And then there was a human in Ponyville
"Eeeeeeeeeeew! It smells so bad," squeaks a girly voice, and you hear something rubbing up upon her nose. "Gross!"
"Look at all those disgusting pops and discolored spots and rubby things on its legs, ugh," calls out another voice. 'Are those claws?"
"Look at it's long, white and yellow nails," murmurs the original voice. You sense these two, small things edging themselves closer over to you. You take a deep breath, feeling as if your head had been encased in fluffy pink cotton candy for hours. You try to nudge yourself in place. Your eyes, stuck shut as if they had glue across your eyelids, seem to pick up two blobs right next to your head
"Oh, look, it's legs are moving!"
"Wow, it's claws are scraping across the dirt!"
"It has to be alive... gosh..."
"Of course it's alive, you dummy!" You feel a stick poking up against your chest. "Look, it's tummy is moving."
You try to reach out and grab the stick, but your limbs aren't quite ready to obey you yet. You open your mouth up wide, head shifting to the side. You wiggle your fingers, feeling the lightly wet grass underneath you. You eyes pop slightly open, a solid wave of blue skies smacking into you.
"Quick! It's getting up!"
"Why did you have to steal its glasses?" As you shift you body to the left, your hands rubbing up along your leg, you hear something metal getting tossed about in the air.
"I have to steal them? You stole them." The girl tossed your glasses back to her companion. "Diamond blasted Tiara, you moron--"
"Don't 'moron' me, you 'brat'!"
"You stole them!"
"You told me to!"
"Did not! It was just a flip suggestion! Not my fault you had to listen to me and make me help you!"
You put your hands to your ears, hardly able to hear any more of this whining. You stagger forwards, trying to cross your legs. You can still hardly see, clouds and shapes just moving about everywhere, and you let out a soft moan as you rub your temples.
"It's getting up... what do we do?" Diamond Tiara, whomever that is, calls out.
"Oh, Celestia, they're so ugly!" the other girl shouts.
You spring forwards. You hear two loud gasps. You blink, shuffling your feet forwards a few inches and feeling them brush up against metal. You lean over, clutching your glasses from beside your toes, and you try to make some smooth breaths. Okay, okay... whatever the hell happened. I'm going to put these on, count to three, and open my eyes again-- and see, dammit.
"One... two... three," you say. You gaze out forwards, and you make a low whistle. Your eyes move up and down these two weird creatures, having bodies almost like tiny horses but with these bright, pastel colors. Along with their huge eyes, locked right against your chest, and fluffy hair, the ponies look more like cartoon characters than anything real.
Yet there they stand, glaring at you with open mouths and looks of terror across your faces-- both the pink one with a silver crown atop her purple and white mane and the dark grey one with her light grey mane rubbing up along her big glasses. You find yourself flashing back to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Space Jam, and a couple other cartoons where humans interacted with dreamy creatures. Oh, God... did someboy spike my coffee with some LSD or something?
I'm not dreaming. You hold out your hand in the air, positioning it right above the two foals' heads. Your eyes bulge as you see that you look rather bright, glowy, and pastel-shaded as well, although your fingers wiggle at your command all the same. You see Diamond Tiara and her friend glare at your hands as you slap one against the other. You flinch at the pain. I'm not dreaming, for sure. You throw your head back.
"What the hell is this!" you scream.
"Run!" Tiara shouts, kicking up a hunk of dirt and grass at your face. You throw your hands up, shifting in place. You see the two ponies dash off along the field around you.
You squint in the distance, seeing a purple blob of something walking besides some picturesque buildings. You can't help thinking of Disneyland, with all the bright colors and cozy spaces everything. The purple blob yells something, and the foals halt in place. You strain to hear, but you decide to just walk over.
The purple thing turns out to be another pony, albeit one that seems more 'pony-sized'. You gaze at her long purple hooves and poofy pink and white striped hair. She smiles and hold out a front hoof as she reaches you. The foals watch with eyes wide open. You sheepishly move your fingers through your hair, wondering if touching her would rip a hole in the space-time continuum or something.
The purple pony raises her hoof even further into the air, curling her head to the side. Her gigantic green eyes look rather pretty, making you feel awkward. She's a freaking horse. You take a gulp, and you put your hand over the hoof. Your fingers nudge up her fur. She feels... warm. Fuzzy. What else would she feel like?
"See, girls?" she says as you shake hoof-in-hand, with you making a totally blank expression, "This is how we're supposed to welcome new extraterrestrial beings into Ponyville."
