A man must learn to live in a new world, where he does not speak the same language as the locals.
Anonymous, a twenty-two years old musician, is somehow transported to Equestria. He must learn to adapt to this new world. Communication with the ponies will be hard, he doesn't speak the same language as they do.
The story will be centered around Anonymous' interactions with the Mane 6 and a few of the background ponies, notably Lyra and BonBon.
You hit snooze. Again. It’s the third time this morning... Or so you thought, as it is actually the afternoon. How often did you slam your hand on the snooze button without noticing? Bluh, this time you stay awake though. You slowly make your way out of bed. Waking up late again won’t hurt too much, you don’t really have anything urgent to do anyway. Actually, you haven’t had anything urgent for the last few weeks. You head to your bathroom and take a shower to wake you up. The water is lukewarm at best, and grows colder with every minute. As you dry yourself, your ears are hit by the irritating buzzing of your alarm.
‘Nice job genius, next time try to remember to turn off the alarm instead of just hitting snooze.’
You ignore the sarcastic inner dialog and start to rush towards the noisy clock. You take a single step before slipping, your feet are propelled skyward and your back hits the hard floor.
“Great... gonna be one of THOSE mornings...”
You stand back up and rub the small of your back while faltering back to your bedroom and you turn off the alarm. Finally. Sweet, sweet silence. After a few minutes of fumbling around, you find a set of clean clothes to put on and head for the kitchen.
‘How the FUCK did you manage to burn your toast?’ ‘It's a TOASTER. NOT A GOD DAMN SPACE SHUTTLE.’
You shake off the rude part of your brain yelling at yourself as you realise that those toasts you just charred? Yeah, they were the last slices of bread in the entire apartment.
‘Good job, Fucko.’
Whatever, you’ll just have to put more PB on them, that’s all. No peanut butter left. Jumping through your window sounds like a great plan right now. You decide to do something reasonable instead and throw away the coal-like substance that used to be bread. Cereal? Check. Milk? Check. Clean bowl and spoon? Check.
‘Good, let’s hope you don’t burn them too.’
Thankfully, you manage to eat your cereal without any incident. Maybe you’re done with the streak of bad luck of the morning.
THUD. ‘Looks like it isn’t.’
Toe, meet table. Your face is warped with pain and you start blaring swearing echoes through the neighborhood. You jump around on one foot, clutching your toe and continuously cursing this world for giving table legs unusually sharp corners. After calming down, you drop your dishes in the sink. A quick look at your stubbed toe confirms you that it’s not broken, still hurts like a bitch though. You glance at your watch, and see that it’s 1:34 PM, time to leave. You make sure you took everything before going out; wallet, phone, keys, headphones and violin case. Yep, you’re good.
You get out and lock your door. Nimbly avoiding walking in a pile of dog waste, you manage to get your ass on the bench next to the bus stop. With your luck, there's probably not going to have any seats left and you'll be forced to stand next to some fat sweating guy. Or maybe you’ll get mugged on your way to your jam session. Better yet, you’re going to get run over by a truck while crossing the street.
After a few minutes of thinking about more jolly scenarios, your bus pulls over. You see a few unoccupied seats in the back and make your way to one of them. Having about 30 minutes of travel until you reach destination, you put on your headphones and look through your music collection before settling for the violin cover of Sweet Child O’ Mine that you love so much. Your eyelids become heavy as the bus resumes its course and sleep quickly overcomes your body.
Something is tickling your hand, feels like grass. You open your eyes and you see that... Well... It is grass.
"What the fuck!?"
You spring to your feet and immediately start thinking about an explanation. Did the bus crash sending you out a window and in the grass? No... There's nothing in sight that looks like a car crash. Or civilisation. Are you dead? Maybe the bus -did- crash and you're now in purgatory? No, no... That's silly. You must be dreaming. Yeah, that's probably it. A dream. It feels so real though. Your senses aren’t numbed down like when you usually dream. The air is fresh, the ambient sounds are clear and the grass feels like, well, grass. Everything is so... colorful. And two dimensional. Wait... Two dimensional? Does that mean that you look... oh fuck. You run to a nearby puddle of water and look at your reflection. And holy shit do you look strange as hell. Your skin is now one solid color and a slightly darker line draws the outline of your body. You look like a cartoon character.
'You look like a freak.'
You give yourself a couple of good slaps in the face, chasing away the inner monologue. Awake? No. Red hand-shaped marks on your face? Yes.
'Looks like you're not dreaming, jerkface.'
Dreaming or not, standing alone in the wilderness won’t do you any good. Looking around, you see that your violin case is lying on the ground a few feet away from where you woke up. You open it and let out a sigh of relief when you see that your violin is still there with your bow and rosin cake. While looking through the pockets on your case to find out that everything you kept in them has vanished. Well, not everything. You found the solar powered charger for your phone.
So, unless mistaken, you only have your clothes. Your violin in its case, along with your bow and a rosin cake. Your phone and headphones, which are still over your ears. A solar powered charger for your phone.
