It’s not everyday you have tea with a pink pony from another dimension, all in the comfort of your own dining room at some ungodly hour in the morning.

But it was today.

At Five AM.

On a Saturday.

I sat at my dining room table, teacup pressed against my lips and eyes pointed across the table. Seated on the other side was my latest visitor and newest roommate:

“Candice—”

“Oh stars... “ She fell forwards out of her chair, her head crashing against my dining room table with a thud, and her hooves hiding her face away.

I stopped sipping my tea but didn’t move it away from my mouth. Instead, I cocked a brow. “I’m guessing it’s not Candice?”

Uncovering herself from her forelegs, she groaned and sat back up in her chair. She looked at me. “Cadance,” she said, offering a weak smile.

I nodded. “Cadence.”

Down she goes again. That’s gotta hurt. “Celestia dammit!” she cried. “I hate my life!”

I shrugged, putting my teacup back on its saucer, “Yeah, I guess I’d hate my life too if I was warped into another dimension by my Sister-in-Law.”

The pink pony peered up at me, face ungluing from the table. “Dude, It’s Cadance.”

“I know, that’s what I said. Cadence.”

She quickly propped herself up on the table, her forelegs holding her up, “No, it’s Cadance. Kay-dance. K, then dance as in like, the waltz or some junk.”

I nodded in understanding, but stopped mid-nod, and my forehead tensed in confusion. “Wait,” I said, “isn’t your name Cadenza? Your 'princess' name or whatever?”

“It is,” she said, uncertainty in her voice.

“Well, then wouldn’t Cadence make more sense? Y’know, since it’s spelled with an 'e,' not an ‘a.’”

She blinked. It was as if she’d just gotten a joke that she’d been left out of for years. “I…” A beat. “My Stars…”

“So,” I said, and she snapped her attention to me. “Cadence, then?”

She sighed, and gave me the most “done” expression I’d seen so far. To think I could be even more disappointing. “I-I don’t know. I guess not?” she said, “I guess with the a and the e—it’s Cadance not Cadence, so I guess that’d make sense? I don’t know.” She hung her head in defeat.

It was adorable.

“Welp,” I took another sip from my tea, “Cadence it is!”

She glared at me.

I winked, my smug grin unwavering.

Cadance stuck her tongue out at me in an attempt to be mean, but I burst out laughing. She tried her hardest to keep a straight face. “I hate yo—” she started, but broke into a giggle fit halfway through.

I snorted, “I imagine that’s quite uncharacteristic of a horse with a crystal heart stamped on her ass.” She rolled her eyes. “Oh right. ‘Princess of Love,’ too,” I said, accompanied by air quotes.

She shrugged. “You’d be surprised—different kind of love anyways.”

My grin grew wider.

“Stop,” Cadance said.

“Princess of Love, eh?”

“Don’t make this creepy.”

“Does that mean—”

“Finish that and I pierce your testicles with a thousand crystal needles.”

I stopped, eyes widened and face pale.

“Hmph,” she said in triumph. “I thought so.”

Note to self: pretty pink pony has the ability to pierce you dead with crystals. Be afraid, be very afraid.

“Anyways…” I said awkwardly, then taking an even more awkward sip from my teacup. “Remind me why you’re here again?”

She pressed her lips in a fine line, and rubbed the back of her neck with one of her hooves, “Riiiiiight. That.” She rolled her shoulders back and exhaled, “You see, there’s this mirror… in my castle. And my Sister-in-Law, Twilight, was messing around with it, and I may have slipped and, well, fallen into it.”

“Right, you told me that part,” I said. “But you didn’t tell me how falling into a mirror equates to ending up in another world. Or is it universe? Dimension?”

“Dimension,” Cadance confirmed. “And it’s half a mirror and half an interdimensional portal.”

My eyes fluttered. Then a stare. “So, you just keep a mirror—that happens to be, what, an interdimensional portal—laying about? No guard rails. No caution tape. It just kind of sits there.”

She moved a hoof to cover her newly-formed blush. “Uh… yeah.”

