> The Platonic Pony Petting Café
>  by FrontSevens
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“…And that’s how the portal teleported us here to your world!” Twilight said, sitting tall in her chair.
 
Calvin massaged his temples and blinked, resting his elbows on the table. “Interesting,” he said. “I have to say, you really know your science. I think.”
 
The two sat next to each other at a small, round table with rustic wooden chairs. Their table was roped off from the rest of the café, which was packed with people standing in line. The lines snaked around their table and out of the café, stretching out down the sidewalk and around the block.
 
“Thanks!” Twilight beamed. “I’ve probably told that story a hundred times today. Everypony—sorry, everybody—always seems curious to know. And, plus, you know, I love talking about it.” She held up her paper cup of tea and took a sip, then scooted forward on her chair. “So? Any questions? I’d be happy to elaborate on the time rift or how the portal’s circuitry works and my current hypothesis on why it overloaded—”
 
“I’m good, but thank you,” Calvin said, straightening out the sleeves on his t-shirt. “So… the first thing you did when you teleported to Earth was open up this café?”
 
“Well, no, not the first thing,” Twilight said. “But we got stuck here once the portal broke down, and I was just fascinated by you humans, and I really wanted to study them, so Rarity said, ‘Let’s open up a café to talk with the humans’, and a café seemed like the perfect, comfortable setting to get to know humans instead of being swarmed on the street, and the café here was eager for the business, and—”
 
“And the petting part?”
 
Twilight blushed. “Well, ah, with the first human friends we made, one of them asked politely, and it’s just… it felt so good! And we all got to try it, and we thought, well, that’s how we could get humans to come to the cafe, because humans like petting animals, right?” Twilight lifted her iPad with her magic. “I’ve researched this—you have zoos just for petting. So, I thought, a café isn’t a stretch.”
 
Calvin picked up his plastic water bottle and took a sip. “Yeah, just like a petting zoo, except now with coffee.” He tipped the water bottle at Twilight. “And, you know, ponies that can talk.”
 
“Yes, that’s new for you humans. And you humans are new for us.” She took a sip of tea and ran a hoof through her mane. “So, um…” Twilight straightened up and held her hooves out in front of her politely, glancing up at Calvin. She twiddled her hooves. “You can start petting me anytime. Y’know, for research.”
 
“Oh, right, yeah,” Calvin said, scooting forward on his chair. “For research.” He reached out after a moment’s hesitation and stroked the fur on Twilight’s shoulder.
 
Twilight’s wings relaxed and splayed out as her mouth curled upward in a grin. “Oof. That’s good, yeah.” She cleared her throat. “Under the chin, please? You know, to see if there’s a different effect. Scientific method and all that.”
 
“Okay, sure,” Calvin said, moving from the shoulder to the chin. He smiled. “Wow, you ponies have really soft fur. This is kind of relaxing.”
 
Twilight practically melted at the human hand stroking her on the neck. “Thank you, ahh. Human hands… so soft…”
 

~ ~ ~

 
“…And then I said, ‘And then I said, “Oatmeal, are you crazy?” ’ ”
 
Trisha almost snorted water out her nose. “Pff, no way! Pinkie, you’re a riot!”
 
“I’m more of a rumpus than a riot, but thank you,” Pinkie said, taking a sip of her orange pop through a curly straw. She pointed to her ear. “And hey, keep the pets coming! This ear ain’t gonna scratch behind itself.”
 
“Sure Pinkie, whatever you say,” Trisha said, doing as instructed. “How’s that?”
 
“Mmm, yeah, that hits the spot,” Pinkie said, her hind leg twitching as she sighed. “Lemme tell ya, Rarity’s idea to open up a place called The Platonic Pony Petting Café was the best idea ever.”
 
Trisha squinted. She pulled her hand back, and with it, a quarter. Trisha turned it over in her hand. “Where did this come from?”
 
Pinkie squealed. “Ooooh! I love it when ponies play the ‘pulling a quarter out from behind your ear’ trick. It’s so fun!” Pinkie rested her chin on a hoof and watched Trisha intently. “How do you do it?”
 
Trisha shrugged. “I have no idea. This was already behind your ear.”
 
Pinkie giggled. “Okay, okay, I get it, it’s magic and stuff. But this has happened at least three times today and none of you humans have real magic. So tell me, how’d you do it?” Pinkie leaned forward. “Did you get Twilight to teleport a quarter into your hand? She did that trick once for my birthday. It was amazing! Twilight doing magic tricks? Who knew!”
 
Trisha hid a laugh behind her hand. “Oh my God, you actually think I did it. This is adorable.” Trisha set the quarter down on the table. “No, look, I’ll do it again. There’s—wait, huh?” Trisha furrowed her eyebrows as she pulled out another quarter.
 
Pinkie clapped her hooves. “Wow! Do it again!”
 
Trisha reached behind Pinkie’s ear again, pulling out yet another quarter. “What on Earth…” she said as she pulled out another quarter, then another, then another. “This is insane. How’re you doing this?”
 
Pinkie stared in awe at the small pile of quarters on the table. “How’re you doing this?”
 

~ ~ ~

 
“…And that’s how I broke three academy records all in one day!” Rainbow Dash said. She sighed as Gavin ran his fingers through her mane. “Yeah, get in there. That’s the stuff.” She took a hoofful of hay from the hay bale next to her and munched, leaning back in her chair. “Man, this all-you-can-eat hay thing is a pretty sweet deal. This is the life.”
 
Gavin rested his chin on his hand, stroking Rainbow’s mane with his other hand. “Uh huh.”
 
“So? How was that?” Rainbow puffed up her chest. “Worth the wait?”
 
Gavin took the opportunity to scratch her fluffy chest. He glanced over his shoulder. “Well, honestly, I was hoping to pet Fluttershy, but the line for her is like six hours.”
 
Rainbow glanced at Fluttershy’s table across the room. The human sitting at her table not only petted her, but she petted the human back. The people standing in line around their table were watching and suspended in a blissful trance. Anyone who simply looked at Fluttershy had their hand clutching their chest at the adorable sight and a tear in their eye when she spoke in her soft, sweet voice. Never before had a pony captured so many hearts and given nopony any reason whatsoever to be jealous.
 
Rainbow sat back and folded her arms. “I don’t get why she’s so popular. I mean, no offense to ‘Shy, she’s great I guess, but what about me? Why wouldn’t you want to wait in line for me instead?” Rainbow pouted. “Don’t you want to hear all about my amazing accomplishments? My death-defying feats? All for free? I’ve been talking about nothing but myself all day!”
 
“Yeah, no wonder,” Gavin muttered. He looked up from his phone. “I mean yeah, I wonder. Why your line is the shortest.”
 
“It’s the fastest line,” Rainbow Dash said, whapping Gavin’s hand away and scowling. “Shortest means fastest. And I’m the fastest in Equestria.”
 
Gavin glanced down at his phone. He pulled up the camera app, hesitating before saying, “Technically, you’re not. The line for coffee here is faster. It’s, like, five minutes.”
 
“That doesn’t count!” Rainbow said, her face turning red. She squinted. “Hey, did you just take a picture of me?”
 
Gavin froze. “Well, it’s, uh…” He hid the phone under the table. “It’s just a Twitter thing, you know. Just wanted to show how awesome you are to my friends.”
 
“Give it here,” Rainbow Dash said, frowning deeply.
 
Gavin’s thumbs tapped furiously on the phone’s keyboard. “Give what where?”
 
With the fastest hoof in Equestria, Rainbow snatched the phone from Gavin’s hand and leered at it. She turned the screen to Gavin, pointing to a photo of herself, which was accompanied by the caption ‘#angrydash is even cuter in person’. “What is this?” Rainbow said, her eyebrow twitching.
 
Gavin squirmed in his chair. “Look, I was sharing a picture with just my friends, you know, because you’re so awesome and all that—”
 
“Just your friends? I know what Twitter is. I’m not stupid. What’s this hashtag for? ‘#angrydash’? This sounds like a thing.” She shoved the phone in Gavin’s face, her voice escalating. “Why is this a thing? Who made this a thing? Was it you?”
 
Gavin shrank back, reaching up for his phone, only for Rainbow to yank it away again. “Well, you know, some people, not me, have noticed that, well…” Gavin looked down at his shoes, almost whispering. “You’re kinda cute when you’re angry.”
 
Rainbow turned the cutest shade of angry she’d ever been before.
 
Gavin scooted his chair back an inch. Then a foot. “Look, it’s, um, it’s not that popular of a hashtag, it’s just a small—”
 
“ ‘not that popular’?” Livid, she held up another picture of herself to Gavin, captioned ‘That’s her secret, Cap. She’s always adorable. #angrydash’. Both of Rainbow’s eyebrows were twitching now. “This is trending!”
 
Gavin hid behind his chair. “But that means you’re popular! Didn’t you want to be popular?”
 
Rainbow stopped herself from throwing the phone at Gavin and reconsidered. She looked down at the screen and scrolled down, at all the pictures of her with likes, retweets, little heart emojis… Her muzzle scrunched and she pouted. “I guess it means I’m popular, yeah. I just wish it wasn’t for this.”
 
Gavin crawled up back onto his chair, and chose his words carefully. “Being cute is what got Fluttershy popular, so… maybe this is the way to do it?”
 
Rainbow grumbled, scrolling some more on the phone, then slid the phone across the table back to Gavin. “Fine, take a picture.” She crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “But be quick about it so we can get back to the petting.”
 
Gavin picked up the phone and switched to the camera app. “Yes, ma’am.”
 

~ ~ ~

 
“And you’ve been working on that ranch for how many years?” Applejack said.
 
“Fifty. Ever since I was old enough to ride.” Suzanne grinned as she ran her fingers behind Applejack’s ear. She pushed up her horned rim glasses. “Not to toot my own horn, but our family knows how to treat a horse.”
 
“Gadzooks, I can tell,” Applejack said, rolling her shoulders back. “You sure seem to know all the sweet spots.”
 
“And speaking of sweet,” Suzanne said, pulling a sugar cube out of her plain brown purse.
 
Applejack’s eyes went wide. “Is… is that…”
 
“For you,” Suzanne said, holding it out to her.
 
Applejack dipped down and nibbled on the sugar cube. Her ears folded back as she chewed. “Oh my stars… how’d you know?”
 
Suzanne winked. “Like I said, we know how to treat a horse.” She zipped her purse closed and resumed stroking Applejack behind her ear. “You said you grew up on a ranch, too. What kind of ranch?”
 
“Well, more a farm than a ranch, I s’pose,” Applejack said. “We grew apples, not horses. Well, both, if you count ourselves.”
 
Suzanne chuckled. She moved her hand down from the ear to the mane. “When do you go back home?”
 
“Well, uh, I’m not so sure. We’re kinda stuck here for the time being until Twilight can fix our portal back.” Applejack took a swig of apple juice, her ear twitching as Suzanne stroked her mane. “But I can’t say I mind it in the meantime.”
 
“Oh, yes, I can see that,” Suzanne said. “I can’t imagine how exhausting it must be for you here.”
 
Applejack nodded. “You know it. It’s hard work bein’ pampered all day.”
 
Suzanne smiled as she stroked Applejack’s neck. “Is this the real reason why you opened up a café?”
 
Applejack leaned forward, smirking. “If you ask me, yeah, we’re all in it for the pettin’. But, it depends who you ask. Twilight was in it for the research, o’ course. Rarity wanted to learn about human problems and chitchat and whatnot. Fluttershy was mighty curious about this newfangled ‘human’ animal. Which, I guess we all were in one way or another.”
 
Suzanne tilted her head, her long blue earrings swaying and jingling lightly. “And how about yourself?”
 
Applejack winked. “Why, I was just waitin’ for you!”
 
Suzanne laughed. “Oh, dear, you’re too much, Applejack.”
 
Applejack frowned as the clock on their table flashed ‘5:00’. “Well shoot, Suzanne, time’s up, but it was mighty nice to meet you.” She smiled and stuck out her hoof.
 
Suzanne shook Applejack’s hoof. “You too, Applejack. You’re a sweetheart.”
 
“Make sure to give Spike over there a scritch or two on your way out,” Applejack said. She pointed to the young dragon laid back in a small plush chair and sipping diamond water. “He works hard on security duty.”
 
Suzanne smiled. “Sure thing. Take care, now.”
> Rarity and Fluttershy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“And then what did she say?” Rarity said, sipping her coffee.
 
“She said it was just an emergency study sesh,” Marsha said, pulling up the strap on her purse. “But then I saw her in class the next day, and I saw her wave at Bryan, and he waved back!” She shook her head, typing on her phone. “Something’s going on, I just know it.”
 
“Well, I suppose I should warn you not to do anything rash,” Rarity said, wrapping both her hooves around her coffee cup. “I, ahem, have something of a history of acting quite irrationally over boys.”
 
“I checked his phone and went through all his messages.”
 
“See, that’s a little much.” Rarity pursed her lips. “And, now that I think about, something I would do. So don’t do that.”
 
Marsha shrugged. “I had to do something.”
 
“Perhaps try talking to him about it? And try not to be accusatory. Try to emphasize that you’ll both feel better about it if it’s out in the open. Make him feel like confessing will be a relief, which it will, in a way,” Rarity said. “If he’s been more emotionally distant lately, or spending less time with you, he may simply not be interested anymore—”
 
“Oh my God, guess how many likes our picture just got.”
 
“Speaking of losing interest…” Rarity muttered. Her voice rose to a normal volume as she smiled. “How many, um, likes?”
 
“Too many,” Marsha said, turning her phone to Rarity. Underneath the picture of the two of them was a heart symbol and the number 138. “I never get that many. Must be the Hefe filter. Defs using that again.”  She took the phone back and swiped her finger a few times. “Do you have an Instagram? I’ll follow you if you follow me.”
 
Rarity shook her head. “No, but I might get one. I keep hearing all about this ‘social media’. From the sound of it, I think it’d be a great way to attract interest for my business.”
 
Marsha typed away on her phone. “You mean the café?”
 
“No, we don’t actually own this establishment. We simply came here one day and sat down at the tables here. Business picked up and the owners said they were happy to have us. They even set up the ropes to help manage the lines.” Rarity looked out the window at the queue of people still overflowing out the door and down the sidewalk. “When I said business, I meant my business. I hope to open a boutique here in your world.”
 
Marsha’s eyebrows furrowed. “You’re opening a boutique? I thought you ponies were leaving after your portal thing was fixed or whatever.”
 
“Well, we were thinking that when the portal is fixed, we’ll probably come back. The café is so popular, after all.” Rarity took a sip of coffee. “Did you know the number of crimes in this area have dropped since we came here?”
 
“Huh,” Marsha said. “No, I didn’t.”
 
“Well, they have, and we think it has something to do with this café of ours. Besides, we’ve had such positive reception in general. And I thought, while we’re here, I might as well open a boutique. Humans almost exclusively wear clothes, after all. It’s a much broader market here, and I’ve already got a foot in the door with publicity.”
 
“Mmm,” Marsha said, still focused on her phone.
 