"But it's so ugly and like, smellsville." The grey pony squishes her nose with her hooves.
"You're touching it?" Tiara looks as if she'll vomit at any moment, mouth opening up besides the ground. "There has to be like thousands of alien germies on that claw. Cheerilee..." She shivers in place.
"Why, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon!" The larger pony lets go of you to shift over and look right at the foals. You suddenly notice a horn sticking out of the pony's head as her mane wiggles. You cough. She's a... freaking... unicorn?
"Sorry, Miss Cheerliee," the foals say in unison.
"Now, this poor thing has to be scared stiff," Cheerliee says, gently patting your backside with her hoof. You say nothing. She's like three and a half or four feet tall, maybe. I could pick her up, probably, if I wasn't so out of shape. But a unicorn? What the hell? Can she do magic? "He's been ejected from his home to our new world. He has to be hungry, tired, and lonely. He's safety is in jeapordy from our world's very nature, if he stays long enough. You both know that."
"Yes, Miss Cheerliee," the foals say in unison once again, Spoon idly kicking the grassy ground.
My "safety is in jeopardy" if I stay too long! What the hell is this! You open your mouth to say something back, but you immediately find Cheerilee hopping over across your body. She seems to just ooze happiness, her head tossing about with her hair wiggling in the air. You have to admit to yourself that she has a wonderful voice, and she looks immeasurably cute. It's okay... I can admit that to myself.
"Now, what do you both need to say?" Cheerilee asks, abruptly rubbing up against your side. You want to squeal with joy, feeling so good at the sudden touch.
"Sorry, human," Tiara mouths. Spoon just nods.
"Now, run along," Cheerilee says, and she waves the foals off. They speed away from you, bicking back and forth amongst themselves. They seem to be heading to some kind of forest slash park over to your left. The unicorn besides you, on the other hand, wants to lead you over to the middle of town. She looks at you, making a sheepish kind of expression.
"Oh, it's fine," you say, "there's mean people everywhere." You take a gulp. "Mean ponies, I mean. Whatever." You still can't get over it. I'm standing next to a horse. A talking horse that smells like a bakery and feels almost like silk. A freaking horse. Horse. You want to slap yourself hard, still trying to be sure you're not dreaming.
"I was a little overly happy at the moment," she says, just as you enter the ponies' little town, "You see..." She blushes. "I had this running bet with Roseluck that I'd be the next pony to find one of you." She giggles. "Well, that's several free dinners for me, then!" She playfully smacks your shoulder with a hoof.
"Great..." you mutter. You want to shrink into mouse size as you walk along the main street. For starters, all the ponies scurry out of the way and give you lots and lots of space in the middle of the path. You see horses of all shapes, colors, and sizes make suspicious noises and bantering before they duck into allies, shut themselves into their buildings, and hide behind things-- from carts to bushes to barrels to even other ponies. You almost want to laugh at a beefy stallion, with a thick red mane, hopping right behind an old brownish-grey mare and quivering like jello.
You don't laugh, though, because you can hardly remember feeling this bad in your entire life. Stop staring at me. Stop staring at me, dammit. Stop it. You ignorant little bastards, seriously. You see a group of foals locking eyes with you. The tallest of the almost matching green bodied and white maned posse reaches up with his front two hooves. He curls one over into a U-shape while shoving the other hoof upwards. Oh, 'up yours', too! You freaking brat!
"Don't take it too hard, dearie," Cheerliee whispers up to you, "They're just mad about Derek."
"Derek?"
"Poor Fluttershy is still trying to recapture those lost rabbits. And about Chad, too. Although, Dinky didn't stay missing for that long. It was clearly an accident as well," she says, tapping a hoof onto her cheek in recollection. "And Steven. Oh, oh... dear Celestia... dealing with Steven..." She awkwardly coughs. "They didn't work out so well."
You scratch you head.
"It's you, ahem," Cheerliee starts to say, a look of reluctance coming over her face as you keep walking, "You 'adolesent humans' as you're known. Right? That's not offensive terminology?" You simply look back blankly. "You tend to have a, shall we say, 'natural talent for disruption and destruction'."
"Oh, you got that right," you murmur, trying not to make a huge groan.
"But that's until Twilight and the Princess figured out that some of you have needs, and have to be fix--" Cheerilee began, abruptly stopping herself. "I mean, that's until Twilight and the Princess handeled things."
