Diaries of a Madman - Lessov Adict Edit

by Quillo Manar

Day 4 - Have Fericious Do Stuff Today

Dream 429 - her song was beutiful. the sombre melody filld my soul and warmd my haert. Her presens burned me, yet soothed me. I cant remember her face, but I remember the blazing passion behind her gaze.

Day 4 in Equestria - Have Fericious Do Stuff Today

Another normal start for me. Well, I say normal, but I’m fairly sure that others around me would say something along the lines of insanely early. It was strange but, now that I was in this world it felt like my senses were improving somehow, for example, I’ve noticed that my eyes can see things in greater detail, or rather there are so many details to notice that my brain hasn’t finished noticing it yet. One thing that I’ve put to detail registry is that ponies with blue eyes, have very big and very blue eyes… especially when they are very close to your face and the owner is breathing down your chin.

My field of vision was completely pinkified. I could write here that I totally handled this situation like a baddass, and therefore be lying through my quill. Or I could write the truth and say that I freaked the hell out, which quickly led to me jumping out of bed in fright and falling into a pink knot. The Strawberry pony probably had the best reaction out of the two of us, apparently when she gets scared suddenly she starts violently hiccuping. Though, maybe it would be more accurate to say violently squeaking. Have you ever seen a horse squeak before? It’s hilarious. After calming down from a period of laughter, I decided that I had the right to know why she was breathing down my face in the morning.

“Aside from forcing me to know how ever big and very blue your eyes are, why were you over me while I slept?” I should have been angry, but these short few days have taught me that these ponies have very different views to sleeping than humans do, and the worst thing to do is reject things like that.

“Well, I couldn’t really get to sleep that well yesterday because I felt really guilty that I zappto’ed you in that machine thing, then I realised that I should probably apologise for doing it, and then I realised that I can’t apologise to you if I’m not around you, but when I got here I realised that I don’t know how you sleep and if you are that different from a pony,” she took a long deep breath, “so that’s why I was watching you this morning!”

I don’t and possibly will never know how I managed to get all of that down, she said all of that in the space of about three seconds. Somehow, I understood, “So what’s the diagnosis doc?” I asked her, fake seriousness in my eyes, as I put my hands on her shoulders, “Am I really that different from a pony?”

She looked back into my eyes as faux tears edged in hers, “I’m sorry, but… You are…” She then brightened up and moved away from my hands, she bounced up and down as she described what she noticed about me, “Your face is all flatty but your snout is all pointy, and your ears look all weird and are on the sides of your head, and your eyes are really small and are a dullish brown colour instead of a really bright and colourful colour! I noticed that last one when you were looking at me before!” I was more fascinated by how her legs sounded like they were actually springs to come up with a response to the generally basic description of my fabulous face.

“You’re just a big ball of random aren’t you. Also, I accept your apology, just don’t mess with things that you don’t know how to work,” she nodded and seemed happy that I accepted her apology, or maybe she just was that happy in general… eh, “So, does Twilight know that you’re here or did you manage to slip under her watchful radar.”

“Nopey-dope! Twilight is too busy using a book as a pillow to know that I’m here!” Silly Grape, books aren’t pillows.

“Speaking of, does Twilight actually live here? Or does she just lurk here so often that she’s made this her burrow?” She was about to answer before I pointed behind her and continued, “Also, what’s with your tail?” Seriously, It was jittering about like she was having a butt spaz or something. As soon as I mentioned it she looked at it, squawked like a freaking chicken, and dived under my bed, somehow, there isn’t enough space for me to fit under there, so I have no idea how she got in.

I carried on, “What are you-?”

It was in that short space of 5 seconds after when I realised that Pinkie’s butt spasms are God’s way of saying, ‘get the hell down’. A frantic yell pierced the otherwise quiet room and henceforth a blur of blue and Skittles crashed through the window and flew straight pass my face, fast enough that I didn’t actually realise what happened until I heard a crash and a groan coming from the far wall.

“The hell was that?!” I yelled, frightened by the close contact I had with being possibly very broken. I darted to where Rainbow Dash turned a perfectly good table into a mound of kindling. I checked over her to see if she needed a vet or something. Surprisingly though, instead of being a twisted up ball of pain and injury, the Skittle pony was mostly fine. Sure she had some scratches where her front hooves crashed into the window, but she didn’t have the notable signs of crashing face first into a freaking wall.

She was still pony-shaped.

“You…” I pointed at the dazed pony as she tried to dig herself out of the pile of wood, “… should be dead!” Despite my surprise, and utter confusion, I helped her out of her predicament. When she was dusting herself off and examining her irritatingly minor lacerations I continued with my bewilderment, “You should be a rainbow coloured splat on the wall! How are you not?”

“Eh, I’m used to it,” she brushed it off like she did the wood sticking to her fur, “they had a reason to call me Rainbow ‘Crash’ in flight school.”

She would be more suited as an ASM than a pony.

Pinkie magically appeared at my right to assist Rainbow in not being a puddle, I think I should just give up on questioning anything ever. Twilight however, as she was woken up by the ruckus upstairs, quickly teleported in - scaring the living daylights out of yours truly in the process - to see what is wrong. I’m getting scared way too much these days…

Still not having woken up completely, as evidence by her bleary eyes and one sided book-head, it took a while for her to process the scene. Upon noticing her shattered window and splintered table, she just sighed and shook her head, “One of these days Rainbow, I’m going to get you to pay for my new windows and furniture.”

“Sorry Twi…” Rainbow said, ashamed, “New trick, you know how it is…”

Twilight huffed before getting us to work on cleaning up the place. I didn’t want to join in, but Twilight all but forced me into doing it, she just doesn’t understand how annoying or terrible a glass cut or splinter can be in the hands, I was just protecting myself but no. Apparently, a man’s word means nothing in a woman’s mind… Heh, tell me something else that’s new.

As we were working I decided to strike up a conversation, “So are pony ASMs and other insane things a natural occurrence in pony town?” I questioned before continuing, “if it is then I don’t know if I would ever want to sleep in a house that has windows if they magnetically attract rainbow ponies better than free welfare can an aboriginal. Christ, I don’t even know how she hasn’t deformed into a pulp from that crash.”

“Hey! I don’t crash that often!” Skittles feebly protested, “Besides! The library just got in my way is all.”

“How could a…” I looked towards Twilight and she just shook her head again, I rubbed my temples in resignation, “Nevermind…” I sighed, “I guess I’m a little volatile at the moment, I’ve been stuck inside a tree for the past three days, completely, yet accidentally, separated from my family and friends, and trapped here in a world where insane occurrences are frequent and commonplace; compound all that with no personalities I’m familiar with and you don’t get a very happy camper. Maybe I’ll get better when I become familiar with things around here. It will take some time, but I will eventually get better.”

“I understand Fericious, I would likely be the same if our places were traded,” Twilight said before her speech was broken with a yawn. She held it for an impressive five seconds before she continued, “I’ve spent the last few days and nights trying to find or construct a counter spell, the algorithm of the original spell makes sense, but it really doesn’t have an accurate or safe negative algorithm.”

“Which means…” I goaded an explanation out of her explanation.

