Moving On

by Manitive

Chapter Thirty - Inexplicable Things

"Will!" Rainbow shouted.

"Got it!" I jumped up in the air, whacking the ball that was coming straight at me from over the net back to our opponents' field. I watched the ball fly through the air as time seemed to slow down for me, my breath quick and uneven.

Thunderlane, eyes wide, saw the ball coming straight for his side of the field. But I smacked the ball just in the right way that it was going to land too far in front of him, no matter how fast he reacted. With the help of his black wings, he propelled himself forward in one last ditch effort to prevent us from getting another point. The point that would seal their fate.

Yes, they were about to lose.

Contrary to what you may believe, we did pretty damn good. It took me a few minutes to get into the flow of the game, in which Thunderlane and Cloud Chaser managed to score ten points, but once I did, I realized that I was a natural at volleyball. That, coupled with the experience Rainbow had, made us just a dream team.

Point after point, we caught up with them. At first, they thought that I was cheating with some sort of magic, but after Rainbow assured them that I couldn't do any magic at all, they grudgingly accepted and continued to play.

Which led us to where we were now. Twenty-four points for us (Rainbow scored fourteen, I scored ten), fifteen for them. One more point and we were goíng to win. One more point and we were going to be Ponyville's new volleyball champions!

And all looked like we were going to get that one point. The way Thunderlane outstretched his two front legs in order to gain just a few more extra centimeters, to get just a little closer to the ball. Unfortunately, his legs could've been twice as long and he still wouldn't have gotten the ball. It was a perfect ball from my side.

The strain on his face as he tried to flap his wings harder than ever was a sight to behold. It told me that he was trying everything he could to get to the ball in time. But he was just too far away.

I watched in a mix of amazement and unbelievingness as the ball got closer and closer to the sandy ground. The ball hit the ground as Thunderlane soared over it, then it bounced once, and a millisecond later, everything was over.

We won.

I turned to look at Rainbow, who in turn looked at me, her mouth slightly agape. She too couldn't believe that it happened, but it did.

We won.

I blinked, a small spread across my face right when Rainbow's lips curved up into one. She took off to the air and before I was even able to blink a second time, I felt two hooves wrapping themselves around my midsection.

"Haha, we won!" Rainbow, the pony who was hugging me and apparently trying to crush my internals, exclaimed aloud. "We won, Will!"

I returned her hug, spinning around in circles with her body still attached to me, as I chanted in victory, "Fuck yeah! We did it! We did it!"

"I hate to say it-" I looked down to her, stopping my wild spinning, as the words left her mouth. She gave me one last strong squeeze before she let go of me. "-but you were bucking amazing!"

I rubbed the back of my head with one hand, a small blush on my face at being praised. And by Rainbow nonetheless! She was the last pony I would've expected to praise me. "Hehe, thanks."

"But don't let that get to your head!" She warned with a small grin, giving me a playful punch to the shoulder.

I shook my head a little, but couldn't stop my lips from curving upwards into a smile yet again. I was about to make a cocky retort but was stopped by the sound of two set of wings approaching us from our right, from the other side of the field.

"I hate to say it,-" Thunderlane started without any trace of sadness in his tone, landing on the ground a few feet in front of us. "- but you guys were good. Especially you, William."

"Yeah!" Cloud Chaser agreed happily, even though she just lost. "And you really haven't played before?"

"Nope, never have in my life." I said earnestly. "Just watched some guys on TV play it, you know."

"What's a TV?" Thunderlane asked, cocking an eyebrow in curiosity.

Instead of letting me, the person who knew exactly what a TV was, answer his question, Rainbow spoke up and beat me to it, "Eh, just cool alien technology that lets you see moving pictures with sound."

"Wow, you have things like that back where you come from?" I nodded my head to Thunderlane's answer, to which he only grinned. "Damn, my brother would be so jealous if he'd know that I'm talking with an alien about alien technology."

"Anyways, I hate to cut it short, but I've got places to go." He said after a second of silence, outstretching his foreleg for me to shake. I regarded his hoof for a second, looked down to my left hand's open palm, then formed a fist with my left hand and awkwardly bumped the flat surface of his hoof with it instead. He smiled nonetheless, nodding his head in approval. "You're cool, dude. We really should hang out again sometime."

Cloud Chaser stepped forward, also offering her hoof for me to bump, which I was quick to do. "Yeah, totally."

"Sure, sounds cool." I said with a friendly smile. They were actually the first ponies, if you don't count those I already called my friends, that were ready to overlook the fact that I was a big, scary alien, which made their proposal even more interesting. If the ponies in town could see that these two who never had seen me before were hanging out with me, maybe they would finally warm up to me?

"Thanks for the game, again." Thunderlane said, giving me and Rainbow a small smile.

"Yeah, it was pretty fun, even though we lost." Cloud Chaser chimed in. "But I definitely want a rematch!"

"That can be done, but don't expect to win." Rainbow said with a cocky smirk. "We were pretty awesome, after all."

With a sigh and a shake of his head, Thunderlane waved her off, flapped his wings slowly and took off to the air. "See ya, William. Nice meeting you!" And with that, he flew into the direction of Ponyville, quickly increasing his altitude until he disappeared behind a thick layer of white clouds.

"Like Thunderlane said, it was fun, but I also have to go." Cloud Chaser said quickly, spreading her wings. "Don't go around having too much fun, if you catch my drift." She added in a low tone that was implying things that weren't going to happen. With a wink and a strong flap of her wings, she also took off to the air, darting away into the same direction as Thunderlane, though she stayed low, just barely above rooftop level.

