//------------------------------//
// Chapter 34 
// Story: A New Beginning in a New Land 
// by REDACTED99999 
//------------------------------//

Luna levitated a quill and a parchment in front of her. Well, two quills and two pieces of parchment. She also levitated every other item in her room, but that was background work. What was really hard was to write two different things. One of the parchments was a summons to various lawyers she had chosen, while the other was a chapter of her book. She had already written the introduction and was now almost done with the third chapter. Of course there would be many mistakes, but it was the first draft.
There was a knock on the door. Both quills stopped and hovered in the air while she opened the door with her telekinesis. She had a good idea of who it was.
“Still training your multitasking, sister?” Looking back, Luna saw that Celestia was looking at the various objects she was levitating. The bed seemed to be especially interesting to her.
“Have to. Out of practice. Want to impress Jax on Moonday. Need to be able to multitask.” The conversation was already straining her as she tried to focus on everything in her magic. She had not written anything since Celestia came in, so she decided to turn around and face her sister.
“You have been at it for hours, Lulu. We have to set the moon and raise the sun soon. Why not spend some time talking until then?”
“Alright.”
Celestia just sighed. “Please… put everything down in its rightful place, sister.”
Luna rolled her eyes. She could focus just fine. This was nothing next to the feat she would show in a couple of days.
She set down everything, and was rewarded with a thankful smile from her sister.
Before she set aside the two pieces of parchment, she checked how much she had messed up. Entire lines had been written on opposite pieces of parchment, not to mention the occasional wrong word. She sighed.
***
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
Applejack really knew how to knock on a door. Her mark should be of a pony knocking on a door.
Jax groggily got out of bed. He slept a little better with Mr. Bear next to him, but it wasn’t much. He made for a warm pillow, but he didn’t have a wing to put protectively around Jax.
The wooden floor was cold beneath his bare feet, but he was used to walking around barefoot, so it wasn’t a big problem.
Opening the door he found, as he had suspected, Applejack waiting for him.
“Gooooodmornin’ neighbor!” She said with a disturbing amount of cheer for someone who had gotten up before sunrise.
“’Morning…” He yawned behind a hand. “Let me just… get ready.” He left the door open while he put on shoes and a shirt. “Mr. Bear, I’m going running.” He told his pet bear.
“Rawr.” Was the tired answer.
“Alright, let’s go.” He said as he went outside.
“Remember to stretch properly this time. Don’t want you to pull something like yesterday.” Applejack reminded him.
“It wasn’t that bad… I can’t even feel it today.” He said, but still started stretching, properly this time. The air was chilly, definitely colder than it had been the day before. It had apparently rained at night, because the earth was wet. He took a deep breath, enjoying the fresh smell of wet grass.
Not that he liked fall. Fall meant that winter was just around the corner, and winter meant cold. He preferred to stay warm.
“Alright Applejack, I’m ready.” He told her, and they set off towards the sunrise.
“Just AJ is fine, sugarcube.” She told him.
“Alright… AJ.”
***
He had taken a shower and started washing his clothes when he heard a knock on the door. Confused as to who it could be, he opened the door.
“Hello. You’re Jax, right?” It was a grayish mare with a blonde mane. One of her eyes was looking upwards, while the other looked at him. Leaning a bit to the side, he saw that her mark was… bubbles? Whatever that meant.
“Hello? Yes, how can I help you?” He smiled kindly at the seemingly unafraid pony.
“I finally found you! I’m Derpy, the mailmare.” She smiled back at him. “Did you know you don’t have a mailbox? You should get one as fast as possible.” She started rummaging around in her bag. By now he could guess what this was about. What he didn’t see coming was the amount. Derpy took out a huge stack of letters bound together by a string and handed them to him, before rummaging around some more for a single piece of paper.
“Well thank you, I’ll talk with Applejack about the mailbox. Have a nice day, Derpy.”
“You too, Mr. Jax!” She waved at him and flew away.
Going back inside, he sat down on a chair, looking through his mail. Then he looked over at the clothes he was supposed to wash. Mr. Bear had gone somewhere, so he was alone in the cottage.
He started with the letters, setting the piece of paper aside for now.
The first letter was addressed to Jax, Ponyville. No wonder Derpy had had a hard time finding him. He opened it and started reading.
Before bursting out in laughter. Apparently some stallion out there thought it would be a good idea to send a letter with details of all the sexual fantasies he had been having about Jax. It went on for a couple of pages. 
It wasn’t signed and there was no return address, so he put it back in the envelope, unsure what to do with it. It would be fun to show it to some pony and see their reaction, but at the same time… Ah well, off to the side, next letter up.
