//------------------------------//
// Chapter 41: August 7 
// Story: The Last Pony on Earth 
// by Starscribe 
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Diary,

I can’t believe I took this long to get anything down. Been here a week, and I take until now to have time with my diary. I guess… I guess I’ve done better than any other universe-traveling member of my species before me. Or… I guess not, since I’m just a pony now, and ponies have done this before.

Just a pony. Maybe I should stop saying things like that.

Welcome to Equestria, population millions of earth ponies, pegasi, unicorns, zebras, and even a few gryphons (who knew those were a thing?). With some level of certainty, I am the only native of my world to travel here. I may be the last for some time to come.

I guess it goes without saying that the spell worked. We arrived in Equestria more or less in the middle of nowhere, somewhere Sunset said corresponded to the exact location on Earth. She said it would’ve been better to go into LA, but with the fires and everything… Yeah, we didn’t do that.

Overwhelming. That’s the only word I can use to describe all of this. A whole world, and there’s not a human in sight. There never was, and now I guess there never will be. Granted my first look wasn’t that impressive; just this little town.

A little town with more individual ponies in it than I’ve seen in the last few months, by at least a few orders of magnitude. Completely overwhelming. I wished I’d been able to bring Huan along. Guess in all the isolation, I didn’t think that maybe I wasn’t used to being around other people.

Well I wasn’t. Dang if ponies aren’t the friendliest creatures I’ve ever known. Sunset and I just appeared out of nothing, and practically the whole town rushes to get a telegram off to some central rail office to send a train for us.

Yeah, telegram. It’s hard to say exactly the level of technology this world has. Without a doubt, it’s much less than Earth ever had. If I had to guess, I’d say they’re somewhere in the mid eighteen-hundreds. The middle of an aborted industrial revolution. I guess necessity really is the mother of invention: why invent anything if there’s a spell that makes it happen for free?

Sunset Shimmer has been with me every day as we travel across the country. She’s taken me to several different cities, showing me the “industry” here in Equestria. Every time I’ve reminded her about how urgent she had been when we were back on earth, she tells me “the return spell is waiting for us at the end. Princess Celestia said you had to see everything yourself. Reading about it is no substitute for real experience” or something like that. I’ve forgotten honestly. Just as long as she kept promising I could go back to my friends.

I'm pretty sure she's also showing me to them, because we've only visited big cities generally and they're always expecting me. I get rushed around too fast to get questioned too much. They want to know how "humans" are doing. Sunset told me I was better off not answering these questions yet, until I knew from her princess what was happening. Lots and lots of ponies wanted to know what earth was like, so I drew 'em a little sketch...





Cloudy Skies, Mystic Rune, Oliver, Moriah… spend all this time around ponies, and I’m starting to think of their names as more natural. That much changing in a week? I’m gonna have to thank Sky big time for the name; it’s been something to tell the ponies I meet when I don’t want to give them a lecture on why I’m called “Alex.”

Not having a cutie mark, too. Cloudy Skies saved me there too, with this leather jacket that covers up my flank (that’s the word! Not butt!). So cutie marks are something every adult has. It seems to be part of puberty here to get them, though I still don’t have one. I can’t even blame Moriah, since I didn’t have one even before I got made into a teenager.

Everypony wants to know if I’m Sunset’s little sister. I don’t tell them to shut up even though I really want to. I’m nobody’s sister, damnit! My family’s gone!

I don’t really want the tour. Even if it’s really interesting to see the way Equestria manufactures its own seasons: yeah, you heard that right. Its orbit is perfectly even, no tilt, so no natural climatic variation. They have to manufacture it by manipulating clouds and wind and even their own orbit, all with magic.

So maybe it’s a little premature to think of Equestrians as primitive. They might not have 3D printers or nuclear fission, but they've so totally mastered nature that all the animals depend on them for survival and weather is scheduled instead of predicted.

Would we even want that for Earth? I never said so, but… that sounds like living in a fishbowl. A very peaceful fishbowl, granted. Earth hasn’t been like that for any part of our development. It’s been darwinism. Animals as weak and defenseless as these here would be devoured in minutes back on earth. I can’t help but wonder if a sheltered world has made the ponies a little sheltered too.

But I dunno. I haven’t come here to judge their society. Really, I couldn’t care less about their society. They’re wonderfully friendly and polite but I only want to reverse what happened to my planet. There are seven billion voices in my mind, and all of them demand action. Maybe the magic of this world, magic literally mighty enough to cause the sun to rise in the morning and set in the evening, is mighty enough to bring back my dead race. 

Even if all the ponies on Earth were stuck as ponies forever, it would be worth it. Even if our radiation meant we had to be banished to live out the rest of our days on some small island forever, which would get so hot it would glow at night and be visible from space. I could still write letters to mom and Jennifer. It’d still be worth it.

Tomorrow I meet the pony who can make that possible. Princess Luna. Princess isn’t just a political office, though it is that. Princess is also the species, though I think it’s a little unfair! I already thought of this, weeks back! Making ponies have wings and horns both… that’s what an Alicorn is. She’s the younger of the two sisters, and I don’t really know why she’s meeting with me instead of the older sister. Whatever.

These beings are ancient beyond any sapient living thing on earth. They’ve both ruled for thousands of years, if the stories the ponies here tell me are true. When they took power, Alexander the Great was conquering the world.

