*Location: Inside Twilight's Castle, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, now...*
Lilium and I reappeared in the main hall of Twilight's castle in a small flurry of blue-edged, black rectangular particles. Teleporting us there was the obvious decision--it was either that or walk back to Ponyville.
The first thing we saw was a rather surprised-looking Twilight. She looked like she'd already gotten quite the scare from something and now Lilium and I had appeared out of nowhere and almost given her a heart attack. "GAH!" Twilight recoiled and cried out in surprise and accidentally dropped the paper she'd been holding in her magical grasp.
"Whoa!" I said. "You okay there Twi?" I asked the obviously on-edge alicorn.
She took a minute to compose herself before speaking. "Yes, thank you Zant," she said. "And sorry I screamed like that. It's just that before you showed up a strange creature that looked like you but with different clothes and a tan-ish coat just phased in out of nowhere." Suddenly I knew where Jason had gone shortly before he left. I'd have to have words with him at some point. "Yeah, don't mind him, he's a good guy," I said to the lavender alicorn.
"He also gave me these," said Twilight as she held the papers she'd dropped before out to me. I took them from her and examined them. After skimming over the journal entry I returned the papers to her and said to the lavender princess, "Yeah, you'll want to look over those. Pretty important stuff there."
"Okay, I'll be sure to," she said. "Oh, who's your friend there Zant? I'm sorry I didn't greet you before, miss...?"
"Lilium," answered the dark-grey mare in her quiet voice. "I'm Lilium."
"Nice to meet you Lilium!" said Twilight cheerfully. "I must say, I'm very interested in your horns," continued the Princess of Friendship. "If you don't mind me asking, what kind of pony are you?"
Lilium shied away a bit, but then appeared to think for a moment. "I don't really know," she said. "I think I heard somepony say I was something called a Diclonius once." This seemed to confuse Twilight. She certainly looked puzzled. She looked back to me and asked, "Where'd you find her?"
"It's a long story," I said, not wanting to recount the entire episode with Jason and the secret lair at the moment. "Anyway, is it okay if she stays here with you, me, and Spike?" I asked Twilight. "It won't be for long, as soon as my house is built she can move in with me, I swear."
"Actually, I wanted to tell you something about that," said Twilight. "What is it?" I asked, intrigued. A gleeful smile worked its way across Twilight's face. "It's done!" she said.
"Wait, my house?!" I asked, wondering if the ponies had really finished it THAT quickly.
"Yes!" said Twilight, almost full-on squee-ing. "Come on, let's go see it!" she said in the same giddy tone before rushing out the front door. Lilium looked at me, surprise filling her crimson eyes, her expression letting me know that she had no idea as to what was going on. "Apparently I have a house now," I said to her. "We'd better follow her," I said before going after Twilight, Lilium not far behind me.
*Location: In front of My House, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, now...*
Twilight had led Lilium and I across town in what could almost but not quite be considered a merry chase. By the time we'd caught up with her we were, of course, a bit winded, but it was worth it to see what the lovely inhabitants of Ponyville had made for me.
Simply put, it was an awesome house.
It was noticeably taller than any of the other buildings in the area, most likely to have higher ceilings so I wouldn't have to duck just to keep my head from hitting them. It was also two stories and, unlike a good amount of the buildings in Ponyville, had a shingled roof rather than a thatched one. I couldn't wait to see what the inside looked like.
"Nice house," Lilium said, sounding genuinely impressed. "Wanna go in?" asked Twilight, holding a key on a ring in her magical grasp. I nodded dumbly and took the key. I unlocked the door and went inside...
*Location: My House, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, now...*
Surprisingly enough, all the lights were off. Twilight and Lilium followed me in. I could tell we were in a small hallway. We went on a bit and suddenly--
"SURPRISE!" shouted what had to be the entire population of Ponyville at once exactly as the (surprisingly electric) lights came on. After this, someone blew on one of those streamer-noisemaker-things and confetti rained down from somewhere. However, something else soon caught my attention...
Lilium was floating in mid-air, looking rather panicked. Her legs were simply dangling, and it looked like an invisible string was holding her up by the small of her back. A potted fern was being held in front of her in a way that resembled the way a unicorn would hold a weapon in front of themselves. The question was, how was she doing it?
Upon seeing Lilium, and realizing that she was floating in mid-air along with a potted fern, and both of them had been on the ground not a moment before, the other ponies, as well as myself and Twilight, drew in a sharp gasp. "How is she doing that?!" I thought. Then I got an idea. I remembered that in Ocarina of Time, the Lens of Truth was used to help "see the truth," meaning it let you see what really was or wasn't there. Maybe this was something like that...
I tapped into my magic and thought of the Lens of Truth. Then I concentrated on the area around me and how I saw it, then felt what was there and tried to make it visible.