'Oh yeah, all this technology will help your dumb ass to survive in the wild.' 'Totally.'
You shake your head and tell yourself it's not the time for inner sarcasm. Good thing you had breakfast before you left though, at least you can go on for a while without starving to death. You better start looking for a road or something. Grabbing your stuff, you start to walk up a nearby hill, maybe the high ground will help you to find a road or a trail, maybe you’ll see a river or even a… ... A... Small... town? Well, that was easy. You begin to make your way towards civilization.
As you get closer to the town you notice something strange. Everything looks like it was made for hobbits. You also can’t see any human being in here... Only small pastel-colored horses. Yeah, you must be dreaming. You don't know where your subconscious took the idea for all this shit, but kudos to it. It really outdone itself.
"What the hell is going on?" You mutter to yourself as you carefully reach the edge of the small village.
A light brown horse suddenly notices you. Its eyes grow wide and it yells something you can’t understand. Wait... Yell? That sounded like he was saying something in a different language. Every equine in town turns towards you in an instant.
"Uh... hello?" You say, confused as all hell.
There is a short silence, followed by utter chaos as every creature seems to run into houses and close the doors shut behind them. Confusion overwhelms you as you just stand still, watching the town flee in terror from you.
"..." "What?" 'Don't ask me. I'm just as lost as you are.'
Nothing makes sense anymore. Why is this town filled with ponies? Why do they live in houses? Were some of them flying? Why were they fleeing from you? ...You know what? Fuck logic. Why don’t you just go ask them? You walk towards the closest home you see and knock at the door.
"Excuse me, could you help me?" "..." "..." "Hello?"
You try out another door, same result.
"I guess there’s no point in trying other doors." You say under your breath.
You go sit on a nearby bench and wait a couple of minutes, hoping that one of the resident would come out eventually. ...Yep, any minute now. You'll soon see one of those equines come out of those little thatched-roofed house walk down this little road and come talk to little ol' you.
...God, this dream sucks. You should be with your friend right now, practicing your violin while he plays the piano. You should be jamming and not stuck in a stupid pastel dream.
...What if it wasn’t a dream? What if that bus got all Magic School Bus on your ass and transported you to a wacky dimension? You knew you should have stayed home today. Well... In the eventuality that all of this is real, and judging by the warm welcome you just had; humans are either inexistent here or they are bloodthirsty monsters. Great.
Since the population is dead set on staying hidden, you decide to leave the town for a little bit. Let them calm down and maybe try a different approach next time. You walk back to the top of the hill, and after climbing up a small boulder, you sit down and try to make yourself comfortable. The landscape around you is breathtaking. Green hills adorns the countryside with delicate curves, clouds are scattered in the sky as far as the eye can see, a light breeze. You put your headphones on and lay down on your back as Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and the gorgeous landscape slowly lulls you to sleep.
Waking up, you notice the air is lacking the subtle aroma of sweat and piss. This means that you are not back in your bus and still stuck in the other world. You reluctantly open your eyes to confirm your suspicion and-
"Wow..."
The already beautiful scenery is now basking in the light of the setting sun while the hills are now casting their vast shadows over the countryside and the clouds are tinted with the warm colors of the sunset. Feeling a inspired by the scene, and not really seeing anything else to do, you open your violin case.
"Time to get some fresh air, buddy."
Your partner doesn't answer, being more of the silent type and only speaking when he needs to. But when you work together, you two make a great duet. Standing on your rock, you feel insignificant compared to the majesty the sunset.You rosin up your bow, tighten its hairs and lift your instrument to your shoulder. After a deep breath, you draw your bow on the strings.
You bow down to an imaginary crowd, who you swear you can almost hear, and sigh, not too sure of what to do now. But, since you feel slightly reinvigorated by your performance, you decide that you could try and approach the strange town again. You turn around and-
"Oh god what fuck?!"
Turns out, you weren’t imagining the crowd after all. A dozen or so pastel ponies are slamming their hooves on the ground around you. You freeze for a few seconds before taking a second timid bow, this time, facing your spectators. The equine Skittles commercial gets closer as you sit down on your rock. Two of them start talking to you. Well, you think they’re talking; it sounds nothing like any language you’ve ever heard. You try to motion them that you can’t understand what the hell they’re saying, without any result. Maybe saying something will shut them up.
"Do I look like I can speak horse?"
Yeah, that worked. Now they’re looking at each other in confusion and muttering lowly. This... didn't help you all that much, all things considered. One of them eventually step forward and asks something. In horse language, of course. You sigh heavily and answer.
"I. Can’t. Understand. You."
You make exaggerated gestures while speaking; tapping your chest, shaking your head in the negative, pointing to your ears, pointing to them. Finally, you think they get it. Now you’re just staring at the ponies in an awkward silence, and vice-versa.
'Yeah, much better Dingus.'