Rarity tossed her mane. “You’re free to start petting me anytime, you know.”
 
Marsha looked up. She stared at Rarity’s back. “You sure? I mean, is that okay?”
 
“It’s more than okay, dear. It’s called The Platonic Petting Café for a reason.” Rarity flipped her mane, tilting her head to the side to showcase her neck. “As long as you signed the waiver, you’re free to pet me. But! Do watch the mane, dear. It takes a half an hour to do up this mane.”
 
“Oh, yeah, I totally understand.” Marsha put her phone down and looked over Rarity, only briefly glancing at Rarity’s eyes. She set her hand gingerly on Rarity’s neck, petting with barely any pressure. She withdrew her hand, though, when Rarity turned her head to look.
 
“Is something wrong?” Rarity said.
 
Marsha rested her hand on the table. “It’s just that I’ve never pet an animal that could talk. It feels weird.”
 
Rarity smiled and rolled her shoulders. “Just pretend it’s normal. It’s normal to me, now, after all. I’ve been pet by talking animals all day long.”
 
Marsha tried again, pressing her hand against Rarity’s soft fur and petting her. She shook her head. “God, you’re way too soft. It’s like petting a marshmallow.”
 
Rarity blushed. “I, um, yes. Not the first time I’ve heard that today.”
 
Marsha lifted her hand. “Is that offensive?”
 
“No, it’s not like that,” Rarity said. Her forehead crinkled in a grimace. “It’s, um, what my parents used to call me when I was a filly. Their ‘little marshmallow’. Just a tad embarrassing, I suppose.”
 
“Ha,” Marsha said, before covering her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you, it’s just…” She bit her lip, looking around the café at the crowd of people waiting in line before saying, “My parents called me that, too.”
 
“Really? No.”
 
“Uh huh,” Marsha said, faintly blushing as well. “I was Marsha-mallow.”
 
Rarity let out a snicker. “I’m dreadfully sorry, but you have to admit, that’s clever wordplay. If cheesy.”
 
Marsha shrugged. “Yeah, yeah. Just don’t tell anyone else.”
 
Rarity ran a hoof across her mouth, sealing her lips. “Your secret is safe with me. But while we’re here…” She stuck out her hoof. “Pleased to meet you, fellow marshmallow.”
 
Marsha couldn’t help but grin. She shook Rarity’s hoof. “You too.”
 

~ ~ ~

 
“Hello, Ms. Human!” Fluttershy covered her mouth and blushed. “I’m so sorry, bad habit. What are your names?”
 
“I’m Karen,” Karen said, propping up the child in her arms. “And this is Adeline. Say hi, Adeline!”
 
Adeline held a finger up to her mouth and stared at Fluttershy, apparently forgetting to wave until Karen lifted her arm.
 
“Hello, Adeline,” Fluttershy waved back, speaking slowly and softly. “Such a wonderful name. How old are you?”
 
Adeline seemed to miss the question entirely, until her mother helped her out. “How old are you, Adeline?” Karen said, propping up one of the girl’s fingers. “One year old.”
 
“Wuh,” Adeline confirmed.
 
“She’s a little star-struck, I think,” Karen said, taking a seat at the table. “You’re her favourite pony. She babbles on and on about you all the time at home.”
 
“Oh, I’m flattered,” Fluttershy said. She pointed to Adeline’s purple shirt, which was adorned with many colourful butterflies. “I like your shirt. It’s got butterflies like my cutie mark. See?” Fluttershy turned to show her flank.
 
Adeline stared at the flank, and if her mind was busy considering the similarities between her shirt and Fluttershy’s cutie mark and drawing parallels between the two, it certainly wasn’t showing. She tugged at the collar of her shirt.
 
Fluttershy smiled at Karen. “She’s such a sweetheart. Would it be all right if she sat next to me?”
 
“I’m sure she’d love that,” Karen said, lifting Adeline and setting her down next to Fluttershy’s leg. Adeline looked up at Fluttershy, picking at her shirt.
 
Fluttershy wrapped an arm around Adeline. “There we go. Aren’t you the cutest little human baby girl?”
 
Adeline neither confirmed nor denied the claim. Instead, she inspected the soft yellow arm around her and experimentally placed her hand on the fur.
 
“Yes, very good. Feel how soft that is.” Fluttershy said, watching Adeline spread her fingers out on her fur.
 
Karen laughed nervously, studying Fluttershy and shaking her head. “I just never thought you’d be real, y’know.”
 
“What do you mean by that?” Fluttershy said.
 
Karen twiddled her hair with her fingers. “Well, um, there’s this show on TV that stars you and your friends. It was—well, I thought it was a cartoon. Adeline watches it all the time. I don’t think she knows what you all are doing or talking about, but it keeps her quiet.” Karen shrugged. “I thought you knew about it? Somehow?”
 
“A TV show?” Fluttershy said. “About us?”
 
Karen nodded. “Yes. About you and your five friends.”
 
Fluttershy furrowed her eyebrows. “Is it a documentary? I’ve seen some animal documentaries on the TV. Is that what you mean?”
 
“No, it’s like a TV show. Like, um… Do you know what actors are?”
 
“Oh, sure.”
 
“Then it’s like you and your friends are actors, acting out a story. About you and your friends in Ponyville.”
 
Fluttershy frowned. She rubbed her chin. “That sounds strange,” she said. She picked up her phone off the table and slid up on the touchscreen, trying several times until the phone unlocked. “Maybe I’m misunderstanding. So you already saw us in Ponyville before we came here?”
 
“Yeah, I guess we did.” Karen spread her hands. “But I never thought you were real. Cartoons are drawings, y’know, like… never mind, I’ll let you look it up.”
 
Fluttershy poked at the screen of her phone several times. Her frown deepened. “I’m sorry, I haven’t figured out how to use my cell phone yet and I don’t want to take time away from this. You’ve been waiting in line for so long.”
 
“Don’t worry, it wasn’t too long today. Besides, we made it a family outing.” Karen pointed to the line outside. “I’ve got two boys. They’re in line with their father to see Rainbow Dash. They couldn’t wait after they saw that YouTube video of her doing all those tricks.”
 
“Oh, wonderful. I’m glad to hear she’s getting more popular lately.” She set the phone back down on the table. “Anyway, I’ll talk to Twilight about it. I’m sure someone has pointed out this show to her and she might know what’s going on.”
 
“Okay.” Karen held her hand up to her forehead. “God, I hate to be the one who broke this to you. I’m sorry.”
 
“Oh, no need to apologize, it’s not your fault.” Fluttershy smiled, looking down at little Adeline. “Now, where were we? You’ve been quiet as a mouse.”
 
Adeline was inspecting Fluttershy’s tail, holding it up to her cheek.
 
“You can start petting me anytime, you know. Here, I’ll help.” Fluttershy lifted Adeline’s small hand and held it up to her neck. “See? Feel how soft and fuzzy that is.”
 
Adeline stared at her hand. She stroked her hand down Fluttershy’s neck, investigating the soft fuzziness.
 
“Mhm, just like that,” Fluttershy said, guiding Adeline’s hand to petting her again. “You’re so good at this.”
 
Karen smiled as she watched. She lifted her phone to take a picture of Adeline, who was now petting all on her own. Adeline’s mouth curled up in a toothy smile.
 
Fluttershy looked up at Karen. “You can pet me too if you want.”
 
Karen chuckled. “Sure, why not.” She reached out and placed her hand on Fluttershy’s neck, right next to her daughter’s tiny hand. “She makes it look like so much fun.”
> Princess Celestia, Princess Cadence, and Princess Luna
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“See?” Twilight said. “Wasn’t this worth coming through the portal?”

Judy smiled as she rubbed Cadence’s neck. Cadence tried to smile back, though the smile couldn’t hide the wrinkles under her eyes, and it disappeared once Cadence covered her mouth to yawn. She blinked, looking down at her empty cup. “How many more of these coffees do I need until they wake me up?”

“Well,” Zach said as he stroked Twilight’s wings, glancing at the pile of coffee cups accumulating at the edge of the table. “Do you drink a lot of coffee, normally?”

Cadence shrugged. “Nope. First time.”

“Well,” Zach said, “That, um, that’s probably good, then.”

“Why are you so tired?” Judy asked.

Cadence rubbed her eyes. “My baby just wouldn’t stop crying. We fed her. We changed her diaper. We rocked her to sleep. We dumped sacks of flour over ourselves. Nothing worked.”

Twilight nudged Cadence in the shoulder. “But hey! You’re here now in our new petting café. Isn’t this great?” Twilight pointed to Judy’s hand, which was now petting her shoulder. “You were worried establishing strong human-pony relations would be all diplomatic. Nobles and treaties and all that. Isn’t this so much better?”

Cadence tilted her head from side to side, but eventually nodded. “Yeah, it’s better.” She rested her head on the table. “I’m just worried about Flurry Heart, I guess.”

“Oh, they’ll be fine,” Twilight said. “Shining can handle her. And Starburst is there, too! I’m sure they can handle a baby for a few days.”

“I know exactly what they’re up to,” Cadence muttered. “I saw an Ogres & Oubliettes book poking out of Sunburst’s satchell. Those campaigns go on for hours, you know.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, rubbing her chin. “Yeah, Flurry Heart may be doomed. Spike hates it when his game is disturbed.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Judy said, chuckling as she scratched behind Cadence’s ear. She looked at Zach. “My husband takes great care of the house when I’m gone.”

“Sure, the house may be fine. It’s the baby I’m worried about.” Cadence looked between Judy and Zach. “Do you two have children?”

Judy placed a hand on her stomach and smiled. “Our first is on the way.”

Cadence looked down at Judy’s stomach, then back up to Judy, her eyes widening. She reached out and placed her hooves on Judy’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry,” she said, frowning and shaking her head. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Judy laughed nervously, glancing at her husband, but sweat was starting to break out on his forehead. Judy looked back into Cadence’s grief-stricken eyes. “But… children are a blessing. Miracle of childbirth. Right?”

Cadence patted Judy on the shoulder, still shaking her head. “You poor, poor soul. When that baby comes, hon, miracles are getting five hours of undisturbed sleep.”

Zach dabbed his forehead with a napkin. “Oh God.”


~ ~ ~


“I’m glad we came,” Celestia said. She levitated her tea cup and sipped as Jonathan petted her back. “I think it’s safe to say it’s precisely as ‘awesome’ as Rainbow Dash advertised.”

“Mhm,” Luna said, taking a hoofful of hay from the bale next to her and munching. “Dearest Clyde,” she said. “Could you scratch behind Our ears?”

Clyde perked up. “Both of your guys’ ears? Yeah, sure.”

Luna squinted for a moment, only to chuckle and shake her head. “I apologize. I meant ‘my’. It’s an old habit of mine that I mean to break.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it,” Clyde said, reaching up to Luna’s ear. “Got it. Just yours.”

Celestia leaned in. “Though if you find yourself so inclined, dear Clyde, you could in fact scratch behind both my ear and my sister’s. I certainly wouldn’t mind.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Clyde said, standing up and moving his chair in between the royal sisters. He sat down and carried out Celestia’s royal order.

“Ooh,” Luna said, taking in a sip of her lemon-lime soft drink. “That’s nice.”

“Mhm,” Celestia said. She let her neck relax out of her tall and proud princess posture. She looked around the café, only about twenty other people in both her line and her sister’s. “It seems the lines are much shorter than Twilight had told us. I suppose she does have a habit of exaggerating when she’s excited.”

Luna shook her head. “I spoke with all her friends. They concur that the lines were much longer when they were here. Perhaps the novelty has been lost on the humans?” Luna looked to Twilight and Princess Cadence, the only other ponies in the café that day. “Maybe the café was a fad and we don’t need to look for petting volunteers in Equestria after all.”

Clyde spoke up. “The lines are short because there’s free online booking now. No need to physically wait in line anymore until your time slot,” he said. “And Luna is booked three days straight. I was one of the first online when booking opened.”

“Three days straight?” Celestia raised her eyebrows. “And how long am I booked for?”

“A day and a half.”

“Ha!” Luna said, poking Celestia in the shoulder. “I have the longer line!” She sat back and grinned, her ear twitching at Clyde’s fingers. “In your face, Tia.”

Celestia cast a sideways glance at her sister. “I’m still the oldest, Loony.”

“Phooey.” Luna stuck out her tongue.

Jonathan gave Celestia a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “That’s just people who’ve booked now. I’m sure more people will sign up later today and tomorrow.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not jealous in the slightest.” Celestia smiled, placing her hoof on Luna’s. “In fact, I’m elated Luna is getting all the adoration she gets, even if it’s more than me. She deserves it after being away for so long.”

“Aw, sister, you are much too kind.” Luna placed her other hoof on her sister’s and smiled. Then, she leaned forward and whispered to Jonathan, “She is jealous in the slightest. It fills me with delight.”

“If there is anything I am jealous of, it is that tomorrow you get to spend your afternoon here and I have to meet with Earth ambassadors.” Celestia turned to Jonathan. “Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you. It’s just that political affairs tend to bore me in my world, so my hopes aren’t high for your world. And I have doubts any of these ambassadors would elect to pet me.”

“Mind your cynicism, dear sister,” Luna said. “I have no doubt they would pet you if you offer them the opportunity.”

Celestia smirked. “I’ll see if I can negotiate an ear-scritch or two.”

“About that,” Jonathan said. “I’m curious. What are you going to meet with the ambassadors about? If you’re allowed to tell me, that is.”

Celestia’s jaw tightened. “I was hoping you wouldn’t press me about it,” Celestia whispered, her eyes shifting to scan the other patrons in the café. “Would you really like to know?”

Jonathan, too, glanced around the café. “Um, sure.”

Celestia motioned for Jonathan to move closer, continuing to eye any onlookers.

Jonathan scooted his chair forward and turned his ear towards Celestia.

Celestia whispered, “Butts.”

Jonathan squinted. His mouth slowly opened, but no words came out. He looked at Clyde, but he simply shrugged. Luna tried to hold a laugh back with her hoof.

“Say that again?” Jonathan said.

“Butts,” Celestia said. “Many of us ponies don’t wear clothes and are therefore leaving our posteriors exposed. Humans have raised concerns about us walking around in public in the nude.”

Jonathan curled his fingers around his chin. “Yeah, okay, I guess I could see that. I never thought it was much of a problem, you know, since horses in our world—”

“Bwa ha ha!” Luna covered her face, tipping back against the back of her chair. “Ohhh by the stars. The look on your face—you were so befuddled!”

Jonathan blushed, rubbing his neck.

“Don’t worry about it, dear Jonathan,” Celestia said, smiling. “As Luna knows, I have had many years to practice pranking.” She took a sip of tea. “To answer your question, I am under the impression it is simply a first contact sort of thing. I’m sure your Earth ambassadors want to ensure we are peaceful and don’t intend to harm them. I suppose we want to ensure that about humans, too, but after coming to this café, I have few reservations.”

Luna smirked. “Certainly fewer than mine.”

Celestia gently shoved Luna and grinned. “At least I’m best pony.”

“Ha, you wish,” Luna downed the last of her soft drink.