Suddenly my vision changed. Everything was tinted blue-ish and there seemed to be a strange haze over everything. I looked to Lilium and was surprised to see four arms that ended in human hands of all things coming out of her back.
Even with my new "augmented" vision, they looked like they were transparent--it was like they were made out of heat haze. They seemed unreal, and they didn't have any established joints. Instead the movements of the strange appendages was almost serpentine in nature--they just twisted and writhed instead of moving like normal limbs. Two of the four arms were holding Lilium aloft, touching the ground. The other two held the potted fern, ready to use it to strike what ever got in her way.
"Oh crap," I thought. I had to calm her down before she did something REALLY bad!
I looked to the still-levitating mare and said to her, "Hey, calm down, these are all nice ponies! They'd never hurt you!" Apparently it worked. Lilium slowly floated back down to the carpeted floor and put the fern, still in the grasp of her rather unusual appendages, back where it had been. Then she turned to me and said, her quiet voice quaking, "I don't like surprises."
"I'll be sure to remember that," I said to the grey mare beside me before turning to the crowd. Now that I'd calmed down Lilium, I had to deal with them. "Everyone," I began, "This is Lilium. I found her in the Everfree Forest, and she doesn't have a home," I continued, making sure not to say where in the Everfree I'd found her. "And because I found her, and you all made me this lovely house, I figure she can stay with me. Now, unless anyone has anything they'd like to say, I believe this was supposed to be a party?"
This seemed to do the trick, as it got the ponies to seemingly unfreeze and resume the party. I turned to Lilium and said, "We'll talk later." She nodded at me nervously, and, satisfied with her response, I turned to go join the party.
~Several Hours Later...~
Aside from the initial hiccup, it was a great party. I got to meet some more residents of Ponyville and socialize a bit with the Main Six, as I referred to them. All in all, it was great. Lilium even managed to socialize with some of the other ponies!
The party went on late into the night, and when everyone else had gone, the Main Six stayed behind with me and Lilium to help us clean up. These six mares truly were amazing, giving me so much of their time! Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy flew around up high to get the banners and streamers down while Lilium helped them with her...gifts, shall we say; Twilight and Rarity used their magic to get the spilled liquids out of the carpet; and Applejack and Pinkie got everything else. I helped out wherever I was needed. Between the eight of us, we managed to get the job done in virtually no time at all.
By the time everyone had gone, Rarity had promised to make Lilium and me some new clothes free of charge, Pinkie had promised to throw Lilium a party as well (not a surprise party though), Rainbow Dash had used "twenty percent cooler" in her sentences no less than three times, Twilight had sent Spike home early to make sure he got his sleep, Applejack had promised to send me some apples free of charge along with some Apple Family recipes, and Fluttershy had put out what had to be more moe than could legally be put out in one evening.
After the last of them left, Lilium turned to me and asked, "So what did you want to talk about?" I remembered her little stunt from before and that I'd wanted to talk to her about what I'd seen when I'd changed my vision. I still wanted to talk to her about it, but it had to be midnight by now. "Not right now," I said to my new housemate. "Let's just get some sleep. We'll talk in the morning." "Okay," she said.
Together we went upstairs and found the bedrooms. There were three of them up here. I looked at the first two. Each was a respectable size. One of them was predominantly pale blue, the other rather red and pink. Lilium took the latter and went to make herself comfortable and get ready for bed. While she did that, I went to have a look at the final bedroom.
I had a hunch it'd be the master bedroom, and I was right. It was also clearly designed to be MY bedroom. In the middle of it all was a MASSIVE semi-circular bed with turquoise sheets and a black blanket. The walls were black with some turquoise designs reminiscent of the ones on my clothes on them. There was a good-sized night stand to the right of the bed, and the head of the bed had a bookshelf built into it! The shelf was stocked with all sorts of books, fiction and non-fiction, biographies and books clearly meant for adult ponies who felt their lives were a bit dull and needed some excitement (the Ponysutra? Really?). There was also a smaller shelf mounted to the wall above the bed. On the wall opposite the door, there was a dresser that was empty but with Rarity's promise of free clothing that would change soon enough.
To my surprise the bedroom had an attached bathroom with running water. I suppose I wasn't familiar enough with the ponies' level of technological achievement to know what things from my world they did or didn't have. The bathroom had a sink with a mirror above it and a nice amount of counter space, and there was also a stand-up shower that was wide enough for a pony but tall enough for me. The generosity of these ponies never ceased to amaze me.
Feeling that I'd done enough gaping, I turned out the lights that still seemed out of place in a town like Ponyville and went to bed. "I could get used to this," I thought as I laid down on the amazingly comfy bed and fell asleep.