homesick

by gkst

Chapter 2

I’d asked to go for a walk. I liked walking it was a great way of giving you time and space to think without any distractions. There were only 2 places I could ever get really deep into thought. The first was in bed late at night when I couldn’t sleep and the second was by walking. Twilight seemed fairly hesitant (she seemed to be questioning my mental stability after all the rolling on the floor crying that had occurred after ‘the incident’) but as she had said she wasn’t a Doctor and my actual Doctor seemed happy to be rid of me. Twilight had given me a rough map of the small village I was in (it was called ponyville because hey why not?) as well as some bits (the currency) and told me I was welcome to stay with her at the library until I found a more permanent place of residence in Equestria. She had also promised to try and find a way to get me home other than the portal she had talked about. She had also been kind enough to give me a crash course in ponies.

As I walked through the streets of the small town and ogled the multi coloured ponies and there strange tattooed rears (I’d made a mental note to ask twilight about that when I went to her library.) I had already come to one decision. If Twilight doesn’t find a way to send me home within a year I wouldn’t return home. That wasn’t to say I wouldn’t return to my world but I wouldn’t go back and see my friends and family. If I had been missing for more than a year they would have mourned me and moved on. Showing up on their door step after that much time had passed would only lead to confusion and would almost certainly bring them more pain than joy.

It was on this cheerful note that a rainbow streak came out of nowhere and hit me in the face.

“Ouch that looked like it hurt.” The rainbow streak said standing on top of me.

The pony (Twilight had told me to refer to the beings as ponies and described the four different races so I recognised this one as Pegasus) above me had a cyan coat and a multi coloured mane. The pony’s eyes were a reddish pink colour. A question suddenly overwhelmed my curiosity. “Are my eyes still blue?”

“ummm no. they’re just kind of red.” The confused pony replied.

“Okay second question. Are you a mare or a stallion?” Twilight had tried to explain how to tell the difference but I still couldn’t tell. Stallions just looked a little larger judging from her crudely drawn diagrams and most of the sexual organs were hidden from display.

“I’m a mare!” The mare slapped (or did something that resembled a slap but with hooves instead of hands so it was closer to a punch) me.

“Note to self don’t ask that question again. It sounds like an insult. Also would you kindly get off me?”

“No!”

“Why?”

“You were rude.”

“You bumped into me a good minute ago and have yet to say sorry and I’m the rude one?”

“You asked my gender!”

“How else am I supposed to tell?” This question earned me another slap.

“You shouldn’t say that to a beautiful mare.”

“I’ll remember that for future reference now please get off of me.”

“Fine but only because you admitted I was beautiful.” The mare finally climbed off of me allowing me to pick myself up off the ground.

“I never admitted you were beautiful.” I said before I could stop myself.

The mare looked at me in a way that reminded me of how a cat looked at a mouse. I started to run (/gallop) as fast as I could. I quickly realised my mistake when I turned to see her flying towards me so I did the first thing that came into my head. I flew.

As soon as I left the ground I began to wonder why I was only just trying this. It felt great. I was going faster than I’d ever gone before. Faster than I thought was possible. My mind was on auto pilot as I took the turns I remembered from the map thinking I could take refuge with twilight if I could outrun this mare. There was no way I wasn’t going to outrun this mare. I was the fastest thing on four legs and two wings. The library was right in front of me when I discovered how untrue this was.

I had been hit by a car once. It had hurt. I’d been hospitalised for a week and had managed to break a few bones as well. When the rainbow mare crashed into me it felt a little like that if the car was going about twice as fast. The landing wasn’t pretty.

I groaned again. I was getting pretty good at it.

“I am going to teach you some manners. I don’t care if you are a stallion. I’ll still beat the hay out of you!” The enraged mare shouted.

“Fine. I’m sorry for not realising you are an incredibly attractive mare at first sight. I promise not to make the same mistake in future and… wait. What do you mean you don’t care if I am a stallion?” My desperate pleading was suddenly replaced by my unquenchable curiosity.

“You know the whole a mare shouldn’t hit a stallion thing.” The rainbow pony said it as if it was obvious.

“You mean a stallion shouldn’t hit a mare right?”

“No. That’s stupid. What kind of mare can’t take a punch from a stallion? Unless we’re talking about big McIntosh but he’s a rare case.”

“Wait what?” Then realisation dawned. “You’re being sexist.”

“Yeah I am … sorry I don’t usual go that far you just got me a little worked up and I…”

I burst out laughing.

“Are you okay?”

“God no” I replied between bursts of laughter.After I’d calmed down a bit and the rainbow pony had climbed off of me for the second time today I continued. “So does that mean that this a society dominated by the female gender?”

“Well I wouldn’t say it’s really been dominated by mares for nearly a hundred years now. How do you not know that?”

“I suppose I do know that in a backwards sort of way.” I stated ideas already starting to form. ”so if a single stallion walks into a bar what would you presume he’s thinking?”