Clyde raised his eyebrows. “Say, it sounds like you guys aware—”

“That we are, yes,” Celestia said. “Are you a fan of the show?”

Clyde nodded. “You bet.”

“And you, Jonathan?”

“I’ve heard of it before,” he said, “but I thought it was a cartoon show—as in, you know, a fake show, not real. So did you guys make the show, or what?”

Celestia shook her head. “I’ve discussed this extensively with Twilight. As far as I can tell, you humans either invented or discovered some form of primitive portal technology and saw into our world. Since in all my years I’ve never seen a human, I’m going to assume all you had was a window and not a door.” Celestia shrugged. “And strangely enough, someone decided to make a show about it for television.”

Luna nodded. “We performed a binge-watching of the show. I am disappointed in the lack of episodes involving me. Or my sister, quite frankly.”

“Yes,” Celestia said, “because humans would love to watch me bicker with nobles over policy. Or sit in countless meetings. That’d be wildly entertaining.”

“I would watch it, dearest sister,” Luna said, brushing her muzzle up against Celestia’s cheek.

Celestia smiled and nuzzled her sister back.

“Aw,” Clyde said, pulling his hands back to let them share the moment.

“We didn’t say stop, Clyde,” Celestia said.

Clyde resumed petting. “Fair enough.”

“May we take Clyde back with us?” Luna said. “I’d like to appoint him the official Royal Ear Scratcher. He is doing a marvelous job.”

Celestia smirked. “I’ll consider it. But first, I think we should worry about finding volunteers to come over here. This café isn’t getting any less busy, after all.”
> Lyra and Bon Bon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Look, Bon Bon!” Lyra said, pointing to the human wearing gloves. “This one has hand socks!”

“Yep.” Bon Bon sighed, resting her head on her hoof and her elbow on the table. “It does.”

“They’re called gloves, actually. Motorcycle gloves,” Jason said, pulling off his gloves and stuffing them in his jacket pockets. “And this one has a name, believe it or not. Jason.” He smirked and extended his hand toward Lyra. “Nice to meet ya.”

Lyra reached for the hand and inspected it, scooting forward on her wooden chair. She rubbed her hoof across the palm. “Ooh, yours are kinda rough,” she said, squeezing the palm. “But still squishy.”

“Yeah, sure,” Jason said, holding out his hand but trying to gently tug it back out of Lyra’s hooves. “I’m a carpenter.”

Bon Bon pulled back Lyra’s hooves and gave an embarrassed smile to Jason. “You’ll have to excuse Lyra, here. She’s been hung up on human hands today.” Bon Bon pointed an accusatory hoof in Lyra’s face. “You have a problem.”

“How can you not freak out over this, Bon Bon? An entirely new bipedal sentient species. Isn’t this so weird? In a good way, I mean. Like fascinating.” Lyra pulled Jason’s hand over to in front of Bon Bon’s face. “Just look at these. It’s like five tiny hooves at the end of one big hoof.”

“Okay, and?” Bon Bon said. “Dragons have claws. Those are like four tiny hooves.”

“Yeah, four tiny, pointy, scaly, hard-as-a-rock hooves. But these aren’t claws, Bon Bon. They’re squishy claws. Soft claws. Aren’t they great?”

Bon Bon looked up at Wendy’s hand as it brushed through the smooth curls of her mane. “Yeah, I mean, they’re all right.”

Lyra held up Jason’s hand in her hooves. “Do you know how useful these would be? Wouldn’t they make life so much easier?”

“I think you’re overexaggerating,” Bon Bon said. “How about this: name one thing you can do with a hand that you can’t do with your horn.”

“I—hmm.” Lyra squinted. “What about—mm, no…” She rested her head on her chin, muttering to herself, then turned to Bon Bon with a sly grin. “But you’re an Earth pony. Name one thing you can’t do with your hooves.”

Bon Bon shrugged. “I can’t. Hooves can do it all.”

“Turning a doorknob,” Lyra said.

“Can do that.”

“Opening a jar of peanut butter.”

“Yup.”

“Turning the page of a book.”

“Yeah.”

“Using scissors.”

“Ye—hmm.” Bon Bon rubbed her chin. “You got me there. That’s hard to do as an Earth pony. More of a unicorn thing.”

“And a human thing,” Lyra said, picking up Jason’s hand and bending the index finger and thumb in a pinching motion. “These are optimally built for scissors-wielding.”

“Great.” Bon Bon smirked. “Humans can use scissors. So what?”

“So that makes hands better than hooves.”

“That one reason.”

Lyra closed her eyes and nodded, holding up Jason’s hand to her neck to guide his hand in petting her. “Yup.”

Bon Bon cleared her throat, pointing to the hand petting Lyra.

Lyra opened her eyes. “Hmm? What?”

“Never mind,” Bon Bon said. She turned to Wendy. “Zoologists, right?”

“I wouldn’t know. Never met one,” Wendy said, putting her phone away. She brushed her blonde hair behind her shoulders. “All I can say is you two argue over the silliest things.”

Bon Bon opened her mouth, about to protest, but instead turned up her chin. “They’re not silly at the time.”

“So,” Wendy said, putting her phone away. She took a sip of her venti coffee as she continued to rub Bon Bon’s shoulders. “What brought you two here to the café?”

“Well, because this one—“ Bon Bon shoved Lyra in the shoulder “—just had to go to this new world to meet these new human creatures. Once Twilight had made the call for volunteers in Ponyville, she was first in line before Twilight had even finished speaking.”

“Excuse me,” Lyra siad. “I was simply making my way to the front of the crowd to better hear her. I just happened to be closer than everyone else.”

“You were a foot away.”

“She’s soft-spoken for a princess.”

Bon Bon turned to Wendy. “Nope, you’re right. We argue over silly things.”

“But that’s okay,” Lyra said, giving her friend a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “The silly arguments are what makes it fun. It’s not bickering, it’s banter.”

“Yes, banter,” Bon Bon said, grinning. “Shenanigans.”

“Hijinks,” Lyra said.

“Buffoonery.”

Lyra giggled. “Buffoonery. That’s a good one.”

Wendy stopped petting momentarily to look between the two ponies. “Are you two dating?”

“No, we’re BEST FRIENDS—ach, ahem.” Bon Bon thumped her chest. “Sorry, something caught in my throat. We’re best friends.”

Wendy set her coffee aside and leaned on the table. “How did you guys meet?”

“We met when I first moved to Ponyville,” Bon Bon said. “She was my next door neighbour at the time, and invited to show me around town and introduce me. We hit it off and we’ve been friends ever since.”

Lyra wrapped a foreleg around Bon Bon. “Bon Bon’s a great friend. And a great roommate. She does all our dishes and cleans and everything. She even brings home some of her rejected candy for me.”

“It’s not rejected candy. It’s just not quite perfect.” Bon Bon drank some of her apple juice. “I’m a candy maker in Ponyville, and I make pretty much anything and everything chocolate or sugar coated.  Sometimes, though, I’ll accidentally add too much water to a batch of peanut butter filling, or squeeze a bon bon a little too hard and crack the pristine outer chocolate shell… And, well, if I can’t use it or sell it, I bring it home and we have some dessert.”

“And it’s the most. Delicious. Thing. Every time.” Lyra thumped her hoof on the table for emphasis. “She says not quite perfect, but the only not perfect part is how it looks. Even if the peanut butter filling becomes a peanut butter soup, it’s still the most incredible candy I’ve ever had.”

“Thanks, Lyra,” Bon Bon said. “You know, you’re not so bad yourself. You’ve taken out the trash, I think, at least once.”

Lyra waved it off. “Oh, it’s nothing. Anything I can do to help.”

Bon Bon pointed at Lyra. “She’s into anything and everything animals, animal behaviour and history and etymology, you name it. So she tells the best boring stories.”

Lyra grunted. “She tells the worst exciting stories. If you think I’m weird ‘cause I like human hands—”

“To be fair, it is kind of weird,” Wendy said.

Jason nodded. “Yeah, honestly, if a human friend of mine told me they liked horse hooves, I might stay away.”

Lyra tilted her head. “Why? Is there something wrong with horse hooves?”

“No, it’s…” Jason waved it off. “Never mind.”

“Anyway,” Lyra said, “if you think I’m weird, wait until you hear Bon Bon make a story about monster hunting sound like a tax audit.”

Bon Bon glared at Lyra and whispered, “First of all, Lyra, that was a tax audit. Second, you can’t just tell these people I was a secret agent.”

Lyra groaned. “Come on, Bon Bon. Nopony cares.”

“Lyra!” Bon Bon hissed. “It’s called secret for a reason.”

“Well, it’s no secret, that’s for sure. Everypony in Ponyville knows you’re a secret agent.”

Bon Bon’s jaw dropped in despair. “Did you tell them?”

“No way.” Lyra raised her hooves. “I didn’t have to! You don’t think anypony saw you when you rappelled out of Sugar Cube Corner to fight the bugbear?”

Bon Bon’s eyes shifted. “We’re background ponies, Lyra. We blend in with the background.”

Lyra snorted. “Don’t throw a ‘we’re just background ponies’ at me, Bon Bon. That’s besides the point. You rappelled out of a second story window in broad daylight. How could anypony not see you?”

“I was in disguise, Lyra.”

“All you put on was a pair of sunglasses.”

Bon Bon rubbed her chin. “Right. I forgot to wear my moustache.” She sighed and hid her face with a hoof. “Ugh, darn it. I messed up. I’ve completely blown my cover.”

Lyra frowned, rubbing Bon Bon’s shoulder. “There, there.” She glanced at Jason, but Jason could only offer a shrug. Lyra followed suit and shrugged. “It’s not so bad.” She bit her lip. “I mean, to be honest, I could hardly recognize you with those sunglasses on.”

Bon Bon shook her head, her face still buried in her hooves. “You’re just saying that.”

“Yeah, I am,” Lyra said, hugging her friend. “But secret agent or no, I like you all the same.”

Bon Bon slowly raised a foreleg and wrapped it around Lyra. The two held their embrace and patted each other on the back.

Lyra smirked. “The moustache wouldn’t have helped anyway.”

“Nope, wrong,” Bon Bon said, backing out of the hug and smiling. “And now because of my negligence, I’ve compromised my secret identity and made myself more vulnerable to attacks from former enemies that could track me down. But hey, on the bright side, Twilight could teleport us to San Francisco if we had to lay low and stay by the new petting café there.”

Lyra nodded. “Yup. Or we could go to San Francisco because we want to travel there. Either or, really.”

“So if you’re a secret agent,” Jason said, “or, former secret agent, does that mean… the name’s Bond? Bon Bond?”

Bon Bon glanced at Lyra, shrugging. “I… have no idea what that means.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Wendy said, rolling her eyes. She glanced at the timer on their table, which was almost up to five minutes. “It’s just a dumb pun to end on.”
> The Cutie Mark Crusaders
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Oh my gosh, you guys! Look over there! At that girl’s shirt!” Sweetie Belle ran up to a girl waiting in the crowd. “It’s the three of us! Look! Look! We’re all on her shirt!”

“No way!” Scootaloo said as she and Apple Bloom hopped off their chairs and ran over to join Sweetie Belle. The girl glanced at her mother and smiled wide, pulling on her shirt to show off the image of the three fillies leaping and giving each other a hoof bump midair.

“Wow,” Apple Bloom said, pushing her friends out of the way to see for herself. “That’s neat as heck—hey!”

Rarity dragged the three fillies away with her magic. “Now, now, girls,” she said, pulling them back to their table. “Remember that you have to see these humans one group at a time. You simply can’t run up to whomsoever you please. Everyone waiting in line will get their turn eventually.”

Apple Bloom sighed as she clambered back up onto her chair. She turned around to face her sister, who was sitting at the table behind them and folding her arms along with Rarity. Rainbow Dash was distracted by a human scratching her ear, but she still kept a watchful eye on the fillies.

Apple Bloom turned back around and slumped in her chair, muttering something to herself. However, her face lit up when the next humans in line walked up—three girls, two of them younger than her and one of them older. She waved. “Howdy, y’all! I’m Apple Bloom, and these here are my friends Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle!”

The two younger girls smiled and waved back. “Hi. I’m Katie,” the slightly taller one said, “and this is my little sister Jenna.”

Jenna waved, her oversized, beaded bracelet flopping around her wrist.

Sweetie Belle waved back. “Well, go ahead and sit next to whichever one of us you want! There’s three of you and three of us!”

“Okay,” Katie said, sitting down next to Sweetie Belle and starting off with the mane. “Wow, it’s so soft,” Katie said, her smile growing wider.

Jenna sat down in front of Apple Bloom and wrung her hands. “Is it okay if I pet your mane?” she asked.

“ ‘Course!” Apple Bloom said. “As long as I get to pet your mane too.”

Jenna giggled. “Okay.” The two of them reached out and pet each other’s hair.

The oldest sister took the only seat left next to Scootaloo, but didn’t engage in any sort of petting, nor any sort of conversation either. Instead, she crossed her arms and used one hand to hold up her phone and lazily swipe through it.

Scootaloo sat back, folding her forelegs behind her head. “Yeah, I mean, not petting is pretty cool too. It’s just as cool as petting. ‘Cause we’re cool people. So we’re cool.”

The teenager neither confirmed nor denied Scootaloo’s claim.

“We like the show,” Katie said, showing off her shirt with Applejack’s cutie mark on it. “We watch the show every Saturday. You and Applejack are my favourite ponies,” she said as she petted Sweetie Belle, “and Jenna’s favourite is… well it’s Fluttershy, but she likes you too, Apple Bloom.”

Jenna nodded eagerly as she pet Apple Bloom’s mane. “Is it fun being on TV?” she asked.

“Sure, yeah,” Sweetie Belle said, rubbing her elbow. “It’s a little scary, too, because our human friends said these TV shows go all over the world.”

Apple Bloom jumped up in her chair and spread her forelegs. “They send the TV shows into outer space! And then space sends it back into everybody’s TVs all over the world!”

Scootaloo shrugged. “Which is totally no big deal. Y’know, being world famous and all.”

“But like Twilight says,” Sweetie Belle said, “there’s nothing in the show we would mind sharing anyway. It always shares a lesson we learned on friendship, so if humans are watching that, then they can learn those lessons too.”

Apple Bloom snickered. “Well, I mean, we know that Spike has a crush—”

“C’mon, Apple Bloom.” Sweetie Belle frowned. “You know he didn’t mean for everypony to find out.”

Apple Bloom frowned. “Yeah, I know. Sorry, girls.”

“It’s all right, let’s just drop it.” Sweetie Belle looked to the teenager opposite Scootaloo. “So what’s your name?”

The teenager held up her hand in a stagnant wave without taking her eyes off her phone. “Marissa,” she said.

“She’s our older sister,” Katie said, returning her focus to petting.

“Here to supervise.” Marissa brushed her blond hair back behind her ear.

Apple Bloom rested her chin on her hoof. “Yeah, we know what that’s all about.”

Jenna looked past the fillies. “Oh yeah, your sisters are here too.”

