Allen didn’t know where he was going, and he didn’t care. He shivered as the frigid night air bit through his clothes as he walked, and debated going back to get his jacket but that would mean dealing with her again so he continued down the street. A mist of cold rain starts falling a few minutes into his walk, only serving to further his misery. ‘I really should’ve grabbed my jacket...’ Allen thinks.

After what felt like forever Allen arrives at a small park, stopping to rest by a statue. He sits on the ground and leans against the pedestal, not even noticing the cold marble because of how numb he was. He started shivering a short while ago, and he couldn’t stop. His face and hands had lost all feeling, and his legs ached. He looked at the statue and smiled a little. The polished bronze statue of a winged unicorn had always been one of his favorites. He remembered the hours he’d spend sitting under it reading.

“Just...a short rest. Then I’ll keep going...” Allen says quietly to himself. He closes his eyes and starts to drift into unconsciousness.

— — — — —

Luna, Princess of the night, was humming quietly to herself as she strolled through the palace gardens. She’d just dismissed the court for the evening and was making her rounds through the castle. The winter air was crisp, a light dusting of snow was covering the statues and shrubbery, and the full moon was peaking through the clouds.

Her peaceful night is interrupted by a bright glow coming from one of the garden statues. The princess readies a magic shield as a portal opens and a stranger hairless creature in soaking wet clothes falls out. When it doesn’t show any sign of moving Luna walks over to examine it. As far as she could tell it was alive, barely. Getting a closer look, it looked similar to the ‘humans’ she’d heard about from Twilight Sparkle. Based on what she’d heard she guessed it was a he, and that he was a young adult. She nudges him with her magic and he lets out a quiet grown.

“No...” the creature mumbles out, his voice weak.

Luna gently picks him up and heads inside. She uses her magic to send a message to the guards and her sister to inform them about what’s happened and heads to one of the guest rooms. As she’s setting him on the bed Celestia teleports in, still wearing her nightgown.

“What in Tartarus happened?” Celestia asks her sister, while she checks on the human. “Who is that?”

Luna sighs. “He’s a human. A portal opened in the garden, and he fell out of it.”

Celestia nods and looks at the figure on the bed. “Do you think he’ll be ok?”

Luna nods. “He’s suffering from hypothermia,” she says as she starts to remove his wet clothes. “We need to keep him wa-“ she pauses as she gets his shirt off, revealing dozens of scratches and cuts on his chest and back, some were scared over, others were almost completely healed, and a few were still fresh, only recent scabbed over.

“Oh, Faust...” Celestia says. “What happened to him?”

Luna winces a bit at the sight but keeps working. “We can worry about that later, right now he needs to get warmed up and to rest.” She says and wraps him in a blanket once he’s dry. “One of us should keep an eye on him, just in case.”

Celestia nods. “I’ll do it, you still have your duties and I’m already awake.”

Luna nods and heads into the hallway, continuing her rounds through the castle. Celestia, meanwhile, looks at the human and lays on the bed next to him hoping to speed up the warming process with some snuggling.

— — — —

Allen felt miserable. He didn’t know how long he had been out but everything felt sore. His eyes felt heavy as he tried to open them. A small bit of panic arose as the first thing he saw was a blob of white. He tried to move whatever it was and was surprised to find it was soft and warm. It felt like fur? Maybe feathers? Either way it was fluffy. If he had to guess someone had found him and wrapped him in a blanket, or he was dead and in his own fluffy paradise.

“Finally awake, Hmm?” A woman’s voice says from somewhere beyond the fluff.

“Huh, where am I? Who are you?” He asks, his voice slightly muffled by the soft thing around him.

“My name is Celestia, and you’re in one of my palaces guest rooms.” The woman says. “My sister found you in the garden, half-frozen.”

“Palace...no palaces where I live...is this heaven? Am I dead?” Allen asks.

“No, you’re not dead. I’m not sure how you ended up here, but I can safely say you’re still alive.” Celestia says and moves her wings a bit so she and Allen can get a better look at each other.

Allen is only mildly surprised to find that he’s being snuggled by an eight-foot-tall anthropomorphic winged horsewoman. “This...has to be a dream...” he says and yawns.