It was silent for a few moments, both I and Rainbow too occupied with watching Cloud Chaser disappearing behind the buildings. But even when she was gone, out of my sight, I continued to look into Ponyville. There was no particular reason why I did it, I just did.

It was only when Rainbow spoke up that I discontinued my senseless staring.

"Soooo..." She started, coupled by four simultaneous thumps as she let herself fall onto the ground beside me. "What're we gonna do now?"

I turned myself to face her and with a shrug of my shoulders said, "Your call."

She hummed in thought, lifting a hoof under her muzzle, rubbing it idly. After about ten long seconds of doing it, a metaphorical light bulb lit up over her head, followed by a grin. "I know! How 'bout we go to the park?"

I furrowed my eyebrows. "The park?" I asked, confused as to why someone like her would even suggest, let alone consider, going there. In fact, she was definitely the last pony that I would've expected to suggest such thing.

"Yeah, the park!" She repeated, equally as enthusiastic as before.

"Uhm, why?"

She outstretched her wings and then flexed them, showing off the rather muscular and sleek feathery appendages. "There's a big open field where I can show you some tricks I've practiced."

Okay, that she wanted to show me some of her tricks was rather cute. Not that I was going to say that out loud, of course. The problem was that I didn't just want to watch her practice some little tricks she learned, as that didn't sound overly exciting. I wanted to do something too. Too bad I had no wings.

She flapped her wings and hovered up in front of me, her pleading eyes looking directly into mine. "C'mon, it'll be fun!"

I continued to look into her eyes for a few more seconds, feeling my defense crumbling with each passing second that I had to look into her magenta eyes. The worst of it was that somehow her pout got stronger as time went on. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of adorableness that I had to endure, I resigned. "Okay, c'mon, let's go."

She brightened almost immediately, her pout vanishing and being replaced by a big, victorious smile. "Ha, awesome!" She said, doing a little hoof pump mid-air.

I couldn't help myself but to also smile a little at seeing her happy. Just a few hours prior I was mad as hell at her, but all of that suddenly seemed forgotten the moment I saw her bright, happy smile. It was almost like she knew that that smile was making me forget how mad I had been at her. But not only did I momentarily forget what happened, I also felt good, happy and also, to a degree, content to see her smile like that. Besides those feelings, there was also one I couldn't quite place, nor understand.

My heart, my whole chest, felt strangely warm, so warm that it almost hurt. The warmth felt familiar to what I felt when Scootaloo was acting cute or when I share a hug with her, but yet, it felt different.

It was weirder. It hurt more.

"Hey, you okay?" I was snapped out of my deep thoughts by a concerned-sounding Rainbow, only then realizing that I had been staring into her eyes the whole time I was lost in thoughts. With a blush, I averted my eyes, trying to look anywhere but Rainbow.

"I-" I coughed into my hands, once and then twice, trying to find my voice. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just zoned out a little."

"Alright." She said, giving me a confused look, but not pressing the issue any further - thank god. I was busy with looking at my feet, but I was still able to literally feel her smile. "Anyways, let's get going!"

With a nod from my side, she started slowly flying into the direction of Ponyville, with me following close after.

****

After a few minutes of walking, we arrived at the entrance to the park. I was surprised, and also not, that it was the park from earlier that day, though we arrived from a completely different direction than before. There were not nearly as many bushes as on the other side of the park, and certainly no thick foliage nor hidden path.

It all seemed like it was the part of the park that was visited more often, a part that saw a lot more ponies than the one with Rainbow Dash's favourite spot. Instead of rows of bushes and trees, there were only one or two of them every few meters beside the gravel path. On our way to the open field, we also encountered two ponies sitting on a wooden bench. One of them, a stallion, was busy reading a newspaper entitled 'Ponyville Weekly' while a small colt beside him was looking at me with gleaming awe in his eyes.

As we passed them, all the stallion did was look at me, then back down at his newspaper between his hooves and finally back at me. It looked like he was trying to see if he was really seeing the weird thing from another dimension.

But the two were not the only souls we passed along our way. We also passed two mares, a pegasus and an earth pony. The pegasus had a light pink bow in her mane and her colors reminded me a lot of those of Cloud Chaser, just that her coat was a little brighter. The earth pony had a pale yellow coat and a raspberry-red mane with streaks of light pink running through it, and I had the feeling that I had seen her somewhere in town before.

As our groups approached each other, they smiled at Rainbow and greeted her. When they laid eyes on me, they also gave me, much to my surprise, a warm smile coupled with a greeting that seemed just as sincere as the one they gave my companion.

I was almost too shocked to respond. Almost.

Politely as I was, I returned their smiles and greetings as we walked past each other. I gave them one last glance over my shoulder before concentrating myself again on arriving where we were going.

The rest of the way was without any other encounters, though we filled that by chatting a little with each other. One thing I gathered as we talked about her tricks was that she practiced them for the whole year to what she called perfection, as she wanted to have the best chances of being accepted as a recruit to the Wonderbolts. A group of pegasi that persists of Equestria's most skilled flyers, the elite of the elite, who earned themselves a good name not only by performing aerial acrobatics but by also being some kind of military special force.

Another thing I quickly learned about Rainbow that it really was her dream to join said group. The way she was fantasizing about them, and the small spark in her eyes with every word that left her mouth about them, was a dead giveaway for that. But, even though it was interesting to hear about the Wonderbolts, Rainbow was really starting to go a little too much into the fangirl mode, for my taste. Fortunately for me, but unfortunately for her, we finally arrived at the open field she was talking about.

