A Cartoonist in Equestria

by Autismo555

Chapter 8: The Princess and the Human (Re-Re-Edited)

Harold's world was pitch-black dark, mostly because his eyes were squeezed shut.

He didn't know if he had died from the collision when he was catapulted headfirst into the huge stone. He didn't know if he had survived the fall and missed the stone by a matter of mere inches. All that Harold could remember up to this point was he tried to make a getaway from a couple of crazed ponies on his bike, him outsmarting the cyan, tomboyish pegasus. Harold may have outmaneuvered the pegasus with only a sharp right and a petrified tree, but he never saw where he was going, and where he went was down a rough, rocky hill. It took one fateful rock to stop the front wheel, and Harold was catapulted from the seat of his bike into the air and dove headfirst towards a heavy stone.

The swiftly approaching stone was the last thing that he ever saw.

Now Harold was floating in the familiar darkness, like the same darkness that brought him to Equestria in the first place. He didn't know whether he was dead or alive. There was only one way to found out, but it was a risk he had to take.

Harold opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was a smooth, gravely surface, rounded perfectly the way a huge stone would be, just inches away from his nose before the tip of it could touch the stone. The strange thing about the rock, Harold noticed, was how it had changed from sand white into sparkling magenta. While he pondered the strange conundrum, Harold suddenly felt himself being pulled back away from the stones and was levitated in mid-air by the same magenta flowing around his body. That actually explained the sudden change in the stone's color.

Then, while Harold was held up in the air by surprise, the sparkling magenta popped into a perfectly round, nearly-transparent sphere, encasing him inside the tight prison. Harold swallowed and began to breathe rapidly as a fearful feeling coursed through his nerves. He suffered from the longtime condition of claustrophobia, the fear of tight or enclosed spaces, one developed by the many times when Drake Singer stuffed him in his locker. Harold knew the reasons to be afraid of tight spaces, among them being the lack of air and the inability to move around.

Harold's claustrophobia took hold of him as his skin glimmered with sweat, and his heart ready to jump out from his throat. He was on the brink of having a serious mental breakdown. He slammed the palms of his hands against the reinforced spherical walls, every hit he made creating a slight ripple as the feeling of panic overwhelmed him. "Let me out! Let me out!! Someone, please let me out!!"

A cacophony of hooves clop-clopping on the rock drew Harold's attention to his right. There, he looked and saw with shock, a lavender unicorn trotting towards him, her horn glowing the same magenta glow as the sphere. What caught Harold's attention the most was her spread wings, unfurled at full length as if she was showing who was the authoritative figure and who was the wrongdoer. Harold scuffled in his seating so he sat on his knees, pressing his hands onto the round walls and transferring his weight into them.

"Hey! Hey! Let me out of here!" Harold begged. " Please, I don't do well in tight spaces! I can't breathe in--!"

"That's enough," the alicorn ordered. Her stone cold gaze forced Harold's pleas back inside his throat as she came closer to the spherical prison. "Look, don't bother trying to break out of my sphere. I enforced the walls with unbreakable magic, able to withstand any escape attempt you might try to pull."

"Please! I'm begging you!" Harold shouted with a hint of panic in his voice as he began to pant rapidly. "Let me out of here! I'm really claustrophobic! I need air! Please! I can't breathe! I can't breathe!! I ca..."

Harold suddenly slouched himself back against the walls of his prison sphere, arms hugging across his chest as he began to hyperventilate. His body rocked vigorously in reaction to his growing anxiety and his breathing became nothing but audible wheezing, desperately reaching out for air. The alicorn sighed, her frown still plastered on her muzzle as she used her magic to expand the sphere into a larger size, opening a few holes no bigger than Harold's head near the top so that he would be allowed to receive his precious oxygen.

All at once, the air holes and the bigger sphere began to take a therapeutic effect on Harold. His breathing managed to slow down, him taking a few shaky breaths before he became completely calm. It took only a moment before Harold was flushed of his anxiety attack and he pried his hugging arms from his chest and laid them down on the curving floor. Then he heaved out a relieved sigh, slumping down comfortably in a lying position. The cool temperature of the magenta sphere seemed to help put Harold at ease.

"Are we feeling better?" the alicorn asked, raising an eyebrow.