No return address again. He opened it and started reading it, before hastily crumbling it into a ball and throwing it at the wall. While the first letter had been a little disturbing, it had been preferred over this ignorant bullshit. The sender told him that he didn’t belong in Equestria and should go home. That piece of trash. He was home.
He quickly quelled his anger. He should have been expecting this - if the internet had taught him anything, it was that it was easy to hide behind anonymity.
The next was a little more promising. There was a return address, and everything seemed to be written with crayons. He smiled all the way through it. It was from a griffon kid in Canterlot named Cenia, who told him that ‘It’s hard to be different.’ But ‘Ponies are nice once you get to know them and they get to know you.’ It was a heartwarming letter, and he was happy Cenia had decided to share her own experiences with him. He laid that letter in a ‘remember to reply’ pile.
The rest of the letters followed those same themes. One more hate-letter, two more sexual letters (both female this time.) and the rest were ‘hang in there!’ letters, which were really nice. It seemed like most of them wrote because they had seen the article Raven Writingdesk had written. He had to get his hands on that newspaper. 
After he had read all of the letters, he started replying, before remembering the single piece of paper he had laid aside.
Apparently it was the weather schedule. He couldn’t stop laughing once he read it. Rainbow Dash had crossed out an entire section about Moonday night, and written ‘CLEAR SKIES.’ Next to it.
Damn, these were some good friends.
***
Luna looked up at the ceiling in her room. She had laid like that for some time, but sleep eluded her, like it had the day before. Thoughts of Jax kept running around in her head. She missed him so much she could scream…
She finally gave up, levitated the chapters she had written over, and started correcting all the mistakes.
There were a lot.
***
Another knock on the door. He was popular today.
He opened the door to be greeted by a purple alicorn. “Hey Twilight.”
“Hello Jax. Can I come in?” She asked with a careful smile, her eyes observing him a bit too closely.
“Sure. Actually, good thing you came.” He let her in and closed the door behind him. “Want some tea? I just got some from Rarity yesterday.”
“I don’t want to intrude, I just came to check up on you. Spike said he would come as well, but he had some comics to catch up on.”
“No no, it’s no problem at all, I was going to make a cup before heading out anyway. And Spike can come whenever he wants.” He smiled at her as he poured water into the kettle. “So, did you find out anything about light pollution?”
“What? Oh that… It turns out that light is light, whether it’s converted from magical energy or not.” She frowned. “I’m trying to create a miniature atmosphere so I can conduct some proper field-tests. It’s not easy though” She looked into the distance, apparently lost in thought. “Maybe Princess Celestia or Luna would be able to help…” She shook her head, and looked at him with a small smile. “Speaking of Luna… How are you?”
Jax looked at her for a couple of seconds before sighing. “I’ve been better… I’ve been worse.” He started preparing two cups with the tea he had received from Rarity as the water started to boil. “I think we can rule out… What did Celestia call it? Positive magic high? I think we can rule out that theory. I don’t feel any kind of high.” He poured the hot water into the cups, taking a moment to enjoy the smell of fresh tea. It felt calming. He went over to the table where Twilight sat and put one of the cups in front of her before he sat down. “But with friends like you guys, I don’t feel overly depressed either. Did you see the weather schedule?”
Twilight nodded with a smile. “Rainbow Dash is a good friend.” She said warmly. “I also heard you adopted Mr. Bear. Fluttershy was very happy about that.”
“Yeah. He’s off on some adventure or something right now, apparently he can open and close the door. I also received a lot of good letters from people. Most of them anyway.” He indicated the pile of letters he didn’t know where to put. He had already written a reply to every one of the ones that had a return address, he only needed to stamp and send them.
Twilight leaned over and took one from a smaller stack. Jax couldn’t help but smile at his good luck.
He calmly sipped his tea as Twilights cheeks got redder and redder, before she folded the letter again and put it back.
”Interesting read?” Jax asked innocently, almost unable to hide his smile.
“From a sociological and sexological point of view… yes. As literature goes however, I’ve read better.” She said calmly. A bit too calmly…
He smiled widely. “You read a lot of-?”
“That’s not what I meant! I just meant that the nice stallion seemed to have trouble putting his… fantasies, into words.” She looked down at the table, a visible blush covering most of her face. There it was.
Jax couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m sure you know all about putting fantasies into words.”
She grumbled something about being an author before she looked at the bigger pile. “So, are all of these like the letter I read?” Subtle change of subject there, Twilight.
“No. These are all letters that encourage me to keep going. You’ll find a third pile in the trash encouraging me to get out of the country as well.”