Scootaloo opened her mouth, but closed it and smiled. “Nope. Not gonna correct that,” she muttered to herself.

Sweetie Belle poked at her juice box. “Well, we kinda deserve the supervision this time. We, um, well…”

“We’re not allowed coffee anymore,” Apple Bloom said.

Katie’s eyes widened. “You guys had coffee?”

Scootaloo glanced at Rainbow Dash, who raised an eyebrow at the filly. “Yeah, once. We liked it, especially with extra sugar, like extra extra sugar, so we snuck behind the counter and then we had some more, and then some more, and, um…”

Sweetie Belle grimaced. “We kind of, sort of broke the coffee machine. Coffee was everywhere.”

“Tree sap, too.” Apple Bloom frowned and scratched her head. “Why was there tree sap again? We were indoors… right?”

Sweetie Belle shrugged. “I was way too hyper to remember.”

Scootaloo grinned sheepishly. “Anyway, yeah, that’s why we’re not allowed coffee ever again. “

“And why our older sisters are watching us now.”

“And why we had to move to this café, down the street from the other one.”

Marissa looked up from her phone. “Hope the café had insurance.”

Sweetie Belle threw her hooves up in the air. “Everybody keeps saying that. I dunno if they did. What even is insurance?”

“It’s a way of paying for something when it breaks,” Marissa said. “Like if your house burns down, and you have insurance, then insurance pays for it.”

Scootaloo propped herself up on the table, her wings spreading. “Wait, so you humans can burn stuff and get paid back for it?”

“No…” Marissa said. “No. That is not how that works. It’s more complicated than that.” She pointed at all three of the fillies, Scootaloo especially, and then to her sisters as well. “To be clear, do not burn stuff. Okay?”

Scootaloo huffed. “Fine.”

Marissa squinted, leaning forward to better see Scootaloo’s flank. “Oh my God,” she said, “You girls already have tattoos? And you’re what, twelve?”

“Thirteen,” Apple Bloom said with a smug grin. “Two weeks ago, too. I’m a teenager. Also, um, what’s a tattoo?” Apple Bloom turned to see her flank. “Do I have one?”

“Yeah,” Katie said. “Well, kind of. It’s called a cutie mark,” she said to Marissa. “It’s not really a tattoo. It’s what they get when they realize what their special talent is.”

Marissa snorted. “Huh, okay. That’s still too young to get a tattoo. Do your parents know about this?”

Sweetie Belle nodded. “Yeah! They’re so proud of all of us.” She stood up and showed off her cutie mark to Marissa. “We got them together, all at the same time!”

Marissa blinked. “Um… What?”

“It’s magic,” Katie said. “They appear magically when they realize what their special talent is.”

Marissa couldn’t even. “Why do you keep saying special talent? What does that mean?”

“It’s your destiny,” Scootaloo said. “Like what you’re good at, and what you were always meant to do.”

Marissa pointed at Scootaloo’s flank. “So your destiny is… a shield with a lightning bolt? What does that even mean?”

“Well, the shield part is the same for all of us. We’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and we help ponies discover what their special talent is!” Scootaloo said. She lifted her foreleg and inspected her mark. “The lightning bolt… I dunno yet. The wing… well, I don’t really know why that’s there either. But we’re gonna keep trying to figure that out.”

Apple Bloom nodded. “We’re thinking that the other, not-shieldy parts are… what’s the word Twilight keeps using?”

“Symbolic,” Sweetie Belle said. “They represent something else unique to each of us.”

Jenna pointed at Sweetie Belle’s mark—a shield with a star and a musical note. “Well, you’re really good at singing, so I think that’s what yours means. And you’ve got a star, like… you’re a star.”

Sweetie Belle looked down at her rump and nodded. “Ooh, I like that. Yeah, I bet that’s mine!”

“That could totally be it. You’re a genius, Katie!” Scootaloo hopped up and fluttered her wings. “You could be a Cutie Mark Crusader too!”

Katie looked at Jenna and they both giggled. “But we don’t even get cutie marks.”

“That’s okay,” Apple Bloom said. “Y’all are great at seeing the symbol-like parts of our marks.”

“We’re getting off topic,” Marissa said. “So, you kids are twelve—”

“Thirteen,” Apple Bloom said.

“Thirteen, and you’re already deciding what you’re going to do with your lives?”

“Yeah, isn’t it great?” Sweetie Belle said, spreading her arms. “And it’s not just us—everypony gets a chance to discover what they want to do. It’s exciting! It’s the best part about being a kid.”

Marissa shook her head. Then she shook her head and looked past the girls at the café’s menu. Then she shook her head and looked down at her phone. “I guess that’s why it’s a kid’s cartoon show,” she muttered.

Scootaloo shifted in her chair, glancing up at Marissa before scratching the back of her head. “So, uh… yeah, still gonna do the not-petting thing, huh. Yeah, that’s cool.”

Katie looked at Jenna and grinned. “Hey Jenna, boop her snoot.”

Jenna giggled. “Okay.”

Scootaloo’s forehead wrinkled in confusion as she looked between Katie and Jenna’s smirking faces, but before she could brace herself, Jenna’s finger came sailing towards her face at an alarmingly normal speed and pressed onto her nose. Scootaloo recoiled, instinctively covering her nose with her hoof to protect it before what took place had really sunk in.

When it did, Scootaloo’s eyes widened. “Do that again.”

Jenna beamed. She booped the snoot once more.

A wide grin spread across Scootaloo’s face. “That was awesome!”

Apple Bloom’s jaw hung open. “I wanna get my snoot booped.”

Sweetie Belle tugged at Jenna’s sleeve. “Can you boop my snoot too? Pretty please?”


~ ~ ~


Applejack squinted. “What is it those girls are up to?”

Rainbow Dash looked at the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ table. “Hmm?”

“Look at ‘em,” Applejack said. “Them humans are touching our sisters’ noses. What is going on over there?”

Rarity shrugged. “I’ve no idea, but it seems harmless enough.”

Rainbow frowned, then said to the human petting her, “Hey Calvin, do what those humans are doing over there. Press my nose or whatever.”

“Oh, you mean boop your snoot?” Calvin said, booping Rainbow’s snoot as requested. “There.”

Rainbow covered her nose with her hoof. Her eyes widened. “Do that again.”
> Spike and Big Mac
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jared walked up from the end of the line to Big Mac’s table, glancing at his phone to double check his reservation. “Excuse me, are you Spike?”

“Uh,” Spike said, raising his claw. “I’m right here. At this table.”

Big Mac nodded. “Eeyup.” He held out a hoof to offer Jared the seat across from Spike.

“Oh,” Jared said. He walked around to the other side of the table and waved. “Sorry about that. You’re, um, not quite what I expected.”

“What, you thought he was Spike and I was Big Mac?” Spike held up a claw flat to the top of his head, then compared that to the top of Big Mac’s head. “Aw, man. I thought I’d grown taller.”

“No, it’s not that.” Jared almost got up from his chair, but hesitated and sat back down. “I was expecting you to be a pony. You know… the pony petting café.”

“But hey, instead, you get to pet a dragon!” Spike waved a claw up and down his body to showcase himself. “Dragons are awesome, right? Dragons are strong and brave and tough and they breathe fire! Check this out.” He heaved in a large gust of air, his chest rising and his head tilting back for maximum air intake.

Twilight, who was taking over Spike’s job as security guard, heard the giant gasp for air and lit her horn at the ready, in case Spike were to accidentally end up sending all of them to Princess Celestia again.

With a monstrous heave, Spike blew out a thin stream of fire, which fizzled and disappeared in a few seconds.

“Huh,” Jared said.

Claire, the human petting Big Mac, offered a soft round of applause to Spike. Big Mac joined in as well.

Spike blushed. “That was, um, supposed to look more impressive. I’m trying to do the… thing, you know?” Spike snapped his fingers, looking between Jared and Claire. “The thing, you know…”

Big Mac whispered in Spike’s ear.

“The ring of fire! Yeah, exactly,” Spike said, tracing the outline of a ring in the air for Jared. “Like when you puff a bit and then pull back, and it hangs in the air a little bit, like a little ring of fire. You know what I mean?”

Jared nodded. “Sure.”

Spike smiled. “Well, that’s what I was trying to do. I’ve done it before! It looks awesome.” Spike looked to Big Mac. “Right Big Mac? You’ve seen it, right? And it looks awesome?”

“Eeyup,” said Big Mac.

“See?” Spike said, leaning back on his chair and folding his arms. “So yeah, just picture what you just saw, but way more impressive.” He closed his eyes and pictured it. “Yeah, that was pretty cool.”

Jared held up his hands. “Look, little dude, breathing fire by itself is still impressive.”

Spike scratched the back of his head. “Heh, thanks.”

“I like your style. Sure, I’ll pet a dragon,” Jared said. He smiled to himself. “God, just saying that sounds impressive. I’m going to tell my friends later.”

Spike squirmed eagerly in his chair. “Well, whenever you’re ready. And don’t worry, my scales aren’t sharp. Some people have asked about that. You’re one hundred percent safe.”

Jared placed a hand on top of Spike’s head. He patted his head, then carefully slid his hand back. “Huh,” Jared said, stroking his hand down Spike’s back. “You’re right.”

“Yeah, since I’m still a baby dragon, my scales are super soft,” he said. He puffed up his chest. “Besides also being super tough and fireproof and handsome, of course.”

“Of course.” Jared smirked as he scratched behind Spike’s ear.

The four of them sat there for a few minutes, Spike and Big Mac unwinding under the hands of their petters. Both of them closed their eyes as Jared and Claire calmly stroked them.

Claire glanced between Spike and Big Mac, and then amongst the crowd around them. She leaned forward, almost speaking, and then in a voice almost too quiet for Big Mac to hear, she said, “I, um, heard from some friends that you, um, cuddle?”

“Shhhh,” Big Mac said, putting a hoof over Claire’s lips. He glanced at Spike, then cleared his throat. “Can’t say I know what you’re talking about, there, friend.” He leaned in close and whispered, “Spike don’t know about it. Please don’t let him on.”

Claire covered her mouth. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered back.

Big Mac cleared his throat and nudged Spike in the arm. “Hey Spike, mind doing me a heck of a favour and getting me a refill of that there apple juice? And, uh, feel free to take your time, ya know.”

Spike raised an eyebrow and folded his arms. “You know, I’ve seen you cuddle when you send me to get you a drink. The counter is, like, right there. Look, I’m totally fine with it if you want to cuddle. I don’t really care—”

“Shhhh,” Big Mac said, putting a hoof over Spike’s lips.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Fine.”

Big Mac watched Spike as he plodded over to the café counter, sliding between the line of people. When Spike was out of view, Big Mac turned to Claire and nodded.

Claire scooted her chair forward. She leaned in towards Big Mac and wrapped her arms around him.

“Oh, wow,” Claire said, smiling as she snuggled into Big Mac’s warm fur.

Big Mac chuckled. “Eeyup.”

“This is so nice.” Claire stroked her arms up and down Big Mac’s back. She pressed her cheek into his fuzzy neck. “It’s like hugging a big furry dog.”

As soon as Spike emerged from the crowd, Big Mac gently pushed Claire away. He sat back in his chair and crossed his legs casually, whistling as he scanned the crowd around them. When Spike set his drink on the table, Big Mac said, “Oh, there you are. Didn’t see you there. Thanks, partner.”

Spike rolled his eyes once more.

Jared said, “You know, I’ve been here watching this whole—”

“Shhhh,” Spike said, holding up a finger to his own lips. “So, uh, hey Big Mac, you want to tell these humans all about hoofball?”

“Hoofball?” Jared said. “Really?”

Big Mac nodded and almost spoke up, but Spike jumped in first. “Yeah, hoofball! Big Mac and I are big fans. We meet up every other weekend to trade hoofball cards. Once in a while we even go to see a game. It’s so exciting! It’s like your guys’ football, in a way, but better.”

“Oh?” Jared said, grinning. “Not a fan, huh?”

“Hoofball is great. I love hoofball. But football is just boring.” Spike groaned and let his arm fall limp on the table. “It’s so slow, for one. After one guy catches the ball, they all stand around for half a minute figuring out what to do next. Every time.”

Jared, drinking from his bottle of cola, held up a finger and shook his head. “Well, for one,” he said, “that’s not football. Football is where the teams kick a ball around, to each other and into nets on each side of the field. It runs for much longer at a time, too.”

Claire perked up. “Oh, you mean soccer.”

“We have soccer too!” Spike said.

Jared shook his head. “Just football. It’s the real football.”

“Then what about football?” Spike asked.

“Well, it’s not football.” Jared tapped his finger on his head. “Think about it. Nobody uses their feet to kick the ball. It’s not even ball-shaped. Might as well call it hand-egg.”

Spike held a claw to his chin. “Now that I think about it, hoofball doesn’t have a ball, either. They use a hoop.”

“Wait, the ball’s a hoop?” Jared said.

Spike shrugged. “Yeah. I mean, you can’t expect ponies to catch a ball with their hooves.” He stuck out his neck. “They catch the ball with their heads.”

“The hoop, you mean?”

“Yeah, well, they call it a ball.”

Claire twisted the ends of her hoodie strings. “But if they can’t use their hooves, why do they call it hoofball?”

Jared tipped his cola bottle towards Claire. “Good point. Sounds more like neck-hoop to me.”

Spike took a sip of his diamond water and shrugged. “Anyway, whether you call it hoofball, neck-hoop, hand-egg, whatever, it’s the most popular sport where we’re from.”

Claire rubbed the back of Big Mac’s neck. “Do either of you play any hoofball yourselves?”

“Nah, I’m too good for sports,” Spike said, folding his arms. “Has nothing to do with my height. Or my athletic ability. Nah, the only sports good enough for me are mind sports, like checkers and Ogres & Oubliettes.”

“What’s that?” Jared asked.

Spike’s face lit up. “Oh, you know, just the best tabletop role-playing game ever.”

Big Mac nodded vigorously.

Spike swept his claws as if casting a spell of mild interest upon Jared. “You make your own character in a fantasy world, and embark on an epic quest with your friends. You can play through a number of campaigns to defeat evil wizards, slay mythical beasts, or save gorgeous mares! And before you ask, yes, it does actually contain ogres and oubliettes. And also before you ask, an oubliette is a dungeon you get into from a trap door in the ceiling. I had to ask Twilight that one.”

Jared rubbed Spike’s scales. “Sounds like a Dungeons & Dragons lawsuit waiting to happen.”

“Is that like Ogres & Oubliettes?”

“Pretty much.” Jared held up a hand. “And before you ask, no, I’ve never played it.”

“You should try it sometime, then. It’s really fun!” Spike turned to Big Mac. “Maybe I could bring a game board tomorrow and offer anyone to play it.”

Big Mac whispered in Spike’s ear.

“Oh, that’s true,” Spike said. “Those games do take a long time, and humans only get to stay for five minutes at a time.” Spike rubbed his chin. “Maybe we could set aside a day for Ogres & Oubliettes. A special O&O day, where we run through a really short campaign.”