Harold was snapped from his reverie, almost having forgotten that he was in the presence of a pony princess. "Oh, umm... yes, I am feeling better," said Harold as he sat up in the sphere he was unwillingly trapped in. "Th-Thank you for helping me with my..."

"Don't thank me yet," the alicorn interjected. "You and I have a lot to talk about."

There was something in the princess's tone that turned Harold's slightly tanned skin into pasty white. Perhaps it was the way it sounded disapprovingly when she talked to him, considering the fact Harold was the non-Equestrian creature he heard would bring a terrible to danger to the land. Not that he could blame her for trying to protect her home, but Harold wanted to protest that it was all a big mistake. Then again, he saw crime movies about innocent people testifying their innocence only to be brought down by the detectives interrogating him, so protesting was an option scratched off.

Suddenly, the magenta aura around the alicorn began to glow again. Harold, out of instinct, flinched back against the walls of his round prison. He remembered distinctly about what Fluttershy said about alicorn ponies, how their magic was unrivaled by the most powerful unicorns. If that was true, then the alicorn he beheld would turn him into a toad, or reduce him into a pile of ash, or even turn him into a toad then reduce him to a pile of ash!

Harold covered his eyes as the pony's horn flashed a white light, feeling his hand grab his locket. Surely, this was the spell that would send him into the next world, where he would never fulfill his promise to Lana. He gripped his locket tight enough to leave some scarring on his hand, though the scars wouldn't matter considering that he would be in the afterlife after this.

Again, he didn't know if he was dead or alive, just like before. He didn't feel his body burst into fire, so that ruled out the possibility that he was reduced to a pile of ashes and soot. That meant that he was either alive and well, or he was alive and transformed into a little brown toad. Just like before, all he had to do was open his eyes to see if he had remained intact, unharmed or untampered by the alicorn's magic.

Harold once again opened his eyes.

He saw himself sitting in the sphere, facing the confused eyes of the equine princess levitating a quill pen, an ink cartridge and a single parchment scroll, all surrounded by her magenta aura. Harold quickly inspected his hands, both front and back, and saw that they were perfectly normal. He used those same hands to check his torso and feel his face and found that there was no evidence that they were altered by the princess's magic themselves. Finally, he checked the backside of his pants to see if any tail grew out of it. Luckily for him, there wasn't any stubble around his bottom, so he was relieved to find that he hadn't been turned into an animal.

"What are you doing?" the princess asked.

"Well, umm..." Harold slumped back shyly, twiddling his thumbs together while turned away. He was a bit embarrassed that his nervousness caused him to jump the gun with the alicorn's magic. "Y-You used your horn to produce magic, so when you lit up your horn, I thought you were gonna turn me into a toad... or something else."

"Relax," the princess mare ordered her prisoner. "I won't use my magic to hurt you. In fact, I can only use my magic against somepony or something when they pose a great threat to Equestria." Harold knew that the alicorn was referring to him as a something rather than just a person. He cowered back as the pony's stone cold glare stared down at him, feeling small and insignificant against the colossal, magical might of the royal mare. "Besides, I'm just writing a letter to my former mentor. I'm sure she would love to have a word or two with you."

Harold was slightly relieved to learn the alicorn wasn't going to hurt him. Still, he mentally slapped himself for thinking the pony was going to use her alicorn magic to harm him, a bit of a nasty habit he picked up whenever he was under the impression that a fellow student was about to make a move on him. That was something that ten years of being beat up and shoved into tight lockers did to him. When the alicorn cleared her throat, Harold watched and listened as the princess began to write her letter, dictating her thoughts out loud.

"Dear Princess Celestia,

Earlier today, you informed me in a confidential letter about a creature not from Equestria that would bring a dangerous and incredible threat. You also told me to gather my friends, the bearers of the Elements of Harmony and meet with you in a private meeting in Canterlot. Well, Princess, I'm here to report that I have captured what appears to be an intelligent creature who is not from Equestria itself.

A few moments ago, my friend, Rainbow Dash and I visited Fluttershy and informed her of the situation at hoof. While we were doing so, Spike spotted the creature wandering outside in Fluttershy's yard and we gave chase to it while it road on a vehicle similar to that of a bicycle. The creature managed to outrun Rainbow Dash, but after it lost control of his bicycle, I happened to save its life by ensnaring it and encased it in my magic before I created a protective sphere to safely contain it. I am currently keeping it contained as I am writing this letter down to you.

