Chapter 1
One New Human
Celestia looked down from her throne. Below her, twinkling rays of dawn bled through the polychromatic stained glass and shimmered onto the red carpet that stretched down the great hallway. At the head of the rug stood a belligerently pink pony with a grin stretching from Ponyville to The Crystal Empire.
“First off, I would like to thank you for arriving with such haste, Pinkie Pie,” said Celestia, a bead of sweat rolling from her forehead.
“No problem, Princess!” Pinkie Pie giggled and gave a crooked salute. “The very second I got your letter, I hopped on the next train to Canterlot!” She paused and rubbed her chin. “Okay, maybe not the second I got the letter. The school needed help ringing the bell again, and then I had to finish the cake for Fluttershy’s birthday. Don't tell her I made her one by the way…” Pinkie looked both ways and spoke in a not-so-quiet whisper, “It's a secret. Anyway, then I had to get breakfast. You can't go on a royal mission without breakfast—”
Celestia raised her hoof from over her face and spoke in a smooth voice. “That's quite enough, Pinkie Pie.”
“Okey dokey! So what is it you wanted to talk about?” The energetic equine began vibrating in place.
“I assume you read my letter?”
Pinkie looked at the floor. “...I skimmed it.”
“Ah.” Celestia sighed and gave the two muscular stallions standing beside her a curt wave. After a few moments of following them with her eyes, Celestia cleared her throat. “Now, I want you to know that the words I am about to speak are absolutely top secret. I trust that not a single syllable of this conversation will be leaked.” The Princess narrowed her eyes. “Not even to your best friends.”
The pink party pony nodded so hard it made Celestia’s own neck ache. “Cross my heart and hope to fly.”
“Indeed.” The gleaming goddess stood from her golden cathedra. “Trot with me.”
***
The Princess and the Party Mare began their journey down a dark set of stairs deep within the grimy bowels of Canterlot Castle. A few tiny torches produced an unhelpful amount of sickly yellow light.
“From what I hear, you are quite skilled at making ponies happy,” Celestia called back to Pinkie, who was skipping down the near-vertical steps a short way back.
Pinkie stopped humming a peppy tune and gave a snorting chortle. “You bet!”
“That is good to hear.” The Princess turned into a statue. “You see, Princess Luna and I have found ourselves in a bit of a bind…” She bit her lip. “We have found something, something very dangerous. And it is imperative that this something remains happy, otherwise we could all be in danger.”
“Ooo! Sounds serious,” Pinkie said, not losing an inch of her supernova smile.
Celestia almost rolled her eyes out of her skull before continuing to descend deeper. “We have of course dealt with problems such as this before, but typically after the initial shock period most are able to calm down and learn to adapt to their new surroundings. Unfortunately sometimes we get pe— Er… Problems that are a bit more stubborn. You understand?”
“Hummmmmm,” Pinkie rubbed her chin and kissed the air. “Nope! I have no idea what you're talking about.”
The Princess’ left eyelid twitched. “I see.” She clacked down off the last mossy brick stair and dropped into a musky, night-black hallway. How about I just show you?”
“Okey Dokey!” Pinkie Pie flapped her butterfly-lashes and bounced into the blackness. All she had to do was follow the light of the sun.
The scintillating glow of Celestia’s mane led Pinkie to a gnarled oak door with a large brass knocker. It was in the shape of a ring clutched between the teeth of a strange creature she hadn't seen before.
“Greetings, sister,” echoed the smooth voice of The Night Princess, Luna.
“Hello, Luna.” She threw a brisk nod. “How is he doing?”
Princess Luna trotted forward under the low light of one smoldering torch. It looked like there were lead weights pulling down the corners of her mouth. “He's better. He did not scream this time.”
Pinkie Pie cocked her head. “Who are we talking about now?”
Luna flicked her eyes onto the bubblegum pony. “Has she not been informed yet?”
“Well, I tried, but...”
Luna ground her teeth together. “Sister, no offense is intended by this, but sometimes I do not understand how you are able to run Equestria as well as you do.”
“Can somepony just tell me what's going on already!” Pinkie blurted out.
“I apologize for confusing you,” Celestia puffed out her chest and attempted to wipe the nervousness from her face. “There is just one thing you must know before we begin.”
“Go on.”
Celestia held her stoic impression, but her eyes betrayed her. “The creature I want you to help us with today is not a pony.”
Pinkie waved a dismissive hoof and snickered. “Oh I'm friends with loads of things that aren't ponies! Spike is a dragon. Gilda is a griffon; I'll admit that was a hard one, but the point is I did it. The yaks were yaks. Matilda is a donkey. Madame le—”
“That is enough,” Luna pressed a hoof over Pinkie’s mouth.
“This creature is like nothing you've seen before.” Celestia took a gentle hold of the bouncing mare. “This creature is from another world.”
“You mean like from the portal?” Pinkie asked.
“Yes, Pinkie Pie, quite a bit like that.” The Sun Princess nodded her head causing her radiant locks to sway up and down. “However, this one did not not come like Twilight and Sunset. If he had, he would have become a pony just like how they had become human when going the other way.”
“Human?” Pinkie squinted her gumball-eyes. “Is that what they're called?”
“Yes. That is their common name.” Celestia paused and furrowed her brow. “How to put this… We live in Equestria. However, there are many other places in the world. That is a bit what dimensions are like. We live in one, but there are many others. Some are very much like our own. Others couldn't be more different. This human is from one of the latter.”
“I know that you want to make him happy and all, but—” Pinkie kicked the floor. “—wouldn't Twilight be a better pick? She's been there before.”