“Don’t those campaigns take weeks at a time?” Jared said. “You might have to open up another café just for that.”

Spike’s eyes widened. “Oh my gosh… that’s such a great idea!” He turned to Big Mac and shook his shoulders, or at least tried to. “Let’s ask Twilight if we can open up a special café, just for Ogres & Oubliettes!”

Big Mac responded with an enthusiastic whisper.

“That’s an even better idea! An Ogres & Oubliettes Pony Petting Café combo!” Spike jumped up and down. “It might break the immersion a bit, sure, but it’ll be awesome!” Spike zipped out of his chair and up to Twilight. “Twilight, I have an idea!”

Twilight, having overheard the conversation, tried to keep herself from giggling as Spike elaborated. She sat there, waiting until Spike had finished to say, “Sure, we can try that.”
> Starlight Glimmer and Trixie
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Quick question before we start,” Reggie said, lifting the strap of his messenger bag and setting it down on the grass.

Starlight drank from her strawberry mango smoothie. “Sure, ask away.”

“I’m not sure what the event description meant by ‘cinnamon nuts’,” Reggie said, pulling out a plastic bag of almonds and handing them to Starlight. “But I found candied almonds, which have cinnamon on them. Is that okay?”

Starlight received the bag from Reggie, without quite accepting it. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Why would you think to bring…”

Starlight turned to Trixie sitting in the lawn chair next to her. She looked past Trixie at the mound of bags piling up beside her. “Oh,” Starlight said, her eyebrows crinkling. She sighed and rubbed her temple with a hoof. “Trixie.”

“Hmm?” Trixie lifted a cucumber slice off of one eye. She squinted at Starlight from her throne—a lawn chair arguably identical to Starlight’s. A human behind her massaged her shoulders. “Yes, Starlight?”

Starlight lifted the bag of almonds and shook them. “Explain?”

Trixie glanced at the almonds dancing inside the bag, offering Starlight an innocent shrug. “I thought there was no harm in suggesting a modest donation of cinnamon nuts.”

Starlight leered at the mound of bags next to Trixie.

Trixie scoffed. “Sure. Strongly suggest.”

“You know, these cafés are supposed to be free. This seems like an admission ticket to me.” She handed the plastic bag back to Reggie. “Not only that, but don’t you think it’s a little self-centred? Even for you?”

Trixie double-scoffed. “Me? Self-centred? Starlight, I’m the least self-centred pony I know.” She gestured to the rest of the small group of people scattered around the park. “Look around at how many people get the chance to pet me today! I never gave anypony that privilege in Ponyville, that’s for sure.”

“I have no problem with you gifting the humans with your presence,” Starlight said, rolling her eyes and hiding a smile. “Just no more demands for cinnamon nuts, okay?”

“Hmmph.” Trixie turned up her nose and curled up on her lawn chair. “Trixie needs pets of great consolation for Starlight’s viscous bullying.”

“Aw, Trixie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be mean like that.” Starlight said. “Would you like to hog the limelight with flashy magic tricks? Would that make you feel better?”

Trixie blushed, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Mmmaybe.”

“I’ll even let you pretend to upstage me,” Starlight sang.

The other cucumber slice came off. “You know me too well.” In one swift motion, Trixie sprung to her hooves and donned her cape and hat, striking a triumphant and heroic pose atop the folding lawn chair. “Behold! Would you like to witness the Great and Powerful Trixie perform some real magic?”

“Sure,” Reggie said. Other people in the park walked over and converged around the table.

Trixie leapt up onto the chair next to Starlight, rearing back and waving her hooves as if guiding a mystical breeze about her horn. “Behold, the transfiguration spell! Using the great magical wealth of power within me, I will attempt to transform your ordinary soda pop bottle into… a teacup!”

“Pff. Easy. Let me try,” Starlight said, her horn glowing a soft light green. She huffed, squinting as Reggie’s bottle quivered, but ultimately retained its soda bottle shape. “I can’t,” Starlight said, leaning her head back and holding her hoof to her forehead in despair. “I’m simply not great or powerful enough.”

“Stand back!” Trixie said, summoning a great deal of magic in her horn and fired at the bottle.

With a mighty piff, Reggie’s bottle became a teacup. Applause broke out among the eleven or so audience members.

Trixie took a large and grandiose bow. “Thank you, thank you. Don’t forget, the Great and Pettable Trixie’s Great and Powerful Magic Spectacular starts every hour, on the hour! In but five more minutes, you’ll witness even more amazing teacup-related feats of magic!” The small crowd dispersed, some wandering over to the stage-carriage set up by the water fountain.

Reggie held up the empty pink teacup by the ear. “I, uh, I wasn’t finished with that.”

“Phew, that’s enough for now,” Trixie said, flopping back onto her throne. “Trixie has been performing real magic all day. She requires more petting to restore her magical energy. Come, Nate. You may continue to pet me.” She raised her hooves and clapped twice. When her shoulders remained hand-less, Trixie got up and looked around. “Nate?”

“I think his five minutes was up,” Starlight said, pointing to a human approaching Trixie’s chair. “This must be your next devotee.”

“Hey,” the woman said. “I’m Katrina, it’s nice to meet—”

“I know.” Trixie sat back. “We can save the adoration for later. Now, if you would be so kind, I have a show soon and must be adequately prepared. You may start with the shoulders, as well as the upper back, and then perhaps move on to—oh.” Trixie’s eyes widened as Katrina kneaded her shoulders. “Oh wow.”

Katrina grinned. “Yeah, I’m a part-time masseuse.”

“Mmmmhm,” Trixie said, melting as her body rocked back and forth in sync with Katrina’s kneading. Her mouth lolled open and her eyelids drooped. “Uh huh.”

Starlight laughed. “Oh gosh, Trixie, the look on your face. If I only I had Twilight’s tablet right now—and knew how to use it.” She lifted her glass using telekinesis and drank some of her smoothie.

Reggie slid his chair closer. “Hey,” he said, stuffing his hand into his pockets. He pulled out a handful of coins. “Can you levitate these?”

“Um, sure,” Starlight said. She wrapped the coins in her magic, lifting them up off the table and letting them hang in midair. “Why?”

Reggie leaned in close, grinning widely. He flicked a penny, watching it twirl gently. “That’s so cool.”

Starlight opened her mouth, then closed it. “Yeah, it is kind of cool.” She bit her lip, glancing at Reggie’s entranced stare. “Bit of a rudimentary spell, I guess, but still fun to watch.”

“Feels like dry water,” he said, passing his finger through the pale green aura of Starlight’s magic. “It’s amazing. I never thought magic was real, but wow, here it is.” Reggie shook his head. “We don’t have anything like this. This is fantasy here, or was, at least. Only in books and movies and video games.”

“Yeah, I guess I keep forgetting that.” Starlight floated the coins around in a circle. “I keep looking at all your guys’ cell phones and iPods and other doohickeys and gadgets and I keep thinking you’ve got some magical talismans or something in there. You guys can store an entire DJ turntable—and thousands of records—in one tiny little television!”

“Huh, yeah. I guess I keep forgetting that.” Reggie shrugged. “The things we take for granted, I guess.” He rubbed his jaw. “Maybe an unfair question, but would you rather be here with all the technology or there with all the magic?”

Starlight smiled. “No offense, but there. I like the magic too much, I guess. I can do magic here, but it’s harder. It’s almost like it’s suppressed or muffled, like breathing at a high altitude. I have to save the more advanced stuff, the Fiducia Compeluses, the Occulus Accios, the—oh, oh dear.” Starlight’s face paled.

“What?” Reggie said.

“I forgot,” she told Reggie, then Trixie. “I forgot! I was supposed to help Twilight research spells for the café this morning. I’ve got so much reading to do!” She held her head in her hooves. “Oh, I could’ve gotten so much research done by now. Twilight’s going to be so upset…”

“Hey, calm down,” Trixie said. She brushed aside Katrina’s hands and sat up, reaching out to rub Starlight on the shoulder. “Relax, you’re okay. Breathe.” She lifted her hoof up with her chest to simulate proper breathing.

Starlight followed, taking breaths in unison with Trixie.

“Good,” Trixie said. “Now relax, dummy. The All-Important Twilight isn’t an obsessive neurotic anymore. Well, she’s less obsessive, at least. I’m sure if she needed you so badly, she’d come to fetch you, right?” Trixie pouted. “Can’t you afford a day to help your best friend Trixie do her show?”

Starlight exhaled and smiled. “Yeah, I guess so. Sorry. We researched all day on Monday, and I was only supposed to alternate days with the café stuff—”

“Hup bup bup!” Trixie pressed her hoof to Starlight’s mouth. “No more on that. How about you finally ask the nice human to pet you?”

Starlight glanced at Reggie. “Ohhhhh. Right. Forgot about that.”

Reggie nodded. “Yeah, was going to bring that up at some point.”

“Good,” Trixie said, lounging back onto her lawn chair. She released a long sigh as Katrina got to work again.

Starlight blushed. “You can, um, start with the neck,” Starlight said, pointing to it. “It’s my favourite spot, especially the sides.”

“Sure,” Reggie said, running his fingers through the soft fur of her neck. “So, what sorts of spells were you going to research?”

Starlight snapped out of her momentary petting trance. “Hm? Oh. The purpose of the research was to try and solve a big problem we’ve run into with the café. There’s been so much demand for us ponies, there’s quite frankly not enough of us to go around.”

Reggie nodded. “Not enough ponies in your world?”

“Not enough Twilights, actually. Not enough Rainbow Dashes. That kind of thing. Each of us have fan clubs now. It’s insane.” She winced. “Well, most of us. But it’s probably because I’m new here, like Twilight says. And she and her friends were here first. Which is fine.” Starlight gave a tired smile and shrug. “Perfectly logical.”

Reggie raised his hand. “I’ll be the first member of your fan club.”

Starlight chuckled. “Thanks, I appreciate it.” She smiled and leaned into Reggie’s hand as he stroked her neck.

“So, how’s a spell going to fix this? What kind of spell?”

“Well, between Twilight and I, we’ve already come up with several ideas. Teleportation was our first. We tried to think creatively about teleporting from one city to another for maybe an hour at a time, but there’s many problems with that: overly complicated logistics, not enough magical energy—especially in your world—and even then, at five minutes per person, that means only twelve Twilight fans out of the hundreds in New York get to see her that day, and only twelve Twilight fans in Chicago, and so on and so on.”

“Yeah, true,” Reggie said. “Do you have a cloning spell?”

“Yes. Sort of,” Starlight said. “No. We have a mirror pool—it’s like this magic pool that you can clone yourself with, but it’s a little… catastrophic. A cloning spell, however, could be an option if we could figure out one that’s not quite as catastrophic, but no progress on that yet.

“So then I thought, I’ve combined Similo Duplexis and Accelero—they make a spell that lets you be in two places at once—so we could do that, but the café locations are so far apart that the distance between them is much too far to be practical. I mean, even moving at a hundred miles a second, it still takes you ten seconds to travel halfway across the country, and besides that, that advanced of a spell is something easily muffled here in the human world. So then, Twilight had the idea of—”

“Why don’t you just use changelings?” Trixie asked.

Starlight blinked. “Huh?”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “The changelings, you know. The walking kaleidoscopes that eat love. Ask them to be Twilight or Rainbow Dash or Pinkie Pie for the day. Better yet, have them take requests.”

“Oh,” Starlight said, her head bobbing side to side to bounce the idea around. “Huh. Yeah, that’s a pretty good idea, actually.”

“Sure, they probably won’t have Twilight’s personality, or at least the lucky ones won’t, but hey, humans might be happy to at least pet a carbon copy instead of waiting a few weeks.” Trixie swung her cape around and fastened it around her neck. “Anyway. I’ve got a show to do.” She theatrically offered her hoof to Starlight. “Now, would you like to come with me, put all that namby-pamby Summero Duplexy stuff aside, and help Trixie perform some ‘flashy magic tricks’?”

Starlight smirked. “Of course.” She turned to Reggie. “Sorry, duty calls, though I guess your five minutes was up anyway. We’re doing a magic show right now if you want to watch.”

“Sure,” Reggie said. “I could watch real magic all day.”
> The Wonderbolts
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Time,” Spitfire said, clicking the button on her stopwatch.

Will used a napkin to dab the beads of sweat forming on his forehead. “How was that?”

“Hmmf,” Spitfire said, narrowing her eyes at her stopwatch. “Not bad for forty ear-scritches. Your time was very average, but your technique was exceptional. It gave me both the warm and the fuzzies. You’re in.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Will said, splaying out his fingers to stretch his hand. “I was on the waiting list for a week.”

Spitfire put her sunglasses back on and stared up at the early afternoon sun. “Well, now’s your chance. Get petting.”

“You want ear scritches again?”

Spitfire looked down at Will, then leaned her head back on the chair. “Nah, the chest is fine for now. But don’t slack on the technique. I’ll know.”

Will got to work.

The two sat at a small wireframe table on the patio of a pasta house. Traffic in the outskirts of town was low and quiet, especially in the time between lunch and dinner. The whole Wonderbolt team was there, each seated at their own table across from a human petter.

Soarin leaned over from the table next to Spitfire. “You know, Spitfire, you don’t have to screen petters. They’re not joining the Wonderbolts.”

“But they’re petting the Wonderbolts,” Spirtfire said. She yawned and pushed up her sunglasses. “We need the best of the best. I want to see if these humans have what it takes.”

Fleetfoot turned around in her chair. “You know, she says she screens people,” she said with a subtle lisp, “but I haven’t seen her turn back a human yet.”

Soarin and Fleetfoot looked to Spitfire, as did their curious petters. Spitfire crossed her forelegs. “I’m… testing their ability. I’m challenging them to perform at their best.”

“Ohhh, I think I see what’s going on,” Fleetfoot said, her back hooves up on the table for her petter, Bryan, to massage. “Spitfire just likes barking orders at us that much for morning and evening training, that she craves that authority in the afternoon, too.”

“Hah,” Spitfire said, waving a waiter over. “Only thing I’m craving right now is another penne primavera.”

As he scratched Spitfire’s chest, Will took a look at the plates of pasta in front of each Wonderbolt. “You guys sure like your pasta.”

“Penne primavera, please, and another water. Thanks,” Spitfire said to the waiter. She chugged her water and stretched out her wings. “You bet. It’s a perk of having the petting café thing here at a pasta house instead of a café café.” She raised her voice. “The last thing kids like Rainbow Crash need is coffee.”

“That was one time!” Rainbow called from across the patio. “And by the way, I broke the sound barrier that time. None of you guys have done that here on Earth.”

“You broke a lot of things that day,” Fleetfoot said.

Rainbow pretended not to hear. The other Wonderbolts pretended not to snicker.

Spitfire pointed to her neck. “You can start on the neck, now, uh… What’s your name again?”

“Will,” Will said, rubbing the base of Spitfire’s neck. “So do you guys train here, too?” he asked. “I figured you all being fliers and stuff, you’d be working out of an airfield, or a stadium: some big open space to fly around in. A pasta house was not the first place to come to mind.”