The creature appears to be a bipedal creature of mammalian origin, standing about 5' 3'', blondish-brown hair, blue eyes and is wearing dirty clothing on its body. Judging from the size and the appearance, I can only assume that this creature is a descendant of the hominid family, possibly male, and still in his youth. His species name is commonly referred to among his own kind as... um..."

The alicorn trailed off from her letter and looked towards Harold, her eyes slightly narrowed. "I need your species name and scientific name, if you please."

"Uh... hu-human..." Harold stammered. "I am a human. H-Homo sapien in scientific terms..."

"Right. How you spell 'human?'"

"H-U-M-A-N."

The alicorn gazed at Harold for a short moment before she went back to her letter, still dictating what she wrote down on the parchment. "His species name is commonly referred to among his own kind as a human, the scientific name being homo sapien. I'll figure out who this human is, where it is he came from and why he came to Equestria. In the meantime, I will be awaiting a reply from you so you may help determine what we should do with this human and see if he really is the danger to all of ponykind.

Sincerely, your former faithful student,

Princess Twilight Sparkle."

"Princess Twilight Spar--"

TING!

Harold yelped as the "sense" smacked him out of the blue, causing him to scoot back and cover his head. The "sense" felt as powerful as ever, having more intensity than when he felt it at the meadow. Princess Twilight Sparkle. That was the name of the lavender alicorn. It was like he knew that name, yet at the same time he did not. Where has he heard that name, and why did it hurt so much?

"Hey, are you alright?" the alicorn, Princess Twilight Sparkle asked as she watched Harold suffer with his migraine.

"I-I-I'm fine, Your Highness" Harold replied, rubbing his temples. "I've been having this headache ever since I came here. It's nothing, really."

Twilight Sparkle raised her eyebrow and hummed out of both intrigue and suspicion. "I'll have to look into your headache when I have the chance," she said as she wrapped up the scroll with her magic and sealed it with the red ribbon and gold stamp. With a flash of magenta light, the scroll disappeared and in its place was a glowing, magenta orb which shot off into the stretch of horizon, where the tallest mountain with the castle built alongside was located. Twilight then turned to Harold, conjuring up another scroll sincerely for her taking notes.

"Alright, human, as princess of Equestria, it's my duty to protect the citizens of Ponyville and Equestria from what we believe to be potential threats. Therefore..." Twilight gave her quill pen a quick dip in the ink cartridge and prepared to write her notes down. "...as per the 'Equestrian Princess Interrogation Code', I'll have to ask you a few questions and you have to answer them honestly. If you try and lie to me, I'll know and determine that you can't be trusted around everypony in Equestria. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Harold froze. Somehow or rather, he felt cornered as if he felt trapped more than ever in the magenta sphere. He feared that the game of quid pro quo with the alicorn princess would lead up to personal questions, ones mostly involving his troubled youth. There were times from Harold's messed-up childhood that he couldn't tell without fighting the urge into breaking down into tears, but he had no other choice. He had to explain his story to Twilight Sparkle, princess of Equestria and the highest power in the land of ponies. He needed to answer them with all sincere honesty, no exceptions to top it all off.

“Well?” Twilight asked with a near-impatient tone. “I’m waiting.”

Harold breathed slowly and deeply through his nose. There was no way he could avoid the questions, so he figured he had to go through with this interrogation. He was reluctant to do so, but if he lied to royalty, whether it was either human or pony, then he would be considered untrustworthy, and he never did anything to provoke such action. With a reluctant sigh, Harold meekly said, "I understand."

With that said, Twilight's nuzzle cracked a smile and she sat down on her haunches, prepared to supply Harold with the questions. Harold rubbed his thumb over the engraving on the locket, the one thing close to comfort for him, other than the air holes in the sphere. To tell the truth, he wasn't fully ready for the questions. Being interrogated would require a "good cop, bad cop" routine, and he did not like getting chewed out by the bad cop. If Twilight was the good cop, where was the bad cop to back her up?

"Okay, let's begin," Twilight finally said. "First off, I'd like you to tell me your name. I'd also like you to tell me about your world of origin and how you arrived in Equestria."

Harold rubbed his thumb over his locket's engraving, nervously tracing the shape of the rose written on it. "Do I have to answer them in that specific order?" he asked, though not sure why he asked such a question.