“As I said, there are many similar universes. This may be a human, but he hails from a land not quite the same as the one Twilight visited.” Celestia gave a bright smile. “Besides, Pinkie Pie, I have faith in you.”
“Well… Alrighty.” Pinkie closed her eyes and filled her lungs with air.
Luna looked at the vibrant mare with a pair of twinkling marbles. “Whenever you are ready, Miss Pie.”
Pinkie bobbed her head. “I'm ready.”
Suddenly, the knocker began to glow a fluorescent blue. Luna slammed it into the wood door, giving a string of transient knocks and causing the glow to slither to the door handle. For an excruciating few moments, Pinkie listened to the rusty hinge open.
Luna gestured inside the now cracked door. “Best of luck.”
Pinkie swallowed a lump of anxiety and took a few steps forward. Low yellow light flowed from out of the room, its flickering glow making her skin crawl and fur prickle.
She slipped her way inside and crept forward. The party pony had expected a dingy cell, seeing as they were in a dungeon. However, the room they were in was anything but. The floor was covered in an ocean of white carpet, and the walls were painted a tranquil sky blue. There was a clean sink and mirror in the left corner accompanied by a strange porcelain bowl Pinkie didn't recognize. In the center of the back wall there was a smooth marble desk with a stack of leather-bound novels towering several feet. Crumpled balls of paper were scattered about everything: on the carpet, on the table, overflowing from the metal dustbin, and even on the bed.
There was also something else on the bed. A somber figure. It sat up on its rump, lanky legs sprouting out and onto the floor. Two hairless pool noodles hung from the sides of a cloth covered torso. Five stubby protuberances extended out from the end of each oven mitt appendage. With great dexterity, the creature used its odd meat sticks to toy with its tattered body covering. Wrapped around its torso was a torn red and black plaid shirt. Pinkie didn't notice at first, but there was a dark blob of dried red caking the tears. Unkempt brown spaghetti hung from the top of its low hanging head and spilled in front of any expression.
“Hello there!” Pinkie cried, taking a few hops closer to the human.
Its head tipped up slightly, and it stopped playing with the shirt.
The pink mare edged her way to the end of the bed and looked up at the living stick before her.
“Hi!” Pinkie Pie grinned, her baby blue eyes sparkling in the orange torch light like the ocean glimmering in the sunset.
The man brushed the hair from his face and revealed a set of tortured green irises. He scratched his sparse chin hair and sniffled.
Pinkie Pie nibbled her lip. “May I sit next to you?”
The man shrugged his knobby shoulders.
“Yeah… sure!” the pink pony hoisted herself onto the tall bed and set herself up in an an uncomfortable mimic of the human. Her rump sunk into the squishy cloud mattress and her cotton candy tail spilled around the back of the human like a waterfall of fluff. “So how are you feeling?”
A raspy chuckle exploded from the hunched human. “How am I feeling? Are you fucking stupid?”
The party pony chuckled back in her high pitched jolly laugh that always seemed to end with a little snort. “No, silly! I'm Pinkie Pie!”
The corner of the man's mouth raised for a brief moment.
“So. If I'm Pinkie Pie, what are you?” Pinkie nudged him with her flank and gave an innocent toss of her mane.
He recoiled at her touch and slid down the bed.“Tired. I'm just tired.”
“Well ‘Just Tired’, why the long face?”
The human groaned and began rubbing his pale temples. “Very funny.”
“What is?” Pinkie furrowed her eyebrows.
The man made a face as though he had smelled a very pungent plate of cheese. “Why the long f— you're a hor— Never mind. You know my name isn't ‘Just Tired’, right?”
“I know!” the vibrant equine giggled and stuck out her big red taffy-tongue. “What I don't know is: what is your real name?”
“Cole.”
“Cole?”
“Cole.”
Pinkie stroked her chin. “Cole. Cole Cole Cole. Coooole. That's weird.”
The man cackled and buried his face in his hands. “It's no worse than Pinkie Pie.”
Pinkie jabbed Cole with a sharp elbow. “I didn't say Cole is bad.”
“Ow!” He grabbed his side and cradled it like a suckling baby. “You did kinda say it was bad.”
“I said it was weird.”
“Same thing.”
Pinkie hissed a broken-vacuum-cleaner gasp. “That is so not true. Being weird is great! Just look at me!”
“I'd rather not,” Cole stared down, laser focused, at his twiddling thumbs.
Now that she thought of it, Cole had not looked Pinkie directly in the eye a single time since they met. “Hey!” Pinkie stuck her face below his, forcing her gumdrop muzzle millimeters away from his sealed mouth.
“Wah!” he threw his head back and sewed his eyes shut.
Pinkie sighed and dropped her head onto the man’s lap.
“GET OFF ME!” he screeched as he lept from the bed. His legs smacked into the pink pony’s face, and she toppled to the ground.
“Owie!” She rubbed her forehead and pulled herself off her tush. “What's wrong?”
“I can't. This isn't right!” Cole fell to the ground in the corner of the cell, his arms wrapped around his legs.
“You can't what?” Pinkie crept toward the pathetic ball.
“You things! I can't look at you! You aren't natural.” He stuck his hand in front of himself and made a cross shape with his long fingers.
“Oh.” Pinkie Pie deflated. “Okay. I guess I'll leave you alone then.”
The defeated creature trotted away and slipped out the door into the dark hallway, where the two princesses waited.
“How did it go?” Luna asked.
Pinkie flipped her waterfall of now-straight hair. “He said I was unnatural.”
Celestia put a hoof on the bottom of the somber pony’s chin and tilted her head up. “There is always tomorrow.”