“Well, we’re still outdoors,” Spitfire said. “We still take the morning and the late afternoon to train over the open fields out of town. Which, by the way, Earth is a much better place to train. Turns out flying here is like flying with a bag of bricks on your back. Great for training. Anyway.

“This pasta house has pasta—tons of carbs,” Spitfire said. She pointed to Soarin, who was wolfing down a forkful of fettuccine alfredo. “They have salads here too. Everything green you could think of.”

Spitfire nudged Soarin on the shoulder. “And?”

“And what?”

Fleetfoot turned around and poked Soarin in the ribs. “What’s your favourite thing on the menu?”

Soarin’s face grew red, avoiding his teammates’ stares. “They have really good dessert.”

“What kind of dessert, Soarin?” Fleetfoot grinned.

Soarin rolled his eyes but he, too, grinned. “Come on, guys, I like more than just pie.”

“Pie!” Spitfire said. She held up a hoof as if to whisper to Will, but spoke loud enough for Soarin to hear. “This kid and his pie.”

Fleetfoot joined in. “That kid and his pie.”

“Forget about paying for this food with Wonderbolt funds,” Soarin said. “For all this teasing, I’m gonna make you guys pay for my dessert.”

Spitfire smiled and shook her head, thanking the waiter for bringing her water. “Anyway,” she said to Will. “What were we talking about? Dessert, salads, pasta… right. Yeah, we eat to train.”

Will tried to keep stroking Spitfire’s neck without lapsing in technique. “So when’s your next show?”

“Not for a while,” Spitfire said. “We haven’t trained enough for a show here. Those are going to stay in Equestria for now.”

“Any tickets left for your next Equestria show?” Will asked.

“Maybe not the next one. That’ll be up in the clouds. Humans aren’t supposed to do that. Maybe the one after.” Spitfire turned to Soarin. “I think we’re in Fillydelphia in two weeks?”

“Yup.”

“There you go,” Spitfire said. “We’ve got a couple of our team managers here—talk to them for tickets.”

Will raised his eyebrows. “So you ponies don’t mind that humans are going to Equestria now?”

“Well, it’s…” Spitfire looked at her teammates and frowned. “It’s complicated. They’re still sorting that out, I think. The government, I mean. I think we’re only allowed to visit each other, but not live where the others are.”

“Something to do with the economy, isn’t it? And politics?” Soarin scratched his head. “And magic? Something like that? The princesses were unsure about it. Said visiting is fine for now, but not moving.”

Spitfire shrugged, turning to Will. “Ask them if you get the chance. I’m no authority on this.”

Will rested his chin on his hand as he scratched Spitfire’s fluffy chest. “I wanted to see Princess Luna, but she’s booked solid for the next month.” Will peered over Spitfire’s shoulder. “Same with Rainbow Dash. I was hoping I could get a quick picture on my way out. The list to see her is so long, now.”

Spitfire rolled her eyes. “Don’t say it too loudly or she’ll hear.”

“Too late,” Rainbow said from across the patio, smiling with her hooves behind her head.

Fleetfoot chimed in. “She’s good at hearing her own name.”

“That’s right,” Spitfire said. “Ears as big as her ego.”

Rainbow nodded. “Yup. Biggest ego on the team. You guys wish your ego was as big as mine.”

Soarin almost choked on his fettuccini.

Spitfire sighed and leaned on her hoof. “That mare gets too much attention for her own good.”

Fleetfoot took a grand swig of her water. “I think it’s hilarious. She just gets all the attention. She saves Equestria, she’s a Wonderbolt… and she’s probably the most popular pony in this world, too.”

“And it all goes to her head,” Spitfire muttered.

Soarin shrugged. “We’re Wonderbolts. There’s not much we can do to stop the attention.”

“Yeah, hah!” Fleetfoot said. “You think we can stop the crowds, the fans, the autographs… either in Equestria or here, now?”

Spitfire nodded, taking her sunglasses off and folding them. “I guess so.”

Fleetfoot arched an eyebrow. “Spitfire’s not jealous, is she?”

“No,” Spitfire said, pointing at Fleetfoot with her sunglasses. “All I’m saying is Crash lets it all go to her head. It’s not healthy.”

Fleetfoot leaned back and stretched her forelegs. “Eh, don’t worry about it. If she crashes and burns, then she’s responsible and she’ll deal with that herself. I say let her have all the attention she wants.”

“Rainbow Dash!” came a voice from the sidewalk, but it was not a human’s voice.

“Mom? Dad?” Rainbow yelped, almost leaping out of her chair. “How did you find me?”

Spitfire chuckled. “You know, I will say that sometimes, Crash gets the best kind of attention.”

“We saw where you’d be on the internets!” Bow Hothoof said, pulling out his camera and snapping a picture.

“What’s your name, hon?” Windy Whistles called out to the human petting Rainbow Dash. “Sally? You’re doing so great, Sally! Pet our daughter! Keep it up!”

Bow pumped his hoof in the air. “Goooo Sally! Sall-y! Sall-y!”

The whole patio joined in with the chant, laughs interrupting the Wonderbolts’ cheers, as Rainbow Dash deflated into a blushing heap.

Sally continued to pet, confused but strangely more confident than ever.
> The Humans (bonus/bogus chapter)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ponies lined up outside of the café in Ponyville, each with a numbered ticket in their hooves. Inside sat two humans, Fred and Damien, sitting across from each other at a table. Each was flanked by a pony on either side.

The pony to Fred’s right poked his forearm. “Wow, your skin is really smooth and… squishy. Can I feel your other arm, too?”

“Can I rub your neck?” The pony on his left said. She started to massage his neck. “Hey, Rose Blossom, feel this. His neck is, like, squishy, but firm.”

“Ooh,” Rose Blossom said, rubbing the other side of Fred’s neck. “You’re right. Like an orange.”

“Can I feel your mane?” One of the ponies beside Damien moved her hoof up to Damien’s hair. She giggled. “Ooh! It’s so short and prickly. That feels nice.”

“It’s such a boring colour,” the other pony beside him said. Her horn lit up as she scratched her chin. “Mind if I change it to… hm… yellow? Or maybe a deep purple? Don’t worry, it’s a temporary spell.”

“Oooooh,” the other pony said. “I like purple. Do purple!”

Fred looked at Damien.

Damien looked at Fred.

“This… this feels weirder than I thought it would,” said Fred.

“Yup,” said Damien.

“I think this was a bad idea.”

“Yeah.”

“…Let’s never do this again.”

“Agreed.”
> The Pie Sisters
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pinkie’s face went from blue to purple. “… until the ticking tick-tock talkers talked and took a look and snuck in the tick tock nook of the tick tock talker’s talking book.” She sucked in a full breath of air, the colour of her face returning to normal.

Everyone in the dimly-lit café snapped their fingers. One person in the back let out a low whistle.

“Did she just do that all in one breath?” Greg whispered across the table to Tracy. “That was like a full minute!”

Tracy nodded, snapping with the crowd. “Yes, that was impressive.” She leaned forward to whisper to Marble Pie as she scratched her ear. “Your sister is very talented.”

Marble nodded. “Mm-hmm.”

Pinkie trotted down from the microphone and sat back down at her table next to Greg. She laid a hoof on Marble’s shoulder. “See? That wasn’t so bad,” she said. “They all finger-clapped for me! Everyhuman that comes here is just really supportive and nice and non-judge-y and just wants to have a good time. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Marble looked down and away, rubbing her shoulder.

“Aw, it’s okay,” Pinkie said, pulling her twin sister in for a side-hug. “You can always try another day. We’re here for as long as you want!”

Marble shook her head, sinking further behind her hair.

“I don’t think she’s interested,” Tracy said, smiling at Marble. “Don’t worry, dear. You don’t have to sing if you don’t want to. I can keep petting you if you like.”

Marble emerged from her hair and nodded.

Tracy leaned in, keeping her voice low and calm. “Well, sweetie, you said you live on a farm, is that right? What kind of a farm?”

Marble looked down at the ground, but slowly brought her eyes up to meet Tracy’s. As she opened her mouth to speak, Pinkie jumped forward. “It’s a rock farm! We grow rocks and we tend to them and we wait until the crystals and gems grow inside and then we break them open at harvest season and—”

“With all due respect, dear,” Tracy said, gently pushing Pinkie back into her seat. “I was asking Marble, here. Why don’t you and Greg talk about something? I’m sure you can find something to talk about.”

“You bet we can!” Pinkie almost fell over leaning towards Greg on her forehooves. “Greg, quick, gimme something to talk about.”

Greg paused mid-pet. “Uh, that poem you did was impressive.”

“Thanks!” Pinkie bounced in her chair. “I just like how fun some words sound, you know? Twilight taught me all about alliterations and assonances and onomonomonopoeias and…”

As Pinkie rattled on and Greg petted, doing his best to follow, Tracy scooted her chair up and ran her fingers through Marble’s mane. “Now, where were we? You live on a rock farm, you say. How do you like it there?”

Marble brushed her hair aside, mumbling something.

Tracy leaned in closer. “I’m sorry, I must be losing my hearing. Say that again?”

Marble leaned in closer too. “It’s nice.”

“Good, good,” Tracy said, scratching her ear. “Glad to hear it.”

Marble smiled, leaning in to Tracy’s hand.


~ ~ ~


“Stop!”

Drake pulled his hand back. “Oh? What’s wrong?”

“Not the whole hand.” Limestone scowled at Drake. She held up one hoof. “Just a finger.”

Puzzled, Drake extended his finger. “Just one?”

“Yes,” Limestone said, pointing to a spot on her shoulder. “And only right there.”

Drake’s finger slowly approached Limestone’s shoulder until it barely touched Limestone’s fur. “Is this okay?”

“Perfect. Small circular motions only.” Limestone sighed, drinking from her bottle of mountain spring water. “How’s it going, Maud?”

“Okay,” Maud said, glancing across the café at Pinkie and Marble’s table. “I feel like this isn’t a constructive use of my time.”

Limestone nodded. “Yeah, I agree, this is boring.” Limestone eyed Sam, the human petting Maud, from across the table. “Hey, you. Want to hoof wrestle?”

“What is that?” Sam said. “Like arm wrestling or something?”

“Yeah, whatever.” Limestone propped her elbow up on the table and gestured with her hoof. “You up for it or what?”

Sam looked at Maud, then slowly raised his hand to meet her hoof. “Uh, all right, sure.”

“One two three go!” Limestone yanked his hand down with a jerk, but not far enough to win yet. Sam almost jumped out of his seat, but kept his elbow on the table and pushed back.

Limestone grinned.

Sam huffed, his face growing red as Limestone kept his hand suspended three inches away from losing. He kept pushing, but he gave in and his hand thumped against the table.

“Too easy,” said Limestone, sitting back on her chair and crossing her arms. “You humans got noodles for arms or what?”

Sam shook his hand out, grimacing. “You ponies have steel pipes for arms?”

Limestone snorted. “Nah, just us Pies.” Limestone looked down at her shoulder. Her eyes went wide. “Hey!” she said. “I said one finger! When did you start using the whole hand?”

Drake froze. “During the arm wrestle.”

Limestone glared at Drake, squinting and pressing her eyebrows together. Beads of sweat formed on Drake’s forehead as he looked between Limestone and his hand on her shoulder.

Limestone frowned. “Fine. But stay on the shoulder.”

“Phew, all right,” Drake said, continuing to pet in small circular motions.

Maud slid a peanut over to Boulder. Boulder had his own seat on top of the table. “You can pet me if you like, Drake,” Maud said. “I usually let Limestone redirect all petting to me.”

Drake smiled as he massaged Limestone carefully with his hand. “Thanks, but I’m good.”

Sam lifted a sore, twitching hand to stroke Maud’s ear. “So, uh, what was that about this not being a constructive use of your time? You think petting is a waste of time?”

Maud shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I don’t mind the petting, and I get to share my poetry once in a while here, but I have more compelling things I could be doing right now.”

Sam looked at Maud. “Such as?”

“I could be studying human rocks. I could also be comparing them to our rocks.”

“Sure sounds… compelling.” Sam rolled up his sleeve and scratched Maud’s neck. “Could bring a book on human rocks next time.”

“That’s a good idea.”

Sam pressed his lips together. “You like rocks?”

“Yes, I do.” Maud blinked.

Sam nodded. He withdrew his hand and stared at the ground. “That’s… that’s good.”

Maud took a breath in. “I see you’re trying to make small talk. Five minutes is not enough time to get to know me. I’ll give you the short version: Yes, I do talk like this all the time. I like rocks. Yes, I like more than just rocks. I like minerals, plate tectonics, stand-up comedy, and friends.” She looked down at her glass of ice water. “You can continue petting now, if you want.”

“Uh, yeah, all right.” Sam stroked Maud’s neck again. “So, not to be rude, but… why participate in the petting café? I’m curious. It sounds like you don’t want to be here.”

“I sound like that all the time, but it’s not always true.” Maud stroked Boulder. “Pinkie strongly insisted that we come, so we came.”

“Yeah,” Limestone said, “she twisted our forelegs until we agreed to come here.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “Pinkie doesn’t sound all that nice, then.”

Maud shook her head. “It’s not that. She’s very nice. She just gets excited a lot. It’s infectious. We can’t help but get just as excited as her.”

Sam chuckled. “I can tell. Well, that’s nice of you both to do it for Pinkie.”

Limestone grinned. “She’s done a lot for us, so this makes us about even.”

Maud nodded.

Limestone checked her shoulder, only to find Drake’s hand wasn’t there—and instead on her neck. She gave Drake an icy glare.

It was so icy, Drake froze.

Limestone’s jaw tightened. “Pet my neck and I’ll break yours.”

Drake’s hand slowly moved back down to her shoulder.
> Queen Chrysalis
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hello, yes!” Twilight called to the end of the line. “Over here! Twilight Sparkle, ready for petting!” 

The next person in line, Sara, glanced at one of the other tables in the café, but approached Twilight’s table. “Really? The Twilight Sparkle?” 

Twilight nodded eagerly, wiping sweat off of her forehead. “Yep, that’s me!” 

“Huh, I didn’t think you were scheduled for today.” 

“Yes, that’s right!” Twilight rubbed her temples, but kept up her smile. “But I decided to schedule for today, too! It’s because everyone loves me and I can’t get enough love!” 

“No, I mean, you were supposed to be in Texas this week, weren’t you?” Sara looked down at her phone. “Houston, I think.” 

“Rescheduled,” Twilight blurted. “I changed my mind. Now quick, pet me.” 

Sara shrugged. “Okay, well, it’s nice to meet you—” 

“Pet me!” 

“Okay, okay,” Sara said, taking a seat and stroking Twilight’s neck. “Oh, ew,” she said, retracting her hand. “You’re so sweaty.” 

Twilight glared at Sara. “That’s probably your own filthy, sweaty hand. Now pet me.” 

Sara’s eyes widened at Twilight. 

“Please, I mean,” said Twilight, her glare immediately disappearing. She flashed Sara a twitchy smile. “Pretty please? Don’t you love me? Everybody loves Twilight Sparkle, right?” 