"It doesn't matter which order of answers you give me, so long as you give me the answers I'm looking for," Twilight stated as firmly as her gaze towards the human.

"Right," Harold muttered while he inhaled a calm and collecting breath. He took his free hand and nervously rubbed the back of his head before he explained a little part of his backstory. "W-W-Where I come from is a planet called Earth. I'm from a country called the United States of America, born in the state of New York."

Suddenly, Twilight's scribbling quill pen ceased its movement as her glare narrowed towards Harold's direction, raising an eyebrow for added effect. Harold became slightly unsettled by the way Twilight looked at him, knowing well that there was something in what he said that she didn't believe. "Excuse me, but would you mind repeating the planet where you came from?"

"E-Earth. I-I-Is there something wrong, Princess?" Harold asked.

"Actually, there is," Twilight answered. "Don't you know that the planet you're currently on is called Earth?"

Harold's body jolted upwards with surprise. "WHAT!? Wait a minute, wait a minute! Are you saying that the planet I'm on right now and the planet where I came from is called Earth as well!?" Twilight nodded her head only once. Harold felt his whole body slide alongside the concave walls of the sphere until he curled into a shocked slump. "I don't believe this. I thought this place was called Equestria!"

“No, Equestria is just the country. This planet, the planet we’re currently on, is called Earth,” Twilight explained before she narrowed her eyes further to meet with harold's widened eyes. "In fact, if you really came from another planet that's also named Earth, then why don’t you prove to me that you’re not lying about the name of your planet?”

“Uh, okay. Umm...” Harold sat up in an Indian-style pose and curled his index finger over his lips, quickly pondering a way to convince the young alicorn that his homeworld was called Earth. Then, in the snap of his fingers, Harold came up with the perfect solution. He would have to list out the key points that made his planet Earth, his planet Earth.

"Okay. My planet Earth is one out of eight planets that revolve around our Sun called the Solar System, one dwarf planet being the lone wolf. Seventy percent of our planet is covered with water and our population span to about, uhh... over seven billion people." Harold rubbed the back of his head as he attempted to make a little joke to the royal alicorn. "Seven billion minus one because... well, I got transported here... heh, heh, heh..."

Unfortunately, Twilight didn't share with Harold's sense of humor as she was too busy writing down the notes from what the human had told her. Despite her stoic, princess look, Twilight felt fascinated by these facts on the inside, making a mental note to ask Harold for more on his world. "That is quite interesting. None of the details you've mentioned about your world matches all of the details in our world, save for the name."

Twilight scribbled the last of the additions on the parchment scroll before she finished with a single tap of her quill pen. She then turned back to Harold which seemed to perk him up with surprise. "So I guess you are from a planet that's also called Earth. Would you care to tell me how exactly you ended up here, in Equestria of all places?"

"I'm not sure myself," Harold said forlornly. "All I know is that recently, I was riding my bicycle down the main highway when this big tornado hit a mile behind me. I tried to pedal away as fast as I could, but I got caught up in the vortex and I blacked out. When I woke up, I found myself here. I didn't want to believe it was real, but given everything that's happened today, I had to accept that this entire place was real."

"A tornado brought you here? You're kidding," Twilight stated flatly.

"I wish I was kidding, but I'm not," Harold said before pondering the very last minute he could remember before he blacked out. "Although, it is strange. When I was caught in that tornado, I remember getting so badly hurt, I couldn't think straight. My bones were broken, my limbs were twisted like a pretzel and my stuff being severely damaged along with me. But when I woke up here, I felt completely rejuvenated and refreshed, almost as if I had a good night's sleep. To top it all off, all of my injuries healed up completely and the damage to my stuff just seemed to have disappeared like they were as good as new."

"Hmmm. If you what is true, then there must be a logical explanation for your mysterious arrival," Twilight noted. "Do you have any idea what could've brought you here?"

"Not really. I don't even have any idea exactly how long I blacked out for until today," Harold said forlornly.

"Then I guess that's a mystery worth looking into. Once I get in touch with Princess Celestia, I'll ask her if she could help look into this mystery, too," Twilight said as she finished up her record. Once Twilight jotted down the last of her notes, she took one careful glance at the human boy over the top of the scroll, moving only her eyeballs upward to get a better view of him.