The sky is slowly darkening as the sun sets and the moon rises. Even though you just spent the afternoon sleeping on a rock in the middle of nowhere, you're not sure you want to stay alone in the wilderness for a full night. You point to yourself, make your middle finger and index 'walk' on your hand, motion to the town and... huh... How the hell are you supposed to pantomime a question mark?
No matter, the group of equine is already arguing. Actually, only two of them are. The rest of them are just looking back and forth between the two disputing ponies. On one side, you have a cream-colored pony with a purple and pink mane whose emotions fluctuate between annoyed, worried and slightly angry. On the other, you have a mint green unicorn (the fact that unicorns exist in this world barely surprise you, since you stopped trying to find logic here) with a blueish-grey and white mane that looks completely thrilled. And then there's you, and you don't know what the fuck is going on.
Eventually, the non-vocal group takes a few steps back and one of them say something. A handful of them wave at you before they all start walking back towards the town, leaving you alone with two previously arguing horses. You wave back awkwardly, simply accepting the fact that you just played a violin sonata for a bunch of dream rainbow ponies. After a few more minutes of arguing, the off-white pony lets out an exasperated sigh and the mint flavored unicorn stands on her hind legs and fist pumps a couple of time while cheering.
"...Where the hell did I end up?" 'Hell sounds about right.' Oh shut up, you.
You're currently being pushed around by a light green unicorn and her purple-maned friend, as they give you a tour of their town. Said town is in a world you slipped into while having a transdimensional slumber... or something like that, fuck if you know how you got here. Having a strange day would be the understatement of the century. You’ve already been shown a strange pink and purple building with what looked like a carousel on top of it. It confused you greatly.
Why would these ponies have a carousel? Would the carousel have fake plastic humans for the ponies to ride on? Your puzzled thoughts were interrupted by the mint green guide. She was tugging and pointing at your shirt while spouting nonsense. You smile worriedly and nod as an answer, not really sure what else you could do. She eventually lets go of your clothes, after a few more tugs on your shirt, and starts walking further into town.
Minty HarpButt is now apparently taking you through a plaza and to some tall construction with a bunch of flags on its roof. She’s probably giving you information about what it is, but you're too busy not speaking equine to understand. While she's focused on her explanations, you turn around to face Sweety McCandyFlank. You point at HarpButt with your thumb, touch your ear and then shrug, trying to explain that you can't really understand what the hell the mint pony is blabbering about. She gives an annoyed sigh and walk to the gesticulating unicorn, who was now making crashing sound effects and ramming her forelegs together. You have no idea on how those explosions are related to what looks like a frivolous town hall, and start to question the sanity of your guide. The confection-themed pony tap your exuberant guide on the shoulder and the two of them trade a few words. Afterwards, the green spazz turns back towards you.
"<Oh...>"
A sound of dumbfounded realization if you ever heard one.
Next stop, a gingerbread house. Awesome. There’s also a few stalls randomly spread around, most likely a small marketplace, but the candy construction really caught your attention. You see Minty take a deep breath, sure to resume her endless flow of words. However she quickly slams a hoof against her mouth, preventing words from leaving it. Instead of her incoherent babble, she trots over to the sugary building and beckons you to get closer. Heh. Why not? Once near the unicorn, you follow her pointing hoof to a window and- Cakes! Lots of them! You can't believe that the bakery really IS a gingerbread house. You love this place so much, logic be damned. After having your your drool-stained body pulled away forcefully from the pastry-making pastry house, you are presented with a tree.
'Woohoo.'
Sarcasm aside, the tree is actually pretty interesting. There's a bunch of windows and balconies jutting out from it, a sign that pictures an open book is also planted next to the front door. From the looks of it, it's either a library or a bookstore. You wonder what kind of literature there is in this world. It could be interesting to read about the history of this place. You receive a mental slap, courtesy of your brain. Right. Language barrier.
Speaking of language, you finally notice a conversation going on behind you. Turning to face the discussion, you notice that it involves a lot of pointing at you and at the library alternatively. Their dialogue is interrupted by a loud yawn. Your yawn. How can you be so tired? You just slept through the entire afternoon! Travelling between your world and theirs may have drained you of your energy or something. Science fiction isn't really your forte. Apparently you’re oscitation is contagious, as your two tour guides both let out an adorable yawn. They exchange a few more words and start to lead the way to another part of town.
You're now in what you would describe as the residential district. The fancy and colorful shops give way to a bunch of thatched roof houses, and Candyflank opens the door to one of them. You guess Minty’s going to help you find a place to sleep alone. Wait... Nope, looks like these two are roommates. You’ll have to figure out something yourself. You wave goodbye at the light green unicorn as she enters her domicile. She turns around and raise an eyebrow, and motions you to get inside. Oh. Even better. After bending down to pass the entrance, you immediately notice the interior looks way bigger than expected. Fortunately, you can stand without hitting your head on the ceiling.
THUD.