Unsurprisingly, there was nothing much to it. Sure, it was big, surely big enough for her to show me her awesome tricks, but it was also a lot less secluded and secret than the small pond from earlier that day. A clear indicator for that was that the path we were walking on was basically leading around the whole field, with benches and waste bins every few hundred meters or so.

Even though it looked like the perfect spot to chill out, there was, to my surprise, no one walking around. It was only me and Rainbow in the near vicinity, though there was probably a good reason for that. It was just a little past noon, after all. Most of the ponies were probably still working, and those who weren't and had their break surely were in a cafe somewhere in town or at home.

With a strong flap of her wings, Rainbow suddenly took off higher into the air, quickly gaining altitude. At first, I was confused what was up with her, but my unasked question was answered a few seconds later.

She suddenly halted in front of a small, cotton-like cloud, and flew around it. She put her two front hooves against it, and for a moment I thought that she was going crazy. But once her hooves, instead of passing through it, were met by resistance, and she started pushing it towards the ground, I reminded myself that this whole dimension and physics weren't really working that well together.

Even though I was told a hundred times that pegasi were able to manipulate clouds and thereby the weather and also saw it with my own eyes, I was still a little surprised that they were able to do it. Maybe it was the small part of my brain, the part that still believed in physics, that was giving me these troubles to understand magic.

"What are you doing?" I asked confusedly once she was close enough to me again.

"I wanna test something." She said, parking the small cloud on the ground near me, just barely a meter away.

"And that is...?"

She pointed a hoof at the cloud. "Try stepping on it."

I looked at her intently, trying to see detect any hint that could suggest that she was trying to prank me. I mean, she was asking me to step on a cloud, which was enough of a reason for me to question her. But, after a few seconds of staring directly into her eyes, and not spotting anything that suggested such thing, I sighed and took two big steps forward.

But nothing happened. There was no pain, no cake in my face, no nothing. Though there was one big difference: the ground didn't feel as solid anymore as before.

I slowly looked down to my feet. "Rainbow?"

"..."

I shifted my weight from one foot to another, trying to get a good feel of the soft material I was standing on. "Am I really standing on a cloud right now?"

I looked up, just right in time to see her mouth agape. She gulped heavily as my eyes met hers before answering, "I think you do..."

I looked back down to the cloud I was standing on, only then realizing that half of my shoe was in the cloud with just the top of it showing through the cloud. I must've sunken in a little, whether it was because I was a little on the heavier side or because of some magical, unlogical phenomenon, I couldn't tell. But that was the least of my problems at that moment. There was still the little detail that I was standing on a cloud.

I, a human, was standing on a cloud. A cloud, water vapor. I was practically standing on gas.

"Do I have to be worried?" I asked Rainbow with an uneasy glance, a slight tremble in my voice.

She shook her head slowly in disbelief, mouth still agape, but answered nonetheless. "I-I dunno, does anything hurt?"

I shook my head.

"Try sitting on it." She said, nodding at the cloud.

With a look of complete concentration, I lowered my posterior on the cloud. But the moment my behind touched the cloud, it went straight through, completely catching me by surprise.

I must've looked quite ridiculous the way half of my body suddenly vanished in the cloud as I could easily tell from Rainbow's snort. The worst thing was that I couldn't get myself out of it, no matter how hard I tried.

"Okay, that didn't work out." Rainbow giggled, outstretching her hoof for me. I grabbed ahold of it, and with a mighty flap of her wings, she helped me get back on my feet, surprising me with her strength. "Either you're too fat or your ass just doesn't have enough pegasus magic in it."

"Pegasus magic?" I asked with furrowed eyebrows, ignoring her insult to my completely normal weight. "Does that mean I can fly?"

"Nah, pegasus magic is just about manipulating clouds and all that jazz." I deflated a little after hearing that I couldn't fly, though it was definitely for the better. I was going crazy already, and I think that would've given me the rest. Plus, I don't think I would've been a great flier. I probably would've crashed a lot.

"You know, I don't know what to make out of this." I stated honestly, doing a little hop to test if I was going to fall through the cloud again. But all that happened was that I sunk a little deeper into the cloud, barely worth mentioning. I gave Rainbow a questioning look, pointing down to my feet. "I'm standing on a cloud, but I couldn't sit on it. Why can I stand on it, but not sit on it?"

"I have no idea." Rainbow said with a shrug of her shoulder. "But we really need to go and see Twilight later. Maybe she can explain what's going on."

"Later?" I asked confusedly, giving her look of disbelief. "Rainbow, I'm standing on a goddamn cloud! For all we know, I could explode at any moment!"

"You're kidding, right?" She asked with a snort, but the glare I was giving her told her that no, I definitely was not kidding. She rolled her eyes. "Calm down, you're just overreacting. Again. You're standing on a cloud and you're not going to explode because of that." She landed on the cloud. "I mean, I can do that too and didn't explode yet."

"I-" I looked down at her, but regretted that decision almost instantly.

She was using her pout again and goddamn was it effective on me. It was, with no doubts, the most powerful weapon all of these little ponies possessed. "Pweaaaaaaseeeee."

I was able to resist her for exactly three and a half seconds before my heart melted. "Ugh, fine..." The pout almost instantly vanished, but I stopped her before she was going to do another one of her hoof pumps. "But if I'm going to explode, have fun explaining that one!"

She waved me off. "Yeah, yeah, sure." She darted up into the air again, flying an excited circle around me. "Now, wanna see some cool tricks??"

I sighed. "Yeah, sure. Go for it."

****

Surprise surprise, I didn't explode.

I had to admit, Rainbow really knew what she was doing. The tricks she performed were, admittedly, really awesome. They ranged from simple barrel rolls and Immelmann turns over to loopings and more complex maneuvers that I couldn't name.

