Equestria. Such a sweet place, you’re pretty sure you’ve gotten eye diabetes from all the adorable things you’ve seen. You’d stopped keeping track of how long it’d been since you arrived, and long since given up on finding a way back to your native reality. Hell, some days you wonder if this is all a hallucination produced by your mind after a massive stroke, an elaborate joke by an eldrich trickster god in the moments before your brain shuts down.

Thankfully, those days are few and far between.

Sure, you got a small stipend from the royal treasury every month to cover the added expenses related to being the only human in a world full of waist-high ponies, but that wasn’t quite enough to live on. After a public endorsement from Celestia that you weren’t a dangerous being, you found yourself in the position of handyman, putting your opposable thumbs to use for the ponies who could see past your imposing-to-them height. The fact that your rates were more negotiable than your competition, well, that’s just good business sense.

Right around the time the pegasi start rolling out the winter-into-spring transitional weather, though? A pair of Celestia’s Royal Guard tend to show up at your door and escort you to the palace. They’re polite about it, but you can’t help but think the Princess doesn’t trust you. After the third year in a row, you’ve started blocking out space on your calendar in anticipation of their arrival - and it’s coming up on that time again.

Sure enough, right after lunch you hear a knock at your door. When you answer, it’s the same pair of pegasus stallions that’ve come to fetch you every year prior to this. “It’s that time again, sir.” At least they have a sense of humor about it.

“Alright. Let me get my coat.”

It’s about a day’s walk to Canterlot - you still surprise yourself with how in-shape you’ve gotten, just from living here - and by the time you get there the sun is just starting to dip below the horizon. You’re led to your usual accommodations, and to your surprise you find that Celestia’s waiting for you. After dismissing the guards, she turns to you. “I have a problem, and your...unique viewpoint may be helpful. Please, have a seat.”

Before you fully process this, you find yourself sitting down on the bed. Celestia sighs and continues. “My sister and I, as you may have noticed, aren’t like other ponies. As you just demonstrated, we seem to be capable of accidentally using our magic to plant suggestions in the minds of others. Further, our research into the matter has found some rather disturbing effects listed in the personal memoirs of our predecessor, attributed to prolonged exposure. These match the afflictions plaguing the new Night Guard, as well as the poor souls who volunteered for my Royal Guard during the first years of my rule.

“Transformative effects, mental restructuring for compliance and willingness to follow orders, even a handful of bizarre fatalities...” Celestia shakes her head, and a very heavy scroll winks into being in your lap. “This is our research so far. You’re welcome to explore the castle, browse the archives with supervision, and interview the members of the Royal and Night guard. Anything you find may be helpful.” Celestia leaves without another word, and you find yourself sitting, dazed, on the side of the bed. Eventually you shake it off, and get some sleep.



The next morning you find a note slipped under your door. Apparently Luna wants to share her thoughts on the matter her sister brought up. And, well, she didn’t want to wake you. Given the early morning sun just starting to stream in your window, chances are good Luna is still awake.

Right after that thought crosses your mind, you realize that you may be staying in the palace for some time. In a moment of panic you leap out of bed and fling open the wardrobe...to find it fully stocked for you. You can almost swear you can hear Celestia giggle in the back of your mind as you reign in your heart rate and go to make use of the attached bathroom for your assorted needs. Fortunately the Equestrian population understood the basics of indoor plumbing before you showed up, the minor differences in fixtures having become normal to you ages ago, and you wasted no time with your usual daily routine. Scooping up the scroll Celestia left for you, and a pencil and notepad from the room’s writing desk, you make your way into the palace at large.

After a short detour to fetch yourself a light breakfast, you find one of the palace guards is more than happy to escort you to Princess Luna. As he’s a rather amicable white unicorn, he agrees to a brief interview as you walk and you start filling your notepad with opinions, quotes, and personal observations on behavior. He seems to be well adjusted, loyal nearly to a fault, and happy with his position as a palace guard. The only odd thing you notice is that when you ask him how he knows his way around the palace, he doesn’t have an answer immediately. Instead he works a brief shrug into his gait. “Never really thought about it before.” You make sure to write this answer down verbatim, given how long it took for him to answer. “I guess I just memorized it over time.”

Your escort doesn’t say much after that, assuming the interview is over. A couple of minutes later he brings you to a dark wood door with impressively-worked silver fittings. “Princess Luna is through there. She’s been expecting you, but do try not to keep her awake too long.” He gives you a nod and a smile before walking off.

You knock politely on the door, lacking anything else to do. A moment later, the familiar voice of Luna replies - with impressive clarity given the intervening slab of wood. “Your presence is expected, and you may enter.” So you do, swinging that heavy door aside and entering Luna’s chambers without a thought.

“Do forgive my appearance.” She’s not as visually impressive as she was when you first saw her, the flowing starfield of her mane and tail having coalesced back into simple hair. “I felt that a more casual atmosphere may have a calming effect on the aura my sister informed you of yesterday. My own studies have revealed that the use of our magic may amplify its effects, which leads me to a rather unusual request.” The princess of the night flushes, just enough to be visible through her dark coat. “As I am unable to perform my nightly grooming and hold a conversation without the use of magic, would you mind assisting me?”

This time you could feel a distinct tickle in the back of your mind, a voice that isn’t your own, urging you to agree without hesitation - but, having recognized this as an alien thought, you hesitate. “Oh...oh dear.” There’s a look of concern on Luna’s face. “Is this one of your race’s taboos? If so, then you have Our humblest apologies. Our motivations were purely from a practical standpoint, We had no intention of offending your sensibilities in any way...”

As she invokes the Royal Plural, that tickle returns - a peculiar spike of Not Your thoughts with every use, urging you to Make The Princess Happy. Now that you know what to ‘look’ for, it’s actually quite easy to identify and ignore. The “Eureka!” moment lights up your features as you explain yourself, simultaneously jotting down ideas and notes on page after page of your notepad.

As you wind down from your revelation, you finally notice Luna’s look of shock. As you compose yourself, you start laughing and shake your head, having done what you can to shove aside the alien thoughts influencing your mind. “Of course I’ll help you, ma’am. Consider my hands your own.”

And so you spend the next two hours discussing the issue at hand with Luna as you brush out her mane and tail, massage the sore muscles in her back and neck, and help her with the rest of her bedtime preparations. By the time she’s tucked into bed she’s hiding a yawn behind every third word, and as soon as her head hits the pillow she’s out like a light. Careful not to wake her, you let yourself out and find your way to the palace library to look into the flood of ideas you had that morning.