“GOOD MORNING, DANNY!”
“AHHH!” I shouted, shoving the horrifying mass away from my face. I heard a dull thump in the background of my panic. What was that? Where am I? What the heck is happ-
“Owwie! What’d you do that for, Danny?”
My eyes widened at the realization, and I looked down at the pink pony, who was currently on the ground-No. She’s back to bouncing on the bed. How? “Sorry, Laught- Pink..ie? You..startled me.”
She giggled, “D’aww! It’s okay, Danny! That was actually FUN! Also, is that my new nickname? That’s a funny nickname!”
I blinked in confusion. “What?”
“Silly! You don’t even remember the nickname you gave me - LaughtaPink-EE!”
I groaned. It’s...too early in the morning for this.
“Pshhaww! It’s never too early for jokes! Especially if I get to make my new friend smile!” squealed Pinkie with way too much glee. Suddenly, her eyes widened, and she made the scariest gasp I’d ever seen. Pony anatomy does NOT allow this. AT ALL. Wings? Okay. Horn? Fine. Giant balloon that turns the room into a vacuum? Must be a nightmare. That wasn’t the worst part though. She fell apart! After blinking (and nearly having yet another panic attack) though, she was back to normal -as normal as that pink pony could be anyway. Or..did ponies do this regularly? I never saw any of them do anything remotely as horrifying..yet. For the love of God, please let it stay that way.
Luckily, before the pink logic-defying pony could traumatize me more, a knock on the door gave me an excuse to leave my bed. Thank you! I wrenched the door open and saw the purple pony. Twi..light? Wait..what is - Fudge. Behind that mare lay stacks -no- columns of notebooks, too many quills, all rubber-banded neatly together, and a two-gallon, clear container of black liquid. The crap is..oh..ink.
“Good morning, Daniel! I figured you were awake by now, judging by all the ruckus coming from your room,” greeted the insane notetaker.
“HI, TWILIGHT!” boomed Pinkie.
I looked away from all her supplies. “Oh, uh, good morning, Twilight..Sparkle?” I replied uncertainly.
“Subject..has..good..memory,” she mumbled, while scratching down her thoughts. I briefly noticed the label:
HUMAN RESEARCH
NOTEBOOK: A.1.i
NAME: TWILIGHT SPARKLE
ADDRESS: GOLDEN OAK LIBRARY, PONYVILLE, EQUESTRIA
I don’t want to know how far the i’s go..And is she already writing past the half point of that thing? ...How?!
“So..Twilight, you’re not planning on filling all those notebooks, right? That would take such a long time!”
“Of course, not! It’ll take half the time because you’ll be taking notes, too!”
“....Why?” I flatly asked, while my left eye twitched.
“Because I need to learn everything about your world, and you need to learn more about Equestria! I can start by asking questions about humans!” exclaimed the crazy mare.
Maybe I should humor this unicorn before she sails past the deep end..like a certain pink pony “Alright, I guess I could take a notebook-” Ten glowing notebooks flew into my chest. I couldn’t catch five of them.
“Don’t underestimate knowledge, Daniel! There’s way too much for you to catch up on for a single notebook! We need to cover history, geography-” Ho-Ly Crap. “-philosophy, pony studies, science, theories of magic, magical beasts, theories of theories of magic, d-”
“Alright, Twilight,” I interrupted. Time to spout more crap like nobody’s business. “We are not doing cram sessions. Those are pretty much good for the short-term before it all gets dumped out of memory anyway. If you really want to encourage a proper learning environment, we can start by asking each other questions for up to an hour,” I said, emphasizing the last four words in particular.
“Oooh. Alright,” agreed Twilight reluctantly. In a flash, most of the writing supplies disappeared..somewhere. “I’ll only need three notebooks if we’re going to be talking for an hour! You can keep the ten notebooks here for future note-taking!” I groaned inwardly.
“How...generous of you! Thanks, Twilight,” I replied half-sarcastically and half-unenthusiastically. I’m forgetting something. “Oh!” I glanced behind me. “Where did Pinkie go?” The room was completely devoid of that pink energy rabbit-pony.
“Don’t worry about it. Pinkie does that sometimes,” answered Twilight. “Now, let’s get started!” She skipped in, shut the door, and teleported an alarm clock from..somewhere. Where do these things come from? Geez. She set the clock to go nuts at what I figured was an hour from now. “Okay, Daniel, let’s begin with the more rudimentary topics about humans. Please describe…”
__________________________________________________________________________
The alarm went off just as we wrapped up another discussion. Finally! Writing everything that the purple pony expected me to enjoy writing about was a complete pain. Given the choice, I would have skipped the note-taking..but her more-than-occasional glares were disconcerting, and I really did not want a unicorn mad at me. Who knows what those fellas can do..if a normal-looking one can... I didn’t even want to remember.