There was something about him that captured her interest, but she didn't know what it was. Twilight observed how the human shrunk himself against the sphere walls shyly, constantly shifting in his seat so nervously it was like interrogating Fluttershy. The way he was dressed in those dirty clothes and the condition they were in indicated that he changed into a fresh set for about four days, not even for one single time. From the shine on his dirty blonde hair, Twilight could also assume he hadn't washed himself around that same time as well.

But there was something else about the boy that also caught Twilight's interest. It wasn't from observation, rather it was a gut feeling, a flitter of one hundred butterflies tickling her stomach walls. Twilight almost felt like she had some sort of attraction to the human teenager she couldn't explain, but it felt like magnets pulling towards each other, with alarms ringing somewhere deep in her mind. She didn't like that feeling, but then again, she didn't like it when exactly one book was accidentally misplaced on her library shelves, so she discarded that feeling and moved on with her interrogation.

"Okay, now I'd like to ask you to give me your name," Twilight said, bringing Harold's attention to her.

"Oh. Oh yes! My name is--."

“YOU!”

All of a sudden, the magenta sphere was slammed hard by a cyan blur. While the speed and impact did not have nearly enough power to even dent the sphere, it did, however launch it and its poor prisoner into the air, spinning at incredible speeds while flying over the rocky hills and into the grassy meadows nearby. Harold was rolled around and bounced inside the spinning sphere, now realizing the horrors that laundry had to go through when they were placed in the washing machines and the dryers.

The sphere touched down on the grass and rolled thirty feet away from the foot of the cliff, until finally, it stopped near a small, running river with a forest on the other side. Harold groaned groggily as he tried to stand up, his dizziness and the minor bruising he suffered becoming a big challenge for him. He had one more reason for wanting to escape his spherical prison, and that was to not spill any vomit all over himself or on his clothes. A rising level of nausea was proof enough that Harold needed to get out and quickly.

Before Harold could even make a move, he looked past his swirling vision and saw a cyan-colored shape touch down near the sphere. Harold rubbed his eyes to help ease the dizziness and blinked twice, but not before he reeled back with shock. Standing before him was the same pegasus that chased him down into the forest with her messy, trademark rainbow mane and that furious fervor blazing in her raspberry-hued eyes.

It was Rainbow Dash, and from the looks of it, she looked absolutely peeved.

Without warning, Rainbow Dash suddenly flew into the outer sphere walls, her anger and speed just enough to make Harold jump back onto the other side of the round interior. Rainbow Dash, the self-proclaimed newest member of the Wonderbolts reserves, the fastest flier in Equestria and the Element of Loyalty, was no doubt ready to get revenge for the humiliation she suffered at the hands of the human, who was riding on a bicycle in less than half the speed that she intended to use to catch him. Instead, all that speed ever did was give an opportunity for the human to suddenly veer off in a different direction while she got half-stuck in a petrified tree.

With Harold trapped inside Twilight's impenetrable sphere, this was the perfect time to give the human a piece of her shattered pride and corner him like a scared puppy. “Alright, tough guy! You’ve got five seconds to explain yourself! Who are you!? Who are you working for!? What were you doing near Fluttershy's house, huh!? Were you sent here to destroy Equestria!? WHOA!"

Before Rainbow Dash could get through to the human, she was yanked back at her multicolored tail by Twilight's magic. “That’s enough, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight scolded. “There’s no need for you to go rough on him! I was in the middle of interrogating him!"

“No need to go rough!?” Rainbow Dash spat. “Twilight, I just got my flank handed over to me by a rag-wearing primate! I was just this close to getting him with my own two hooves! This close! But that monkey humiliated me by making me crash into that tree with that slow piece of scrap metal he was riding on!”

"Rainbow Dash, you're being ridiculous! First off, that 'rag-wearing primate' is called a human and he prefers it that way. Second, you were the one who flew recklessly into that tree in the first place!"

“Recklessly!? Twilight, that hue-man distracted me from looking where I was flying and I was twenty percent faster than that banged-up bicycle of his! Don’t you realize how much humiliation I’ll have to endure at the Wonderbolts Academy because some hue-man outmaneuvered Equestria’s Best Young Flyer riding some junkyard sculpture!?”

“Human, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight corrected flatly, "and I’m pretty sure that nopony is gonna find out that he escaped ‘Equestria’s Best Young Flyer’ if you don’t make a such a big deal out of this!”