Nevermind. You drop your things somewhere near the door as Minty starts to guide you towards a bedroom, probably the guest room. She motions to the smallish bed and says a few words. You give her a large smile, happy to receive such hospitality, and she returns it. She turn around and move further in the house as you enter your designated room and close the door. Tired as hell you remove your shirt and throw it on the ground. You don’t bother with blankets and other trivialities, choosing to fall face first on the pillow instead and for the third and final time of this day, you fall asleep.
You wake up, still sprawled out on your stomach. However, something feels different than last night. It could be the large furry thing you can feel lying on your back. Those equines better not be raising giant spiders or you’re taking the first trip in the Nope Train, first stop? Anywhere other than here. You open your eyes and slowly turn your head to see what’s resting on your spine. And by god are you relieved by what you see. It’s Minty, she’s curled up in a ball and lightly snoring... God, that's adorable.
How are you going to get out of bed? Waking her up would be a crime against nature. Maybe you can just... Try something. You slowly slide your hands under her and carefully lift her an inch above your back before quickly slipping your lower body out of bed and gently laying the sleeping unicorn back on the bed. Success! She's probably a heavy sleeper. Now to leave the roo- You instantly notice the hardwood paneling. If they’re as reliable to stay silent as they are back on Earth, you’re fucked. You softly tiptoe your way to the door, picking up your shirt on your way there, managing to not make a single noise, due to some sort of miracle. You glance back to make sure your equine host is still there before opening the door without a noise. Still sleeping. Perfect.
Satisfied with your mostly silent operation, you leave the room. Aaaaand slam your head into the doorway with a loud THUD. Clutching to your face, you fall to the ground.
"Fucking fuck fuckfuck." You quietly exclaim, both in surprise and light pain.
You twist your body around and get on your knees. Still sleeping. Guess she’s a pretty heavy sleeper. As you get back up on your feet, the floorboards let out a soft squeak.
”Rrrnn...” Moans the sleepy Minty.
Damn you floor! I thought we were cool, we could have been friends! But noooo, you had to be a dick. Well fuck you too, hardwood. You stop mentally insulting the floor and freeze in place, trying not to make any more noise. Her ear does the most adorable twitch you ever witnessed and she goes back to her snoring.
"Daaaawwwwww..." Slips out of your mouth.
Looking around, you notice something strange. Now that the room is well-lit with the sunlight coming from a window, you can see that it’s way too... Dishevelled, to be a guest room. A few books scattered here and there. The closet is wide open, revealing a dress of some sort. Is that... sheet music? And a lyre? Wait, didn’t Minty have a lyre on her flan- Oooooohhh! Ohhhh... When she showed you the room yesterday, she probably only showing you around the house. And you just went in and crashed on her bed like an asshole.
'Nice job, dickmunch.'
You wonder why she didn’t wake you up though? Well, in any case, she did manage to get comfortable on your back without waking you, so you guess you’re an even more heavy sleeper than her.
You exit the room, putting your shirt back on and watching your head as you pass the doorway, glaring at it. Fool me once... As you slip your head past the collar of your garment and you meet with the other occupant of the house. The off-white pony is looking at you, her left eyebrow higher than it has any rights to be. She got that morning after roommate look. You know, the one you give to a stranger that you see leaving your roommate's room in the morning. Does she thinks that you and... You roll your eyes. It’s not like you slept with her. Well you kind of did, but you didn’t sleep sleep with her. It’s just a fuzzy cartoon pony that slept on your back, what does she thinks you did? Hell, you're not even sure they even have the-
"Augh..."
You rub the small bump on your forehead, interrupting this line of thoughts. When will this morning end? With a quick movement of her head, the purple maned equine motions you to follow her. You pick up your things, carrying your violin case on your back and your headphones around your neck before the pony starts leading you outside. You hope she’s leading you to breakfast, you’re starving.
Nope, you’re back to the tree-library-bookstore thing you saw yesterday. Candyflank knocks on the door a few times and a female voice can be heard from inside the tree and the sound of footsteps is getting closer. Or rather, hoofsteps. The door swings open with a purple flash. Weird. A purple unicorn is standing inside the hollow tree, her mane is a darker shade of purple with a pink streak in it. There’s also a star on her flank, seriously what’s up with all the ass tattoo in this world? She’s staring at you with an incredulous look. The cream pony at your side steps forward and start to converse with what you assume is the town librarian. The conversation is short and they soon wave each other goodbye. You turn around to follow CandyFlank, but something is holding you by the neck of your shirt. You hear PurpleStar say something behind your back while you are slowly dragged inside. By the tone of it, you could tell she said something along the lines of "Oh no, you dont!"
As you are pulled further into the tree, the door closes with yet another purplish-pink glow. The force that hauled you indoor let go of your shirt. You stand up and look around, trying to see who dragged you in. Damn, that’s a lot of books. There are books surrounding you in bookshelves. Books on the ground all around you in large piles. Books on every surface you can see. Books. Books everywhere. Pretty disorderly for a library. The purple librarian is rummaging through a large pile of books, obviously looking for something in particular.