“That was pretty productive, Daniel! I managed to fill up 2.78 notebooks! I’ll definitely be making more in-depth questions for next time!” exclaimed Twilight.
“Nice! I got..a tenth of the notebook filled.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “No offense, but maybe you should take more notes.”
“Offense taken. I tend to be concise when writing notes. Back home, I wouldn’t go past two pages per 75 minute lecture.” Unless it was one of those professors who wrote passages from the textbook...Then I wouldn’t even bother! Twilight looked appalled, to say the least.
“I’m sorry for offending you! I didn’t mean-”
“No, no, no! I’m more or less kidding.” Geez. These ponies..or at least this one takes everything so seriously!
“More or less?” parroted Twilight while observing my face. After a few seconds, she gave up and sighed, “Okay, if you say so.”
“That’s the spirit!” I quipped, “Now, how about we go for breakfast? We’ve been up for quite a while.”
“Oh..um..it might not be time yet,” mumbled Twilight. Someone’s acting like that shy pony..what was her name again?
“And why would that be? I’m awake, and it’s been at least an hour. That means it’s actually nearing lunch.”
“It’s actually around 6- Hey! Why are you going back to bed?! Breakfast will be ready in less than an hour!”
I had stopped listening as soon as I heard “six.” Well, except for the part where Twilight upsettedly grumbled out of the room. That was amusing. Now...how the heck did I get up at 5 something?
“..Whatever,” I sighed.
__________________________________________________________________________
At a much normal time later, I finally dragged myself out of bed and was extremely relieved not to see a return of the pink mass. Or a purple one. Now..let’s see what this room has. My tired self last night and my way-to-early-in-the-morning self never gave me the chance to check out the place.
I circled around the main area. Decent sofa. Awesome bed. Surprised they have one that size..but maybe this room’s for a different species? Castle’s gotta have a place for delegates...if there are any sapient beings besides ponies. Should ask that later. Then, I looked through the bathroom. Again, decent bath and shower. Interesting how the designs are eerily similar...but apparently our dimensions are close. Eh. Toothbrushes are...huge. The one I held had harder bristles at least more than twice the length of regular ones. Overall, there was also a much larger area than usual. Guess I’ll brush more carefully then. Wouldn’t want to hurt gums. Now..where’s the toothpaste..It better not be grass flavored. As I opened the drawer that hopefully contained the toothpaste, my mind played the sound effects of Link opening a chest. Yes! Mint! I grinned and thanked whatever divine being was listening to me but immediately cursed the being for letting me stay in this dimension. When I noticed the brand, however, the smile dropped. “Colgate?” I muttered bewilderedly, “How can there be Colgate here? What’s wrong with this place?”
After satiating my curiosity, I prepared for the day and noticed yet another issue while glancing at the present Philomena had left me when I first met her. This is my only set of clothes. I groaned and tried scrubbing off most of the crap. Welp. This is about as good as it’s gonna get. My stomach grumbled, as I grabbed my pack and left the room.
“Huh?” I uttered involuntarily. Where am I? How have I not seen this hall before? Looking from side to side, I noticed a guard stationed nearby and walked up the dude. “Excuse me, sir, how do I get to the dining hall from here?”
The guard didn’t even blink. Oh come on! Wait..is this the same guard I tried to tickle before? “Hey, dude, if you happen to be the guard I almost tickled before, I apologize for being bored and lost, but to be fair, you didn’t reply when I asked nicely the first time.” With that said, I continued walking down the hall before a throat cleared.
“You’re going the wrong way, sir. Turn right once you reach the end of the hall. It’ll be at the fifth left.” Finally! I turned around.
“Thanks, man -I mean- sir!” Did he just roll his eyes? Seeing a horse do that was kind of funny, but I was polite enough not to laugh. Not that they would understand why I was laughing.
After turning that right and counting the “lefts”, the telltale sound of horse hooves on tile alerted me to a new presence behind me. Sounds kind of..hurried?
“Oooh, Daniel, dear!” sang a voice. What the heck? Let me get food! I turned around.
“Good morning..R-..uh-”
“It’s Rarity, darling. And a very good morning to you, too! Though, it is almost noon.”