But, on top of all of that, she also performed her special move, the Sonic Rainboom. Even after seeing that move for the second time, though the first time was a lot less perfect, it was still a breathtaking experience. The way I saw her small, barely visible form that was high up in the air heading straight for the ground was enough for me to make me feel slightly anxious. What if something goes wrong? I asked myself over and over again, actually fearing for her well-being - very much so.

But then that mach cone build up in front of her body and I was too transfixed to think about the consequences. She quickly decreased the distance between the ground and then, getting quicker and quicker with each passing millisecond. Then, just when she was barely a few hundred meters above the ground, there was that loud bang, the telltale sign of something reaching supersonic speeds.

She suddenly pulled up, probably pulling so many g's that every normal being would've died. I think that's another perk you have if you're a magical, talking pony; giving zero fucks when it comes to physics.

The moment she pulled up, there was that big explosion of colors I remembered all too well. It stretched and quickly spread itself out across the whole bright sky, a view that made me glad I chose to stay. It was simply stunningly beautiful.

After she performed her signature move, so to say, she took it a little easier as it obviously took a lot out of her. But watching her soar through the sky, just performing the simple things from before, was also strangely entertaining on a level that I couldn't quite understand. I was so fascinated by the things she was able to with the help of her wings and a little bit of determination that I had no time to be bored, or to think, really. Well, I was thinking, but not about the things I should've been thinking about.

Instead of thinking about why I could stand on clouds, I thought about what flying must feel like. The way Rainbow looked, so happy and fulfilled, suggested that it was an amazing feeling. I've rarely felt as envious as when I watched her perform.

I don't know how long she was in the sky, nor do I know how long I was watching her. But I realized that the place around me was getting a little...crowded. Mares, stallions. Unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies. I counted at least fifteen ponies of all kinds that had gathered around me, but not because of me. It was Rainbow who caught their attention. Her tricks were the sole reason so many ponies chose to stay a little and watch instead of continuing along their ways.

Plus, there was that Sonic Rainboom from before that probably attracted a lot of attention.

But everything has to come to an end sometime. Rainbow, as I could clearly see, was getting more tired throughout her training. A logical consequence, if you keep some of the tricks she did in mind.

The sun was at its highest point when she decided that it was enough for one day. After doing one last loop, a loop that looked like it strained her immensely, she slowly headed my way instead of continuing to train. There was a brief moment of surprise when she realized just how many ponies had been watching her the whole time, but that quickly turned back into her usual cocky smirk.

The crowd around me started dissolving once they saw that the show was coming to an end. I saw a few of them giving me odd looks that I couldn't quite place before departing and leaving me and Rainbow alone again.

Speaking of Rainbow. "Soo..." The cyan mare said once she was close enough to me, wiping away some drops of sweat that accumulated themselves on her forehead. "How was that?"

"Pretty good, I'd say." I replied with a smile. I gave her a small pat on the shoulder once she landed, but almost instantly regretted that decision as my hands made contact with her sweat-soaked cyan fur. I retracted my hand and looked at it with a little disgust, a look that only intensified itself when I was hit by something sour, almost foul-smelling. The smell came from none other than the pony in front of me.

"Though I would think about taking shower if I were you." I said, my voice sounding a little muffled because of the hand that was covering my nose.

I saw her take a deep whiff, her nose flaring before her own face contorted into that of disgust.

"Damn, you're right-" She took another quick whiff. "-I stink."

"Yeah, how about you go take a shower before we go to Twilight?"

To my surprise, and a little to my growing disgust, she shook her head. "Nah, 's fine."

"I'm not going through town with a stinking you in tow." I stated, giving her a stern look. "Ponies are going to think that I'm the one who's all stinky again. It's bad enough that some of them think I'm a monster, but I don't want to be a stinky monster."

She groaned, rolling her eyes in frustration. "Do I have to?"

"Of course you have to! I can smell you from here, and I'm sure ponies are better at smelling than humans are."

"Ugh, fine." She said with another roll of her eyes. She turned around, but to my surprise not into the direction of Ponyville, and spread her wings. "Gimme ten seconds."

"What are you-"

With one strong flap of her wings, followed by a strong gust of air that they produced, she took off to the air and was gone before I even completed my sentence. I was left there, speechless and stunned, still trying to comprehend what just happened as I started into the direction of where she vanished to. Then I quickly remembered her words before she left, so I started counting in my mind.

By the time I finally reached eight, I could see a blue dot rapidly approaching me from over the treetops. The blue dot came closer with a speed only matched by Rainbow or a jet fighter, and since the latter didn't exist in Equestria, I had an exact guess on who it was.

Nine, and the blue dot was no more than five hundred meters away.

Ten, and Rainbow stood on the ground in front of me, standing there like nothing happened.

"Better?" She asked with annoyedly, blowing a damp strand of stray hair out of her face.

"I-Uh." I wasn't too sure what to say. Sure, she didn't smell bad anymore, nor did she look sweaty at all, but I still wasn't too sure how she achieved that in just ten seconds. I mean, even for her, reaching her house in town in just under ten seconds, showering and then coming back to me seemed impossible. Especially since she flew into the complete opposite direction of Ponyville. But who knows, maybe I was wrong in that assumption. "H-how did you do that?"

"I showered, duh."

"Yeah, but how?"

"I used a shower."

I looked at her intently for a few seconds, but instead of choosing to pursue the conversation, I finally decided against it. "You know what, I don't want to know. Let's just get going."

She shrugged. "Sounds good to me."