”Ah-ha!” She exclaims proudly.
She jumps down from the mountain of literature and a book emerges from it, glowing with a familiar purple hue. And now, PurpleStar’s horn is glowing too. Coincidence? You think not. You are clearly in the presence of a pony-wizard. This world is AWESOME!
Nevermind. Pony-wizards are boring. You’ve been sitting still for half an hour, watching the purple unicorn flip through what appears to be an animal encyclopedia. You did try to make her understand you’re probably not in the book. Every attempt made was answered with magic making you sit back down on this small wooden stool. The book is starting to run out of pages for her to read and you can see she’s getting irritated about not figuring out what you are. She flips the last page and then throws the book back in its pile of brethren.
”AUGH!!!” She yells, exasperated.
The sorcerous equine starts to massage her temples with her eyes closed. You shift awkwardly on your stool, hunger making you squirm. If only you could go back to that gingerbread house... You saw cupcakes, muffins, candy, cakes, gingerbread, doughn- Your food related daydreaming is interrupted when PurpleStar slams her han- err, hooves on the desk she was sitting at. She turns her head towards you, her face bearing a ominous grin and a certain spark is lodged in her eyes. You see her blink out of existence and reappear a few feet away, near a bookshelf.
"Yo, what?" You say, surprised and incredulous.
Teleportation? Pony-wizards are back to awesome. After making a few books fly off the shelf, she settles on a large grimoire. Rapidly riffling through the book, she stops about halfway into it and her grin widens. She slowly starts to close the gap separating you and her, her horn glowing with progressive intensity. You don’t like the look she’s got on her face. You stand up an-HOLYSHIT! SHE’S CASTING MAGIC MISSILE!!!
'You fucking dork.'
You shield your face with your arms reflexively and a ray of light passes through your arms and forehead. ...That’s it? Either her magic sucks or she wasn’t attacking you. You’re going to go with the latter. You lower your guard and look quizzically at her and she says something, but her lips are not moving. Your expression changes to a surprised one when you realise the words are echoing through your head. And you still can’t understand a single one of them.
PurpleStar smiles at your change of facial expression and she unleash torrent of words in your head. You don’t know what she thinks happened, but she seems to be tooting her own horn pretty hard. Heh, puns. The storm of words annoying rapidly, though. Her head seems pretty far up her own flank as assume that whatever she did worked. Heh. Flankface.
She suddenly stops talking, a surprised look on her face. It quickly changes to a deadpan expression. Hey! You see a picture form in your mind. Is that your hea- Why did your head just explode? The unicorn smirks at your disconcerted face. Okay, let’s see if you got this straight. Flankface over here tried some telepathic spell or something on you. You don’t know if it was supposed to make you understand each other, but now you can apparently share pictures with your mind. That’s sorta cool. You could have done the same with a pen and some paper, but now you don’t have to actually draw stuff. Which is good, you're not really a good drawer, all things considered.
Looks like she had the same epiphany, you see her sit back down at her desk. A scroll and a quill magically float to said desk. Well, if she prefer to draw you can- Oh. Wait. Mental picture coming in. It’s you and her, standing side by side. A bunch of strange symbols appear under her, it looks like... letters? Probably, yeah. The alphabet is different than anything you've seen before, though. It's.. nice. Really cursive. You notice the unicorn is pointing at herself.
”<Twilight Sparkle.>” She says.
Must be her name, it sounds like... Well, like the writing does, it's inexplicable. You try repeat after her.
“<Twilit Sprkel.>”
God damn, that sounded like a badger trying to claw its way up your throat, as you can't quite reproduce some of the noises she made. Something is forming beneath the image of your person. Are those... question marks? Do they really have the same punctuation as you have? This is going to make things so much easier. You remove the question marks and add your name.
“Anonymous.”
The unicorn repeats your name without any flaw.
”Anonymous.”
...Showoff. While on the subject of names, you should ask Twilight Sparkle- Wow, it still sounds weird, even when you simply think about pronouncing the name. Anyway, you should ask... her, the real names of Minty & Sweety. You replace the pictures of the unicorn and yourself with HarpButt and CandyFlank, putting question marks underneath them. Twilight seems to understand as symbols supersede the interrogative punctuation and Minty’s image grows bigger.
”<Lyra Heartstring.>” She says, in a teacher-like tone. “<Lyra Artsryn.>” You repeat.
Alright, that was a bit better. With some practice, you'll be good enough to actually say words without feeling like your throat is peeling itself inside out. Min- Lyra’s mental representation shrink back down and it’s Sweety’s turn to get larger.
”<Bon Bon.>” “<Bon Bon.>”
That sounded about right, though you definitely had a very thick accent. Maybe you could eventually try to learn to speak this language, if you're to be stuck here forever. ...You noticeably falter at the thought of having to stay in this place forever, but you shake it off. Not the time to think about it right now. You finally notice Twilight's been giving quick glances at your neck for a few minutes now. Is there something on your throat? Nope, only your headphones.