“It means that the negative or reverse version of the spell will have improbable effects, like, you teleport home, but you appear underground, or in the sky, or maybe you will just reappear in the lab, or maybe you could transform into an animal or object, or your atoms could deteriorate or super-condence, it really is up to chance at this point.” She paused to see if we were all following.

“So… Doing it would be bad,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Basically,” Twilight affirmed, before turning to look at me, “I have even asked Princess Celestia for advice and help in finding it but she hasn’t reported any luck. As far as I know, you’re stuck here…”

“Darn,” I said, before sighing, “Well, what can I expect? Anyway, what’s on for today?” It wasn’t a very good idea to fight the legitimacy of my position any more, eventually I might come to accept it, but I suppose I still have my slight chance that I am still dreaming, or insane. Both aren’t a very nice proposition, as the former would mean that I am in a coma, as I wouldn’t remember that I was dreaming this long in a night, and the latter would be bad because then I’d be insane.

And we don’t want that now do we?

Still, the longer I am here, the more I would think that this is actually real. Something I don’t think I want to be proven at the moment, as I couldn’t deal with the revelation but… just… ugh…

Anyway, Twilight responded to my earlier question about the day’s agenda, “Well, if I know Rarity then the clothes would be done by now so we can expect her soon, and then we have your public announcement-”

“Already?” I was quite surprised that the mayor would put that on so soon, if it were in my world we’d have to inform the government, wait for their approval, wait for their say so (which are two completely different things), wait for the auditorium to be booked, wait for a few months for the reservations to be set, have your predicament hyped up by the media, and when the day finally comes to have your presence announced, it’s raining and you get stuck in traffic long enough that you miss your deadline.

“Well, Mayor Mare likes to get formalities like this out of the way as soon as possible. Things like this take a day to plan, and it’s usually ready for the afternoon.” Efficiency, thy name is Mayor Mare, which is still a pretty retarded name.

“Fair enough.”

It was a bit more mulling about doing nothing much of anything before the Marshmallow turned up with her finished products. Now, I say this rather generously. The… vibrant… clothing that she showed to me were… substantial… in that they really…

Screw this.

I did not like what she showed me.

“Is it that you can’t follow directions? Or do you just do this to spite me?” I held up the dress in my hands as it draped back into the box it came in, that’s right, I said dress, “Honestly, I perfectly remember telling you not to make me a dress. I don’t think you understand that I will not wear a dress if it would save my life.”

“No, darling, I don’t think you understand just how magnificently it will accent your legs and physical stature!” She said pointing out various ‘features’ of the dress, “What you asked me to make was just… not enough, I believe that something like this would help you adjust to this world.”

“Rarity,” I said as I put the horrid dress back in its box, “You’re a smart pony, right?”

She looked slightly offended, “Well, of course.”

“Then why can’t you follow a simple request? I specifically said, ‘no dresses’ because it’s demeaning for a man to wear a dress where I come from,” unless you’re a Scottish baddass, but still, that’s a kilt, not a dress, “and I am not going to agree with any argument of, it’s a different world, because these sort of things keep me sane. I know that you and I aren’t the best in the way of relations but seriously, there is no need to torture me with gaudy monstrosities like these,” I told her as I motioned the dress in the box.

She sighed, “This wasn’t the only clothing I made Fericious, I just suppose that you might have changed your mind if you saw the dress first.” She pulled another box out from where it was staying, “This is what I made following your suggestions, they pained me to make, but I pulled on through.” She opened the box and a few simple sets of clothes levitated out and unfolded. They were very brightly coloured, but they were at least simple in design.

I breathed a sigh of relief, “Thank god.”

“I only made three different dresses, to make sure that I didn’t go insane myself, the rest however are modifications of this basic design, in total I made about 6 sets of clothing,” she sighed before stacking four boxes in front of me and wheeling over a rack with some ‘suits’ hanging on it, “varying levels of formality.”

I nodded, admittedly impressed with her ensemble now that she had shown me the proper clothing, “very nice, thank you, I suppose I could wear the suit for my presentation this afternoon.” I noticed how she regarded the clothes she had in her magical grip.

“I don’t like them myself,” the winey marshmallow finally declared, “I just feel that no one pony… or human I suppose, can really dictate how fashion can evolve! These clothes just don’t appeal to my eye for fashion at all, if I tried this in the fashion industry in say, Manehatten, they would surely shun my profession and question my title as a seamstress.”

“You are very dramatic aren’t you? Doesn’t fashion evolve like nature or something? It develops slowly, but sometimes there can be rapid and dramatic changes, mutations I suppose. In my world, if a foreigner entered in a strange land, the trout running the fashion scene would quickly copy and assimilate their own wears to the visitor’s culture of fashion.” I crossed my arms and had my right hand on my chin in that typical pensive stance, “What if, that through my suggestions I inadvertently change what you ponies call fashion completely and develop a new fashion based off of human designs?” I don’t like talking fashion, I feel my man points declining rapidly, but at this point, in a world of technicolor salad flavoured ponies, I was rapidly beginning not to care.

“Fashion is run by fish in your world?” The strawberry cut in, “Humans can understand and trust fishies enough to let them lead something?” I jumped in a mild fright when she (literally) bounced into the conversation. I had honestly thought she left, but it turns out, she and Skittles, who was also there and listening in, decided to be uncharacteristically quiet, just looking over the books on the bookcases.

“It’s a metaphor Pinkie… just a metaphor,” I groaned. Curse these ponies, they going to drive me to drink. Come to think of it, these ponies mightn’t even have alcohol in happy sunshine rainbow magic pony land.

During that little banter, the marshmallow was giving a fine demonstration of the fashion industry in my world, as in she just stood there with her mouth opening and closing like a fish. A marshmallow pony fish. I grinned in slight satisfaction upon the sight, and just savoured the moment until the marshmallow ended up recovering from her fishdom.

“I suppose I see your point there Fericious,” she shook her head slightly, causing her ribbony hair to bounce about like a cute little spring, “Although, it could also be reasoned the opposite, that a different species of intelligent being could be ostracised by what impressions they might impose through their attire.”

I uncrossed my arms and let them fall, she did have a sound point there.

She continued on with her argument, “If you were seen wondering about in human styled clothes, there would be far too many differences with you and the surrounding populace for there ever to be a connection, however, if they notice and catch you wearing clothes designed by a pony then there wouldn’t be as much of a difference between you and the populace.”

“That… is actually a very sound argument, but still…” I sighed as I grabbed one of the floating dresses from the marshmallow’s glowy magic grip. I appraised them in my hands. The fabric felt smooth and silky, almost to the point of being frictionless. The colours were far too bright for my liking, they caught the light well I suppose but they reflected it too much, almost to the point of glaring. Then again, this is what a pony is used to with they see people trotting about their daily business, bright colours give ponies their statements, it’s what they use to identify with each other. Then then again again, “…is it too much to ask for a few comforts based from my own world to help me adjust to my new life?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes, but allowed me to continue.

“It’s not that I have anything wrong with pony fashion at all, given the examples. I would actually see my sister in one of those dresses,” I held back a choke at the unintentional stab into painful memories, she seemed to glow at my recognition, not noting my slip, “I would really like to keep to what I know though, and I know that I will never see me in a dress,” I gestured towards the box with the offending garment in it, “although, that would be a very big waste of materials. If you can’t make it into something else then I might as well hold onto them, you never know when I could very well need a dress,” I hesitated at her beaming smile, “that is for a gift if I happen upon any other biped like me in the world.”

