A young man finds a what he thinks is a homeless girl rumaging through his garbage. It's not long before he reaslizes that things are not quite what they appear.
A young man who has recently lost his parents finds himself in a situation where he's caring for a young woman who seemingly has just appeared out of mid air. She knows nothing of human customs but speaks English very well and she's apparently well educated although in what could only be called esoteric knowledge.
She also claims to be a pony. But nobody ever said that relationships were easy.
I pulled up to the old house and sighed. It was finally mine but I wish it wasn't. Up until last week it had belonged to my parents but due to a careless driver I had been orphaned at the tender age of 25 and all their worldly belongings had been passed onto me. I was set for a while what with the insurance money, my inheritance and now owning real estate but I would give it all back if it meant they were still alive. Again, sighing heavily to myself I got out of the car and made my way inside.
It was an old house, built in the post-war period when housing was suddenly a priority for families. Over the years they had fixed it up and put their own personal touches here and there. The old wallpaper had seen better days but that could wait, what I needed now was some rest and I slowly made my way upstairs, past the washroom to my old room. Or at least I would have gone there had my Mother not turned it into her sewing room. I looked down the hall to the master bedroom but I knew I couldn't sleep there yet, not with all their things still lying around. "Some other day," I mumbled to myself as I grabbed a blanket from the hall closet and made my way down to the living room and the couch.
As much as I needed to sleep, I just couldn't. The funeral had been a few days ago, I had given up my cheap apartment and had moved my meager belongings out and they were currently still lying in the boxes that were scattered throughout the house. I just didn't have the strength to start to unpack yet. Maybe tomorrow if I felt better but I knew deep down that I'd probably just start only to spend the rest of the day moping around.
It was then that I heard a sound from outside of the trash cans being knocked over. The house was in the suburbs and there was a heavily wooded area not too far away which meant there was always trouble with raccoons and other vermin that came under cover of darkness to scavenge for food. I threw on my bathrobe, grabbed a poker lying by the fireplace and crept outside to confront whatever furry creature had decided to come dining on my parents, well technically now my garbage.
The moon was bright enough that I could at least see as I approached the cans slowly, the last thing I wanted was a face full of angry, rabid raccoon or worse yet a surprised skunk at this point but what I found was not what I expected. It was a girl. A naked, whimpering, frightened, dirty girl that was currently rooting around in the garbage obviously looking for something to eat. My voice died in my throat as I saw this and maybe it was just my current emotional state but instead of being angry or scared I just felt pity.
Clearing my throat to get my voice back she heard me and froze in fear. She scuttled back against the garage door and curled up as small as she could make herself. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. My name's Will, " I said as calmly as I could. It was only then that I realized I was still holding the poker in my hand and I quickly dropped it on to the soft earth where it landed with a quiet thump. "Look. See?" I said holding up my hands to show I wasn't armed. I noticed she was shivering and cursed myself that she must be cold. Taking off my bathrobe I held it up to her so at least she could be warmer and cover herself up a bit.
I advanced slowly on her, trying not to scare her while I held out my bathrobe to her. When it was within reaching distance she slowly reached out a hand and snatched it and wrapped herself inside it. Strangely enough she just used it like a blanket, trying to cover as much of herself as she could without actually trying to wear it. I didn't think much of it at the time and that maybe she just wanted to cover as much of herself as she could.
I held out my hand to her, "you can come inside and get warmed up. Take a shower and get cleaned up and I know I don't have much in the fridge but I'm sure whatever it is would taste better than the stuff you've been digging through." She looked at me like she didn't trust me and honestly in her position I would have agreed but the promise of food and warmth was enough to make up her mind and she took my hand, I helped her up and we went inside.
