Midnight oil
Jamie, local human, couldn’t sleep. He did not know why.
Not being in his house might not have been the issues, as it sometimes was. He was instead in the house of some friends of his, having gone over there to engage in an evening and a night of low-level revelry vis snacks, tabletop gaming and slightly stale anecdotes.
(His friends - Stop It and Tidy Up - were not local humans, they were instead local ponies, local ponies being a lot less thin on the ground in these particular parts than local humans - Jamie himself being something of a novelty. A unique novelty, in fact. The most novel of novelties, by default.)
So perhaps it was that, the unfamiliar environment? Probably not, given that it wasn’t actually that unfamiliar and he had slept over there numerous times before without any problems. The last time, for example, had been totally fine and he’d slept like a proverbial baby. And the time before that.
So perhaps it was something else. Perhaps the heat? Perhaps the humidity? Perhaps the weight of the world playing on his mind? The state of the economy? Favourite sporting team not sporting enough? Indigestion? Poor tabletop performance? Any of the above? All of the above?
Ultimately, the reasons why didn’t matter. What mattered was that he couldn’t sleep.
What mattered was that he was the only one in the house that appeared to be awake, and this didn’t appear to be about to change. And so after a fruitless hour (or more, he wasn’t keeping track) of staring at the ceiling and listening to Tidy Up snoring loud enough to make the windows rattle (or not, he wasn’t sure) Jamie finally gave in, got up, and went downstairs.
Milk was the answer. Or milk was an answer. Or milk was what he was going to try. Warm milk. They said that did the trick, didn’t they? So he filled a glass and spent a minute or so faffing around with the magic-powered microwave-substitute. It took him a try or two, but before too long he had milk that was warm, and all was was.
And he was standing there, staring into middle distance, holding his glass of warm-ish milk, when down from above swung a pointy-earned, pointy-toothed, beaming face.
“Heya, cutie!”
“Holy crap!”
By some miracle he did not spill his milk, even if the surprise appearance did see him stumbling back across the kitchen and falling into a chair that, entirely coincidentally, happened to be position in such a way he could fall into it. The pointy-toothed face let out a pointy-toothed giggle.
Jamie’s immediate, gut-level response to having someone appear out of thin air in front of him was to rouse the household to the fact there was an intruder, but then his rational mind intervened and reminded him that he had in fact been informed by both Stop It and Tidy Up that they had another housemate - one he just-so happened to have never seen on account of the hours they kept.
Nocturnal hours, evidently.
So no, not an intruder, no. The other housemate, the illusive one. Pink. Fluffy ears. Big eyes. Bat wings. The batpony they’d mentioned. The one he’d only ever heard of and never actually met in person or so much as glimpsed. Jamie’s brain fumbled in the back-drawers for her name, as they had told it to him on more than one occasion.
“...Foxglove, isn’t it?” He ventured. The batpony’s already enormous smile got even more enormouser.
“And he knows my name! What a gentlecolt,” she said, a hoof to her bosom as she continued to be there, upside-down.
“There’s a hanging around joke here but - oh man - my heart’s racing too much to make it yet,” Jamie said, wincing and clutching his chest and setting his glass of milk on a handy kitchen counter.
“Aww, going a mile a minute? We only just met!”
Before Jamie could say anything to this - before he could even digest it sufficiently to think of anything to say to this - Foxglove dismounted the ceiling, swung, flapped, and flitted through the air to land perfectly on the table beside Jamie’s chair, there to sit with folded legs, leaning on one hoof to keep the distance between them to a minimum.
“Whatcha doin’ anyway, cutie?” She asked.
This was all very forward, but Jamie was too fuzzy in the head from tiredness - and too fluffy in the head from tufty ears and big eyes - to be all that put out. Did take him a second to gather his wits though, and when he did he vaguely pointed to his nearby glass.
“Trying to get to sleep. Not doing very well. Was staring at the ceiling for a bit and that wasn’t working so I came down for warm milk. Warm milk has never actually worked before but whatever. Worth another shot, right?” He asked, raising a glass.
“True, true, warm milk is always an idea if you want to get to sleep,” she said, nodding. Then: “Ooorrrr…”
“Oooorrr?” Jamie repeated.
With a grace and elegance Jamie had only ever seen ponies master, Foxglove pivoted in place so she was no longer sitting but was instead on her belly, hindlegs kicking behind her and forelegs in front, chin rest on her hooves, eyelashes fluttering at him.
“Oorrr maybe you could make yourself some coffee instead and stay up and keep me company. How does that sound?” She asked.
“That an option?”
“Oh, with a - what are you again?”
“Human.”
“With a human as cute as you that’s always an option.”
Eyelashes continued to be fluttered.
“Laying it on a little thick there, aren’t you?” Jamie asked, and Foxglove heaved herself up so their faces were level and their noses would - with a little effort - have touched.