She seemed pensive, for a few seconds, “I suppose there is no arguing with you out of your stance, Fericious, I see your point. Nevertheless, I would ask you try all of your clothes on to see the fruits of my labour, but as it is so, my work’s demands give me little time for such luxuries. Farewell for now, friend,” she turned and headed out the door, leaving the boxes and clothes rack behind.

I won’t lie, I breathed a sigh of relief as she left, that pony just has an aura of hoity-toity-ness that I just can’t stand. The silence didn’t last because Pinkie Pie jumped up from behind me, causing me to spin, step back and face her, assuming a tight combat stance, my reflexes working ahead of my sensibility for a change, “Now we can talk about planning your surprise Welcome to Ponyville Party! But don’t tell you about it!”

I let my stance fall before the inquisitive grape could pick up on it and stared at Pinkie blankly, “wat.”

“I plan surprise Welcome parties for everypony in Ponyville when they first arrive! So that ponies don’t have to feel all alone when they come in to a new place surrounded by new ponies that they don’t know! And they can make lots and lots of friends!”

“Yeah,” Skittles said, looking up from her book she picked out, something relating to the Wonderbolts if I can recall correctly, “I can remember my Welcome to Ponyville Party, that’s when I realised that my oldest friend Fluttershy moved here when she left school.” So she found out from a party, and not from… say… asking the banana herself? Silly Skittles, that’s not how you’re supposed to friendship.

“I can also remember mine when I came into Ponyville,” the grape flavoured pony chimed in, “it was a very startling experience, and truthfully I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have as I was very occupied at the time. That was the day I learned that libraries can be very loud, depending on its patrons.”

I hummed before replying with a quick and decisive, “How about no. I don’t really like parties.” Especially if it’s the political party. Eugh.

The strawberry froze in the air mid-bounce, before slowly floating to the ground and turning towards me. Her eyes were so wide and filled with disbelief that I was sure they would fall out of her head. Pinkie can be horrifying at times, horrendously horrifying, this was shown in full by how she almost growled out her objection through clenched and ever wide smile, “You. Don’t. Like. Parties?” I almost resumed my combat stance or made a break for the door but I didn’t want to be shaken by the strawberry flavoured fear-bringer. I figured that she probably thought that I didn’t like parties in general, which was only mostly true. I do enjoy small get togethers with friends and family, but this world is a little short on both assets so I didn’t see partying as a very enjoyable experience.

“No, not really,” I reiterated with an unknown willpower, “though I like the odd birthday party and get togethers, but only if it’s with close friends and family.” Pinkie ran up to me, forcing me to step back and put my arms up in defence. She stared intently at my face as she scrutinised my reasoning. She looked like she was about to start swinging fists or yelling at the top of her voice but the grape flavoured magician pony spoke up before she did.

“He’s an introvert, Pinkie,” this calmed the burning strawberry, if only just a bit, “that’s not saying that he doesn’t want friends, just that he has fun and expresses himself differently to somepony like you and Rainbow Dash,” Skittles flicked her head up from her book pillow upon hearing her name, it seems that this one can’t sit still for long without sleeping, “he is like how I was when I first arrived here, though you girls have slowly changed that facet of my personality over the years. He’s like Fluttershy in the way that he can get overwhelmed if he is presented with too many unknown ponies in a short space of time.” I found myself nodding to the grape’s description of my personality, it was rather impressive how she managed to build an accurate (to an extent) personality profile of me by just being around me. Her analysis could have been based off of how I reacted to the seamstress marshmallow’s choice in colours and my disinterest in fashion in general. This shows that I don’t mind about what other’s think of me and am more concerned with my own view of myself, such is the mannerisms of an introvert.

GG Grape Flavoured, GG.

The pink strawberry did eventually let up, “Nyeeallright, A party won’t work… but I have to do something!” she looked as though in thought, which is something I’m not quite sure she’s experienced in (ZING!), before she sprang up with an idea, “What about cupcakes? Will some cupcakes make up for it?”

“Depends on the amount of icing or sugar in it, I prefer muffins instead,” I stated, “If I have too much sugar I can get very sick.”

I think I broke her. She halted her cheeriness and stood shocked at the confession, her eyes looked like they glazed over. The grape was looking on at us with a fear in her eyes. A weak growl left the strawberry’s lips, “Sick?” She then bounced right in my face and exclaimed, “We’ll see about that!”

Then I heard a door close, and noticed she disappeared, in that order.

I believe that strawberry can be used to explain and describe the insanity of this world in it entirety. I seem to have become very desensitised to this strawberry-flavoured craziness… Which was all a bit too quick to be honest, but something tells me that I have yet to pop the lid to the Strawberry Jam of Crazy, it’s only going to get worse from here in out.

—

“I’m not so sure of this,” I hesitantly spoke as I straightened my shirt for the third time. The grape and I stood behind a dark curtain that separated us from the populace in the front of the town hall. The mayor was giving a speech about the ‘newcomer’ to this world, and how he doesn’t mean any harm. It was closing to the time when she’d announce me and I’d have to step out from the shadows and introduce myself.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re nervous,” the grape joked from behind me.

“Yeah, well, you aren’t an alien that has to stand up in front of a crowd of people that have no idea who or what you are and have to introduce your predatory nature to a people that is made up entirely of herbivores.” In truth, I was more afraid of how I would react to the amount of people I would be standing in front of than how they’d react to me.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” she reassured me.

The mayor cut into our banter, “…and now, without further delay, please welcome to this world Fericious the Human!”

I took the following applause as my cue to exit the safety of the obscuring fabric. I exhaled a final, “Here we go,” before I moved the curtains aside and stepped out into the light. To my right stood the mayor, to my left, annoyingly, stood a trio of guards. I briefly wondered if they were there for my sake, or simply for me, as if I’d attack the ponies from here… Come to think of it, maybe they were just there to look official. Who knows? Who cares? Who eats apples or pears?

Anyway, I stepped up toward the podium — that was vastly too short for me — and looked out to the crowd. There were a lot of ponies here to be sure, I was certain that most of the town’s populace were standing in front of me now, and I just have to say; Crikey they were colourful.

They had quietened considerably at my presence, most likely because I was just so gosh darn tall, especially with the height of the stage adding more height to my height-ness. I cleared my throat, and decided to open with the best way to start any introduction to a world ever.

“Hello… you’re all so colourful.” I flinched slightly at my own voice as it echoed across the crowd. I briefly wondered how that happened as there was no visible microphone on the podium, but a quick glance to my left found a white-furred, blue-maned unicorn sitting on some sort of scaffolding with her horn activated. She was the one with the speaker phone it seems.

The response to my magnificent opening was only half expected, they all just stood there, confused at my opening. I did however, hear an audible smack as I’m sure a delicious grape-flavoured face palm was being served behind me. I then cleared my throat again and decided to continue with my planned speech.