I spun around and walked back to where we originally came from, Rainbow lazily hovering beside me.

"Uhm, Will?"

"Yeah?"

"I may have...uhh...accidentally broken one of your windows."

My left eye twitched as I slowly turned to look at her. "What?"

****

The whole way to our castle, I didn't speak a word to Rainbow. She tried to start a conversation every now and then but quickly realized that she wasn't going to get a word out of me after she broke into my house, breaking a window in the process, just to use my shower.

I mean, I wasn't that mad about the fact that she entered my home without my knowledge, or used my shower, even though I probably should've been. No, I was mad about the fact that she broke a window that I now had to fix.

So, the walk to the castle was mostly spent in silence. I was mostly busy taking in the scenery and trying to not stumble over any pony that was unfortunate enough to cross paths with me.

In no time, or at least what felt like no time, we reached the big crystal castle that was just as imposing as the first time I saw it. It definitely wasn't my favourite building, especially because of the material it was made of that was, when looking to long at it, headache-inducing, but it was still a sight to behold. I'm sure it was even more beautiful, and potentially less painful, the further away one stood from it.

Once we stood in front of the rather big set of double doors, I pushed them inwards with little difficulty. Before I was able to enter, Rainbow flew past me, shouting out loud, "HEY TWILIGHT, YOU HERE?"

Her voice echoed through the whole inside of the castle, making me wonder just how empty the castle was.

After a few seconds of nothing happening, both me and Rainbow silently waiting for anything to happen, I shrugged. "Doesn't seem like she's here."

Rainbow pressed a hoof to my mouth. "Pssshhh." I looked down to the hoof that was in front of my mouth, and then back at her. Her ears were swiveling like crazy, seemingly trying to locate something. "I can hear her mumbling..."

I swatted her hoof away. "What do you mean you can hear her?"

"She's studying again." Rainbow said, her eyes narrowed on something down the hallway to our left. She then turned her head to me, giving me an evil smirk. "Hey Will, wanna have some fun?"

I deadpanned. "No Rainbow, we're not going to prank her. We have more pressing matters than that."

"Oh c'mon!"

"No." I said firmly, walking into the direction of where Rainbow was looking at. "I really wanna know why my butt doesn't have any of that pegasus magic in it, and not scare her to death and possibly disable her from answering my question."

I glanced at her right when a small pout crossed her face. "You're no fun."

"No, I'm not an asshole like you." I corrected, momentarily stopping to give her a boop on the nose that was enough for her to go crosseyed. I then resumed walking, down the hallway, slowly seeing that Rainbow had been looking at a door that was slightly ajar earlier.

When I was in front of the door, I was finally able to hear Twilight mumbling. I could only pick up snippets from what she was mumbling, something about 'machine of unspeakable doom' and 'swap of conscious and unconscious minds', the rest of what she said was inaudible to me.

I gave Rainbow, who looked just as equally confused as I did, a curt look that told her more than any word could, and then raised my hand and politely knocked on the door twice. A short moment of silence is what followed, before the same voice from earlier spoke up, just a tad bit louder, "Come in."

Pushing the door open with one hand, I was immediately greeted by the sight of a disheveled Twilight, sitting in the center of the room among two big piles of books. One of the piles contained books that were open, those that she probably already read through, while the other only had closed ones in it, those she probably had yet to read. Some of them, those I was able to make out from the distance, had weird titles like 'Dimension Travelling 101' or 'Parallel universes for Dummies'.

My eyes traveled around the rather big, circular room. There was one small table at the center of it, while another stood directly to my left. The walls, I realized upon closer inspection, weren't walls at all, but one huge bookshelf with rows upon rows of books in it. It even had an own ladder to it in order to reach the books that were higher up in it, though I wasn't too sure why someone like Twilight would need that.

My best guess was that I was standing inside a library. Princess Twilight Sparkle's own personal library, if I guessed completely right. I mean, the floor was basically her Cutie Mark, so it was only logical that it must've been her own personal library.

Twilight only gave us a short glance when we entered, coupled with an absent greeting that told me that she was totally lost in the book that was hovering in front of her face. I think she didn't even really notice that someone walked in, at least not completely.

"Uh, Twilight?" I announced our presence to her, rather loud, actually, but she still didn't seem to notice we were there.

"Everything you've known comes impossible to grasp..." The lavender mare mumbled to herself, turning the page of 'C137 - Does it exist?'. She lifted a hoof up to her head, scratching it as if she was thinking something over. "This doesn't make any sense..."

I gave Rainbow a helpless look, to which she responded with a roll of her eyes. She opened her mouth, took a deep breath in and then screamed, "HEY EGGHEAD!"

That was more than enough for Twilight to break out of whatever mental thing she had trapped herself in and more than enough for me to jump a little. She shrieked, completely out of shock from the loud interruption, her magic started wavering before suddenly completely disappearing, the thick book that was floating in the air just moments before falling to the floor with a dull thump. That was followed by a small shockwave that threw the two pile of books over, generating a mess that would've fun to clean up.

For a whole five seconds, it was utterly silent.

Then Twilight looked up at us, blinked, and her cheeks turned a shade of red that I haven't seen in a long while. Wouldn't it have been for her purple-colored coat, she surely would've looked like a tomato.

Okay, maybe not.

"H-hey guys! Good to see you two finally together again!" She gave us a big smile, but that smile fell when she looked at the mess around her. "S-sorry, I must've zoned out a bit."

"You did, yes." I said with a slow, measured nod. I then directed a curious look at the book that lay in front of her, the one she was reading previously. "What were you reading?"