At this point, it was very obvious that the pony was staring at everything besides my eyes. “Did you need something, ma’am?”
“Oh, no- I mean, YES! Have you been wearing the same outfit this entire time?!”
“Yes. These are my only-”
“Oooh! You should let me make you a new set! You need to wear something absolutely dazzling. I’ll just have to send it to you after I return to Ponyville. My supplies are all back there.”
“How much are-”
“Don’t worry about the cost! You are obviously not in a favorable position, and new clothes will help you adjust to your situation much more easily!” What kind of logic is this?
“Just tell me how much-”
“Dearie, I insist that you take the clothes free-”
“NO!” Rarity’s eyes widened, and she actually jumped. I couldn’t resist a chuckle before continuing, “I mean..No, thank you. I really, really appreciate the thought and am grateful that a po- you have offered to help, but I absolutely do not want to take something for free.”
“But-”
“But if you can give me a price range, I will do my best to find a job and pay for new clothes. If I’m going to start a new life in pony land, I’m going to do it my way,” I declared. “Also, don’t think about making the prices abnormally cheap. I will ask other ponies about your general prices.”
She looked incredibly dissatisfied. “But dearie-”
“No. I will pay you, and if you don’t let me, I will chuck -,” I paused before questioning, “What was pony currency again?”
“Bits.”
“Bits. Okay. I will chuck bits at your face everytime I see you. I will hide bits in wherever you live whenever I visit. You will find random bits on the floor, and I will stash bits in your room whenever you return to the castle, if I’m still here.”
She sighed. I grinned.
“You win this time, darling, but only because I need to get to the Hearth’s Warming play rehearsal!”
“Alright, Rarity. Thanks again for the offer. See you whenever!”
The pony waved dismissively before hurrying away.
I turned around. How many “lefts” did I count again? I saw a pink tail around the far corner. “NOPE.” Sorry, stomach. Wait just a bit longer..You know you’ll lose your appetite if we- I jumped when a hoof lightly touched my back.
“Eep!”
1..2...let’s get this over with..10 I turned around for the umpteenth time and braced myself for the scary pink pony.
“Oh! You’re not her,” I said with relief.
The yellow pony looked down, pawing the ground, and replied quietly, “I’m sorry I’m not the one you were expecting.” My eyes widened.
“NO!” This time, she jumped. I repeated more softly, “No, don’t be. Between you and me, I’d rather meet you than the one I was thinking of.” She smiled slightly at that. I continued, “But uh..not to sound rude or anything, but did you need something of me?”
Her pawing stopped, and she actually made eye contact this time. “Yes, please. I really wanted to know how you were doing. So..if you could tell me..that’d be really nice..but you don’t have to, if you don’t want..” As she said that, she regressed back to her previous state. I sighed inwardly. Each one of these ponies just have to be....interesting.
“I’m doing quite well, thank you! After sleeping on a bed, I feel more rested than in the last couple of days combined! And how are you?”
“I-I’m okay, I guess.”
“That’s..okay, I suppose. Also..don’t you have a practice for some play?”
She let out a small gasp before galloping away. Okay. That better be the last pony.
Fortunately for me, no other crazy pony blocked me from the dining hall.
And though there were ponies in the dining hall, fortunately again, none of the crazy ones were there, except for Beamy.
“Daniel, good morning,” greeted Celestia, “Would you like some breakfast, lunch, or brunch?”
“Morning, Celestia! Is there an “all of the above” option?” I took my usual spot.
She chuckled, “If you can handle it. I remember a certain someone ready to waste a certain cake not too long ago.”
“Well, that was before I knew cake was a freakin’ standard in your breakfasts!” I protested. The maid -Feather Shine? - came in with the Celestia’s order. I only raised an eyebrow at the horse.
“What? You’ve already seen me eat cake at lunch.” I rolled my eyes, which was an action ignored in light of her absolutely luscious, irresistible pastry.
Another quite familiar pony walked over and flatly spoke, “What would you like for lunch, sir?”
“Good morning to you, too, Beamy. I’d like what Celestia’s having minus - actually, plus a cake.” I saw a white head shoot up in my peripheral vision. I continued more quietly, “Also, thank you for bringing my backpack to my current room. Had you not found it…” A hoof patted my shoulder. I grinned and joked, “I would’ve turned that maze upside down! And then the evil princess over yonder would’ve made me restore that thing leaf by leaf!”