“Okay, as you have heard my name is Fericious, I am a human that was summoned here by your very own resident mad scientist, Twilight Sparkle,” I think that was as well received as I had hoped, about half the crowd scoffed at my accusation and the other half nodded with a hint of understanding. I didn’t get an angry uproar, for that I was thankful. “I am here before you today so that you may ask me any questions that you may have about me and my human-ness. So, I open the board to all, ask away.”

There were quite a few hooves that flew up, a fair bit more than I wanted, but about as much as I expected.

I pointed to the back of the crowd, half wanting to know their question, half wanting to see if Speaker Pony could actually reach that far. “You, the green hoof at the back.” I glanced to my left and found Speaker Pony huffing in either annoyance or exertion, or both. I grinned at her and she scowled at me, and with that, a beautiful relationship was born.

The voice rang over the crowd, “are you going to eat us?”

I blinked and redirected my attention to the crowd, any more blunt and I would have been clobbered in the face by a bowling ball. “What? No, I have not and will never eat another sentient being. In fact, whilst I do like the odd slice of beef, lamb, and occasional kangaroo, but I have never eaten a horse or pony in my life.” Lies. I did once, on an over seas trip, my dad had me try horse meat. The texture was too tough and it required a lot of chewing in order to eat it, it was far too tiring to enjoy properly. A few more hooves raised, much to my chagrin. “Yes, the yellowish hoof in the middle.”

“Do you come from the Everfree Forrest?”

I scrunched my face in confusion, “I thought we’ve been over this,” I looked to the mayor but she just shrugged and motioned for me to answer, “no, I am an alien from another planet that is possibly millions upon millions of lightyears away, called Earth.”

With that answer out of the way, a fair bit of the hooves descended from the sky. I was a bit annoyed at the fact that they were going to ask the same thing, yet overjoyed that the amount of questions I have to answer declined rapidly. I sighed internally and pointed to the right side of the crowd. “Yes, the pony attached to the blue hoof.”

“Is there going to be an alien invasion? Is your kind going to descend from the sky and rain terror on all of us? Are you going to capture pony kind and enslave us for your bidding? Will you take all of our mares and fillies for your sick…”

I interrupted the stallion, “no, no, for Christ’s sake, no. I suppose I should expect something like that to be asked, but no. I didn’t come here willingly, as I have said, Twilight Sparkle summoned me here. Whilst my kind has been in space before, we have never visited any other planets with sentient life on them,” I thought for a second before I put my right hand on my heart and held my left hand up towards the audience, “I come in peace.”

Several other hooves left the sky. I knew ponies could by quite skittish, but seriously, come on, I’m pretty sure that I don’t want to kill anyone anytime soon. There were a few more, so, thinking only of the dedicated and hardworking speaker pony, I pointed to the other side of the crowd. “Yes, the brown hoof on the left.”

“Mother bucker,” I heard growled from my left. I smiled, but otherwise ignored her.

“Are you from the future?”

That question took me back, and I had to think for a bit, I was quite surprised that I was asked this. Still, I don’t think I’d be able to provide an accurate answer to this.

“I… actually don’t know. It’s true that my people are far more advanced than you ponies are in the technology factor, but the spell Twilight used to summon me apparently reached across space, I don’t think it reached through time. I don’t know, though, if I have to give an answer I’ll have to say no, I’m not,” the pony seemed satisfied with my answer, so I gestured to another one, on the opposite side of the crowd of course. “Orange pony crowd right.” Another scowl earned from the Speaker Pony.

“Are you going to hurt my children?”

I cringed from the shear absurdity of the question. I had my head fall into an open palm as I answered with a sigh, “no… no, of course not,” before I chose some other question I decided to answer a bunch of them at once, “If any of you think I’m going to go psycho on you and hurt you in any way, be it eating, violating or straight up assault on you or any one you know, than you can be assured that I most certainly won’t. I will not hurt any of you if you don’t give me a reason to.”

I was annoyed at the amount of hooves that left the air after that statement, but there were a fair few left. I sighed, “Yes, the little light brown hoof on the pony in the centre.”

“Do you breav fire?”

“Well, that’s an odd question,” Since it was just a kid, I didn’t immediately face palm, instead I decided to humour him, “Hmm…” I put my hand to my chin in an inquisitive manner, I then turned to my left where the metal clad police ponies were and comically blew out from my mouth. The guards actually jumped slightly, meaning that their hooves twitched and their eyebrows raised a bit, Speaker Pony actually almost lost her grip, and I almost lost my cool. After recovering; the guards from their little shock, the speaker pony from nearly needing to go to the hospital, and I from nearly falling over with laughter; I cleared my throat and continued with my answer, “It doesn’t look like it,” I turned to the crowd who were all quite shocked, and I smiled at them, a wide cheeky grin.

They all eventually calmed down and I pointed to another pony who’s hoof was shaking, “yes, the shivering purple hoof in the front.”

“Are you going to eat us?”

Oh for Christ’s sake. I immediately face palmed. These bloody little horses man… “No, I already said no, I won’t eat you… now if any one has any questions that are actually kind of important and doesn’t involve me inflicting any sort of bodily harm on you in any way, keep your arm up.” I was very displeased again with the amount of hooves that left the air. I was however happy that there was one left. “Yes, the last surviving hoof in the crowd.”

“Are you sure you’re not from the forest?”

“Oh for Christ sake,” I said aloud as I shook my head and looked towards the mayor, she mirrored my head action and gestured to the curtain, probably saying that it would make a nice fabric to use in a cloak, but most likely saying that I can end my presentation. So I turned back to the podium and declared to the crowd, “Well, my effort limit has been exceeded for the day, so as much as I’d like to stand here and answer asinine questions all day I should bid you all adieu. If you do have any more questions to ask, find me and there would be a high chance that I would probably answer them maybe,” they seemed confused and my wording, mission accomplished, “Good bye for now.”

I turned around to leave and caught the mayor face palming, or is it face hoofing, whatever, “I suppose that would have to do. Thank you Fericious for your time and I hope your integration into our culture goes smoothly from here on out.” I just shrugged and walked off stage, as much as I’m sure her words as a politician are worth I knew that doing such a thing can never be easy.

“So Twilight,” I asked the grape pony as I passed by, “what’s next on the ‘Have Fericious Do Stuff Today’ agenda?” You might think I’m joking when I called it that, but I was actually being serious. That’s what the silly grape pony decided to name the schedule. So as such, and much to my amusement, the grape flavoured pony didn’t even bat an eye when she responded.

“With the town presentation out of the way, the ponies should be less afraid of you being around, the second thing you have on today is to spend time with Rainbow Dash.”

“You mean stand around like a barra’ as Dash does her usual thing?”

Twilight paused as my words did their job in confusing her, “‘Bah-rah’? What’s that?”

I shrugged it off, “It’s short for barramundi, it means fish.”

She eyed me incredulously before catching up and leading me out to the field where Skittle-Fly just happened to be practicing her stuff. She was drawing a pretty decent sized crowd already, that being a grand total of one little orange pegasus foal who was shouting encouraging words to the acrobatic rainbow blur. I was the one who brought the rest, they were more curious about me than the Skittle flavoured pony, but to Rainbow Dash? Heck, they were still a crowd.