"N-nothing important." She answered with a nonchalant wave of her hoof, trying to suppress the embarrassment that was more than apparent. "Just something that's been interesting me lately."

"Yeah, apparently it was a little bit too interesting for you." Rainbow said with a small giggle, though I quickly silenced her with a hard glare. "Hmpf, no fun."

"Sorry to interrupt then, but we kinda have a...uh, problem."

She looked at me, then at Rainbow, and then back at me, a small hint of concern in her eyes. "Yes?"

"You see, Rainbow and I were at the park earlier so that she could show me some of her 'lil stunts-"

"Hey! They're awesome!" Rainbow interrupted, sounding slightly upset. "They're the most a-"

"Yeah, anyways-" I silenced the upset prismatic mare by clamping her muzzle shut with one hand, much to her annoyance. "-So, Rainbow wanted to try out if I could stand on clouds before she practiced and, well, it turns out that I, in fact..."

"...can't stand on clouds?" Twilight finished for me, one eyebrow raised as if she was failing to see the problem. Of course, there wouldn't have been a problem if what she said had been true. Too bad it wasn't. "That doesn't seem like a problem to me. I mean, you humans normally don't have any pegasus magic in your bodies, right?"

"Nah, we don't." I thought about it for a second and then added, "Uhm, usually."

Twilight looked at me intently for a few long seconds, not blinking once before she finally caught up to what I was implying. "Oh."

"Yeah, turns out I somehow can stand on clouds."

"Though he can't sit on 'em." Rainbow chimed in, somehow finding the strength to free her muzzle of my hand.

"That's..." Twilight looked me up and down. "Interesting. That shouldn't be possible at all.

"You're telling me." I sighed. "I think my body and my mind is slowly going crazy or something like that. So much stuff happened since I arrived here, more than in probably all my life back on earth. It's just crazy."

"I have to conduct some experiments." Twilight said, completely ignoring what I just said - not that I could fault her for that. She suddenly ignited her horn again and then the only other door in the whole room, other than the main door opened itself magically with a click, revealing what looked like a balcony. She then lifted a hoof under her muzzle, idly rubbing it, and then looked at Rainbow. "Rainbow, could you get me a cloud, please? I have to see this with my own eyes."

With a quick salute, Rainbow darted out of the door that was opened by Twilight's magic just moments ago. The lavender princess took a few steps closer to me, her horn once again beginning to glow, though now I felt something smooth and warm gently caressing my left hand, slowly traveling up the length of my arm. It felt strangely comforting, almost like a massage, but yet it lacked the kneading to call it that. "This might feel a little strange at first, but it's not going to hurt." She murmured, looking like she was deeply concentrating. She then added, "A harmless spell."

Good thing she explained what that harmless spell would do to me, right?

"This isn't going to get too strange, if you catch my drift. Right?" I asked with a small hint of unease in my tone, definitely more than probably was necessary at that moment. Twilight knew what she was doing.

...Actually, no. It's Twilight I'm talking about. My unease was more than justified.

The magic stopped for a moment as Twilight looked at me with a small frown, almost as if I offended her by even assuming such thing. "Oh no, I'm not one of those scientists."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. I would really like to keep some things...untouched, if you know-"

"Please, just stop." Twilight interrupted, a small blush once again adorning her purple face. She looked rather cute that way, all flustered and all. "I'd rather not talk about that right now."

I closed my mouth again rather than giving her a vocal answer, instead choosing to give her a nod as confirmation that I, too, didn't want to talk about that. There were more important and less embarrassing matters to tend to.

Shortly after she saw my confirmation, her magic continued to work her way up my arm, almost as if Twilight was searching for something in particular. She finished the first arm rather quickly, but then, before she could continue with my other arm, Rainbow came back, in her tow a cloud much like the one from before at the park. Rainbow parked the cloud in front of us and then landed beside it, allowing for me to step on it, which, after a small magical shove from Twilight, I did.

First one foot, and then the other. Just like the first time, the feeling of standing on something so soft was alien to me. It was like my body knew that it wasn't natural for me to be able to stand on, what was essentially, water vapor, which why I didn't feel comfortable at all standing on it. At least that was the only logical explanation that sprung to my mind.

"Fascinating." Twilight uttered, looking like she was taking mental notes. After looking me over for another minute, a minute that I was painfully aware just how awkward everything was, the purple hue to her horn reappeared, and I felt her magic gently starting to search up my right arm. "Did you experience any pain in the last few days? Or did anything unusual happen to you?"

I raised an eyebrow. There was a lot of both since my arrival in Equestria, which made that question just a little bit harder to answer than with a simple yes or no. "Define unusual and pain."

"Unusual as in feeling uncomfortable on the ground and pain as in spontaneous backaches, for example." She explained without even giving me a glance. She looked like she was deeply focusing on whatever she was doing to my body with her magic, her tongue poking out a little. Her magic, after having reached my shoulder, started working its way down over my chest and then abdomen, working extra slowly there as if not to miss anything.

"N-..." I stopped for a moment when I felt her magic getting closer and closer to a very specific organ that hung between my legs. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when, instead of passing over that certain manly organ and my groin, her magic split itself in two and traveled down my legs. In no more danger of getting molested, I gave myself another few seconds to think everything through properly. "-no, not that I know of. Nothing like that."

After Twilight's magic gave my feet a once-over, it disappeared all at once, as did the purple glow around her horn. Twilight retracted her tongue and then looked up at me, a helpless look on her face that already told me enough. "I can't seem to find anything out of the order either. No physical change and no single trace of any magic known to me in your body. Maybe it isn't even magic that's doing that to you."

"You don't know what's going on, either?"