Sara sighed, wiping her hand on her jeans. “You’re doing a pretty bad job of being Twilight Sparkle, you know.” 

Twilight's smile disappeared. Her eyes narrowed. “Who told you?” 

“The online posting, duh. I already knew I was coming to pet a changeling.” 

Twilight blinked. Then, wincing, she screamed as she transformed into a tall changeling and crumpled in her chair. Chrysalis heaved, lifting her body off the chair and leaned in close to Sara, her fangs dangerously close to the human’s face. “Who told you?” she snarled.  

Sara squinted. “I’m sorry, do you not know where you are?” 

Chrysalis frowned, sitting tall in her chair, which brought her to about eye-level with Sara. “Of course I know where I am,” she said, squinting at Sara. “Now, who gave away that I was here?” 

“Again, it was posted online,” Sara said, picking up her purse and checking her phone. “Look, do I still have to pet you?” 

Chrysalis fumed as she glared first at Sara, then at her phone. She gritted her teeth together. Then, in a flash, her snarl was gone, replaced with an innocent smile. “As a matter of fact, yes. You do.” 

“No, I mean, do I have to pet you? Can you at least change back into Twilight instead? Or someone less sweaty, at least?” 

Chrysalis turned up her nose. “I cannot change back into Twilight. I require much more love for that, more than I would even in my own world. So, if you want me to change into somepony else…” Chrysalis tossed her teal mane. “You must pet me, first.” 

“All right, fine.” Sara set down her phone. She reached out and ran her fingers through Chrysalis’s smooth mane. 

“Yes, good,” Chrysalis said, closing her eyes and smiling. 

Sara glanced behind Chrysalis at a table on the other side of the café. Sitting across from a young boy was a changeling, who changed into Rainbow Dash with a flash. The boy then patted Rainbow Dash on the shoulder. Sara sighed. 

Chrysalis opened her eyes and frowned. “This isn’t working,” she said. “I’m not feeling any love.” 

Sara raised an eyebrow. “Oh, is that so.” 

“Maybe you’re not petting correctly,” Chrysalis said, her eyes following Sara’s hand. “Are you using the wrong hand? Or perhaps you need to pet me softer?” 

“Perhaps you could be more likeable?” 

“Puh.” Chrysalis tossed her hair. “I’m a queen. What’s not to like?” 

“Anything else about you.” 

Chrysalis’s lips curled up in a scowl, but relaxed. “Of course, silly me,” she said. “If I want your love, I’m going to need to adopt your feeble, meek-mannered ways.” She tilted up her chin, nodding to Sara, smiling the warmest smile a set of fangs could give. “Hello, mortal. I am Queen Chrysalis. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” 

Sara was not impressed. “Feeble, huh.” She stood up. “I’m leaving.” 

“Wait!” Chrysalis said, leaping out of her chair and grasping Sara’s hand. “Don’t leave. All I want is a little bit of your love. The tiniest amount. P… Please. I’m starving.” 

Sara frowned. “Well, you’re going to have to act less condescending. And apologize.” 

Chrysalis’s head sunk until it landed with a soft thud on the table. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. 

“Sorry for what?” 

“For being condescending,” Chrysalis said, her eyes glued to the ground. “I’m just really hungry. And tired. And I feel so weak. I thought I could conquer this world, but… it’s harder than I thought.” 

Sara pressed her lips together. Her hands on her hips, she glanced at the people in line behind her, staring at her. With a sigh, she set her backpack down on the ground and took a seat. She ran her fingers gingerly through Chrysalis’s mane.  

Chrysalis looked up. She noticed the hand, then eyed Sara curiously. “I can feel some love coming from you. Why?” 

“Because that felt honest,” Sara said. “Not that I don’t believe that you’re a queen, and that you think I’m feeble, but I at least feel bad for you. …Somewhat.” 

Chrysalis huffed and looked down. “You pity me.” 

 “Sure, but that’s not so bad, is it? To admit that sometimes, you’re weak?” 

Chrysalis's nostrils flared. 

“Sometimes, I said.” Sara moved her hand down from the hair to the neck. Chrysalis’s neck was soft and slightly squishy. “We’re all weak sometimes, I think. Pretending you’re so much better than I am… doesn’t make me feel all that good, you know?” 

“Ugh, feelings.” Chrysalis rolled her eyes. 

Sara furrowed her eyebrows. “How is it that someone like you, who feeds on love, doesn’t care about feelings?” 

Chrysalis blew a strand of hair away from her face. “Feelings make you weak,” she muttered. “It’s what separates predators like me and prey like you. Predators do not let feelings cloud their judgement. They lead. They go in for the kill.” 

Sara rubbed the base of Chrysalis’s neck. “If you say so. I like feelings. Joy’s a good feeling. Wouldn’t you say so?” 

Chrysalis shrugged. “Joy’s fine. Not as delectable or satisfying as love.” 

Sara tilted her head, eyeing Chrysalis as she slouched over the table. “I hope I don’t sound rude, Chrysalis, but has anyone ever loved you? Not just the pony you were disguised as?” 

“I used to have an army of changelings.” Chrysalis glanced at a table to her left, where a yellow and green changeling was being pet by a little girl. “But they betrayed me for pathetic pony ways and petting cafes such as this one.” 

Sara clasped her hands together. “I hate how corny this sounds, given where you’re from, but… you should make some friends.” She scratched the back of her head. “Friends can give you genuine love, which I think is what changelings need, right? No offense, but I doubt you’ll get that out of five-minute stints at a café. You should try finding some friends.”  

“Blech. Weakness.” 

“Just try it,” Sara said. “It could work. There are some other ponies here you could make friends with. How about… that pony over there?” 

Chrysalis rolled her head to look. It was hard to tell what Sara was pointing to, as it seemed the only non-human thing at the table was a large, fluffy pink cushion. This cushion was surrounded by three humans, all elbow-deep in its plush, fluffy pink fur. However, the cushion did have large blue eyes, and those eyes were staring at Chrysalis. The pink cushion-pony stuck its tongue out. 

Chrysalis frowned. “I don’t like it.” 

“Now, now, you shouldn’t be rude like that,” Sara said. She motioned toward the pony. “Give her a chance. Or… it.” 

Chrysalis’s legs locked. “What do I do?” 

“Just go over and say hi.” 

Chrysalis looked at Sara. “And then what?” 

Sara chuckled. “Then say, ‘How are you?’ ” 

Chrysalis looked away and folded her forelegs. “No. Too much trouble.” 

“You might not have much choice, here.” 

“What do you mean?” Chrysalis turned to see the fluffy pink pony five inches from her face. “Gah!” Chrysalis stumbled out of her chair. 

The pink pony stuck out her tongue. 

Chrysalis reached out towards Sara. “Sara.” 

The pink pony touched her hoof to Chrysalis’s nose and blew a raspberry. 

Sara smiled. “Feeling any love yet?” 

“Yes, but at what cost?” Chrysalis pleaded with her eyes as the fluffy pony wrapped her forelegs around Chrysalis, trapping her. “Sara. Help.”
> Sunset Shimmer, Octavia, and Vinyl Scratch
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey! I’m Sunset Shimmer,” Sunset said, smiling.

“Dan,” Dan said, shaking Sunset’s hoof. “So I’m the first petter of the day, I guess, huh?”

“First petter I’ve ever had, actually,” Sunset said. Her hooves kept slipping off of her chair. She stiffened her shoulders as Dan took a seat. “So… five minutes at a time, right?”

Dan nodded. “Yup.”

“Not a lot of time to get to know a person, huh?” She rubbed her elbow. “It’s all right. I’ve been needing some practice on first impressions. So… what do we do? Do we pet? Do we talk? I don’t know how this thing works, so…”

Dan shrugged. “Whatever you’re comfortable doing, you know? I’m not picky.”

Sunset sat up, her hooves still slipping on the chair. “Okay. Let’s do the petting. I’m willing to try that. Yeah, let’s start with that.”

“All right.” Dan reached out and placed his hand on Sunset’s neck, then pulled it back. “You’re shaking. Are you nervous?”

“Nope. Terrified!” Sunset took a deep breath in. “But do it anyway. Twilight insisted that I give it a try, especially as a pony. I mean, I didn’t have much choice, since the portal to Equestria turned me into a pony, and I didn’t turn into a human coming into this world… Anyway, sorry, it’s a long story. Just go for it.”

“All right, if you’re sure.” Dan reached out once again, this time more slowly and carefully. He placed his hand on Sunset’s shoulder and gently stroked.

The more he stroked Sunset, the more Sunset relaxed. Sunset unwound in the chair, slumping and smiling. All her tension melted away as her head sank and her ears twitched. “Okay, wow, yeah. I can see why Twilight said I had to be a pony for this, too. This feels so good.” She looked up at Dan. “Can you… can you do behind the ear?”

Dan did behind the ear.

“Oh, that feels so good.” Sunset’s head plopped onto the table. “Okay. No longer worried about this petting thing. I feel like I could fall asleep right here.”

Sunset closed her eyes as Dan scratched behind her ear. She sighed, trying to keep her hooves from slipping off the chair.

Dan scratched his chin. “So… I’m curious. Why here?”

“I’m sorry?” Sunset lifted her head.

“Why’d you pick this place to be the first petting café to go to?” Dan asked. “They’ve got these things all over the world, you know. Why Cleveland? Why not somewhere more exciting like New York, or London, or Paris? Why here?”

“Seemed like a nice, quiet place, at least when Twilight showed me on her tablet.” She bobbed her head and smirked. “Also the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

“Ah, that’s right. You’re in a rock band.”

Sunset squinted. “You, um… you know? Oh, wait, right—”

“—I’ve seen the movies.”

“Yes, right. Those movies where they recorded all our lives for the world to see.” Sunset Shimmer slumped, supporting her head with a hoof. She sighed. “So you do know about my past, then, huh. Thought I could escape that in this world.”

“Yeah, but it’s pretty clear you’re not that person anymore. Don’t sweat it.” Dan laughed. “And hey, you’re my favourite character, and it’s kind of because of your past.”

Sunset perked up. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah. I was first in line to pet you for a reason, you know. Your story of redemption, and trying to improve yourself… all the way to becoming a leader. It was great to see you progress as a character.” Dan scratched the base of Sunset’s mane. “I mean, every other character feels like a cartoon character, you know? But you just seem like the most normal out of all of them.”

Sunset smiled. “Thank you, that means a lot to me.”

Then she fell out of the chair.

Dan stood up, startled, and rushed to Sunset’s aid. “Whoa, Sunset, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Sunset said, sprawled on the floor. She got to her hooves and rubbed her head. “Sorry. Been a long time since I’ve been a pony. Chairs don’t work for me, I guess.”

“Here, I’ll get you another one,” Dan said, standing up. “I think we can borrow one of the leather ones in that lounge over there.”

“Thanks,” Sunset said, her face burning. She shook her head. “Wow. Really need to work on those first impressions.”


~ ~ ~


“And there she is.” Octavia crossed her forelegs. “A full thirty minutes late.”

Vinyl waved, yawning as she sauntered down the stairs and into the club. Muffled beats came through her headphones. She waved to Octavia as she walked to a nearby table and took a seat.

Octavia scowled. “One-thirty in the afternoon. One-thirty. One o’clock is not hard to get up for. It’s not even in the morning. And no apology from you? No?”

Vinyl shrugged. She motioned to a waiter nearby, who nodded and zipped behind the club’s back counter.

Octavia thrust her hoof towards the small crowd of six humans standing at the other side of Vinyl’s table. “And look, you’ve made these poor, patient humans wait for you. They were scheduled here to pet you at one, one-o’five, one-ten… Waited for days on that online list, and now what? How will they pet you now?”

The six humans looked around at each other. They each extended a hand and petted Vinyl. Vinyl settled in, putting her hooves behind her head as the flock of hands scratched her all over.

Octavia blinked. “Oh. That works.” She pointed a hoof at Vinyl. “But you better not pull a stunt like that again.”

She turned to the human petting her shoulder. “Apologies for that. Now, where were we?”

Amit shrugged. He set the churro in his other hand down and wiped his hand on a napkin. “Something about how Vinyl is your best friend?”

Octavia’s face grew red. “Heh, yes. It’s hard to tell based on that little exchange, now, is it?” She shook her head. “It’s just that I need to impose expectations, standards, all that. Otherwise she’d be sleeping in until two-thirty. Which she has, before.”

“Ah,” Amit said. “Is it the late-night raves that keep her up so late?”

“Without question, yes.” Octavia stroked her own mane, effectively petting herself. “We have a dedicated time for those parties—ten o’clock onwards. It’s at about nine that I race upstairs to fall asleep before then. Those things go on and on, usually until something like three in the morning. That’s when it’s my turn to put on a pair of earmuffs to get any hope of falling asleep.”

“But you do get to sleep, right?”

Octavia pulled down her eyelids. “Most of the time.”

Amit frowned. “Now, I don’t mean to sound rude—you do what you want to do—but it sounds like you should find your own place. You sleep upstairs, right? Maybe it’s worth finding someplace to sleep that’s a bit quieter.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Octavia said, bobbing her head from side to side. “It’s not as awful here as I make it sound. I can function on little sleep. That’s nothing new. But Vinyl is a good friend. She has her demands, but she heeds mine, too.” She nodded her head up to the speakers mounted around the club, which were now playing soft classical music. “I get to choose the music that plays during the daytime.”

Amit glanced down at his churro. “I can guess who chose the menu.”

“Ah, yes. Mostly her demands, not mine—hence why this club serves churros, Cheetos, tacos, and chocolate milkshakes. However, she makes accommodations for me, too.” She raised her mug. “The tea, for instance. Though I do enjoy a good churro every now and again.”

Amit kneaded Octavia’s shoulder. “Are you a musician as well?”

“Yes, indeed.” Octavia sipped her tea. “I play the cello. The simple cello.”

“Simple?” Amit raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, well, it’s only one instrument.” Octavia nodded to the table behind her. “Take Vinyl. She’s a one-pony band. Plays all sorts of instruments through that giant cannon thingamajig—the whole gamut of screeches, squeals, earthquakes, garbage can lids.”

“Wild guess, but I take it you don’t like dubstep.”

“Indeed not. Neither of us like each other’s music.” She set her mug down. “And that’s the very reason we’re friends.”

Amit grinned. “Oh, really? Why’s that?”

“She’s always challenging me to improve,” Octavia said. “Both of us do that for each other. She likes to put a modern spin on some of my classical pieces. I help her put some actual music in her music. Dubstep without choruses or harmonies and such is just noise. It has no… musicality behind it, you know?”

“Right, sure.” Amit smiled. “I guess now’s a bad time to admit that I like dubstep, then.”

Octavia laughed, shaking her head. “No, it’s okay. I understand. It’s noise, but it’s set to a rhythm, and it’s still new and different and interesting.” She glanced up at the clock. “I suppose that means you’ll be back at ten o’clock?”

“Nine thirty-five, actually,” Amit said, pointing to Vinyl Scratch. “I’ve also got a reservation with her.”