“That… is quite possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard—wow. That sounds like one of those ridiculous things thoughtless cartoon characters do.” Her eyes narrowed even more. “What? I’m not wrong.”

Cadance relinquished another sigh. “Anyways. Usually, it would send me to our nearest dimension. One, other ponies have visited before. But since Twilight was messing with things this time I guess it just… didn’t?” I leaned in. “So, I’m stuck here until the portal opens back up—which should happen where it initially did—”

“My bed?”

“Let’s not talk about it.”

I chuckled, grin restored.

“But yes, the portal should open back up in your bedroom. Specifically the tacky mirror above your bed—”

“Hey! It’s not tacky!”

“Who has a mirror, above their bed?”

“I do!” I said, crossing my arms and grumbling under my breath.

“Right,” Cadance snarked. “Anyways, knowing Twilight, I’ll be saved in no time.”

“‘Saved.’”

“Yes, saved from a hairless ape that can conveniently speak Equestrian, but is also tragically stupid.” She smirked devilishly.

I scoffed. “Please, I’m not going to take anything from a unicorn who tripped into a mirror of transdimensional travel and thought it was a good idea to leave it out in the open in the first place.”

Hoof tapping the table, she narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, yeah.” A pause. “Wait, did you say Unicorn?”

Sipping my tea, I nodded slightly.

“Well, if you didn’t notice.” She flapped open a pair of wings, pink feathers with a fading purple on the tips. “I’m not.”

I remained stoic for a moment. “So… you’re a winged unicorn?”

Cadance frowned. “No. I’m an Alicorn. The wings and the horn.”

My face contorted in confusion. “Acorn?” That has to mean something totally different in horse talk.

She unleashed a sharp sigh, and pressed her hooves against her temples. “Alico—”

“—Hey, I’m not judging you if you’re an acorn. I’m open to anything right now. I mean, hell, there’s a talking unicorn having tea with me.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Oh, acorn, I’m sorry.”

“Alicorn!” she shouted, throwing her hooves to the sky frantically.

“Allah’s corn, wha—ahhhh, what the hell!” My still rather hot tea splashed all over my face, in my eyes included, and my teacup was wrapped in a crystal blue aura. “Whyyyy?”

Cadance growled. “I’m done with this—where do you keep the good Scotch?” She hopped off the chair and walked into the kitchen.

Meanwhile, I toppled onto the floor and writhed in agony, clutching at my simmering face. “Aaaaaah—it’s in the cabinet by the fridge.” I reached for a towel on the edge of the table and wiped my face. “Ice is in the freezer.”

Silence.

“Soda’s in the freezer, too. Not sure if you do that. Some people do.”

“Feel free to stop talking at absolutely anytime,” she said, the cabinet door slapping into the drywall.

“What, some people do it—”

“Hey, remind me, before you say something that makes me want to scream into a void,” she said, “what’s your name?”

“Scott.”

She nodded. “Do you have any weed, Scott?”

I stared at her confused. “What, like grass?” Then it dawned on me. “Oh. You’re hungry?”

“That usually comes after.” She smiled innocently.

Well…

This is going to be interesting.

“Human!”

I sighed, averting my gaze from the TV, my brow raised as I faced the stairway leading upstairs.

“What?” I called.

A moment or two passed before Cadance responded. “I need your help!”

“With what?”

“The spaceship!”

I winced. What the hell is she talking about?

“What did you say?” I called back.

A beat.

“The motherfucking spaceship!”

Yeah, no, I definitely heard that right. I sat up on the living room sofa, and rolled my shoulders back, rocking back and forth as I balanced myself on my feet. “Hold on!”

I took my first couple steps towards the bottom of the stairs.

“Hold on to what? I have hooves, dork!”

A groan rumbled from my chest. The stairs creaked as I ascended them. Once I made it to the top I peered down the hall to a room with a cracked door and bright light leaking out into the dim hall—the bathroom.

The door squealed as I pushed my way inside.

“Scott!” she shouted, earning a painful grimace from me. “Scott I need you to show me the controls—” she glanced over her shoulder, and stopped. “Oh, I didn’t know you came up.”