“How am I making a big deal!?”

"STOP!"

Twilight and Rainbow Dash jumped at the sudden raise in Harold's voice and turned to him. Inside the sphere, they saw the human boy breathe heavily, eyes widened, teeth barred and arms hugging his chest. The two mares' bickering over Harold had unintentionally triggered his outburst, the remnant of his distaste for fighting. Harold realized his outburst shortly afterwards and cleared his throat, feeling slightly timid by his raised voice.

"Look, I-I'm sorry I screamed like that, a-a-and I'm sorry for whatever I did that might have mixed things up," Harold apologized shyly. “B-Bu-But please understand that this w-w-was all a big mis-misunderstanding. I would never... ever... think of putting anyone in harm's way unintentionally and..."

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a minute!” Rainbow Dash brashly interjected the stuttering human. “Are you saying that you wouldn’t hurt a fly, but with you being here and being labeled as a threat by the Princess herself was all some misunderstanding?” Harold whimpered “mm-hmm” and nodded his head slightly furiously. Rainbow Dash, however, was not convinced. “Yeah right! What a load of horse apples! Do you really expect me to believe that story!?”

"N-No, but..."

"Exactly!!" Rainbow Dash shrieked, making Harold jump before she thrusted a hoof in his direction. "So don't think I'm onto your trick here--HEY!!"

Once again, Rainbow Dash was pulled back by Twilight's magic holding onto her tail and dragged her back to her. "Rainbow Dash! What's gotten into you all of a sudden!?" Twilight snapped.

"Isn't that obvious!?" Rainbow Dash shot an accusing hoof at Harold. "It’s that hue-man, Twilight! I don’t know what planet he’s from nor do I really care! What I do care about is that he’s the guy that Princess Celestia told us to look out for, and boy was she right! He’s just buttering you up like bread so he could eat you for dinner...like bread!”

“For your information, Rainbow Dash, he’s from a planet that’s also called Earth,” Twilight informed. "And don't worry about him, he looks like the type who isn't part of a carnivorous species." Twilight looked back to Harold with a raised eyebrow. "You are part of an herbivorous species, aren't you?"

Harold rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "N-No, we humans are omnivorous, but I'm--"

“AH-HA! I knew it!” Rainbow Dash interjected, shocking Harold with his back flat against the wall. "His kind does eat meat! I bet they sent him here to Equestria so they could abduct ponies and bring them back home to use us as food!"

“Rainbow Dash! Let him speak!” Twilight interjected, her glare preventing the tomboy pegasus from speaking anymore harsh words.

Harold reached to his throat and swallowed the giant lump forming in his throat. "A-Anyway, we humans are an omnivorous species, but I'm a vegetarian. There are some of us humans who choose not to eat meat and they move on to other food groups, fruits, vegetables and all, and I happen to be one of them."

"But you humans still eat meat, right?" Twilight asked.

"Yes, almost all of my world population does. I don't know how many, though, probably ninety or ninety-five percent."

“Yeah, I'm sure those are the right numbers,” Rainbow Dash replied flatly, pushing the magenta sphere with a hard, intimidating poke. “Listen here, hue-man, I’m still not buying any of that crud you’re trying to sell here. If you so much as hurt anyone of my friends, or even touch on hair on their mane, I’ll personally kick your flank to the moon. Got it, punk?”

“RAINBOW DASH, WAIT!”

Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Harold all looked up and saw Fluttershy as she flew down to the sphere and landed in front of it before she stood in a defensive stance, her face bold with vindication. In a blink of an eye, Fluttershy unsheathed her yellow wings which backed Rainbow Dash away from her until she stood alongside Twilight, both surprised by her act of protecting the human.

“Fluttershy, get away from that guy!” Rainbow Dash shouted to her timid friend, trying to verbally move her away from Harold with no avail. “Don’t you know that’s the creature Princess Celestia said was gonna bring Equestria down!?”

Fluttershy gulped as she forced herself to break from her shyness and emerge as a serious protector. "Yes, Rainbow Dash, I knew that he was the creature warned you about," she said, her adorable, cute voice dropping into a serious tenor. "But do you want to know something else? I knew that he was at my cottage all this time! That's why I had to stall you two for time until he made his escape! The nerve of you both for treating him like some wild animal!”