"No, sadly I don't." She said with a frown coupled with a small shake of her head. "But whatever enabled you to stand on clouds doesn't seem to be harmful in any way, so you don't have to worry about that."

I snorted, stepping down from the cloud. "To be fair, as long as I don't inflate and explode, turn into a monster, die or anything like that, I don't care." I gave the cloud a long stare over my shoulder. "Though it's still kinda unbelievable that I just stood on something that's basically gas."

The way Twilight bit her lip when I ended my sentence made me believe that she was going to correct me at any moment about my statement that clouds were solely gas, but I was surprised when she didn't and instead just nodded her head. "I can believe that."

"I think it's awesome!" Rainbow, who I nearly forgot about, exclaimed in happiness, throwing one foreleg around my shoulder and getting a little too close to me for my liking. "That means I can show you my totally awesome house sometime!"

I was about to ask her why I needed to stand on clouds for that until I remembered what Scootaloo told me about Rainbow's home, the cloudo-something, earlier that day. To say that I shared Rainbow's excitement about her giving me a tour through her house that was hovering in the air would've been a lie. The chances to fall through the clouds, that I couldn't walk on clouds for too long, was still too big to ignore. But instead of disappointing her, I chose a neutral answer, freeing my shoulders of her hooves with the help of my hand. "Eh, we'll see about that."

Twilight, for some reason, smiled a little but otherwise remained silent.

"Well, thank you anyways, Twilight." I said, clasping my hands together to wrap things up. "We'll see you tomorrow, right?"

Twilight smiled. "Yes, we'll see-" She stopped herself with a loud gasp before she was able to even end her sentence, her eyes going comically wide. "Horseapples! I almost forgot about it! I need to go and see Applejack! Seeyatommorow!"

"Huh? Okay, good-" I was interrupted by a flash so bright that it momentarily blinded me. Once I was finally able to see again, Twilight was gone without a trace, leaving behind a chaos of opened books that was surely a pain in the ass to tidy up.

"-bye." I ended lamely, slowly turning around to face Rainbow who was currently taking a closer look at one book that was protruding from the shelf. "Does she do that often?"

"Only when she's late to something or in one of her moods." My eyes traveled to the source of that young voice, quickly stopping on who exactly just spoke up. Twilight's little dragon assistant, Spike if I remembered correctly, chose exactly that moment to enter the room. He waved his clawed hand at us in a nonchalant greeting. "Hey Rainbow. 'Sup William."

"'Sup." Both me and Rainbow greeted back at the same time, though I also gave Spike a nod. He walked further into the room with a small smile on his face. That smile fell once he spotted the mess Twilight left behind.

"Ugh, was she researching again?" He asked, sounding more than just exasperated as he walked past me. He threw both of his hands up in the air in a sign of total despair, stopping in the middle of Twilight's mess. "I swear imma go crazy one day if this keeps up."

"Well, we could hel-" Rainbow quickly flew up to me, placing her hoof over my mouth to stop me from talking. Apparently, she knew what I was going to say and, obviously, she didn't really like the idea of helping Spike out with putting away those books. I shot her a glare. "Hmhmhmmhn."

What I meant to say was "Fuck you Rainbow!".

"That's too bad, Spike!" She said over my attempts of telling her to fuck off, keeping her hoof firmly lodged in my mouth. Even though I was struggling to pull it away with my hands like crazy, it wouldn't budge, so I ultimately chose to just endure the humiliation and silently glare at Rainbow until she gave me back the ability to speak. "We don't want to disturb you, so we better get going. See ya!"

She finally took her hoof out of my mouth, giving me the chance to say goodbye. "Uh, yeah, see you." I said with a small wave. Rainbow gave Spike no chance to reply to this as she quickly bit into the hem of my t-shirt and started tugging me towards the doorway. Once out of the room, she continued to tug me towards the exit of the castle, much to my annoyance.

"I can walk, you know?" I explained to her as I let myself get dragged through the castle.

"Can' rishk anyfing-" She said through the cloth between her teeth. "I dun wan' to help 'im clean up."

I sighed and shook my head, but chose to just let her drag me since it was straining her more than me. "Let's just go so I can pick up Scootaloo. I wanna go home and just chill. Too much shit happened today."

She stopped, spat out my t-shirt and took a generous step back, eyeing me like I was crazy. "It's like, what, 3 PM?"

"I don't care, I wanna relax. Enough walking around for today."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine, but I'm coming with you!"

I shrugged. "Suit yourself."

****

The rest of the day was spent just like I imagined it.

After I picked up Scootaloo, who looked like she had been rolling around in grass all day long, but told me that they had tried to get their Cutie Marks in gardening, the three of us went home. On the way there, Rainbow was, of course, quick to tell everything we did that day, though she definitely exaggerated a few things just for the sake of making it sound more awesome, more Rainbow.

I mean, she did put it like we won against Thunderlane and Cloud Chaser without having any troubles, even though we did have some, especially in the beginning. She also acted like I was totally blown away by the tricks she performed in the park, which was only partly true. Admittedly, her tricks were awesome and definitely, without a doubt, impressive, but to say that I was blown by them was a simple overstatement.

And when she finally did come to the most important part of what happened, that I could stand on clouds, she said it like it was some normal, completely-usual-for-a-human thing. Or, well, at least she tried to make it seem like that. Even I could tell that she was still a little surprised about it.

Scootaloo, though, didn't even try to hide how surprised she was. I actually had to assure her at least five times that Rainbow wasn't trying to pull her leg, and even then she didn't seem too convinced. A quick demonstration did manage to convince her, though.