She actually went over and checked in the trash. “Oh, two letters. When you said pile…” She levitated them out, uncrumbled them, read them, crumbled them again and put them back in with a frown on her face. “Some ponies…”
“At least most of them are good.” He pointed at the big pile of letters. What was he going to do with them? They didn’t belong in the trash.
“Yeah… That’s good. That reminds me.” She took out a newspaper and put it in front of him. It was the ‘Canterlot Informant.’ The newspaper Raven worked for. On the front page was a picture of him and Luna on the sofa. Raven had taken the picture before he left. Jax had been careful not to smile wide enough to show his canines, not that it mattered since he had admitted to being an omnivore.
He read the article.
“Wow. This Raven really knows his craft. No wonder so much of the mail was nice. Hey look, a pie chart of my crimes. Let’s see… Being human… not being a pony. He’s funny as well.” He chuckled at the ridiculous chart. “Oh look! According to this, property damage in Ponyville has actually decreased since I came to town. That’s a little amazing.” That probably didn’t have anything to do with him though, but still funny. “He looks at me and Luna, and tries to see if any of the rumors surrounding us can be true. Well written article, sir. Well written indeed.” Jax nodded his head in acknowledgement. Some of the rumors mentioned in the article, Jax hadn’t even heard about. Like apparently he had rampaged around Ponyville, destroying buildings and harming ponies… Somehow. At the same time, he and Luna had bewitched half of Ponyville, and turned the other half into frogs.
Rumors were weird. Where did this even come from?
“Hey look! An article about the star show on Moondays! They have no idea why Luna started doing it.” If only they knew that he was the one who had started it for the fun of it. The theories they came with here were a bit wild.
“Yeah, Raven is a really good journalist.” Twilight said with a smile before it turned into a concerned expression. “Jax, are you sure you’re okay? I know you don’t like to complain, but sometimes it helps.”
He looked at her for some seconds before he managed to smile. “I’m fine Twilight. Thanks for the concern. Oh, actually, while you’re here.” He quickly changed the subject. “I’m gonna spend some time with Pinkie, see if that helps with my magic. Are you free later today? I want to try to conjure that pen.”
Twilight didn’t look convinced, but nodded nonetheless. “Sure Jax. I actually have to get going, but see you then.”
Jax closed the door behind her with a sigh. These were nice friends. Maybe he should just have told her how frustrated he felt without Luna there.
He took a deep breath. Everything would be fine. The rumors would calm down, and he would be with Luna again, somehow. It had only been a couple of days, he just needed a little patience.
He put on his shoes. He had a Pinkie to spend the day with.
***
“Hey Pinkie!” He greeted Pinkie as she came out of Sugarcube Corner right when he was about to go in.
“Oh hey Jaxie. Are you ready?” She asked with her ever-present smile.
“For… what exactly? To spend the rest of the day together?” Did she know before he even told her?
“We are going to make ponies smile!” She just told him as she bounced onwards. Jax quickly fell in step with her… Well he walked at the same speed at which she bounced forward.
“Great. I’ll do my best, but aren’t ponies kinda afraid of me?” He asked a bit uncertainly.
“That’s why we are making them smile silly! They can’t be afraid of you if you make them smile.” Well, who was he to defy such logic. What did he know, it sounded true enough.
“Alright… what’s the plan? Do we even have a plan?”
“Here, put this on.” She told him and gave him a pair of glasses with bushy eyebrows, a false nose, and mustache. It looked stupid, but… why not. It would probably help, and there weren’t so many ponies about anyway. Pinkie giggled when he took it on. “Uuuhh, here comes Lily.” Jax looked at a pinkish mare with a trio of flowers, presumably lilies, on her flank, and one in her blonde mane. When he looked back at where Pinkie had been a few seconds ago, he found that she had disappeared. Suddenly he felt a weight on his shoulder and he knew exactly where she was. 
“Act natural.” She loudly whispered in his ear. She then bounced off of him, and waved at the mare called Lily. “Hey Lily!”
Jax looked at Pinkie, and decided that acting natural in this situation was impossible. Where should he look? What should he do with his hands? Should he pretend that it was normal to wear fake glasses with eyebrows, nose and mustache?
He decided that the safest thing to do was to copy her. That was what he was here for anyway. He waved as well. “Hey Lily!”
Lily stopped when she spotted Pinkie and even gave a smile and looked like she was about to answer the greeting, when her gaze found Jax. Her eyes widened, her mouth made an O shape, and she completely froze, before finding her legs, and apparently her voice, again. “The horror, the horror!” She screamed as she ran away.
After so long, ponies still had such a strong reaction to him. He knew that some of the ponies had been avoiding him and he thought he was fine with it but… it stung a bit.