...Oh right! Technology! You chuckle as you remove the headphones from around your neck. This is going to blow her little pony-wizard mind. You don the earpiece to show her how to wear it, then gesture her to try it. The unicorn signature purple glow envelop the headgear as you hand it over to her. She awkwardly puts your headphones on, probably worried about wearing something an alien just gave her. You can't say you blame her, you'd be reluctant too. Anyway, you pull out your phone and look through your music library. She looks like she would enjoy some classic.
Surprise isn’t even close to describe the expression on her face when the music begins. You let the song runs for a minute or two and then retrieve your headphones from the purple unicorn's head with a smug grin. She looks at you, her mouth slightly agape and sputtering. Now that you've got her attention, you really need to ask her about something that's been puzzling since you first met ponies. What's with all the ass tattoo? You imagine a sideview picture of Twilight on the mental sketchpad you two share, and add a circle around her flank. The unicorn looks at her flank. She turns back to you with a flustered face and a light blush. The mind version of Twilight’s rump enlarge and a large question mark is added next to it. What the- Damn self-conscious pony-wizard. You give the unicorn a deadpan look. You don’t care if she thinks she has large haunches, you just want to know more about the mark on them! You circle the purple star on her mind-flank a few times and add some arrows pointing at it for good measure. Her eyes expand lightly as she seem to understand what you meant. She smiles then walks to one of the bookshelves that are carved in the walls before a small book comes floating to your hand.
"Nryei Zlusk : Ofly lui yfit? Interesting title" You mockingly say to yourself, still unable to read the strange calligraphy.
The cover represent a little foal looking at his own flank, a sad expression upon him. God these guys are cute. Twilight motions you to go on, and you start flipping through the first couple of pages. So far, the pictures makes no sense since you can’t read the text associated with them. Ah! There we go, a three panel comic without any words.
Panel one: A small unicorn with a trumpet floating next to her. Panel two: The same unicorn, playing the instrument in front of an applauding crowd. Panel three: A trumpet appears in a bright flash on her flank.
So... the kid was good at playing the trumpet, and a magic trumpet tattoo appeared on her butt? That’s completely insane. But, on the other hand, you’re currently playing Pictionary with a purple unicorn using your minds. Sanity isn’t really your domain of expertise right now.
Twilight wipes the pictures in your minds and shapes start to form in their place, but your stomach interrupts with a loud groan. The unicorn giggles and erases the small draft she started before making your head appear again. Hopefully it won’t blow up this time. A question mark shows up next to your face, along with an arrow pointing to your open mouth. You fail to resist the urge to mess with her. You flash an evil grin as you draw a bunch of ponies in your mind, moving slowly towards your mouth, which is growing sharp fangs. Twilight’s eyes grow as wide as dinner plates and her pupils shrink to pin pricks. You stand up and start to close the gap between the two of you, licking your canines as you do. Your prey squeaks and trips as she tries to get away from you. Unable to keep it in, you let out a hearty guffaw. The look on her face! Priceless!
She’s now looking at you, dumbstruck. You lean in and pat Twilight’s head reassuringly, and the fear is replaced with a glare along with a single word. You don't need to speak her language to figure out it was probably along the lines of ‘Jerk.’ You cross the ponies in your mind with a large X and starts to ponder about what you want to eat. The gingerbread bakery from yesterday immediately springs in your head. Yeah, that will do nicely. You try picture the sugary shop in your thoughts as well as your memory allows it. About halfway through the drawing, your thoughts starts to blur a little and focusing on the picture becomes harder, you also start to feel a little light-headed as a fuzzy feeling invades your mind. The spell must be running out, or it's starting to strain your mind. Twilight smiles brightly as she recognizes the cake-baking building. She stands up and you follow her to the door.
"Oh!" She exclaims as she stops dead in her track.
Her horn starts to glow and a book comes floating your way, another child's book by the looks of it. The cover is a very young pony reading a book, and you hastily leaf through it, eager to leave and go eat something. Most of the pages follow a similar pattern; a single word and a single picture on each of them. You chuckle and ruffle her mane, while keeping a smile on your face. You get it, she basically gave you a dictionary for simple words. Pocketing the small book, you two leave the tree-library.
The fuzzy feeling in your mind is growing into a fierce headache, but at least the gingerbread house is in sight and you can’t wait to sit down and relax. Unfortunately, that'll have to wait, as you are too busy being on your ass and having problems breathing. The last thing you remember is a rainbow freight train flying straight for your chest, and then there was only darkness. Darkness and coccyx pain. You blink away the dark and see that the thing that made your ass feels like a crash dummy was a cyan pegasus with a rainbow colored mane. You stare at each other in an awkward silence while she sits on your stomach, until Twilight yells something at her in an irritated tone. The purple trots closer and looks you over, slightly worried. You wave a hand dismissively, gesturing her that you're fine and stands up, lightly pushing the Skittles pony from over you. As you dust yourself off, the two ponies argue until Twilight sighs exasperatedly and turns to face you.