“Well I’d guess he was hoping for a good looking mare to ask him out. Why?”

“Because I want to see how the other half lives.”I glanced up at the sky and could tell it was getting fairly late. “What is your name by the way?”

“It’s Rainbow Dash. Thanks for asking.”

“ Hello Rainbow Dash I’m Silver and I’m new in town. Could you lead me to the nearest bar?”

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Upon arriving at the ‘stamped flank’ I walked up to the bar and prepared to order a whiskey but rainbow beat me to the punch.

“Whiskey neat please.”

“Make that two.”

“Really a whiskey?”

“Yes really. Why?”

“Nothing.Its just I don’t meet many stallions who drink whisky.”

“Oh yeah. Role swap.” I thought for a second before turning to the bar tender. “I have changed my mind good sir make that an apple martini.” The bartender glared at me.

“That’s a mare” Rainbow whispered in my ear.

“I meant Madame! Please don’t hit me like a speeding bullet.” The bartender shook her head and turned to ge us our drinks.

“What’s with the weird comment?” Rainbow asked.

“Well it’s what you did isn’t it?”

“Okay then but what about changing your drink out of nowhere like that.”

“I decided I wanted a different drink. Is that such a crime?”

“I suppose not.” Rainbow eyed me suspiciously.

We both sat in silence until the bartender served us our drinks. I immediately took a sip. “wow this is a damn sight better than the apple-tini my ex-Girlfriend made me sip.”

“Girlfriend? You mean Marefriend?”

“Of course what else would I mean?”

“I’m not sure.” Rainbow said sipping her own drink.

Despite the surprising deliciousness of the apple-tini it still wasn’t as good as a decent whisky and I found myself eyeing rainbows drink a fair bit.

This went on for a few minutes until rainbow passed me the drink. “If you’re going to keep eyeing it like that you might as well take a sip.” I did as I was told.

It was glorious.

The whisky wasn’t quite as strong as I was used to but it was still damn good whisky.

My blissful reaction must have shown on my face because rainbow asked. “Dude are you sure you don’t want a whisky.”

“I’m sure.” I replied.

I was just finishing the apple martini when I got my first bite. “Can I buy you a drink?” A unicorn asked.

“One moment.” I turned to rainbow dash and whispered “This ones a mare right?” The Pegasus shook her head.

I turned back to the unicorn in question. “Sorry but I play for the other team if you know what I mean.”

“Oh. Well know harm no foul I suppose.” The unicorn walked towards a large group of ponies and muttered something causing them all to burst out laughing. A few moments later Rainbow also burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“I thought you were pulling my leg but you really can’t tell the difference between mares and stallions.” I gave the rainbow mare a confused look but then I realised what had happened.

“You didn’t.”

“That stallion was definitely a mare and, by the looks of things, she’s just told all her friends about your little conversation.” Rainbow began to laugh even harder.

If this sort of thing had happened back on earth I probably would have gotten angry and started. As things stood I just felt sad that the one source of amusement that I’d found in this place had already been wrecked. I’ll be the first to admit that I’d been acting like a bit of a dick since I realised how the mare/stallion relationship worked in Equestria. It wouldn’t really have been fair to any mare if I lead them on purely as a source of amusement but I thought it would be a nice way of alleviating a little of the loneliness I’d felt since the hospital. The chances of a mare in this bar trying that again seemed slim considering the group the unicorn was attached to comprised of roughly 90% of the ponies currently in the bar.

“Bartender double whisky straight up and neat.” I told the mare at the bar feeling myself deflate.

“You alright silver?” Rainbow asked finally coming out of her giggling fit.

I bit back my anger and fought off tears and I did something I hadn’t done in a long time. I sang. The song was still by Lee Brice although I first heard it sung by Tim Mcgraw. It was sloppy and it was muttered under my breath and I paused between lyrics to take sips of whisky but it calmed me down.

When I was finished I chugged the last of my drink and paid my tab and turned to leave the rainbow maned mare followed suit.

She repeated her question as we left the bar “You alright silver?”

“I’m fine. You just distracted me from my predicament for a while and when the distraction was gone it hit me again.”

“I liked the song.”

“Thanks. You mind showing me the way to the library. Twilight said she’d let me spend the night but I lost the map and I don’t want to get lost.”

“Sure.”

We walked to the library in silence. When we arrived Rainbow Dash rested her hoof on my shoulder and gave me an encouraging smile. “Everything will be fine.”

I felt something wet sliding down my face and quickly realized I was crying. Rainbow had realized before me and had already started to wipe my eyes. She hugged me and gave me another comforting smile before turning around flying off. I watched her flying until I couldn't make out her rainbow mane in the distance anymore then turned around and knocked on the library door. I soon found myself in a warm but unfamiliar bed in Twilight's spare room with a mug of hot chocolate as I drifted into a deep sleep.