Skittles just took the extra crowd in breeze and added that to her already massive ego. Her tricks seemed to have a showy flair to them, as to be expected from any flavour of egotistical performing showman. They were fairly decent to, there was this one move she did where she flew right over the crowd, trailing a rainbow behind her. Only, the thing was that she did some of her unconscious freaky pony magic and made the rainbows have actual form, if only a tiny bit. You’d only feel it slightly on your skin before it dissipates.

It probably had something to do with the way her rainbow tail would react with the latent moisture in the air. The grape pony helpfully explained that pegasi have magic that is at it’s strongest when they are flying at speed. The magic sort of, slides off of their body and ‘exits’ via their tail, and their magi-essence is left behind. For Skittles, her essence was displayed by a rainbow, due to her very bright colourisation… Basically, that was a nifty trick.

GG Skittle-Flavoured, GG.

Sometime through the show I sat down so that I didn’t tower over all of the shrimpy ponies. I was still taller than them though, if only just a bit. A pony’s eye level would be at my chin when I’m sitting, which means that my eye level would be just at the top of their head.

It was then, however, that I had to add another human mannerism to the list of ‘misconceptions’. My hand left my lap and traveled to my mouth, I hooked my fingers around my tongue and let out what I thought was an encouraging whistle, not realising what exactly it meant.

This action disorientated the flying Skittles Advertisement long enough for her to get very well acquainted with a tall tree and every branch below her. Thankfully the ponies were too engrossed with the show to realise just who it was that whistled at her, just that someone whistled and she crashed. The helpful grape pony thankfully pulled me aside with a slight blush on her face and informed me that whistling like that was a more of a demonstration than an encouraging sound. A demonstration of what you might ask? Well, ponies don’t have fingers, so it would normally be impossible to make that sound. It takes a lot of talent for a pony to be able to create the shrill whistle. If you can’t understand what I’m alluding to, and you shouldn’t regardless because you shouldn’t be reading other people’s journals, you ass, the whistle basically means that you have a talented tongue.

I freaking know right?

After rushing over to the rainbow candy pony to see if she was okay I found that, bar from a few twigs and leaves in her mane and tail and a splinter in her hoof, she was completely fine. This fact irritated me; she should have been rainbow flavoured compost with how fast she was going. It was shortly after Rainbow threw in the towel that the crowd and I left her to do whatever it is she does, sans a little orange-coloured purple-maned pegasus that I mentioned earlier who was starstruck regardless of the crash, she ran over to the bigger blue pony and gushed her heart out.

Was she her sister or something? That’s something that I would need to ask her later.

The next item on the schedule was simply titled ‘Meeting with Rarity’, which is a funny way to spell ‘Marshmallow’ but I wasn’t about to correct it. Anyway, we arrived at the marshmallow’s place which looked more like a gentle theme park ride. It was called Carousel Boutique, and I have to say, it fits.

The building actually looked like a merry-go-round, with the pony-shaped mannequins in the windows arranged so that it looked like the horses in a merry-go-round. It was a very witty design that focused on making the whole ordeal of fashion seem like an attractive and fun idea, with each pseudo-pony dressed in a different colourful attire. I had to say that that marshmallow really did have a sense of design, placement and colour.

GG Marshmallow-Flavoured, GG.

Giving slight mind to the crowd that gathered behind me, I walked up and knocked on the door. “Who is it?” I heard the marshmallow call from behind the door.

I replied using my deepest voice possible, “Oh, you know, a real bloody vampire,” Abridged parodies of TV-serieses make up about 90% of my internet browsing history… the other 10% goes to school study… honest.

It was a scant few seconds before the white fashion marshmallow opened the door. She gasped in a show of surprise, it was very painfully clear — to me at least — that it was an act, “Why my dear friend, Fericious! What brings you here?”

Yeah, I was having none of that, “Oh shoot, I forgot my script,” I padded down my shirt in a show to ‘find’ it, “um, I’m here because she is,” I pointed my thumb to little grape pony, both parties not finding themselves the tiniest bit amused at what I said, “so may we come in?”

Without missing a beat the enthusiastic marshmallow continued in her show, “Well of course darling! Who am I to refuse Equestria’s resident human entrance into my humble abode? Please, come on in!” She stepped aside, I just shrugged and ducked my way in. I say ducked because the door frame only reached up to my chin. I’ve said this once, and I’ll say it again, these ponies are just short.

I quickly closed the door behind me, not allowing the populace to enter and gawk in on whatever the fashion pony had in store for me. I didn’t have long to wonder before the little grape pony asked the marshmallow just what she had in store for me for today.

“A simple tea party!” U wot m8?

“First off,” I interrupted her before we moved further, “Why?”

“Well,” She said, facing me, “I couldn’t think of a better way for you to integrate into pony society than teaching you the basics of pony manners and social boundaries, and in the mean time, we could learn a little about human culture.”

“… Through a tea party?”

“Well, of course!” I eyed her, clearly annoyed, before shaking my head and following her further into the store, where I noticed a dining table set out with three places. One for the marshmallow, one for the grape and one for their unwilling and off-put human companion. Tea parties seem like a strange thing for a pony to conduct, I mean, sure they might have ‘elegance’ and ‘poise’ but no amount of finesse would let a pony other than a unicorn hold the small and delicate teacups that are currently sitting on top of the table without getting china shards embedded in their little hoovsies.

We each took our positions at the sides of the square table, the marshmallow was on her own side to my right, and the grape was opposite her to my left. These chairs were in no way going to fit my magnificent human figure, so I didn’t even attempt to sit.

“Are you going to sit Fericious?” the grape asked me curiously.

“These chairs look like they might actually cause my spinal cord to eject out of my back and into space,” the grape seemed taken back by my objection, before I looked at the shocked marshmallow, “you wouldn’t happen to have any seating pillows here would you?”

“It’s not exactly orthodox, but I suppose I can see your discomfort, here you are Fericious.” Her horn lit up and over floated a small square pillow that would suit just fine. I moved the chair and replaced it with the pillow, for seating I decided to engage my first lesson in Martial Arts and sit in the typical Japanese seating position, the one which, to an uninformed man, would look like kneeling. Don’t let it be said that I don’t have manners of any kind. The grape and marshmallow raised an eyebrow at my chosen position.

“Is that how humans generally sit?” the Intel quad-core processor™ enhanced grape asked.

“Not really, this is a common position for only a part of the world. Bear in mind that mostly we would sit on chairs that are designed for us, but without we can use the ground for our comfort in many different ways.” I then cycled through different positions, showing them the different ways humans can sit on the ground, which, to be honest, is a weird way to spend a tea party. I ended up sitting cross legged to finish up, “this is how most of the world spend their time on the floor, as it’s generally the easiest to do.”

“Interesting,” she said as she wrote on a sketch pad she pulled out of thin air while I was demonstrating the positions, probably sketching my magnificent body in the poses, “are there any further positions or is that it?”

“Oh I’m sure there’s more, I’m just not a savant when it comes to sitting, as I prefer to spend my time standing,” I returned to my first position and sat back in my part of the table. “Now, what is on the menu for this tea party?”

The Marshmallow nodded her dainty little schnoz and listed the foodstuffs she had on offer, “Well, to start I have made us all a rose and dandelion salad, to compliment that I have some daisy sandwiches with a hit of daffodil and for a drink I have made a boisson de fleur using black locust bark for a kick of flavour, a bit of an eccentric mix but still quite heavenly.”