Rainbow Dash and Twilight openly gasped with shock while Harold did so silently. To have Fluttershy come out to her friends about her protecting the human at the cost of her getting caught was appalling even to Harold. No one on Earth ever stuck out their neck for him whenever it was convenient. Not since that awful day...

“Now, wait a Celestia-darn minute, Fluttershy! You mean to tell me you knew about that hue-man this whole time and you didn’t tell us!?” Rainbow asked loudly, earning one hard nod from Fluttershy. “I can’t bucking believe this...”

While Rainbow Dash cursed under her breath, holding a hoof to her face and shaking her head disapprovingly, Twilight gently approached the timid pegasus. “Fluttershy, why were you hiding him from us? Were you afraid we would do something bad to him if we found him?”

Fluttershy swallowed hard, clearly the sign of her defending side putting on a conflicting strain with her usual timid demeanor. "Yes, Twilight, I was," she admitted. "I was afraid you would take him to Princess Celestia and throw him in the dungeon. I couldn't let you two do that to a child because I thought it would be a bit unethical if you did."

"But Fluttershy, you don't even know if that hue-man is dangerous," Twilight argued. "He may be at a young age, but Princess Celestia specifically said that this creature might bring down Equestria and therefore, that makes him wanted by the crown herself. Don't you know that the penalty of harboring a wanted fugitive is either banishment or thirty years in the dungeon?"

"Yes, Twilight, but I don't care about the penalty," Fluttershy stated, looking back to Harold then back to Twilight. "All I care about right now is for the wellbeing of my friend. I mean, just look at him. This poor boy has been through enough as it is, and both of you are treating him like he's some common enemy."

"You don't even know if that thing really is an enemy!" Rainbow Dash snapped.

"And you don't know that either!" Fluttershy retorted, her eyes narrowing down at her lifelong friend. "Look, I know this may sound exaggerated, but that 'thing' you're referring to, Dashie? He's called a human, and I know this may sound crazy, but deep down in my heart, I can see that he is a gentle soul! He wouldn't want to harm anypony unless he was provoked! Now look at what you're doing! All you're doing is keeping him locked away like an animal against his freewill and acting like a bully! Have you two no shame!?"

“Oh, come on!” Rainbow Dash snapped. “That’s the same gullible talk that nearly drove a wedge in our friendship when you were trying to reform Discord!"

“Well, that worked out in the end, didn’t it!?”

“Oh, give me a break, Fluttershy! This is a completely different matter! Why are you even letting that monkey off that easy!?”

Fluttershy brought herself to the magenta sphere, hugging it like she was protecting a helpless, innocent woodland creature while Harold looked on in astonishment. “Because that’s what friends are for, Rainbow Dash!” said Fluttershy, with a bold tone. “And as a friend, I’m going to do everything I can to help him on his journey back to his own world so he could fulfill a promise he made to somepony near and dear to him! If you can’t accept that, then I'm not coming with you to Canterlot!”

Twilight and Rainbow Dash gasped appallingly. Having Fluttershy refer to the human being as a friend and keeping him a secret from both of them was one thing, but to refuse to come to Canterlot under the Princess's orders for the sake of preserving the human boy's life was another thing. Fluttershy knew the consequences for her actions, but that was a risk she would take for a friend.

That was also brought to Harold as he felt something twinge in his heart. The way Fluttershy was so protective of him, it was like watching Lana protect him from the demonic hate of society all those years ago. "Fluttershy..."

"Fluttershy, failure to attend to Princess Celestia's summoning is a major crime. Not only would you be held on charges of harboring one Equestria's most wanted, but you would have to face in a bench trial with the Princess as a judge, and at the very least it'll mean you'll be put in the dungeons for life," Twilight warned. "Are you sure you can handle that?"

"Twilight, if helping a friend means facing a punishment from Princess Celestia herself, then that's something I have to take," Fluttershy stated.

Twilight sighed, dragged her hoof down her face and stamped it lightly with frustration before she began to pace back and forth in a straight line. "Great. Just perfect. This is just what I needed," she grumbled to herself. "I'm faced with one complicated dilemma only to fall into an even more complicated dilemma. First I needed to go around Ponyville and tell my friends to meet Princess Celestia, then I find this human walking around Fluttershy's house. If that's not the least of my problems, now we find out that one of my friends had kept a wanted creature a secret from us!"