Stretches of time that vast are hard to even fit in my dumb horse brain, though honestly I don’t think I would’ve done much better if I was still human. When you live for a hundred years, ten or a hundred times that seems unfathomable. Years must feel so short to them.

I’ll try to commit tomorrow’s conversation with her to memory as much as possible. If I’m right, if the HPI were right and Sunset Shimmer is right, then it might be the most important conversation in human history (posthuman history?). I will record everything about it. Wish ponies had voice recorders, or else I’d carry one of those.

I’m going to beg the princess to make my world right again. Sunset says she’s positive Luna will treat my request very seriously, though she looked sad when she said it. You better not know something I don’t, firemane horsebeast! She seemed pretty confident though. Apparently Princess Luna had taken her on when the other sister didn’t think she made the cut as an apprentice anymore. So horse politics, that’s apparently a thing.

Let’s see, I’ve picked up some helpful general knowledge. I’m what’s called an earth pony (some connections there?), and we’ve all apparently got a universal connection to the land. When I saw my vision and lots of earth ponies were growing crops, they weren’t using exotic fertilizers or weird GE plants, they were using magic. Innate magic, the same magic that makes me strong and not wear out the way other ponies do. Guess my group wasn’t just being lazy after all!

Then there’s unicorns, like Joseph. Pretty much knew he could do magic, but apparently magic is way more than just glowing and moving things around. He can learn all kinds of spells, spells to cure sicknesses and repair broken things and reveal what’s been hidden. Apparently I’m going to go back with tons and tons of books and things on that. Not really sure how I’m supposed to carry an entire library’s worth without a Kindle. Guess there’s probably a spell for it.

Pegasus ponies too, like Cloudy Skies, and they do way more than fly. They literally walk on the clouds, and can even make them into things. Including weather systems, but also freakin’ buildings and stuff. Jealous much? You betcha! I feel like whoever gave these powers away wasn’t fair to the ground ponies. I can’t help but notice during my Equestria world tour that earth ponies seem to be working harder than anypony else.

Crap, I just wrote anypony again. I hope Sky never reads this. Or Moriah. God, not her. I asked about the horn regrowing thing too.

Bad news! Moriah’s horn probably won’t ever grow back. Not even medical spells can do anything for it; something to do with it being a magic focus itself. Good news? The magic isn’t actually in the horn itself, but some tiny little thing in her head. Guess I kinda already knew that since she blasted me with magic without a horn. Whatever; horn’s a focus, but the magic comes from inside. She’ll be able to learn one day, it’ll probably just be way harder. So there’s hope for the grump after all.

I also had Sunset do a basic age spell; turns out I’m really sixteen, just like Oliver thought. I asked her about reversing an age spell, and she was just shocked that an age spell was even possible for somepony from earth. Apparently it’s really, really advanced stuff. Like, Alicorn level stuff. Most ponies would live their whole lives without ever seeing it done, and the effects were always permanent.

I could, of course, ask this Princess Luna to cast a new age spell tomorrow, but I doubt I will. I don’t want to distract from the real question. Only if she grants my pleas about humanity will I ask for anything for myself.

And if she can’t, well, at least we’ll know what happened. I would rather die knowing what had killed us than never know at all. Maybe it’s possible for humans to learn something from this. Guess that depends on what caused it, so I’ll have to get back to you on that.

It’s hard to get over how friendly the ponies are here in Equestria. Everybody wants to know your name, everypony wants to help. Just today, I met a pony who had to be the most elegant horse who ever lived. She insisted on replacing my outfit and recommending me a “mane-stylist” for my appointment with royalty tomorrow. Talk about generous.

Then there’s Sunset Shimmer herself. It’s weird how sad she’s been all the time, and I don’t know why. We stayed with her family two nights, and her mother looked like she would cry. Barely even noticed I was there.

Damn the food, though. These ponies know how to cook. Vegetarian horse-diet confirmed. You know what, though? They make it work. They don’t eat grass, seem to think of it as about as barbaric as I do. Hay is to them what wheat is to man, a pretty universal staple. Baking seems to happen too, along with lots of familiar human cooking methods. This week is the first time I haven’t missed meat since I turned into this stupid horse. I sure hope if Luna can’t make everything right she’ll include a few cookbooks with that library of knowledge.

Cloudy Skies would’ve loved it here, so much that she probably wouldn’t have wanted to leave. I’ll admit, after this last week here, I can see how nice it would be to live here. Everypony knows what it’s like to have to use their mouths for everything. They don’t care that I’m young, and they don’t expect me to save humanity.

I could make lots of new friends here. I think I already have, honestly. Sunset Shimmer’s really nice to me, and she doesn’t seem to mind when I screw up and do something “nopony would ever do, like, ever.” I asked her about it, and she just said “I know what it’s like to be somewhere new and not to have any friends.”

It’s hard not to like a pony when they do this much to look out for you. I think leaving behind my new friends will the hardest part about going back. Good thing I’ll have my old ones waiting for me. We still have a community to build… maybe. Or maybe I’ll go back and go back to my job.

Or… probably not. Guess that all still burned, huh? I wonder how much of the Earth will still be there when all the humans go back to it.

I hope we can all go back to it. This ponyworld is nice, but it’s not my home. This world didn’t compose Ave Maria, or paint the Mona Lisa. This world didn’t write the Magna Carta, or the Divine Comedy. This world didn’t land a man on the moon or split the atom.

It’s beautiful here, even wonderful. But it isn’t my home.

I want to go back.

—A