"<Rainbow Dash.>" She says as she points to your pseudo-assailant. "<Rainbro Dash.>" You repeat.
The cyan pony interjects and says her name slowly, adding exaggerated hooves gesture.
"<Raaaiiin-Booow- Daaaaaash.>"
You roll your eyes at her, as you're not a fan of being treated like a two years old. ...Might as well have a little fun with it.
"<Rainbro Dash.>" You say mockingly.
She sighs, annoyed.
"<Rain!>"
Sweet, she took the bait hook, line and sinker.
"<Rain.>" You repeat after her. "<Bow!>" "<Bro.>" "<Booow!>" She utters as she's gesticulating heavily. "<Broooo.>" You reply, mimicking her with a smirk. "Agghh!" She shouts.
You chuckle while Twilight is trying to cover her giggling from the rainbow maned pegasus, who eventually catches on.
"...Ohhh!" She says with a sly grin.
Rainbow then adds something you can't really understand while pointing a hoof at you, her eyes filled with a lust for vengeance. You have the feeling she'll get back at you really soon. And with that, the pegasus is gone like she came, with a rainbow trail following her. You gotta admit, that's pretty neat. Meanwhile, your purple unicorn guide resumes her walk to the bakery, still giggling and motioning you to follow her, which you do with haste, avid for pastry.
With the ringing of a small bell, you finally enter the gingerbread house with your purple guide. The first thing that you notice, is that the designer of this place clearly had candy on his mind when he built it. You can see candy canes-style red and white stripped columns, the walls are painted with different shades of chocolate and a large cloud of pink cotton candy is behind the service counter. Wait... Is that cotton candy moving?
Upon closer inspection, it appears to do so. It twitches and bobs slightly as you stare at it for a few seconds, until you notice that it's a tail. The owner of the pink poofy appendage raises her head to look over the counter and begins to utter what you assume is a high-pitched greeting. However, she stops halfway through a word when she notices you and lets out a gasp so deep, that you're pretty sure half the air of the entire shop must now be in her lungs. She bolts to your side in a ridiculously fast pink blur, and starts speaking at an even faster pace. She uses the fact that you're stunned by her speed to run around you, inspecting your person. You feel her touching your left shoulder and, by the time it takes you to turn your head, she's already poking around on your right arm.
This continues for about a minute before you grow tired of having her jabbing at you in various places. You manage to grab her by the tail and lift her up to eye-level, before putting a finger to your mouth and shushing. Nope, that didn't work, she's still blabbering at super-human speed. You slowly bring your hand to her muzzle, muffled muttering being the only thing that now leaves her mouth, and twist your head around to look at Twilight with a perplexed expression on your face
"<Pinkie Pie.>" She sighs.
You nod and turn back your head towards the pink ball of energy, before settling her down back on her hooves. You then point at your face and give her your name. While the bubblegum pony paused briefly to look at you with wide eyes while you spoke, she immediately began to speak again, albeit with a much slower pace. It's still twice as fast as any other pony you've heard, but it's not like it matters, since you can't understand anyway. By her tone, you can tell she's most likely asking you a barrage of questions. You can see Twilight's about to interrupt her, but your stomach is the first to object with a loud grumble. Chuckling nervously, you try to calm your belly with a few pats. The unicorn at your side uses the brief moment of silence that was caused by your rumbling stomach to quickly get a word in and talk to the pink poofy pony. The hyperactive pony lets out another comically exaggerated gasp and begins to shove you towards a small table.
Twilight joins you at the table as you try to make yourself comfortable on a miniature wooden stool. The aroma of freshly baked pastries is almost driving you insane as you see Pinkie Pie bouncing away to another room, mumbling. Although, you're pretty sure being in a building that looks like it's made entirely out of sweets isn't helping either. Soon enough, a platter of cupcakes appear on the table in a pink flash. Good thing too, because you were about to go gnaw on the walls. You grab one of the cupcakes, take a bite and- Sweet sugar-soaked Satan on a stick! Just how much sugar did she put in those things?! They're good, but you swear you can feel an aura of pure diabetes emanating from it.
The two ponies in your company each grab a pastry and begin to idly chatter. Unable to participate in the conversation, you just sate your hunger by stuffing yourself with cupcakes. They haven't even yet finished their first that you were already done eating the rest of the platter. Those things are delicious, but not really filling. Pinkie Pie eventually notices your silence and brings a hoof to her chin, pensive. She perks up a few seconds later, squeaking out an exclamation of success as a light bulb appears of her head. Wait... what? You blink and shake your head in disbelief, unsure about if you really saw something of if there was something weird in those cupcakes. During that moment of ponderation, Pinkie Pie had time to rummage behind her back with a hoof, pulling out a few crayons and some paper from seemingly nowhere. Where were those a minute ago? How did she get them? Why does it suddenly feel so natural to see that kind of actions, yet.. Why does it look so.. off?