Cadance stood right in the middle of the shower, her eyes flitting around the room rapidly, studying. “I need you to show me how to work this shit,” she said, making a wide gesture around the shower.

“The shower?”

“No. The spaceship.”

I lifted a finger to protest but promptly put it back down, and pursed my lips. After a second of contemplation I decided to go ahead and ask anyways. “Are you being serious right now or…?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, throwing a foreleg up.

“Well, first of all, it’s not a spaceship—”

“No shit, Sherlock Hooves.”

“You know Sherlock Holmes?”

“Why would I know where Sherlock Hooves’ home is at—why are you asking?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Know what. Nevermind. What’s the problem?”

“Well, I was going to use your shower, but I seem to have slept through a couple of magic lessons in Equestria, because I have no idea what sorcery this is.” Once again, in a sweep of the foreleg, she gestured to the shower.

I pursed my lips. “So what specifically is wrong with the shower?”

“How do you turn it on?” she whined.

I ambled over to her side, just outside the shower, and reached for the knob. She hopped out quickly, and I pulled the knob outward, unlocking it from its place. Then, I jerked the knob up and twisted it clockwise. Water streamed out of the shower head.

“Ta-da,” I said, shaking my magical hands to and fro. “Miracle worker, I know.”

She stared at me, unimpressed. “You don’t have very many girls over do you?”

My eyes widened. “Uh, no, why?”

“Because there’s not a chance in hell, no one has complained about your shower.”

“Well you’d be wrong, because no one has complained—”

“Because no one’s been in it!” she barked.

Eh, point taken.

She outstretched a hoof, and immediately yanked it back with a shrill ‘yip’ as it brushed under the stream of water.
“Okay, this isn’t going to work.” she said. “Your shower has no temperature on it, it’s either gonna be scalding demon piss or yakyakistan cold.”

I cocked a brow. “What kind of cold?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, yaks that live way up North in their own settlement. Very tribal creatures.”

“Ah, just like the people that live in the Nunavut territory.”

“Yeah, I don’t understand none of it either.”

I frowned. This was going to be a long-standing thing, wasn’t it?

“I need to bathe. Is there anything else I could do?”

I rubbed my chin, nothing jumping to mind unless…

I smirked.

“You know what, there’s one thing we could try.”

We stood on my back patio. It was mid-afternoon, the heat of day. Perfect time for some water.

I had everything I needed to wash a large dog, or in this case, a very small pastel pony. I had a shampoo bottle, a sponge and a brush.

Cadance stood on the edge of the patio, peering over my sloping backyard. “So what are we doing? Is there like a river further down? Or a lake? Or a spa, please tell me there’s a spa—”

“Hey, Cadance.”

She turned to me

“Wha—”

I turned on the hose.

“YOU STUPID BITCH!”

“Hey Scott?”

“Hm?”

“Who raises your Sun?”

I muted the TV, and faced Cadance, my eyes widened in perplexion and surprise. “Cadance, I have no son.”

“That’s not true,” she countered, “it hangs high in the sky, just like it does in Equestria. But humans do not possess magic, how do you hang it in the day sky?”

Just as quickly as my confusion evaporated, several other questions pushed themselves to the forefront of my mind. “What are you talking about?”

Cadance smacked her lips in annoyance. “I mean like, humans aren’t magical—”

“That’s what you think.”

“Listen!” she cried, her cheeks huffing out as she exhaled. “In Equestria, my Aunt’s, the rulers of Equestria lift the sun to start the day, and raise the moon to start the night by using their magic. How does your Sun and Moon move without such powerful magic?”

“They don’t.”

Cadance tilted her head to the side. “Pardon?”

“So, essentially, The Earth, what we live on, is a planet that rotates on an axis around a fixed Sun. The sun is the middle of our universe—”

“Fuck this, I don’t care enough, can you give me the remote? I want to watch Gilmore Girls.”

I frowned. “Really? I thought you were the one who wanted to learn as much as you could about this dimension.”

“Eh.” She shrugged, pulling the remote from me in her magical clasp. “I’ll just google it or something.”

I blinked.

“I learn quickly.”