Fixed? FIXED? What the hell does that mean? You find yourself suddenly stopping, coming upon an enormous white scaffolding. You lean up to the side, scratching your chin. Cheerliee just looks up at you, a look of something like resignation combined with caring mixed into her expression. She steps over to the side, accidentally knocking a tall metal railing.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" calls out a voice from several feet above. You glance up and see another odd creature, something like a dog-sized purple lizard, shifting in place. You see the creature almost slipping, gripping a tall metal pole. "Hey, wait!"
"Oh, gosh, what is it already!" shouts another voice, this one sounding young and feminine. You look up and see another unicorn suddenly walking up besides the lizard thing. "Spike, I-- oh, hey, Cheerliee!" The unicorn's wave at each other. A thick purple aura appears over the unicorn and her lizard, and they disappear.
They pop up right behind you, causing you to leap up in the air. You get back up, blushing. Spike dusts himself off. The other unicorn, with a lighter purple body but a longer, sleeker, and darker mane, walks right up to you, just inches away form your body. You get a good look at her, eyes taking in her beautiful colors and pretty features.
"Uh, hi," you mutter. You start to dislike the unicorn's stares as she walks around you. You feel her hooves rubbing up along your back for a moment. She suddenly hops to the side and inspects your bare feet. What the hell?
"Twilight, let's get inside," Cheerliee says. The other mare simply nods, and they lead you over behind the scaffolding to a side door. You find yourself going through a blank corridor and then popping out into a massive library. Bookshelves with all kinds of books new and old stretch out around you.
"Well," Twilight says, standing in the middle of the floor. She points over at Spike. You eye the lizard thing, looking a lot like a dragon with its scaly purple skin and floppy tail, as he sighs. He scurries away and immediately re-appears, carrying a scroll, pen, and a long black electronic device-- resembling a remote control loaded with buttons and knobs attached to a miniature tennis racket. Twilight steps over in front of you. You meet eye to eye. "Welcome to Equestria."
"It's an interesting place," you respond. You want answers, but you don't even know where to begin.
"Let's get started with your own personal, private list!" Twilight calls out, her face suddenly lighting up with that final word.
Oh, nerd alert! You hear the small dragon walking behind you, moving a pile of marshmellow-like pillows over. You flop backwards into it, letting out a relived sigh. "Sure."
"Before we do anything else, let's run through the standard procedural issues," Twilight comments.
You nod.
"Are you carrying any weapons?"
You shake your head no.
"Any substances other than food or drink that has mind or body altering qualities?"
"You mean 'drugs'?"
"Yes. Do you have any-- prescription, homemade, given from friends?" Her condescending tone and wiggling pen in the air for emphasis seems both annoying and adorable.
"No drugs."
"Are you carrying any food or drink substances with you?"
"Nope."
"Do you have a history, documented or undocumented, of mental illness?"
"Uhhh..." You see Twilight's eyes flash, and she stands up in place. Dammit! The longer I hesitate, the worse I look! "Depression, something I've kind of struggled with... sometimes sucidial thoughts."
"And then..."
"No medication for it. I've never had it really diagnosed. But, hey, don't we all feel blue, oftentimes?"
Twilight looks back blankly. You take a breath, and you watch as she scribbles rapidly upon the scroll. You see her going on and on, writing through paragraph after paragraph. You blanch. Why the hell is she writing so much? The scroll itself seems to magically extend itself longer and longer.
"Ahem!"
She stops. Her eyes move up along your body from head to toe. She finishes a quick paragraph, and she sits back down. "Yes, I should go on with the rest of your screening."
"Screening?" You tap your hands along the floor, nervously.
"Have you," Twilight begins, coughing for a moment. She gestures at Spike to bring a drink. She looks at you, and she motions for it to be two drinks. "Excuse me. Now: do you have a criminal record?"
"No."
"Any civil record of wrongdoing?"
"Civil... you mean like, parking and speeding tickets or something?"
She nods.
"Uhhhhhh... maybe a lot of them. I seem to get one every few months or so." Twilight glares at you, her purple eyes bearing into you like nails into a board. "I guess I'm not a very good driver." You mentally kick yourself, and Twilight starts another endless barrage of writing. "Look!"
She halts.
"I'm getting tired of this. I'm not here to freaking blow up Equestria or anything. Seriously." You stand up, turning around in place with your arms out. "See, nothing here on me."