Once inside I got a better look at her and I'd have to say she looked a lot better when I could hardly make her out. Her hair was matted and filthy, she was covered head to toe in dirt, scratches and scrapes. Her feet were actually bleeding and left small smears of blood on the floor when she passed but she hardly seemed to notice or care. And it's not a good thing to say but she stank like you wouldn't believe. I had a hard time breathing near her without trying to gag. Motioning to her to stay I went to the kitchen and grabbed an apple out of the bowl and gave it to her. She devoured it whole, ripping into the fruit with a savagery that only spoke of a deep, gnawing hunger. She even ate the core and seeds like it was normal. Seeing how quickly she ate it I figured that another was in order and gave her that as well. It too followed the first one down although a little slower than the first.
"That's good for now, how about we go upstairs and you can take a shower and when you're all cleaned up you can have some more." She seemed uncertain but then she nodded and I led her upstairs to the bathroom. I gave her some towels and turned to leave when I heard her speak for the first time.
"Twilight Sparkle," she said in a surprisingly clear voice.
"Sorry what was that?" I said turning to her.
"My name is Twilight Sparkle, " she said with a small smile before casually dropping the bathrobe and starting the shower. Blushing furiously I closed the door behind me and went back downstairs.
Within moments of walking downstairs I heard the water turn on upstairs in the bathroom and sighed in relief. The poor girl was probably some hippy or had grown up in a place far away from here where societal norms like nudity were different. I thought for a moment that it might be an interesting place to visit from a strictly sociological sense although part of it was also even in her disheveled state, Twilight Sparkle had a great body.
In any case, I rummaged around the fridge trying to find something that she might be able to eat. There wasn't much here. My parents were on a health kick and most of the fridge was filled with organic vegetables, soy milk and stuff that I really couldn't identify. There wasn't much in the way of anything that needed to be cooked but that was good because I wasn't much of a cook myself. I could make a few things but I never really had the urge to learn. I figured a salad would be the best choice. Maybe some bread and cheese on the side and maybe tomorrow we'd have to go shopping. I thought to myself how odd it was that I was already thinking of us as a "we" and not that she was just some girl I had literally just found. She'd probably stay a few days and then disappear off somewhere. I made a mental note to hide the valuables just in case.
An hour later I was watching some TV, not really paying attention, when I heard the floor creak behind me. I turned to see Twilight Sparkle and for a moment I swear time stopped. This was not the same girl I had seen earlier rummaging through my garbage. No, this was an incredibly exotic woman with an almost Asian look about her. She had purple hair with a magenta streak it in, large, liquid eyes that looked purple in the light of the TV and a tattoo of a pink star on the side of her butt. She was also wonderfully, gloriously naked and totally unashamed of it. She tilted her head a bit to the side as if wondering why I wasn't saying anything and was just looking at her dumbfounded.
I shook myself out of my reverie or else I know I would have just sat there admiring her and instead asked her to follow me. We went upstairs, my eyes straight ahead so I wouldn't be distracted and I took her to my mother's closet. They looked to be about the same size and I urged her to pick out a few things to wear.
"Okay, I made a salad and some stuff in case you're still hungry. Or if you want we can just hang for or if you want to sleep the bed is right there, " I said pointing to my parent's bed.
"Actually the salad sounds good about now, " she said with an embarrassed smile as her stomach gurgled in anticipation.
"Understood, " I said and went back downstairs with her to the kitchen where I had set everything up.
She sat at the table and although I could see she was hungry she waited and studied the food. There wasn't anything wrong with it. It was just a simple green salad with veggies and some Italian dressing. But she focused on it as if trying to will the food directly into her mouth even though there was a fork right there. Finally she just shook her head slightly as if dismissing a thought and dived face first into the bowl and started to eat.
It's not every day that you notice a person trying to eat salad from a bowl without using their hands in any way. But for some reason this seemed almost in tune with how inexperienced she actually was. I thought to myself it was almost as if some alien had landed on Earth without really knowing anything about us or our culture and just acted like they thought we would act.
"Uhmmm, Twilight?"