“How many princesses live in Equestria with you?” I asked, the faint silhouettes of my ceiling fan slicing above my bed.

Cadance groaned at my bedside. “How late is it?”

I fired a glance at my night stand, and squinted at the fluorescent green numbers on my alarm clock. “Uh, 4.”

“How fortuitous,” she mumbled. “I don’t think I’m getting any sleep at this rate.” A beat. “And four, to answer your question. My aunt’s and my sister-in-law.”

“Ever heard of a game called ‘kill, fuck, marry?’”

“Have you ever ever heard of the part where I said ‘My Aunt’s and sister-in-law?”

“Oops.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and exhaled. “How about==”

“Choose your next words wisely,” Cadance warned.

I winced slightly, but was confident my follow-up wasn’t too threatening to my well-being. “Who would you choose to have your back in your bar fight?”

Cadance rolled over and peered up at me, her blue eyes still remarkably piercing in the midst of night. “Uh… that’s actually a good question.” An audible “hm,” escaped her as she pondered. Moments later her mulling curiosity reappeared. “Who are we fighting, just a drunken idiot?”

“Yes, but you’re both also drunk.”

“Oooof, that’s a game changer. I was going to say Auntie Celestia, because she’s the responsible one, but she’s the worst when she’s drunk.”

“No BS type of drunk?”

“Not even,” she said, sighing. “She’s the ‘ya talkin’ to me’ type of drunk that will challenge anyone to anything. The ‘horn-measuring’ type, I guess.”

“Hm.” I nodded in understanding. “There’s got to be at least a funny story or two there.”

“Ha! You’d think so, but none that jump to mind,” she said. “Well, actually, last time we went out—you wouldn’t believe it, she has this pet bird, or a “phoenix,” do you have those?”

“Fire bird?” I asked.

“Yes! Like, it molted, so its feather fall to the ground in fiery flame and ash, and Celestia has had like 20 martinis, so she sees her bird do it, and grabs a cigarette lighter.”

“Oh no.”

“She lights one of her wings on fire, and goes ‘think you can handle the heat, bitch, I’m SPF-3000,’ then we went to the hospital.” She stifled a chuckle. “Good times, good times.”

“So, if damage control weren’t a factor—”

“Celestia, easy. If it were sober Celestia, also Celestia. Honestly, there’s not a scenario where I wouldn’t want Celestia.”

I propped myself up on an elbow and listened intently. “Buuuuuut.”

“But, I’m probably taking Luna anyways.”

“Sparklight not get a chance?”

Even in the pitch I could see the eye roll. “Twilight, and I don’t know, not much of a fighter. Drunk, definitely not.”

“And Luna?”

“Drunk or sober I think she reacts the same.”

“Which is?”

“Swift kick to the groin, maybe an uppercut to the jaw. I probably wouldn’t have to get out of my chair. They’d probably be down for the count, and she’d take another shot.”

I scratched the back of my neck and failed to suppress a yawn. “Ya know, for world leaders, they seem kind of uh… psychotic.”

“Oh they can be. Usually not but they can be. We’re like hurricanes! Under the perfect conditions we’re dangerous, but only under those. Most of the time we’re harmless, and pretty rad rulers I’d say. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Totally.”

“Damn skippy!”

“What’s a ‘Coronavirus,’ Scott?”

I looked up from my cereal across the dinner table, and munched casually. “Well,” I started, and swallowed, “have you noticed how I haven’t exactly been going to work? I’ve just been here with you.”

She blinked. “Oh, I thought you were just a bum that leeches off the government.”

I frowned. Dumb capitalist horse. “No, no, believe me if I didn’t have a job, welfare wouldn’t get me a house this nice. It’d get me a dingy and some paddles to try and make my way upstream in a riptide.”

“Aren’t riptides like an ocean thing? Because the moon and the Earth’s tilt?”

I cocked my head, now the puzzled one. “Wait when I tried to explain this the other day—”

“I much prefer Bill Nye, he showed me on Youtube.”

“Who doesn’t prefer Bill Nye?” I countered. “Wait, if you know about Youtube, why are you asking me to explain Covid instead of it?”