Beamy scoffed but replied not unkindly, “You’re welcome, Daniel.” She then went to wherever orders were taken. Kitchen. Duh. Still half asleep, I suppose.
“Evil princess, huh?” Celestia commented, not looking up from her half-eaten cake.
“Yes. Evil princess for not making the sun -her responsibility, mind- bright enough to wake me up for breakfast! I bet it’s a ploy to make me eat only two meals a day!” Celestia looked down and spoke with a wavering voice.
“Oh my, dear Daniel, I’ll...make sure to correct my wrongs and make the sun rise from the west...just to shine on your face.”
Dear lord she actually sounds apologetic. I sighed, “Okay, okay. Nevermind about that. It was too much to ask of such a busy pers- princess.”
“No, don’t worry! I raise the sun everyday anyway. Using a different direction would just change the world’s time zones for a bit. And who doesn’t like a bit of change?”
Is she being serious? I studied her face, which looked downright sincere. I suck at this. “Alright. I’m done now. I can’t handle your professional princess-face anymore. To be honest, I was never a morning person anyway.”
“What face now? Switching from ‘evil’ to ‘professional’..just how fickle are you?” giggled Celestia, who was long finished with her cake. At this point, my food arrived. Feather Shine and Beamy carried it over, and I murmured my thanks. It’s all cause of the cakes..Sorry, you two. Once settled, Celestia spoke up again, “That aside, I really am glad to see you chipper, Daniel. I would’ve asked someone to check on you by ten or so, but I heard my student had ‘researched’ you for an hour..quite early in the morning.”
“Yeah..five in the morning is still night according to my schedule. Thanks for the consideration, Celestia. Also..would you like the second cake? I kinda overestimated my hunger.”
She sniffed. “Well, knowing you, you would’ve wasted it, so yes, I will savor the cake for you.”
Alright. Got some extra time. Her horn glowed, as the cake floated over. Before she took her first bite though, I inquired, “So..this is kinda random, but are there any employers in Canterlot that don’t mind hiring a freaky alien?”
She looked pleasantly surprised. “What brought this change? Also, don't degrade yourself so.”
“Well, I figured I might as well start on the right foot if I’m stuck -no- living here. I also don’t enjoy being completely dependent on someone.”
“While I’m glad you’re giving Equestria a chance, you know I don’t mind you here.”
I shook my head. “It just feels wrong. I want to do something.” It’s the best way to keep my mind away from home, after all. I unconsciously patted my backpack.
She smiled sadly but perked up almost immediately. “Well, Daniel, I know the perfect employer!”
“You?”
“Wow, this alien is smart!” joked Celestia. I snorted. “Did you have an occupation in mind? I know our worlds have many similarities; however, do not rely on them too much. Our methods of completing similar tasks will most likely be foreign to you.”
“I..haven’t really thought about it yet. Does..a degree in biomedical engineering count for anything?” I asked hopefully. A blank stare I received. “Er..I’m guessing you guys don’t have computers…” No change. Don’t know how they would type with hooves anyway...well, actually..-no- Back on topic! “Okay. Basic rundown then. I’m a problem solver with quite a bit of experience in math and science. Back in college, I also worked in an imaging-focused cancer research lab. So..guess I could work with researchers, too…?” She was looking at me curiously now. I muttered, “Or I could maintain labs. You know, clean water baths, autoclave crap, keep cell lines going, make media, etcetera. Though, that’s usually sicced on undergrads.”
She chuckled. “You remind me of Twilight.”
“HECK NO,” I exclaimed before flinching. “Oh, I mean..no offense, but I’m not nearly as..uh..meticulous and..persistent as she is.”
She was laughing now. “That’s one way to say it.” After her giggles subsided she said, “Well, Daniel, I will help think of something you could do. In the meantime, finish your cake and take your time exploring the castle. You just may find a job that you’ve never considered but may enjoy.”
“Thank you very much, Celestia. Though..if it’s too much trouble -”
She waved me off and left the dining hall. I turned my head to the cake. Flippin’ monster. Beamy chose this point to walk up.
“So I heard somepony’s going to become a coworker.”
“Well, that’s news to me. Guess we get to be coworkers together!”
She rolled her eyes but then smiled. “Would you like a tour of the jobs around here? I know them like the back of my hoof!”
“That’d be great, Beamy! I just have to..finish this cake first. Care to help me in this area as well?”
“Definitely,” replied Beamy before she grabbed a chunk of cake, which suddenly flew to my face. “You know what, Daniel? Revenge is sweet.”