Celestia smiles at him. “Get some rest human. I promise I’ll explain everything later.”

Allen is too tired to argue. He closes his eyes as Celestia moves her wings back into position and turns over a bit so his face is resting on her chest, buried in the fluff. As he relaxes he feels a hand gently rubbing his back and he can faintly hear the thumping of Celestia's’ heartbeat. He yawns one final time and falls asleep with a smile on his face.

— — — —

Luna finishes up the last dream of the night and goes to get Celestia, it was almost time for the sun to come up. She slowly opens the door to the room her sister and the human were in, and sees the two of them cuddling. Smiling, she backs out of the room and silently shuts the door. She could raise the sun herself, let her sister and the human rest for now.

Allen grumbled quietly as he woke up. Everything hurt, and he wanted to go back to the dream had last night. It was nice being snuggled, even if it was by an alien horsewoman. He reluctantly rolled over and sat up stretching. He froze as he saw where he was. This wasn’t his bedroom or even his house. The bed he was in was much bigger than his old one, the furniture was fancier, and he was pretty certain his room didn’t have a fireplace or a balcony or an attached bathroom. He got out of bed, the soft rug felt amazing on his feet.

‘Wait,’ he thought. ‘Wasn’t I in the park...?’

It was then he noticed his clothes, mainly he wasn’t wearing any except his boxers. He hurriedly looked around, finding his shirt, shoes, and jeans hanging next to the fireplace on a chair.

“I guess someone found me...brought me to a hotel or something...” Allen feels his clothes, they were dry, even warmed up a bit from being next to the fire. He starts getting dressed as the door to his room opens. In walks a maid pushing a cart with some clean clothes, and some warm food. What really caught his eye was her appearance, she was a horse person like the one from his dream, if it even was a dream at all. She was shorter, around 5’3” if he has to guess, and she didn’t have the wings or horn that the one from last night did. Her fur was a light cream color, contrasted by copper eyes and hair.

The maid notices Allen and smiles. “Oh hello. Nice to see your finally awake. It’s almost noon. I’ve got some clean clothes and a bowl of soup for you, courtesy of the princesses.”

Allen just nods, he’s kind of in shock that this is actually happening and completely forgets to speak.

The maid smiles awkwardly. “Well, I’ll just let you get dressed then. Princess Luna should be by soon to check on you.” She sets the clothes and soup on the bedside table and walks out, humming softly.

Allen sits on the bed and tries the soup. It was potato, one of his favorites. The taste brought back a memory he thought he’d forgot. Him as a child laying on the sofa with a cold, watching cartoons, while his mom took care of him. He snaps out of his thoughts when he realizes he’s starting to tear up. Allen blinks the tears away and puts the bowl down, deciding to check out the clothes. He picks up the clothes and holds them up to himself. The outfit was just a simple but high-quality shirt and pants.

Allen changes into the new clothes and is surprised to find they fit pretty well. He’s about to question how they got his sizes, then remembers they had his clothes to measure. Either way, he’s thankful for it.
As he’s looking at himself in the mirror when there’s a knock at the door.

“Come in.” He says, figuring it must be the Princess the maid mentioned.

Allen is surprised when instead of opening the door, the person knocking appears behind him. It’s even more surprising when he turns around and has to look to see her face, being almost six foot tall he’s not used to being the smaller one in the conversation.

The woman standing before was yet another horse person. Standing seven foot tall, sporting an elegant black dress and tiara that contrasted nicely with her dark blue fur. Allen smiles nervously, trying to not be distracted by the woman’s wavy ethereal star filled hair and tail, or her beautiful dark cyan eyes.

The woman smiles down at him. “Hello Allen. I am Princess Luna.”

“How do you know my name?” He asks, really confused now.

“Your wallet.” Luna says. “We wanted to know who you were...just in case. You needn’t worry, your ID was all we touched.”

Allen shrugs. “It’s fine, I didn’t have any cash and I doubt my bank card’s valid here anyway. Where exactly is here anyway?”

“This the Royal Palace of Canterlot, it’s in the heart of Canterlot City the capital of the nation of Equestria. My sister Celestia and I rule over it and it’s citizens as co-monarchs. She rules over the day, raising and lowering the sun, meeting with nobles and foreign dignitaries, handling the more public parts of running a country.” Luna says, “I rule over the night, raising and lowering the moon, making sure the castle is in order for the following day, and patrolling the dreams of Equestria’s citizens to protect them from nightmares.”