The grape looked impressed at the spread but I just looked at the marshmallow and said, “Impressive, anything without flowers or leaves?”

Marshmallow looked confused, “Why, what ever for darling?”

I put my elbows on the table like a rebel and sat my chin on my hands, “Well, last I checked, my appendix doesn’t really work all that well, or at all really, so I can’t eat leaves and digest them properly.”

Both flavours of ponies blinked at my remark, the Grape immediately opened up a new page in her prehistoric version of Microsoft Word, while the Marshmallow looked at me with a slight mix of shock and surprise. “Wait,” she finally said, “I thought you said you could eat plants.”

I shrugged, lifting my elbows off of the table and raising my posture, “I said that?” she raised a confused eyebrow at my question, I just sighed and continued, “that’s a generalisation, I can eat fruit, and even that’s a strain on the term,” I waved my hand dismissively, already growing bored of the gaudy room, “I’ll eat anything that doesn’t kill me.”

The world was silent for but a few moments as the confused ponies deliberated my words. “Well,” said the Marshmallow, “that certainly complicates things a tad.”

“Although,” I thought aloud for a second, “I might have some of the tea, my people use leaves to make tea, so I shouldn’t have a problem with it.”

“Oh, well, this didn’t turn out to be a complete disaster after all,” the perky Marshmallow piped up, “just let me get that for you!” The tea pot lit up in a light blue glow and levitated towards my cup. It then tipped and the contents poured neatly into it.

“Well,” I said, “here goes.” I took a sip of the tea.

It was about thirty minutes before I finally stopped retching, and about another six hours before my stomach settled. I really, really don’t want to write that ordeal in detail, it wasn’t the greatest time of my life at all. I ended up having to hobble out of the boutique being magically assisted by Purple Grape. With both the Marshmallow and the Grape obsessing over me and what had happened. As it turns out, the Black Locust tree was actually poisonous to humans, but not to ponies, as such they didn’t have any problems with it, but I? Very much so.

I don’t even care what the town thought of me as I had to be assisted out of the boutique and to the hospital. The hospital itself was a bit strange, they have never seen a human before, let alone healed one, but the biometric analysis that Smart Grape had supplied them with allowed them to somewhat assist me.

The just told me to take it easy, and have lots of water. The generic healthy spiel.

It was about sunset when I was able to continue on with the day, the Marshy Pony went back home, and I continued with the Grape-Flavoured list. To my discontent to next name on the list was not something that I could really deal with at that moment.

- Baking with Pinkie Pie.

I had mixed opinions about that pony. Sure she’s happy and all, but there is a point where happy becomes deranged, and this late in the afternoon (and after that tea), happy-deranged was the last thing I wanted to deal with. It had to be done though, else Grapey would get sour.

Ehehe, Sour Grapes, I’ll have to use that later on.

Anyway, Strawberry’s place. Grape told me that it was called Sugarcube Corner, but I think it would be more suited to ‘Hansel And Gretel’s Retreat’. Seriously, the entire building looked like a freaking gingerbread house.

“We can’t seriously be going in there,” I established my enthusiasm of entering the artery clog of a building. I looked towards the grape pony as she turned her head to hear my statement, “I’ve heard of theming but this is ridiculous!”

The grape pony shrugged (at least that’s what it looked like) and simply told me to follow her in. Aww, the little grape is picking up on my mannerisms. I’m so proud of her.

*Manly sniff*

Anyway, the bakery.

I entered the bakery with the signature tiny bell ding. We walked not five steps before the lights turned off and the curtains schlinked closed. Darkness consumed all for but a few seconds before a spotlight turned on, illuminating a circular table with two chairs.

“Welcome to the bakery,” a high-pitched voice obviously belonging to the pink strawberry echoed through the room, “please, take a seat.”

I looked down to my right to notice the little grape pony face palming before moving off to sit down at the table, I shrugged and made my way over to her.

Before I continue, allow me to shed a brief light on my experiences in the martial arts. I’ve always been fascinated by all the different types of martial art, and dabbled in a few. I started off with Karate when I was little, but I didn’t really go any further than a yellow belt, I don’t know, I guess I just wasn’t in to the styles of Karate.

The next art I practiced in was Kendo, I was pretty ok with the sword, but I couldn’t get past this one section about not being disarmed. I was actually caught out purposely letting go of my sword in one face off to disorientate my enemy and finish him off by swiping his sword when he jabbed at me, which was a good plan, though unfortunately, apparently it’s against the rules of the dojo I trained in to purposely release your weapon. I left that art soon after.

I went through a few other arts ranging from Tai Chi to Kung Fu, I was quite the MMA person, but the one art that I tried and remained dedicated to was Ninjutsu. The art of the inconspicuous assassin, sort of. The reason why I chose Ninjutsu over all of my other arts was for one reason, avoidance. The art teaches you to avoid most fights by distractions or escaping. Yet, if you do get confronted, you can use anything to your disposal to win. There are no rules, and there are no constraints. Just fight to win.

Why am I bringing this up now? Well, Ninjutsu has taught me a lot of things, but the one thing that it didn’t teach me, and the reason behind how I managed to climb so rapidly up to red-belt level, was common sense.

As soon as the situation I was in presented itself, my common sense erupted. Right then, the Strawberry was my aggressor, and the Grape was a tool for extortion in case I need to escape. What I was presented with was a table and two chairs, what I noticed however, was the darkness. Why is that important? Because it isn’t, that’s why. The important parts are the table and chairs, no one ever looks around it.

She’s trying to manipulate me, and I knew it.

While I was making my way over to my chair I deliberately made a few things the focus of my attention. The distance between the door and the table, how much space I would have around my chair, and the size of the table. While all of these things might seem unimportant at the time, they could very well play an important part in the near future. It’s all to with common sense.

The Strawberry wanted me to sit down. So I did, but I didn’t pull my chair in. I made sure to keep my legs free. I asked to the darkness, “So, why the creepiness?” I got no reply from the Strawberry.

The Grape looked slightly worried at the strangeness of her friend and replied, “I don’t know, the plan was that you were going to show her how to bake something from your world and share it with ponies, but it looks like she has something else in mind.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. I prepared myself for anything. It was a few seconds of nothing happening at all before my world went dark as a strip of fabric was fashioned over my face. “Oi!” I yelled, ripping the fabric off of my face before it could be tied off. Annoyingly enough another one just replaced it. I decided that I wasn’t having any of that so when I grabbed the new cloth I prepared myself to jump up and out of my chair.

I noticed how the fabric was coming from directly above me and acted accordingly. When the Strawberry would have blindfolded me again, I leaned forward and half-crouched onto my feet, feeling the fabric slide off of the back of my hair. Before the pink pony could recover from her miss, I sprang up into a back flip and flew over her.

I landed to the right of her with the two fabrics in each hand. She turned to me and pounced with the intention to blindfold me correctly this time. Thinking quickly, I threw the cloth I had in my left hand in her way, distracting her, and darted to the right, away from the table. She stopped just where I was and was about to turn and face me, but I made a pounce of my own, my remaining cloth stretched between both hands. She didn’t realise what I was doing before it was too late.