As you are lost in your thoughts, Twilight jumps off her stool with a look of sudden realisation on her face. She picks up one of the crayon with magic, which makes you realise that you are really way too 'okay' with magic being a thing, and she hastily scribble down some doodles on the paper while blurting out something to the pink pony. Before you can even think about saying something, the unicorn bolts out of the bakery, which leaves with you a deeply confused look on your face. You decide to direct your baffled facial expression towards Pinkie Pie, hoping she would shed a light on Twilight's action. It's only met with a giggle and her pushing the papers towards you before she up and leaves the table to go serve some customers that just entered the gingerbread bakery.
"Right... Let's see what this is all about." You mutter to yourself.
You can see a scroll, a.. crown? Or at least you think that's what it is, and it's settled over the sun. A purple arrow also points the scroll towards the crowned sun. What sort of crazy non-sense is this? Twilight Sparkle just left to do god knows what with a scroll and the sun, and while you were trying to decipher the cryptograms that were presented to you, the line at Pinkie's counter kept getting longer and longer in what you assume to be the morning rush. You're left sitting alone in front of a now empty platter of cupcakes. Maybe you could just leave and go on an exciting ADVENTURE! And by adventure you mean getting more food. Those four cupcakes were delicious, but not very filling and all the sugar was starting to upset your stomach, so you'll be looking for something a little healthier. But first, you need to explain your sudden departure to Pinkie.
Using the wide spectrum of crayons you were offered earlier, you try to draw something to explain the situation, but due to the combination of your meager drawing skills and the ever-growing sugar induced tummy ache, the result is not much more than a bunch of colored squiggles. As you sigh with frustration at your awful doodling, a puff of pink pony hair pops up next to you. You stagger in surprise at the sudden apparition, as Pinkie begins wildly pointing and yelling at your scribbles, apparently trying to guess what they represent. She seems completely absorb by this new task, as she completely ignores the customers waiting in a line at the counter. You decide that this is a good time to eclipse yourself, and stand from your stool before walking towards the exit. Even though she's still shouting and flailing at the drawings, you wave her goodbye and walk out, hoping the the ponies waiting in line are patient, both for her sake and theirs.
Now that you're out of the bakery, you stop to wonder where you could head to next. You guess you could go back to Minty and CandyFlank's- you mean Lyra and Bon Bon's house, but you don't want to impose. Although... You think you forgot your violin back there, so it wouldn't hurt just to pass by to grab it. Yeah, that sounds like a plan. That way, even if you can't find some food later on, at least you'll have something to do to pass time. As you start walking towards your destination, you pull out the book Twilight gave you earlier and leaf through it. Your belly growls lightly as you flip to a page with a big, red, juicy apple on it. Cursing under your breath, you rub your stomach, who's been complaining since you woke up. It's only then that you notice that a yellow pegasus is flying by your side, keeping herself at eye-level with you.
"What's wrong little guy?" She asks softly.
"Heh.. 'Little'." You think to yourself before pointing to the the fruit you had your eyes on in your book.
"Oh? You're hungry for some apples? Well, one of my good friends own the orchard over there, I'm sure she won't mind a little visit." She says, pointing a hoof at the horizon, where you can distinguish a large apple orchard.
"Oh god, yes!" You reply while grabbing the yellow pony, who looked shocked at your voice, in a hug.
As soon as you let go of her, the pegasus squeaks and flies away hurriedly. Guess she's a pretty shy pers- pony. You can't really why you just hugged her, it's not exactly something you usually do, especially not to a stranger. You just felt... comfortable doing it. Wait... Did that pony just spoke to you with... coherent words? ...Naaaah, all that sugar must be getting the best of you. She just saw the apple in the book and then pointed to the orchard. Yeah, that's all that happened.
Anyway, since it's only a small detour to the orchard, you might as well go pick up your violin at Lyra's place on your way there. As you walk towards your destination, you take your time to look around at the town and its colorful population. There really seems to be no limits to the hue their coats can be; blue, green, pink, brown, white, purple, yellow, another blue, gray... You name it, they've got it. It's also somehow easy for you to tell their gender with only a glance, for some reason. Or at least you hope so, otherwise you've been wrong for a while about a lot of them. Oddly enough, there isn't that many of them that look at you like you're different, or even look at you at all. Most of them simply ignore you, going about their daily business like you weren't even there.
As you approach the residence of your mint and cream hosts, you notice the door opening. Oh hey! It's Bon Bon! And she's bringing out your violin case out for you, what a nice gal. How did she know that you were coming to get it? No matter, you wave at her and start to walk faster towards her. She looks up at you and nonchalantly drops the case and re-enters her house, closing the door behind her. ...Well. You guess she must be busy at the moment or something. Maybe she's cleaning the house or something? Anyway, those apples aren't going to eat themselves. You walk the last few feet separating you from your instrument and open the case to make sure it's alright. Fortunately, everything appears to be in order and unharmed. You put on the case, hanging on your back like a backpack, and looks off in the distance towards the apple orchard. Onward!