"It's just your check-list, silly," Twilight says, putting on a sugary feminine tone to her voice. "We have to run through things, step by step, until every last form for admitting your into Equestria is complete. Then, your visa application process starts for real."
"Fine." You sit back down, sighing.
"Now, next question." Twilight magically picks up an orange juice from Spike. You finger the other glass. The dragon looks like he can't bear to be listening to this conversation. You drink up the juice; it tastes somehow magical, with a frizzy yet chill sensation going down your throat. "Do you have any problems with accidental urination?"
You try not to spit out the juice, the glass dropping out of your hand into the pillows.
"I'll take that as a 'no'?"
"Where the hell do you get these questions from?" You shift in place. "When are you going to help me?"
"It's just protocol, as agreed by the smartest minds of the Canterlot Biological Society-- CBS-- and particularly their Unusual Animal Psychology-- UAP-- division, I'll have you know," Twilight replies, feeling a bit vindictive. "We have to treat you in accordance with a reasonable, even-hoofed set of guidelines that protect social cohesion."
"Okay, okay," you mutter, "just go on." You bury your head in your hands.
"Are you willing to consent to a strip-search?"
You look up, seeing Twilight stretching a white rubber glove over her right hoof.
"Dammit," you holler, standing up straight and throwing your shoulders back. Twilight takes another sip of her juice, saying nothing. "I don't care what the goddamn CBS and UAP say--"
"They're pronounced," Twilight interjects, her hoof waving in the air for emphasis, "CBS as in 'see-biss' and UAP as in 'you-ehpp'." She sticks out her lips and opens her mouth up wide. "Here, see how I use my tounge with the syllables."
"You know," you comment, gritting your teeth, "you haven't even asked me for my damn name yet."
Twilight flips through her scroll. "Well, if you insist, we can skip to subsection two, paragraph three-dash-a," she says, "and finish up that other part later."
You nod, hands rubbing up against your cheeks.
"First of all, what's your full name as well as the security identification number that you've been assigned in your country of origin?" She pulls out the pen, both it and the scroll magically hovering in the air. "We need these for tracking purposes."
"That's rather... uh... private..." you reply. Although, it's not like I'll have my credit card number stolen by ponies. You shrug. Or maybe I would? "Can I write it myself rather than say it out loud?" That won't make much difference, though, stupid!
"You can't see this!" Twilight says, pulling the scroll back and holding it up against her chest.
"Oh, come on, seriously," you reply, stepping forwards. She steps to the side. You hold your hands out, not wanting to be so rude to rip the scroll out of her magical grip but still feeling frustrated. "What's the big flipping secrecy for, anyways?"
She shakes her head, making you feel even angrier. "Spike, I think he might--"
"Might what? Seriously!" You stand right over Twilight, feeling exasperated.
"Spike!" Twilight yells, "he needs to be fixed!"
You start to holler something back, but you immediately feel a thick purple aura going around your body. You freeze, eyes closing. You hear Twilight whispering to her little dragon friend. You thrust your hands forward. Your eyes grow wide with surprise as you see yourself throwing the magical waves off of you. You feel like Superman with bullets ricocheting right off of your chest.
You hear a grunt, and you look down to your side. You see Spike standing right besides you with Twilight nowhere to be found. The dragon makes a resigned expression, holding the odd jet black device in his paws. "Look, mister," he mutters, "All she wants to do now is have you scan your legs with this e-meter. And that's it." You take a breath. "And then, I'll leave to get more drinks. She'll talk to Cheerilee about you, and she'll talk with you and you briefly. The end, for now."
Feeling like you can trust Spike, from his adorable droopy ears to his cute voice and everything in between, you stand still with your legs spread out. The dragon wands you up and down as well as side to side, the machine beeping constantly
"Maybe I've got a little iron in my blood. I had some of that 'Total' brand cereal this evening," you mutter. Spike just flicks a paw dismissively. The dragon finishes, tapping you on the ankle. "Uh, thanks. I guess..."
"What's his sra-value?" calls out Twilight from outside.
"One thousand, two hundred and, uh--" Spike looks back at the device's little screen for a second. "fifty-seven."
In a purple flash, Twilight teleports right back into the middle of the library, with Cheerilee in toto. She wiggles her head, slumping down onto the floor. She seems to hardly believe what she had just heard. "One bucking thousand and two bucking hundred!"
"And fify-seven," you comment. I'm have got to end this stupidity once and for all. You see Spike running out of the library into the kitchen and coming right back again with a tray filled with a dozen drinks.