Octavia turned around. Vinyl had brought over a beanbag chair and was sprawled on top as the six humans massaged her from all angles. She waved to Octavia from the beanbag. A few of the humans waved, too.

Octavia grunted. “She’s popular, that one.”

“And you’re not?”

“Well, no. I shouldn’t say that.” Octavia leaned forward and rested her head on top of her forelegs. “Her waiting list is a bit longer, but we both keep busy.” She yawned.

Amit rubbed her shoulder more gently. “Tired?”

“Yes,” Octavia said, her eyelids fluttering. “Though I mean no offense. I am not tired because of our conversation, here—it’s very stimulating. But, you know, the rave last night—”

“Say no more,” Amit said. “I’ll pet you to sleep, here.”

“Mmm.” Octavia’s eyes drifted closed. “Most people don’t mind petting sleeping ponies, so it turns out. In fact, they say it’s more adorable that way.”

Amit nodded, softly stroking Octavia’s back. “I’d have to agree.”

“Excellent.” Octavia nestled down into her forelegs. She yawned again. “I must be adorable to accrue all those Instalikes and reTwitters and such.”

“Heh, that’s right. But don’t worry about that. Sleep now,” Amit said.

Octavia smiled and nodded, her back rising and falling with her breaths.
> Discord and Derpy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discord grumbled. This was a petting café, not a zoo.

For all of the fifty seconds he’d been at this café, the only thing he’d gotten were looks. Not stares, no. No human wanted to be caught staring too long at the draconequus, so it seemed. They avoided his gaze as if he was going to bite their heads off if they got too close.

Discord huffed. He wouldn’t bite them off. He’d simply pop them off, like the lid of a Pringles can, and pop them back on backwards. Then everyone would be stuck in the past, always looking back on everything. Discord giggled, then caught himself. Fluttershy would give him a stern talking-to if she found out. He slumped in his chair and went back to grumbling.

If there was one thing Fluttershy could be wrong about, though, it was about humans. Humans were selfish, greedy little goblins who wanted to keep their soft, smooth hands all for themselves. And they were all boring, if all they wanted to do was stand around in line and avoid looking at him, rather than simply coming up to pet him.

He had half a mind to get up and pet the humans in line. The other half of his mind wanted to break up the line entirely, shuffle the humans like a deck of cards, and deal most of them out in front of him. The other other half of his mind wanted to go back home where his chaos magic wasn’t suppressed. The first half of his mind nudged him to take a sip of his black coffee—and so he did, his third half of his mind nodding in approval. However, the second half of his mind was distracted by a changeling a few tables over, muttering gibberish to a human across from him.

Gibberish. His native tongue.

Discord slithered out his chair, tail-first, snaking his way across the hardwood floor and up the side of the changeling’s table. He coiled up on the table and looked between the petter and the pett-ee—the revolting, hideous, gaudy mishmash of colour, and the changeling.

“Hello,” he said, organically inserting himself into the conversation.

The two of them pretended like he’d interrupted them. The changeling leaned forward. “Yes, Discord? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter at all, my friend,” Discord said, making a bridge with his fingers and resting his head on top. “I was simply in the neighbourhood and I happened to overhear music to my ears.”

The changeling perked up. “Oh, you know Japanese?”

Discord recoiled, then uncoiled and slithered off the table. He stood up straight and folded his arms. “Hmm, you made that sound like a thing. Like a normal thing.”

“Well, it is in Japan. It’s their language, there.” The changeling nodded to the human across from him. “Rita here is helping me learn it.”

“Blegh, language. Ugh. Never mind then. Bleugh.” Discord slumped away. “And here I thought changelings’ personalities matched their gorgeous designs, but no, they’re just more boring ol’ flying, talking horses.”

The changeling rubbed his chin. “So I’m boring, but also gorgeous…” He glanced at the human. “That makes up for it, right? Right. I’ll take it.”

Discord found his way back to his chair, climbing up from the floor and slouching. Changelings were boring. Humans were boring. Twilight was extra boring. This whole petting café idea was boring. If only he’d gone to that Ogres and Oubliettes café instead. At least there, he could sit and mumble and grumble and play a fantasy role playing game.

But Fluttershy insisted, so there Discord sat. He couldn’t do anything but sit and mumble and grumble and wonder if he’d ever be approached by any of these boring, miserable humans—

“Hey!”

Speaking of which… Discord craned and twisted his long neck around to the source of the voice. The source was not a human, though. It was a pony.

And a very, very not-boring one at that.

The pony waved and smiled. “I’m Derpy.”

Discord fully spun around in his chair—legs first, then arms, then torso. “Yes, I can see that. And might I just say, I love your eyes.” He held up a tape recorder up to Derpy’s mouth. “How did they get like that? Are they always like that? And more importantly, where can I get my eyes done like that?”

Derpy chuckled, shaking her head. “You love my eyes, Mr. Discord? Is that a joke?”

“Of course not, Ms. Derpy.” Discord pulled away the tape recorder and draped his arms across the back of his chair. “I’ve no doubt you’ve heard of me, and I’m sure you can simply imagine what I must think of every pony having their eyes, ears, legs, and tails all in the same exact places. You’d think Ponyville was Starbright Simmer’s town! Back when she was, you know, less goody-two-shoes and more… interesting.” Discord touched Derpy’s nose with his talon. “It’s the interesting ponies that, shall you say, catch my eye.”

Derpy giggled. “Interesting ponies, hmm?”

“Interesting ponies.” Discord tapped the back of his chair. He glanced at the human petting Derpy. “Humans are even less interesting, if you ask me. After all, none of them seem to be interested in me.”

Derpy glanced at the human, then at the clock. “Well, you did just get here. Petting started at one o’clock.”

“What, you’d think I’d want to be here on time?”

“But it’s almost ten minutes until closing time,” Derpy said. “And did you get a posting on the on-line? Did you talk to Twilight?”

Discord turned up his snout. “Of course not. Twilight would want everything so orderly. I thought I’d surprise everyone instead.”

“But if you want to be petted, that’s… how it works. I think.” Derpy shrugged. “Otherwise, no one knows you’re here.”

Discord grimaced, stroking his beard with his paw. “I suppose you’re right. I could put a big flashy sign out front and advertise, but I only have enough magic to produce a few posters on some nice, glossy paper… Maybe enough for a giant spinny sign.” Discord snapped his talon and produced a giant cardboard arrow sign—Pet Discord Today! 0% Interest, No Money Down. He spun it and tossed it in the air. “Aha, yes! I do have enough!”

Derpy snickered. “That works. Here, I have an idea.” She stood up in her chair and waved to the line waiting for her. “Hey, everybody! My friend Discord here doesn’t have anyone to pet him. Can someone please pet him?”

Discord lifted the sign to help make his case, but there were no takers. None. He had to plug his ears from the silence that followed. Not one human raised a hand, or even cleared their throat. Several people looked down and away, seemingly fearing eye contact would make them prime for selection.

Well, that was certainly 0% interest. Discord grimaced and slumped in his seat. That was fine. He didn’t need anyone to pet him anyway. Humans were boring, and stupid, and Fluttershy wouldn’t stop talking about how soft human hands were and how good they felt on fur, massaging your back and shoulders…

“That’s okay,” Derpy said, hopping out of her chair. “I’ll pet you instead!”

Discord blinked. “Pardon me?”

Derpy trotted over to the chair next to Discord, waving her human over to join her. “Yeah, why not? I’ll pet you, Alex can pet me.” She looked up at Discord. “Is it okay if I do?”

“Well, that’s definitely not normal…” Discord nodded. “Perfect! Yes, feel free.”

Derpy got to work, running her hoof through the base of his stubby black mane. Discord felt a tingle up his spine, which felt strange… and strange was good! Discord giggled, his rubbery bones shivering with giddiness.

Derpy pulled her hoof away. “You’re shaking. Are you nervous?”

“Nope. Elated!” Discord wriggled in his chair. “Ooh, it’s just as wonderful as Fluttershy made it sound. Why I dared to doubt her, I have no idea.”

Derpy smiled. “I’m glad you like it.”

Discord swooped his head down, peering at Derpy. “And what if I were to pet you? The petted petting the petter? Though the petted would become a petter, too, so the petted petter could pet the petting pettee. It wouldn’t petrify you, would it? You wouldn’t petition?”

“I, um, I would pet… Hmm…” Derpy squinted, her eyes drifting closer together in concentration. “Petal… petty… um, petite?...”

Discord saw Derpy’s eyes slide dangerously closer to normal and spoke up. “Don’t worry about it, kid. Leave the clever wordplay to me.” His lion’s paw swooped in and landed behind Derpy’s ear. “And the petting. I can do that too.”

“Ooh, thanks!” Derpy leaned into Discord’s paw. “Wow, that’s really soft.”

“Better than a human’s hand, you might say? In every way imaginable?” Discord attempted to toss his short black mane. It only flapped a slight amount.

Derpy smirked. “Uh huh.”

“Good. Good to know I’m better than all these simian chumps.” Discord’s back sagged. “They’re all so boring. At the very least, we could convert them all into ponies so they’d at least be colourful, perhaps via some sort of bureau…” Discord drummed his fingers on his chin. “As it is, all they can do is stand in lines and stare at draconequi. And staring is the worst.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. It was like that for me at first, too.” Derpy shrugged. “But then some people were really nice and didn’t care about my lazy eye. There are plenty of people like that.”

Discord kept drumming his chin, his fingers morphing into drumsticks. “None showed up today, so it seems.”

Derpy pointed her hoof at the human petting her. “Alex did! Alex is nice. I’m sure he’d pet you, too.”

“Oh, really?” Discord decided to test that notion. He craned his serpentine neck all the way across the table, looking down on Alex, in the hopes that his looming presence would influence Alex’s answer.

It did. “Y-yeah,” Alex said, swallowing. “Of course.”

“Well, there. There’s one person like that.” Discord said, folding his arms. “And even then, he’s hardly convincing me. I’m finding your ‘plenty of people’ claim to be dubious.”

Derpy scrunched up her nose. “Dubious?”

“Unreliable. Questionable,” Discord said, “but it sounds much funnier. Dubious. Duuuuubious.”

Derpy gave it a try. “Dubious. Duuubious.” She giggled. “That is funny.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Discord said, a mic and mic stand appearing in his talon. “I’ll be here all night.”

Derpy looked at the line as it thinned down for the night. “If you come back tomorrow—and you talk to Twilight about a posting—I’m sure people will want to pet you.”

Discord shrunk the mic stand down, tossed it in his mouth, and chewed. The taste was sound, but it was the texture he couldn’t stand. “I doubt it. But okay. Whatever you say, Ms. Derpy.”

Derpy looked down at the table, fixated on something that didn’t seem to be there. “I don’t mean to pry, Discord, and I’m sorry if I am, but… you really seem to be getting down on yourself.” She looked up. “Is everything okay?”

Discord picked at the table. He frowned, having a feeling she’d want to talk about feelings or something annoying like that. “Everything’s fine,” Discord said, then realized how absolutely transparent and dismissive it was, and so said with more earnesty, “I’m fine, really,” which he realized was only more transparent.

Derpy obviously caught on. “Look, if some people don’t want to pet you, that’s okay. It really is.” She placed a hoof on Discord’s paw. “But there are people that do. Somewhere, out there. There always are.  Sometimes it’s… easy to forget that there are some people out there just like you.”

Discord sighed, rubbing his jaw. “Derpy, my pal, my chum, my friend that I’ve known for all of three minutes and twelve seconds… I don’t know if you’ve seen me, here, and seen this, and this, and this,” Discord said, pointing to his antler, then his bat wing, then his lion’s paw. “Would you think there’s anybody on this planet like me?”

“Discord…” Derpy swallowed, glancing down. “Would you think people lined up from the start to pet the pony with the broken eye?”

Discord swallowed, her words hitting him in the chest and tightening his heart. “Well, I, um, it’s not, you know, I wouldn’t call it broken…”

“It’s true, nobody ever called it that,” she said, slowly. “On my first day, they just stood in line for a changeling disguised as Fluttershy, and while in line, they just stared.”

Discord unfolded his arms, grimacing. Feeling bad for himself felt bad now, especially in front of Derpy. He found it hard to look her in the eye. Either of them.

“But not all people are like that. Really.” She shrugged and looked at Alex. “You just go up to them and say hi. And if they seem like fun people to talk to, then that’s great! And if they seem uncomfortable, then that’s okay, there are other people to talk to, people that like you the way you are.”

Discord fumbled in his mind, searching the floor for a retort. He said, “Well that’s cheesy,” almost immediately realizing how insensitive that might be after a statement like Derpy’s.

She took it, though. “Yeah, I guess, but it’s still true.” Derp glanced at Alex. “You’ll find someone. Just put up a posting. Say hi. They could be interesting, and if they’re not, then that’s okay, maybe the next one will be.”

Discord eyed Derpy from atop his perch of hundreds of years of wisdom. Which, well… a hundred or so of those years he’d spent giggling nonstop, a thousand of which he’d spent in stone, and not even one year spent discovering this whole friendship thing. He sighed. “All right, your unrelenting hope and optimism leaves me conceding defeat.”

“Um, okay.” Derpy smiled. “I hope that means you’ll come back tomorrow.”

“Ffffffine. I’ll give it the old college try, I guess.” Discord leaned back and rubbed his eyes. “I’ll just have to pretend every human is interesting, until they’re not.”

“That… yeah, sure, that works.”

“Excuse me,” a café employee said, waving to get Discord’s attention.

“Ah, yes, some service, thank you. One venti Caffé Americano, please,” Discord said. “And I know it’s late at night. That’s the point.”

The employee lifted a hand. “Actually, I couldn’t help but overhear, but my shift’s just about over and, well, I’m a fan, personally, so I was wondering if it’s all right if I, you know—”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Discord said, folding his arms behind his head. “You can give it to me on the house. It’s very nice of you to offer. And by on the house, I mean leave it on the roof. Thank you.”

“Um, Discord,” Derpy said.

“Fffffine, I’ll be emotionally vulnerable. Here,” Discord said, pulling out a chair. “Have a seat. I’ll pet you while you gush about me. Deal?”

The employee laughed. “As long as I get to pet you, too.”

Discord rubbed his chin. “And… you tell me your name.”

“Peter,” Peter said, extending his hand.

“Peter! Ha! Peter the petter!” Discord turned to Derpy while simultaneously shaking Peter’s hand. “This is perfect!”

Derpy beamed. “I’m glad!”

Discord pet Peter as Peter prattled on about his passion for ponies or some poppycock. Then Peter pet Discord… and his need for alliteration vanished. Discord instantly knew exactly what Fluttershy was gushing about. Human hands were uniquely soft, running across his fur. He felt his twisty, twirly spine unwind, and almost… align. Catching himself, he re-swirled up his body.

But he observed Peter with an inquisitive eye, slowly finding him almost as interesting as Peter found him. He glanced over at Derpy. She simply smiled and leaned her head back.

Discord did the same. He could get used to this. These Petting Cafés seemed to be here to stay, after all. Not that he minded.