Allen blinks in confusion. “Ok, the dream part I can kind of understand. Magic exists here, I get that. But controlling the sun and the moon? Just...how? How does that even work?”

Luna smiles enthusiastically. “Well you see it all starts thousands of years ago during the time when Discord the Lord of Chaos ruled over Equestria. To grossly over simplify he used his “phenomenal cosmic power” to mess with reality, and that resulted in the planet swapping places with the sun, the sun and moon not being able to orbit properly, the weather in many parts of Equestria being thrown into disarray, and all of it requiring constant maintenance and supervision. We tried to get him to fix it after he reformed but being blasted by the Elements of Harmony and getting trapped in stone for several millennia left him...I believe the term he used was “nerfed”. So we’re stuck managing it for the time being. Make sense?”

Allen just nods along. “I think so? I’m still not sure if I’m dreaming or not to be honest with you.” He nervously rubs his arm, the movement jostling his shirt just enough to expose some of his scars.

Luna’s smile quickly fades when she sees them, replaced with a look of worry. Allen notices her looking and quickly covers them up. “Allen...” Luna starts.

“Don’t.” Allen says quietly, cutting her off. “Just...I don’t want to talk about it...”

Luna nods. “I understand, but if the time comes when you do want to talk, I’ll be more than ready to listen.”

Allen sighs. “I know you’re just trying to help, and I don’t want to be rude...but-“

This time it was Allen’s turn to be interrupted. “But how could I know what those scars mean to you?” Luna says, finishing his question.

Allen nods silently.

Luna turns around and uses her magic to part the fur on her back, revealing several long scars on the space in between her wings. She turns back to face him and does the same on her forearms and shoulders, showing more scars. Bite marks, scratch marks, even a well covered up stab wound on her abdomen. “I know more than you might think...”

Allen looks at the scars in silent shock, and is reminded of what happened to him...the hitting, the scratching, the screaming, the threats, the abuse. He can feel himself starting to tear up as his hands start shaking. Allen sees Luna reach out for him and he’s worried she’s angry with him for being weak. He flinches away out of instinct, barely registering that he did it all, only for Luna to gently pull him into a hug. She’s crying too, he can feel her sobbing as she holds him close. He hugs her back and the two stand there for a few moments, a silent understanding forming between them.

Eventually the two separate and stand there looking at each other. Allen takes a deep breath and nods. “Thank you...” he says quietly.

Luna simply nods. “Whenever you need to talk...I’ll be there, and so will Celestia.” Allen is about to protest getting Celestia involved, but Luna stops him. “She helped me...she’ll be more than willing to help you. If you want.”

Allen nods. “Alright...”

Luna gently rubs his shoulder. “C’mon, let’s get you familiarized with the castle. There’s no telling when or even if the portal that brought you here will be open again, so you can consider this your new home for a while.”

Allen smiles and nods. “Alright then, your highness. Lead the way.” He was already liking this place more than Earth.

— — — —

Luna smiled as she and Allen sat in the dinning hall. The two of them had stopped the tour to get something to eat. While they had walked she’d tried to get to know him some more. At first Allen had been quiet but he gradually started to open up. He’d told her a few things about his life back home. He had just turned 21 and was living with his family to save money while he went to school. When she had asked him about hobbies she was pleasantly surprised to find they shared a love of reading. Overall she thought he was a nice young man. She glances over at him, and sees him looking down at the table, seemingly lost in thought.

“Allen? Is everything alright?” She asks and gently nudges him.

Allen nods. “Yeah. I’m just...thinking.”

“What about?” Luna asks, his melancholy tone slightly worrying her.

Allen sighs. “I just don’t really get why you’re being so nice to me? I’m just...some guy. I showed up in your garden, and you’re letting me stay here, giving me food, and a bed.”

“Because it’s the right thing to do.” Luna says. “You needed our help. Simple as that.”

Luna can see that Allen doesn’t quite believe her, and decides the best way to convince him is just to show him. She’s about to say something else when she sees the sun setting outside. “Oh, my is it that time already? I’m sorry Allen but I have to go.”