"Hmm?" she looked up at me with her mouth full of lettuce and little bits of salad and dressing stuck to her face.
"You might find the fork to work a little better. It's definitely a lot less messy."
She turned to the fork on her right hand side and then gingerly picked it up as if seeing one for the first time. She turned it this way and that in front of her face before carefully using it to spear a bit of green pepper in her bowl and bring it to her mouth. She smiled as if having learned something new. It was cute to see her smile but the effect was ruined by the fact she still had some greenery all over her face. I motioned to her with the napkin and she quickly wiped her face clean.
"So Twilight? That's a bit of an uncommon name around here. Can I assume you chose it yourself or was it the name your parents saddled you with?"
She looked at me oddly, stopping in mid chew before continuing and swallowing. "I never wore a saddle except for special occasions even on my naming day."
Now it was my turn to look at her oddly because I honestly couldn't understand what it was she had just said. "Nooo. I just meant was it the name they gave you or did you choose it later on in life? It's no big deal. I mean I know a guy who legally changed his name to Still Waters because he felt it suited him better than Larry Bornstein."
"It's actually my name."
"You must come from a very interesting place, " I said trying to push for a little more info from her.
"Maybe I do, I can't seem to remember very much." She got a faraway look on her face before returning to her meal.
It wasn't long before she had cleaned her bowl as well as the bread and cheese and she sighed happily. "Thank you so much for this Will. I can't remember when I actually ate something this good."
"Thanks but it's only a salad, I'm not much of a cook and it's really the only thing I had that didn't need to be cooked or anything, " I replied lamely.
"No! Really! It was very good."
"Thank you, " I said and decided to switch tracks. "I'm sorry I need to know. Could you tell me what you were doing outside in the state you were in?"
Her face clouded over for a moment and I worried that I had maybe said the wrong thing before she answered, "I don't remember. I seem to recall an explosion, somepony calling my name from far away and then waking up in that forest. At first I thought I was in the Everfree but then I noticed how I looked, " she said while absently looking at her hands.
"How you looked? I don't know about you but you look fine to me."
"R-r-right! Thank you, but that's not what I meant, " she said evasively. "I'm sorry but everything is hazy and mixed up. I don't seem to remember much what happened before or where I came from, " she said but there was something about it that just wasn't right. She knew something that she wasn't telling me. I wasn't going to press the point because it was late and we were both needing some sleep. As if on cue she yawned in what was possibly the cutest way possible.
"I think that's your cue to go to sleep and I'm feeling a little tired myself so I think it's about time." She stood up and went to the foot of the stairs and looked back at me as if to ask what was taking me so long. "You can sleep upstairs in the room where you got the clothes. Feel free to look in the drawers for some pajamas if you're more comfortable sleeping that way. I'm actually sleeping down here until I get everything sorted out, " I told her.
"Oh. Okay. I'll head upstairs then," Twilight said a little uncertainly before heading up.
I knew why she wanted me to come upstairs or at least I suspected why. But I felt wrong trying anything with her. In her state it was almost like I was taking advantage of a child or something. She might feel that sleeping with me was necessary as some kind of payment for the food and place to sleep but it felt wrong to me so I got on the couch, turned off the light and tried my damndest to get some shut eye.
I was drifting between being asleep and awake when I heard the floorboards creak and I heard Twilight creep into the room.
"Will?" she asked softly. I pretended to be asleep and waited to see what she would do next. I figured she'd start to look about the room trying to steal something when I felt her lift the blanket and slip onto the couch. I felt her snuggle against me before hearing her whisper, "good night" which was quickly followed by her falling asleep.
Normally I would have thought this was some sort of invitation to hold her and possibly even have sex with her. But my guess was she was just lonely and scared in this big old house all alone and needed some security. Besides she was asleep and I prefer my women to be at least conscious before making any kind of move on them. And so instead I just settled back and let the events of the day catch up and send me to sleep as well.