"Heh. Feelings mutual," Rainbow Dash mumbled. "That monkey just shattered my pride as a future Wonderbolts reserves member."

Fluttershy gasped, appalled by her friend's behavior. "Rainbow Dash, shame on you!" she snapped. "Harold is not a monkey! He's a good human and a good artist, too!"

Something snapped inside Twilight's head. It felt like glass shattering into a million shards when she heard the human being named "Harold" by Fluttershy. There was something about the name, "Harold" that was starting to pound in her head like a painful throbbing. It felt and sounded familiar. Too familiar. The growing headache prompted her to stop pacing as the conversation between Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash continued.

"Hair-Old? That's his name?" Rainbow Dash asked skeptically, a snicker escaping her cyan lips. "Oh, I get it. You're planning on keeping him as a pet too, huh?"

"No, I am not!" Fluttershy growled. "I told you, Harold is trying to fulfill a promise to somepony special and he's just trying to find his way back home!"

"Oh, so he's trying to get back home, huh? Well, the sooner he can find his way out of here, the better."

"Rainbow! You should know better than to pick on Harold like that! You should say you're sorry to him right now!"

"Why should I!? It's not like he's got any feelings or anything!"

"That's enough, the both of you!" Twilight barked, causing the bickering to end as she turned to the human. "Excuse me, human, but I heard Fluttershy called you Harold. Is that correct?"

"Y-Yes it is, your highness," stammered Harold. "My name is DeMatt. Harold DeMatt."

Twilight froze.

A whelming sense of dread overtook her senses as she compared the name to the human boy. Harold DeMatt. As she matched the name with the appearance of the human boy, Twilight's head swelled up inside, like there was something in her brain that was powerful enough to make it explode. Twilight's heart rate sped up and her hearing was limited only by the sound of her heartbeat drumming in her ears.

Harold DeMatt.

What was it in the name that struck Twilight as familiar?

Harold DeMatt.

Why did that name sound familiar?

Harold DeMatt.

Harold DeMatt.

"Harold DeMatt..." Twilight uttered.

That was when she felt that painful TINK!

“KYYYAAAAHHHHH!”

CRACK!! BOOOOOOOM!!

Suddenly, in a fit of searing pain in her horn, Twilight screamed and ear-shattering shriek before her magic exploded like thunder, shocking everyone back. Magenta sparks flew from Twilight's horn until the aura of magic surrounded its magical conduit enveloped the horn in high intensity, wrapping itself around the alicorn's body. Twilight's violet eyes flashed into a white light as she was lifted in mid-air, five feet off the ground without the use of her wings. Streaks of white lightning started to crack and fly out uncontrollably from the aura and into distances unknown.

Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and Harold all witnessed in horror as the alicorn wriggled in her own aura, writhing in shocking pain. Rainbow Dash backed away slowly while Fluttershy took cover behind Harold's spherical prison. All that Harold could do was back himself against the concave walls until he couldn't push himself into the safety of the walls any longer.

Then, he noticed something about the princess's fits that caught his attention. He saw the cold sweat trickle down her forehead, starting at the base of her horn. He saw the way she clutched her head in her hooves, meaning she was suffering from the worst headache in her life. He saw how the alicorn lost control of her senses the way he did earlier.

"No way!" Harold thought as a realization slammed into him. "Is that what I think it is!?"

"Rainbow Dash, what's happening to Twilight!?" the pegasus yelled, back in her frightened state.

"I don't know, Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash shouted, glaring at the human. “Why don't you ask your 'friend' over there!? Maybe he knows what's going on!"

Despite the brash spatting of the tomboy pegasus, Rainbow Dash was correct. Harold knew exactly what was going on with Twilight, from what the symptoms appeared to be similar to the same feeling he felt when he learned the name of the pony-inhabited land. The headache, the sweat, the loss of control over the subject's body.

Harold knew very well what it meant.

It meant Princess Twilight Sparkle was feeling the “sense!”

Comments

[The Watcher 509]

Good-er version FTW!

[Anyne]

“But you hue-mans also eat pony meat, right?” Twilight asked.
“I-It’s taboo.”

No, it's not

[batran]

planet Earth is one out of eight planets that revolve around our Sun called the Solar System, one dwarf planet being the lone wolf.

Uhhh... there are more dwarfs