Allen shrugs as he stands up. “It’s alright I understand,” he smiles a little. “Thank you.”

Luna smiles back and gives him a quick hug. “You’re welcome. If I have time, and you’re still awake, I’ll stop by later so we can chat, okay?”

Allen nods and heads to his room while Luna heads to a balcony to get a good view while she raises the moon.

— — — —

Allen was running through the seemingly never ending hallway while the sound of footsteps followed him. She was getting closer. He finds a door, a small broom closet, and hides inside it. Clamping his hands over his mouth to muffle himself he holds his breath as he sees a shadow move in front of the door

“Where the fuck are you?!”

Allen lets out a quiet whimper at the distorted sound of her voice. It’s barely audible but it’s enough to give away his hiding spot. The door is ripped open and a shadowy figure is standing in front of him, her red eyes boring into him.

“Found you.” She says and raises the studded belt in her hand.

Allen raises his arms to shield himself, but the blow never lands. A silvery light illuminates the dream, burning the shadowy figure away and replacing the hallway with moonlit field of stars. As everything starts to fade Allen’s pretty sure he can see Princess Luna flying down from the moon.

Allen wakes up with a start, jolting up to a sitting position and visibly shaking. He could feel tears running down his face, and starts to wipe them away as Princess Luna teleports into the room and walks quickly over to his bed and hugs him tightly. He hugs her back and starts crying again, the nightmare still fresh in his mind. Luna sits on the bed with him and pulls him close to her, rubbing his back and letting him cry into her shoulder.

“It’s okay...” Luna says softly. “It’s okay. She can’t hurt you.”

After a few moments, the crying stops and Allen takes a few deep breaths. “Can you stay here with me for a bit?” he asks quietly, to which Luna nods.

The two lay down and Luna pulls Allen on top of her, wrapping her wings around him. Allen turns to lay on his side, with his head resting on her chest. He closes his eyes as Luna starts humming “Come Little Children” quietly while she rubs his back. While he didn’t fall asleep right away, Allen does relax. The scent of lavender perfume on Luna’s fur, and the sound of her humming helping to calm him. She uses her magic to pull the blanket over the two of them and gently kisses Allen on the forehead.

“Rest little one. All will be well.” Luna whispers softly in his ear. Allen slowly drifts off to sleep, the final sound he hears being Luna’s humming.

It was day three of Allen’s Bizarre Equestrian Adventure and he felt awful. He wasn’t sure if it was something he ate or some leftover side effect from the hypothermia, but his head felt like it was being squeezed in a vice and he was nauseated. Sitting up slowly, he sees a note left by Luna saying she had to attend a meeting and she’d be back to check on him as soon as possible. Allen lays back down and rolls over onto his side, coming face to fluff with something soft, brown, and strawberry scented. He pulls back to see...something smiling at him. Startled he jumps back, falling out of bed, and almost hitting his head on the nightstand before being caught by a yellow and pink aura of magic.

“Oops! Sorry about that.” The creature says in a feminine voice as it crawls out from under the blankets and lets Allen get a good look at her. Her body was long and serpentine covered in brown fur, her head looked vaguely like a goats, with greyish-brown fur and two mismatched horns poking out from beneath a mess of long white hair. From her waist came a long red scaly tail with a small plume of white feathers on its tip. Her left leg looked like that of a horse, while the right was more reptilian; her arms were similarly mismatched with the left one resembling a bird's claw and the right being almost human but covered in tawny fur like a lions and boasting short cat-like claws. One her back two wings were folded up, one blue and feathery and the other purple and bat-like.

“You okay?” She asks, her yellow and red eyes filled with genuine concern.

“Y-yeah I’m fine...I think.” Allen says. “Can you put me down? Floating like this feels kinda weird.”

The creature smiles and pulls him back into the bed and starts circling around him like a cat. “Definitely human. Weird you didn’t get ponified when you ended up here. Oh well, different ‘verse different rules. Anyway, I’m Eris nice to meet you.”
Eris holds out her cat-hand and smiles.