She shrugged, taking a bite of her wheaties, pondering the delightful crunch and the idea proposed to her. “I could do that, but I wanted to spend some time with my dear friend, Scottie—”

“The IPad I gave you is dead, isn’t it?”

“It’s charging, and I’m impatient, okay?” She huffed, rubbing her temples in circular motions. “Spill the beans okay, I want to know what it is!”

I took another bite and chewed slowly. Very slowly. It was entertaining as her eyes narrowed with every bite. Satisfied, but not daring enough to test Cadance any further, I cleared my throat. “It’s a disease that’s basically killing a sizable portion of the world and nearly every country is affected by it. It’s extremely contagious and widespread, so the world has pretty much gone on lockdown until we can come up with a vaccine that will supposedly make our bodies more protected from the virus and allow us to go back to our normal, mostly healthy lives.”

She nodded. “That doesn’t sound too fun.”

“No, not at all, it sucks. I’m not a science guy, so check anything I said, but basically we’re practicing things like wearing masks and standing far apart to prevent respiratory transfer of germs.”

“Oh is that why you wore that face cover when you went out for groceries?” Cadance asked.

“Mhm, you’re right.” I finished the last of my cereal, and slurped the remaining milk from the bowl. I wasn’t sure how exactly that looked to her, but she didn’t snark at me, so I guess that was a positive.

Well, she didn’t snark at me about that.

“See.” She suppressed a snicker. “I thought you put on the mask so people wouldn’t make fun of you for being ugly.”

I chewed my lip.

“I’m kidding!” she jeered, unleashing a shrill laugh as soon as my face fell. “Well, mostly.”

“Cadance—”

“Okay, fully, don’t be so insecure.”

I picked up my bowl and headed towards the sink to wash it out.

“Hey, wait, so another question,” she mentioned.

“Shoot.”

“Why do some people say the Coronavirus is a hoax then?”

I paused in my tracks.

“... Who says that?”

“The people on the news said the Tangerine with the Toupee said it.”

I peered over my shoulder, unimpressed. “Which news station?”

“CNN, I think it was called. With like, red letters and a red background.”

“Yup, that’s CNN.” I confirmed, placing my dishes in the sink. “I’m kind of critical of the toupee’d tangerines handling of the whole thing. I think it’s underwhelming, but I don’t think he’s recently said it’s a ‘hoax,’ verbatim.”

“Well the other station said the Tangerine was right, and it was a glorified flu and people who collect their government checks are bums.” She smiled. “Are they right about you? Are you a bum?”

I groaned, and rolled my eyes. “Hardly.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and crouched down to be eye to eye with Cadance. “Where’d you hear that one?”

“Uh…” She tapped the underside of her chin. “It was called Fox.”

“Okay, so the News lies to you.”

Cadance’s eyes bulged in shock. “What? Why would they do that. How else will people know what’s going on in the world?”

“See, in America, news ratings and pandering to what people believe in is more important than accurate information. So CNN panders to one side, and Fox to another side.”

“What about the weatherman? Does he tell the truth?”

“No the weather man is a dirty lying piece of shit and should never be trusted, particularly on your sister’s wedding day when he says it’s the sunniest day of the year.” I felt my hands curl into fists, and reminded myself ‘Live from Channel Five Larry Smith’ would be judged in the ninth pit of Dante’s Inferno one day. Patience is a virtue, after all.

Cadance frowned and crossed her fore legs on the dining room chair. “Well then where do you get truthful news?”

“Oh it’s everywhere,” I said, patting her on the head. “It’s everywhere, you just need to read source content, and read articles online and check cited sources. Those that do their due diligence are rewarded with the Truth.”

She rubbed her chin. “I guess that makes sense, but I would have assumed truth was a readily available commodity in a prospering state.”

“Aren’t you a ruler of an Empire?” I inquired.

“Indeed I am, and don’t you worry!” she cheered, grin stretched ear to ear across her muzzle. “I will take what I’ve learned here on Earth and apply it to my politics back in Equestria!”

I sighed, and hung my head. “Those poor souls…”