I began to remove my mask, rolling up the thin fabric and struggling a bit as my muzzle gave me more trouble than I would have realized.
"Welcome to Equestria, wandering one," the tallest mare said, Celestia I think it was "your presence here gave me a great fright."
"Sorry to disappoint," I snapped, rolling off the mask at last as a flood of curly, rich purple hair cascaded over my right eye "I guess you people in ponyland have never heard of wormholes."
"Giant Sloth or Tetzle variety?" Twilight questioned, standing behind Celestia.
"That answered my question, thanks." I said snarkily, rolling up my sleeves as I stared Celestia dead in the eye.
"There's no illusion or enchantments surrounding you, wandering one, so who are you and why are you in the form of an Element?"
"If I knew, or had a choice for that matter, I'd sure as hell not be a female." I replied, whipping out a cigarette and placing it between my lips, then patting down my pockets for a lighter.
"Anybody got a light?" I asked.
The princess simply snapped her fingers and produced a flame from between them. The cigarette dropped from my mouth and hit the floor, as my jaw fell open. I stared at the flame, then looked at her in disbelief.
"Judging by your reaction, you're not familiar with magic." Celestia stated coolly.
'Shit.'
"No ma'am," I responded honestly, tentatively picking up the fallen cigarette and holding it to the flickering flame still positioned between her white fingers. To no surprise, the flame took to the cigarette and lit it. "I don't know a thing about it."
"Again, there's no surprise, you have a faint magical signature, and no knowledge of magic or its properties." Celestia nodded.
"So what's going to happen now?" I asked "Prison? Torture? Lab experiments?"
Celestia gave me a dumbfounded look.
"No, we're going to get you trained in proper magic usage." she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Who? One of you three?"
Celestia gave a dainty laugh.
"As fun as that would be, my and my sister's schedules are very full. And my student, well, wouldn't be quite ready for the task," she said as she patted the blushing Twilight on the back. "No, given your little knowledge of magic, you'll be training with the other unicorn foals at the local schoolhouse."
'Hell's bells....'