Allen cautiously shakes her hand. “I’m Allen. Nice to meet you too? I think.” He’s pretty confused as to why Eris is in his bed in the first place and to ask her that when the nausea spikes up and he vomits out a liquid rainbow onto the floor. Both he and Eris look at the multicolor puddle.

“Well that can't be good,” Eris says and summons a stethoscope and nurses uniform with a snap of her fingers. She starts “examining” Allen, pressing the stethoscope on his forehead. “Hmm. Mhmm. Hmmm.”

“What? What does hmm and mhmm mean?” Allen asks

“Well from what I can gather, your Thaumatics are out of wack. Let me guess, your homeworld doesn’t have a lot of magic?” Not even waiting for him to reply, Eris continues. “Well your body is still adjusting to all the magic in the air, and it’s recently absorbed a lot of harmony magic. It won’t kill you but you’ll be vomiting rainbows for a while unless we can balance it out.”

Allen just blinks a few times not really understanding a word of what she just said but deciding to go along with it. “So...how do we fix it?”

“Well I could just zap you with a bolt of chaos magic, but then there’d be side effects. Alternatively, we could do this,” Eris snaps her fingers, replacing the nurses' outfit with some pajamas. She leaps at Allen and coils around him like a fluffy snake, wrapping him up in her serpentine body.

Allen is consumed by the fluff and any reservations he had about Eris snuggling him melted away as he felt her run her fingers through his hair. “This is so much better than getting zapped.” He says

Eris giggles and nods. “Agreed.” She continues softly playing with his hair and uses her magic to radiate an aura of calming.

The two sit there all cozy and comfortable as Allen’s headache and nausea are slowly replaced with a feeling of warmth. He absentmindedly starts running has hand across Eris’s fur. The draconequis lets out a cat-like purr and returns the favor by nuzzling Allen’s neck. Allen chuckles and gives Eris some scratches behind her ears.

Eris wiggles happily. “So how’d a cute little human like you end up here?”

Allen sighs. “It’s a bit of a long story, but to summarize I fell through a portal, almost froze to death, the princess found me, and now they’re letting me stay here.”

Eris nods. “Yeah, they do that. Celestia’s little apprentice Twilight even has full-on former villains stay with her. One of them almost destroyed the world with time travel.”

“Wow. Them letting me stay here makes a lot more sense now.” Allen says while he and Eris continue the mutual petting, with her rubbing the back of his head and him still scratching behind her ears. “So what about you? One minute I’m alone, I look away, and then you’re here. Not that I’m complaining, but something tells me the princesses didn’t send you to keep me company.”

“Well, I may have heard a rumor from my brother Discord who heard it from his friend Fluttershy who heard from Twilight that there was some new creature staying at the palace. So I decided to stop by and see what was up, and I’m very glad I did.” Eris says and tightens her hug a bit for emphasis.

Allen nods and relaxes into Eris’s chest fluff. “I’m glad you did too.” He yawns and smiles.

“Just relax and go to sleep if you want. I’ll still be here when you wake up.” Eris says

Allen complies and just falls asleep, his face half-buried in fluff, and every part of him below the neck wrapped up in the soft furry burrito that was Eris’s noodle-like body.

Allen woke up sore and groggy. He could feel bruises on his body from the other night. As he sat up he saw he was in his old room, the one on earth.

‘Wait,’ he thought. ‘This isn’t right.’

Hesitantly he gets out of bed and looks around. This was definitely his room back home, his computer monitor lay in pieces on the floor, his bookshelf was knocked over with the books thrown all over the place, and his dresser drawers had been ripped out and dumped everywhere with clothes strewn about in random piles. Allen starts to breakdown as the realization hits him.

“No no no no no no...” he falls to the floor sitting against the bed and holds his head in his hands. “This can’t be happening. I can’t be back here.”

His panic attack is interrupted by someone pounding on the door. “ALLEN! I know you’re in there!”

Allen freezes when he hears that voice, his sister's voice. “This has to be a dream. This can’t be happening.”

The pounding continues and his sister's voice distorts and echos like there’s several of her yellings at once. “ALLEN!” The door is kicked open and a dark-haired woman brandishing a large wooden hairbrush is standing there, her green eyes piercing into Allen’s soul.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...” Allen starts whimpering as she walks towards him, lifting the hairbrush.