Twilight takes a huge breath, her cheeks flashing such weird colors. "Spike, quick, fetch me the list of voluntary veterinarians for sra-fix--" Spike appears at Twilight's side with another scroll. "Thanks." Twilight's eyes feast on the scroll. She reaches the end, and she gasps.
Cheerliee steps over besides Twilight, rubbing the unicorn on the shoulder. "Twilight, sweetheart, is there someth--"
"There's nopony here that hasn't already fixed two humans, let alone just one!" Twilight tosses the scroll right over to the other mare. Cheerilee looks it over for a moment, and she shakes her head in confusion.
"So," you interject, scratching your head, "I'm more than a little tired of this idle talking."
"Stupid humans, they drive me to drink," Twilight says as she steps over to the edge of the library, magically lifting over another orange juice.
"Hey!" you holler.
"Twilight, why can't Rarity or one of these other mares," Cheerilee begins to ask, running up over besides Twilight.
"No, no, no!" Twilight almost breaks the glass as she makes it fly straight up and spin a little circle around her head. "The UAP clearly and specifically decreed it-- two humans per every six months, maximum. And even that maximum was, in their words-- not mine, 'pushing the limits.' Don't you get it?"
"Helloooooooo," you say, "I'm right hereeeeeeee..." You point at your head with both arms.
"Just get somepony else as a vetrenarian!" Cheerilee says, looking back at you but still talking to Twilight.
"Who wou--"
*Crash!*
An array of white canvas, metal poles, wooden beams, and whatnot collapses down into the side of the library. Dust shoots over everything. You hear everyone coughing, waving the air. A soft squeak appears inside of a hunk of canvas. You walk over and pull it upwards. Twilight mutters something, and a magical aura oozes out into the air, cleaning things up inch by inch.
You find yourself gazing at the cutest pony you've seen. Her incredibly long, flowing mane, with such pretty blue and white stripes going through it, stretches along her smooth, sender body. You hold your hands out, and she puts her hooves into them as you lift her up. She steps over the ruined scaffolding onto the bare floor. You take in her beautiful sky blue body before focusing on her amazing features, cheeks so adorable that you just want to rub them at that very moment. You could stare into those angelic dark blue eyes for hours.
"Hello, everypony," the mare says, her own unicorn horn lighting up. You see her shifting some of the debris back outside, with Twilight doing the same. "I, uh, was just checking out that one new book. You know, The New Densitry: What 'They' Don't Want You to Know by Huck Jivester. I totally wasn't spying on you girls." The two other mares walk over. "Honest."
"Colgate... you're perfect..." Twilight mouths. You say nothing, simply glancing at the blue and white maned unicorn besides you. Twilight grins, leaning up and poising almost like a tigress in front of you and Colgate.
"Perfect?" you and Colgate both reply. You lean up against the bookcase behind you, not liking Twilight's 'cracked' sort of expression with her mane getting tangled and her eyes almost pulsing.
"Spike, if you please, inter the human until he's really to be fixed," Twilight says, waving Colgate to come closer. Cheerilee looks at the scene, sighs, and she steps out of the library.
"Internment? Are you freaking kidding me? You're kidding me," you say as you feel Spike tugging against you leg, leading you over to another corridor. "Interment without trial? Where's the horse version of the ACLU? Where are the pony bleeding heart liberals with their... their..." You trial off as you follow Spike's directions all the same, going through the grey passageway to set of doors.
"Look," he says, opening up the right-side door, "she does this to make herself feel important, okay? You're staying in the newly built guest room A for a matter of, say, less than five minutes." He points over behind him. "And then you're going to guest room B afterwards to be fixed. Just relax."
Fixed? Damn you, I don't care! I don't wanna be fixed! I don't care about your stupid pony world! You prepare to shout a long, passionate rant at Spike, but you stop. You know that you can't well fight off a whole town of weird magical beings, even if you're at least partly resistant to their powers. They still almost crushed you with scaffolding, albeit accidentally. You take a deep breath before you nod.
Spike nods back, and he shuts the door. You glance around at your plain room. Other than the lack of a window, it looks better than the average apartment back at your college. The light, creamy brown walls have a few abstract black and white paintings on them. Your eyes move from the dark brown dressers with matching small tables to the tall walk-in shower and back over to the door where you came in from.
You shimmy backwards to the big white bed, and you collapse onto it. You glance up at the blank ceiling. You sigh.
To Be Continued...