to sleep.
---------------------------------------------------------
"Well, looks like this is my stop," Conrad said.
"It's my stop too, you know," Rose replied.
Conrad chuckled. "You know what I mean."
Rose smiled. "I do. If you ever need a place to stay or some pony to talk to, just look me up. I'm staying at-"
A giant squid tentacle reached in through the open window, grabbed Conrad, and tossed him high into the air outside the train. After several seconds of hang-time, gravity kicked in and slammed him to the ground dozens of yards away from the train.
Rose put her hooves to her mouth in shock and horror.
Conrad got to his feet and yelled, "I'm okay!"
That's when he was trampled by the army of winged monkeys fleeing the city.