I managed to wrap my cloth around her face and eyes and land onto the table, pulling her close to where my chair was. She tripped over the chair and was about to face-smash the table but I stopped her before she managed to. She was leaning heavily into the fabric I was holding, allowing me to easily wrap her eyes closed with the cloth; metaphorically turning the tables on her.

“Ok,” I said aloud to the little blind Strawberry, “this is the part where you tell me what in the world you are doing,” I hopped off the table and stood amused at the strawberry’s attempts to regain sight. She was doing that cute little thing that dogs do when you put a sock on their snout. It was adorable watching her try to take the blind-fold off.

She gave up on trying to get the blindfold off, “Never!” She yelled back and tried to face me, but since she couldn’t see, she ended up glaring a hole through the wall to the left of us.

“That was amazing Fericious!” The grape pony recovered from the shock of my retaliation, “How did you do that?”

“Reflexes,” I brushed it off, hopefully, the grape wouldn’t pick it up as a practiced from of attacking or anything.

If she noticed, she didn’t say anything about it, instead she addressed her friend. “Pinkie,” the magic grape said as she stood up to help the pink pony, “I’m sure that Fericious would cooperate better if you tell him what you are trying to do.” She magicked the blindfold off the strawberry’s eyes so she could see.

“I will never talk!” the stubborn strawberry exclaimed.

“Well, all right then,” I said, shrugged and headed for the door. Or rather where I believed the door was, I couldn’t exactly see it, I think the Pink One must have put up a sheet or something over it. She’s efficient, I’ll give her that. I wasn’t actually planning on bolting, I just had to give a show.

“Ok! Ok! I’ll talk!” She exclaimed after me. I smiled and turned to face her, “As long as you let me blind fold you.” Purple Grape’s face-palm was audible from here.

“So, Twilight, what’s next on the list?”

The grape was about to reply before the Strawberry cut her off. “Alright fine!” The Strawberry relented finally, she walked over to the light switch and turned on the lights, revealing that she did actually put up bedsheets over the doors and windows. “Well, earlier today when you said that cupcakes would make you sick-“

“I didn’t say that, I said icing and sugar would.”

“Yeah, well, I just thought that if I force fed you enough cupcakes you would see just how wrong you were.” Not likely, it takes a bit to change my views.

“Well, I didn’t exclaim a specific rejection to cupcakes, just to too much sugar,” I clapped my hands together and made my way back to the table, “in any case, let’s see what you have in store.” Get it? Because this is actually a store! I’m hilarious.

“You really mean it?!” Strawberry-flavoured yelled.

“Yes,” I said.

“Yippee!” She then pulled a giant cake lid out from behind her back and slammed it on the table. She then grabbed me and sat me onto the chair before I could properly react. “Alright now, feast your eyes, and tummy,” she giggled, god that was adorable, that pony is just so squeaky, “on these!”

She lifted up the lid and a plate with a neatly stacked pile of cupcakes appeared from beneath it. Every single one of them was unique in shape and colour. While they all had the main basic shape of a cupcake, some where taller, others were fatter, and the colours, sweet Jesus the colours. I’m sure the strawberry went to every possible length to fit every single colour into each of her creations, it’s like staring into a frosty rainbow. I didn’t react much to the cupcakes suddenly appearing, having grown used to stuff like this happening already.

My right eye just twitched, a new record.

Anywho, to call these cupcakes ‘pretty’ was an understatement. The Perpetually Pink Party Pony placed a plate in front of me, grabbed three random cupcakes, and put them on it.

“Christ,” I said as I gazed upon the sugary treats, I picked one up to inspect it closer, “I thought I was going to eat cupcakes, not these pieces of art.”

“Silly, cupcakes are art! All the more reason to like them!” she then flinched her head back, and muttered quietly, “Woah, déjà vu.” She shook her head and gestured to the three little beauties on my plate, “Anyway, get to it Rissy!” (It’s ‘Riccy’.)

I eyed her for a second before I hesitantly picked up one of the cupcakes, being careful not to ruin the shape of the icing. I swear, it was like a freaking sculpture, the spire of frosting looked more like a diamond drill head with its fine shape and detail. I almost feel guilty for having to eat it.

“Alright,” I said as the cupcake approached my mouth, “here goes nothing.” I bit into the cupcake.

Unlike earlier when I said, ‘here goes,’ I didn’t spend the next few hours regretting all of my life choices ever, because this choice didn’t end with me on my hands and knees evacuating the contents of my stomach, and the rest of my organs, into a bucket several times over, though I was close. The amount of sugar that was condensed into that single bite was probably equal to the sum of all of the sugar I have ever had in my entire life… Multiplied by three.

I managed to force down the lump of sugar after a few seconds of struggling. Sweet Christ (emphasis on sweet), It felt like my teeth were melting. I couldn’t even force myself to finish the treat. I had to put it back on the plate.

I glanced over to Pinkie who was looking at me with a look of sincere hope. “Do you like it?” she asked me, hints of trepidation edging on her voice.

“There is way too much sugar in that,” her ears fell at my analysis, “Christ, how do you ponies handle that much sugar and still have teeth and tastebuds left?”

“So, you don’t like it?” Her ears fell, her pupils dilated and tears edged on her eyes. I think she might possibly be sad… I have no idea.

“I can’t like something that destroys my mouth, I’m sorry Pinkie but I can’t eat your cupcakes.”

“But…” She inched a cupcake I didn’t touch closer to me, “they’re so hard to make.”

“And they have too much sugar in them,” I put my hand to my stomach, “Any more and I’ll probably start throwing up again because of that black locust stuff.” I need some Vegemite. Christ I need Vegemite, I just need to taste something bitter to counteract this level sweetness.

Or a steak… A steak might be nice.

“Perhaps I can help,” the Pink Thing’s and my ear twitched to the added voice of the Purple Grape as she made her position known. She walked up to one of the cupcakes I haven’t touched and floated it up to inspect it. Her horn flashed slightly and the cupcake separated from it’s icing. The glob of sugary stuff floated over to the Strawberry, who eagerly devoured it, and the icing-less cupcake floated my way. I grabbed it out of the air and held it in my hands.

I looked at it hesitantly, but the Grape pony encouraged me on. So I shrugged and took a bite out of it. There was substantially less sugar, yet still more than what you’d find in a normal cupcake. “It’s better, as in I can actually eat this one, but just barely. Humans can’t take that amount of sugar at once, it lingers in our systems until our bodies can break them down into energy that we can burn off, that much every day would likely kill me to be honest.”

The Strawberry looked sullen. The Sullen Strawberry, sulking silently, spoke softly, “That sounds horrible, to not be able to eat sweet things everyday, how can you live?”

“Other stuff, remember, I’m part carnivore, I have a whole other range of dietary possibilities. Since you’re a herbivore I can understand why you don’t live without meat, but I don’t know how long I can last if I get constantly kicked in the diet like that.”

“Are there any sweet things where you come from?” She looked down at the floor, possibly considering a world where there are no sweet things.