“I haven’t even started yet. So what do you say?”
Jamie had to look away. He was smiling and couldn’t help from smiling, but he did have to look away. It was far too late (or early, maybe?) for this, for him.
“You did hear the part where I was trying to get to sleep, didn’t you?” He asked, glancing back at her, grinning. She was grinning too, though hers was pointier, and she was back to resting her chin on her hooves.
“Yes, but since you aren’t asleep and since you are here talking to me, why not make the most of that instead?”
“You want to talk?”
In yet another dazzlingly smooth pivot Foxglove twisted herself back around so she was sitting, this time though right on the edge so far forward her dangling legs were very nearly touching his.
“We are talking, I’d just like to keep talking. Get to know you better, darling. I’ve heard so much about you from the others,” she said.
This was news to him.
“Really?”
Here Foxglove’s demeanour wilted, albeit only for a split-second.
“Well, no,” she said, before immediately perking right back up again: “But I heard you mentioned and it intrigued me - and, seeing you, I can see it wasn’t for nothing.”
“And I heard you mentioned, too. Never thought I’d actually see you, though.”
“Lucky colt, then, and lucky me. Lucky us, hmm?”
“Do feel pretty lucky,” Jamie said, unable to suppress a smile or, a moment later, a yawn, having to gnaw on his fist to stifle to worst of it. “Oh, sorry. Coffee, then? Uh, I don’t actually know where it is.”
Foxglove helped him out and in short order he had something hot and black clutched in his hand and was sitting back at the kitchen table. Foxglove was still as close to sitting in his lap as could be managed without actually just being in his lap.
“So, I don’t see many, ah, humans, so what’s your story, hmm?”
This again. Jamie took a deep breath.
“Well…”
And so, between tentative sips of scalding coffee, he laid out the sequence of events that had led to his being there and not being where he was ostensibly supposed to be. It was a story he’d had to reiterate a good few times at this point and he, frankly, was sick of it, but the locals were not yet sick of asking it.
As far as he was concerned it was a bit of a boring story anyway. How do you wind up in another dimension, exactly? The normal way. What other way is there?
“-and so that’s-” he said, having to stop to yawn again. A lifetime of caffeine abuse had meant the coffee had had exactly zero impact on his tiredness. He had been a little worried that’d happen. “I’m having issues here,” he said, blinking blearily at Foxglove, who went ‘Aww’ again and patted him on the cheek before saying:
“If you are going to insist on going to sleep, I may be able to help you out.”
Jamie tried and failed to open his eyes fully.
“That sounds a bit worrying,” he said. Foxglove giggled.
“Not worrying at all! I just had another idea,” she said.
“You’re full of ideas, aren’t you?” Jamie said, taken aback a second later when Foxglove leaned in close to again bring their faces more-or-less into contact.
“Oh cutie, I look at you and I can’t help but get all sorts of ideas.”
“Jesus Christ,” Jamie said, sitting back and shaking his head. “You always like this?” He asked. Foxglove also sat up, stretching up her forelegs over head and shifting her weight on the table, wiggling about.
(Someone was going to have to give that a wipe, later, Jamie thought, certainly before anyone ate off it.)
“I know what I like, and I don’t much mind if anyone else knows, either.”
Jamie couldn’t really argue with that. Had he found the whole situation unpleasant or an imposition he might have felt the need or desire to argue with it, but since he didn’t he didn’t, so he didn’t. Fortunate, really. Would have put the length and breadth of their conversation into a very uncomfortable light if he hadn’t been a willing and content participant. Context really was something else. Magical, you might say. Furthermore-
“You still with me, darling?” Foxglove asked, waving a hoof in front of Jamie’s face. He blinked and brought his focus in from a million miles distant to the batpony in directly ahead of him.
“Hmm? Sorry, drifting. Idea? You had an idea?”
“Yes. If you insist on falling asleep - you are very cute when you’re sleepy, by the way - then I know a nice, warm, comfortable place where you can do it,” said Foxglove. Jamie’s mind chugged on this for a second or two.
“Is that - are you - is that a bed? Your bed?”
“My! So forward! No, not my bed. Not tonight, at least. No, it’s just that my original plan for the evening was a nice hour or so on the sofa watching something. If you wanted to join me I wouldn’t mind, and if you wanted to just lie down and lay your head in my lap and doze off, well, then I wouldn’t mind that, either.”
Jamie’s mind chugged a bit more, working on this fresh information.
“...that sounds alright,” he said.
Another very pointy grin from Foxglove.
“I thought so, too.”
All of which was why, about fifteen minutes later, Jamie was sprawled flat on the sofa, legs dangling over one arm, head in a batpony’s lap, snoring quietly and sleeping peacefully.