“Horribly hilarious maybe!” Pinkie shouted from beside him, hoof raised in mock indignation. She smiled at him with her signature smile. “Let’s try again. Here comes Rose.” He looked at the light yellow mare with a rose on her flank.
He adjusted his glasses and put on a smile again, fighting off the memory of Lily running away screaming. “Alright. Let’s do this.”
***
He sat down in an alley, with his back against a wall, the bushy glasses on the ground beside him. He raised his gaze from the ground to look at Pinkie, who was sitting in front of him. She looked concerned, but when she saw him looking a smile instantly found its way to her face.
He sighed. “How many was that?” It sounded like he was ready to jump off a bridge, even to him. It was hard to see ponies run from him when he tried to make them smile. He felt out of balance, and he knew that a big part of that was because he didn’t have Luna there with him. He felt alone, even if Pinkie was right there.
“Only five.” Her voice was softer than normal.
He snorted. “Feels like more.”
“We were a bit unlucky. I’m sure the next one will roll around on the floor in laughter.” Pinkie said with conviction.
He looked at her for a bit. “How do you do it, Pinkie?”
It was a broad question, but Pinkie seemed to know exactly what he was talking about. 

“It's true, some days are dark and lonely”

She suddenly started to sing with a soft voice.

“and maybe you feel sad
but Pinkie will be there to show you that it isn't that bad
There's one thing that makes me happy
and makes my whole life worthwhile
and that's when I talk to my friends and get them to smile”

He couldn’t help but smile at her. It seemed to make her very happy. “Alright, but you owe me a muffin for every pony that runs away from me from now on.” He said as he put on the silly glasses again.
“Deal! Hey Derpy! Derpy, over here!” She waved a hoof excitedly at the gray pegasus who was walking by.
***
“Hey Twilight!” Jax cheerfully said as he entered the lab.
“Hello Jax. You- what’s with the glasses?” She asked with a giggle.
“Oh, forgot I had them on.” He took off the silly glasses he had been wearing the last couple of hours. After the first five ponies, they had worked well. Turned out Pinkie was right and they had just been unlucky. Nobody rolled on the floor though. Still, it was nice to spread some laughter.
“Alright, let’s do this.” He said. He had seen Pinkie do some weird stuff, and if she could do it, then he could as well.
They went down into the room.
***
“Why do I need to ask?” Twilight looked perplexed.
“I’m trying out stuff. Just do it.”
“Alright…” She sighed. “Do you have a pen I can borrow?”
“Sure thing Twilight, I have it right…” He put his hand into his pocket and waited for her to use a spell on him. He felt the aura on his skin, a kind of pinchy feeling. It changed, and he grabbed the pen that had appeared in his pocket. “Here!” He pulled it out with a dramatic flair. He waited a couple of seconds. No explosion. That was a good sign.
“Hey it actually worked! Here let me…” She took the pen in her aura, careful not to touch his hand. 
She went so far as to look closely at it before something happened. When she studied the lid, it suddenly popped off, and the ink splashed right into her face.
They stood in stunned silence for a couple of seconds before Jax started laughing.
Twilight gave him a deadpan stare.
“I-I’m sorry Twilight, I didn’t think anything would happen.” He said between laughs. “Hey, at least it didn’t explode.”
She used a spell to get the ink off her. She looked at the pen that was still in her grasp. “Hey, yeah… I still have the pen. I can finally figure this out!” She sounded excited all of a sudden. A smile spread on her face.
“Yeah, progress! Well, I’ll let you get to studying it. I’m gonna go home and eat something. Hey, don’t stay up too late, ‘running of the leaves’ tomorrow and all that.” He said offhandly. She just nodded as she looked at the pen in front of her.
He made his way home. He waved at the ponies that waved at him, and ignored the ones that ignored him. It was a good day. There seemed to be more ponies smiling at him than usual. Maybe he should drop by Rarity’s to get an update on rumors about him. It couldn’t be that bad anymore.
He arrived to an empty home. Mr. Bear was still out adventuring or whatever he was doing. He looked in the fridge. He still had some food left, but not that much. One or two days, but still lots of cake… good thing he had figured the pen out. Now he just had to wait for Twilight to find out the rest.
He needed to see Applejack about the mailbox as well. He had almost forgotten about that. “Should I eat first, or go directly there?” He asked.
He stood in the empty house. The only answer he got was silence. He didn’t like it. It reminded him that Luna wasn’t there.
He packed some cake and went out.
***
“Heya there Jax. What can I help ya with?” Applejack said from the open doorway.
He smiled at her. “Derpy visited today. She said I need a mailbox. Also, I brought cake.”
“Alright, come on in. We were just about to start eating. There’s plenty if you want to join?”
“That would be nice.” He smiled as he went inside the red house.