I smiled at her, knelt down and put my hand on her shoulder. This caused her tear filled eyes to match with mine. “Now, now, I never said there weren’t any sweets where I come from, there is one particular treat that comes straight from the land down under, my home.” No, unfortunately I wasn’t talking about Vegemite, that is a plan for a later date, only if though. I was talking about Lamingtons, those little chocolate coated, coconut sprinkled beauties.

Being a resident on a farm, we usually made our complex treats ourselves, because driving all the way out to the store to get a packet of Lamingtons is a bit over the top, so my mother taught us kids this recipe that makes delicious Lamingtons. Of course, I wasn’t a savant when it comes to baking, but that is why the Strawberry is here.

She seemed brightened by my comment. I continued, “So, what about it Pinkie, you want to help me make some Lamingtons?”

“What are Lamb-in-tons?”

“Well, they are like little cakes, covered in chocolate icing with coconut sprinkles.”

I had her at the word ‘cake’. Shortly after, she quantum leap’d me into the kitchen to help her make the Lamingtons. She and I both really enjoyed the process of creating the little cakes, the Strawberry pulled fun from being able to learn how to make a whole new type of chocolatey treat, and I from the pure nostalgic value. I have to say, this whole ordeal actually went quite well.

I kept to my promise and shared the treats with the ponies of the town, from which I gained some serious street-cred. The Grape and I left from the store, fulfilled and content with the treats I brought to the world. I was quite satisfied with how it turned out, and grateful that I had one item on the plan that ended on pleasant terms.

Of course, the plan would’ve continued, if it weren’t for the fact that the sun was then trying its best to wrap itself in its blanket known as the horizon. It was getting too late to continue on with the schedule; much to Purple Grape’s chagrin.

However, not all was lost, as the next pony on the list was Applejack, the uh, Apple-Flavoured pony? No, that doesn’t really fit her, barring the whole Apple thing she’s got going. Damnit, she seems like such a non-complex person, why is thinking of a flavour for her so damned hard?

Anyway, next on Grapey’s list was to meet with Applejack- who just walked in the room to tell me that I should probably go to sleep soon, I’ll get to that when I finish this.

Yeah, next on Grapey’s list was to meet with Applejack to help with various apple related stuff. However, that was supposed to be during daylight hours. Crikey, even I know from experience that working farmland at night-time is a bad idea. It’s a hell of a lot better to work with the natural light of the sun as opposed to the filtered and reflected light of the big cheese at night.

So, after grieving about the loss of the order of her wonderful schedule, Grape decided that perhaps we should stay the night at the farm to be able to help with the early morning chores. Which is fine with me. I mean, I grew up on a farm, so this is rather familiar turf.

However, the long walk from Ponyville to the farmhouse served to prove that the farm that I will be staying at tonight wasn’t like the farm back home. This one is primarily a crop farm as opposed to a livestock farm. Sure, Applejack told me that she has some cows and chickens sleeping in there respective pens, but that’s not what I’d consider the level of livestock my family had back home. She also said that the cows in particular can get ‘a might bit talkitive’ in the morning, whatever that means. I suppose she meant that they will start mooing early in the morning, eh, nothing I can’t handle.

So, after Grape and I got settled in our rooms, the whole family got together to have a hearty dinner; and boy, do I mean ‘hearty’. The table went from a simple versatile surface to a veritable smorgasbord of apple related foodstuffs; pies, fritters, crumbles, muffins (more edible than Pinkie’s cupcakes, that’s for sure), salads, and even just plain apple slices were all on the menu. It was actually quite overwhelming to be honest. Even with my empty stomach from the violent eviction of everything from earlier’s encounter with Black Locust, I still felt very full from the meal.

Still no stake though, that’s a bummer.

What else can I write here? Oh yeah, Applejack’s family, they’re certainly a varied bunch, there’s Granny Smith, the grandma with probably a few thousand years of wisdom gushing from behind her dentures, Big Mac, who’s the strong, quiet, if-you-mess-with-my-family-no-one-will-know-where-to-find-you kind of guy, and then there’s Applebloom, the adorable trouble maker.

It’s no surprise that these lot remind me of my family. Applejack is a lot like my sister, Applebloom actually reminds me of me a bit, and Big Mac reminds me of my Dad… Granny Smith is just there I guess. She doesn’t remind me of mum, as there is no real substitute for my mum, it will be terribly hard to find a replica of that woman. The imitator would likely implode due to the awesome fury of the forces of malevolence and benevolence using their psyche as their unholy battleground. Mum would be very hard to pull off.

A copy of her is actually a rather terrifying thought.

Anyway, so I’ve reached the end of this tiresome day, and used up a fair bit of pages while I was at it. I’ve just checked the time and blimey, I should probably get to sleep. Tomorrow, Twilight has tasked the two of us to take care of the farm with Applejack’s family. Afterwards, we will then disembark for Fluttershy’s house to help with her in some way. I don’t know how we were originally going to do it, but Fluttershy has to find out something we can do.

So yeah, that’s it, not much else to put here. I should probably turn my lights off before Applejack comes racing back in with the curfew stick.

Good night.

Author's Note:

...ide never ends.
The ride never ends.
The ride ends if I tell it to.

Yeah, this is the end of what I've managed to write in about a year. Yay.

Just let me say now, this story will not be completely the same as the original DoaM, it's going to take a mostly different path that has similar points. Yeah...

Oh yeah, and if you are wondering:
Lessov Addict
Leh-sov Ah-dik
Le-ss ov Ah dik
Less of a dick

Try to guess what the dreams mean.

Comments

[Murder Knight]

Just let me say now, this story will not be completely the same as the original DoaM, it's going to take a mostly different path that has similar points.

I sure hope so. So far, the events have been rather similarly arranged to what the original had. Sure, the responses are different but the outcomes aren't. Then again, the character is different from Nav, so it might diverge at a critical plot point, like the rape scene, and turn into something completely different now.

[Quillo Manar]

6143243 Thank you for commenting!

As a note for the diversions, since the whole story is one massive puppet show for Discord, I can't completely go off on a tangent like someone might expect. I think it would be more accurate to say that it would be more like a sine wave.

Every once in a while, the two stories will have the exact same occurrences, and the characters will be in the same geometric location, however, before and after those points will be mostly different.

I will change a lot about the story later on... And this is a big spoiler if you want but I will tell you two giant plot points that will differ to DoaM:

The first is that Fericious will meet a fire elemental that was imprisoned near Flo, who will be called something along the lines of Baize or something, and she will function largely different to Flo in the situations.

And secondly, instead of finding the Ancient Nordic Frost Sword like Navarone had, he will get the Legendary Spear of Zeus, that meaning the Sword, and the spear in the museum will trade places.

I will also possibly have him choose two different artefacts from the Everfree Dungeon, (if that is where he got the gender stones and magic canceller from... I can't remember...)

I will also say that, the two biggest differences between my version and whatmustido's version is the character and the interactions with the character, and the overall destination of the grand journey. I'm sure you can guess where he's headed, if not, I won't give that away just yet.

[Muranuse]

Looking forward to the next chapter! Although, I wonder what would happen if you put KNO3 into one of the cupcakes and ignited it...

[Tedious_Blizzard]

Good luck trying to write over 2 million words mate! Nice start though.

[Uranium Plastic Cup]

Thanks, I hate it

[Mahtan]

6145684
So... is this dead?