So, after a bit of walking through Ponyville, we finally arrived home. After Scootaloo took a throughout bath so that she wouldn't paint my couch grass green, we pretty much chilled for the rest of the day. Nothing special, just chilling on the couch and occasionally chatting with each other.

It was pretty neat.

Sometime along our chilling, all three of us must've dozed off because when I woke up (thanks to a certain cyan mare's incredibly loud snoring), it was close to 7 PM and nearly time for Scootaloo to get back to the orphanage. Half an hour, that was all we had until she had to be there. I originally made plans to go out and eat somewhere before she had to go, maybe that nice café we ate breakfast at, but there was sadly no time for that.

Even though I didn't want her to go, I didn't want to risk her getting into any trouble with the incredibly kind Miss Heartsong because she was a few minutes too late. So, after taking a few seconds to appreciate just how utterly cute she and Rainbow looked, perched upon my chest and in the case of the latter, coiled up on my stomach, fast asleep, I chose to wake both of them up by gently rocking their bodies.

Rainbow somehow felt off the couch, though. I don't know why. Definitely not because I shoved her off of me, nope. I would never do such thing.

Anyways, where was I? Oh right, that.

After both of them were awake, one more than the other, and I told Scootaloo that she needed to get back to the orphanage, we made ourselves on the way again, although reluctantly.

Thankfully, the way to the orphanage was mostly spent in silence. Rainbow and Scootaloo were having a discussion about something that involved the Wonderbolts and an upcoming show, or something like that. They seemed rather excited about that, and I was sure that I heard something about buying tickets, but other than that, nothing worth mentioning came up. Other than asking me if I would partake in the Running of the Leaves, which I couldn't answer them since I didn't know if I was allowed to, they also left me mostly to myself.

So, after I dropped Scootaloo off at the orphanage with the words "See you tomorrow, Scoots.", I and Rainbow walked back home. Actually, she insisted on accompanying me. I told her that she could go and that she didn't have to walk me back home, as I was sure that I could find the way back myself, but that, of course, didn't stop her. She said that she wasn't going to risk me getting robbed, though I doubted that any of the ponies in town would've been brave enough to even consider that. There were certain perks when you're the only one of your race in a world filled with herbivore ponies.

Once I stood back in front of my home's front door, I turned to give Rainbow my goodbye. But something stopped me from doing so. Rainbow was not hovering anymore. She was on the ground, her head fixed on the ground where she was busy drawing little circles with her hoof. She almost looked a little nervous.

"What's up?" I asked her with one brow raised, confused by her sudden change in demeanor.

She looked up at me and opened her mouth, but quickly shut it again. For a few seconds, she looked like she was conflicted about something, but with a sigh that sounded almost like it pained her, it was gone. "Uh, n-nothing." She stammered, making me raise my eyebrow even higher - if that was even possible. "'til tomorrow, I guess."

I narrowed my eyes at her, trying to see what was obviously troubling her, but couldn't find anything. Whatever it had been, she was good at hiding it as I was not able to find any trace of what I had seen before. Instead of pursuing what was troubling her, I chose to just let it be. Maybe I was just reading too much into things. "Yeah, see ya."

With one last small wave with her foreleg and a small smile, she launched herself into the air. I watched her fly off before entering my house, straightly heading for the bathroom. Arriving there, I experienced a small mental breakdown.

I completely forgot about that. The window opposite of me was shattered, shards of glass strewn across the floor that was also soaked in water. Now I knew how exactly Rainbow managed to clean herself in ten seconds flat.

I sighed in exasperation. "I should've just thrown her into a lake or something..."

Once I cleaned most of the mess she left behind, I unclothed myself and took a quick, although refreshing shower. I brushed my teeth with the oversized toothbrush and then put on the clean pair of boxers that Scootaloo, true to her word, brought back to the house earlier that day. Once I was at least partly clothed, I left the bathroom and, without wasting any more time, walked to my bedroom and literally threw myself into the bed.

My feet hurt from the whole walking and running and my arm's muscles felt sore from the volleyball match against Thunderlane and Cloud Chaser. There were times where I had been in better shape, no doubt, though I'm not too sure if being in better shape would've helped me any.

I didn't even manage to pull up the covers before I was out like a light.

Author's Note:

Thanks GeorgeFleurParty for proofreading this chapter!

---

Hello, everyone!

10k words and I still feel like I've rushed things a little in this chapter, especially the ending. Plus I realized that I really suck at titling my chapters. Halp.
Thing is, I really wanted to finally end that fucking day and get over to the Running of the Leaves chapter(s). I figured that a little progress could be good for this story.
Also, I put in a sneaky reference somewhere in this chapter. If you find it, be sure to point it out in the comments. I'm curious if anybody's going to find it at all.

Lastly, I worked really hard on this chapter, so some general feedback would be very much appreciated.
So, yeah. Have a nice day!

---

Special thanks!

GeorgeFleurParty
Thezion1111
Frankie2
OrcaBrony
A random person
Fauster

Comments

[OrcaBrony]

Great job man, cant wait for the next one!

[Manitive]

8069963

Glad you enjoyed it!

[FlyboyMuffins]

NOOOOOOOO I HAVE TO WAIT NOW? UNACCEPTABLE!

But great story so far! You've been doing a good job and I like William. Can't wait to see more!

[Manitive]

8076965

Thanks, dude! Glad you liked this story so far.
I'll try not to disappoint.

[A random person]

Found a mistake
But, rven though it was interesting to hear about the Wonderbolts
*even

[Manitive]

8078407
Corrected.
Thank you kindly!

[Szalhi]

PEgasus magic actually does help with flight otherwise their wings are too small.