“Sorry!” Wack! “Isn’t!” Wack! “Good!” Wack! “Enough!” Each word she shouts is punctuated by a hit from the beach wooden brush.

Allen puts his arms over his head to block the hits and just curls up defensively as the blows keep coming. Suddenly there’s a bright flash and the room dissolves away into a field of stars. His sister is hit with a silver beam of magic and evaporates into a cloud of black smoke and drifts away. Allen falls onto his side as Luna flies down and rushes over to him. She kneels next to him, helps him up, and wraps him in a hug.

“It’s ok. It’s ok.” The Princess reassures him. “It was only a nightmare.”

Allen says nothing and buries his face in Luna’s shoulder as he start crying. Soon enough his whole body is shaking as he completely falls apart in her arms. Luna wraps her wings around him and softly rubs his back.

— — — —

Luna and Allen continued to sit there for a few more minutes, with Luna gently rubbing his back. Allen has calmed down now and is just sitting silently in Luna’s lap. She was contemplating trying to talk to him about his dream but figured this wasn’t the best time.

“I’m sorry...” Allen says quietly, “I shouldn’t be waste your time like this...you probably have better things to do besides keeping me company...”

“Allen,” Luna comforts him. “You have nothing to apologize for. Helping others with their nightmares is part of my job.”

“I just...I feel so guilty forcing you guys to deal with my problems. I should just learn to suck it up.” Allen says looking down at his hands.

“No, you shouldn’t. Not with this.” Luna says, knowing where this line of thinking leads. “There’s no shame in needing help, especially after what you’ve been through. We chose to help you, Allen, you’re not forcing us to do anything.”

Allen doesn’t reply. He just nods a bit and pulls his legs closer to him, letting out a sigh. Luna rubs his shoulder and wraps her wings around him. Seeing him like this, it reminded her of when she got back from the moon. Luna can feel herself starting to tear up, and quickly blinks it away so he doesn’t see. She opens up a doorway to the real world and stands up, holding Allen in her arms. He stays quiet as she carries him through it, back to the waking world.

— — — —

Allen wakes up slowly. He’s hesitant to trust that this is actually reality and not a false awakening, until he feels Eris tighten her grip on him and rest her head on his shoulder.

“Ohmygodyourokay!” The draconequis is practically crying as she hugs Allen tightly. “You started shaking and crying and you wouldn’t wake up and I called Luna to help. I was so worried...”

Allen is caught off guard at this. Seeing someone actually crying because they were worried about him, it was something new. He starts tearing up as well and wraps his arms around Eris’s furry noodle body. Luna is watching the two of them from her spot next to the bed and is pulled into a group hug by Eris, leaving Allen sandwiched between the two. Allen smiles a bit, still teary-eyed, at the feeling of Luna joining the pile.

“Thank you...” Allen says to both of them as he’s double snuggled. “Just...thank you.”

Luna and Eris both nuzzle Allen softly.

— — — —

Celestia is walking down the hallway a look of worry on her face. When Luna had left the council meeting earlier she hadn’t offered an explanation beyond “Allen needs help”. For two hours Celestia had been wondering what was going on and now that the meeting was over she could finally go and check on what was happening. She pauses outside the door to Allen’s room, hearing laughter coming from inside. Slowly opening the door, she peaks in and smiles at what she sees. Eris, Luna, and Allen all snuggling on the bed. Celestia’s about to leave when she’s grabbed by Eris’s magic and pulled onto the bed to join the snuggle pile.

“You’re not getting out of this Sunbutt,” Eris says, as Luna uses a wing to pull Celestia closer.

Celestia sighs and accepts her fate. She smiles at Allen who’s still wrapped up in Eris’s fluffy coils. Both princesses move to either side of Eris, Luna on the left, and Celestia on the right, and spread their wings out creating a blanket of feathers that covers all four of the snugglers.

Allen is completely consumed by fluff and softness at this point. A look of pure relaxation forms on his face as he closes his eyes and fulfills his place at the center of the snuggle piles, Luna’s lavender shampoo, Celestia vanilla shampoo, and Eris’s natural scent of fresh strawberries all mixing together to further his relaxation. He slowly drifts off to sleep, this time there are no nightmares to interrupt the tranquility.