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Chapter 1

 

“Another day, another eighty cents,” Anon muttered to himself as he trudged down the hallway leading to his apartment.  Earning his daily bread was generally tolerable, but today has been especially tiring.

Anon fished around for the keys in his pocket, and as he did so there came a clunking noise through the door.

”Swear to god, if there are rats,” Anon said.  “As if living in this dive isn’t bad enough.”

Finding the right key, Anon opened the door and darted around the corner into the kitchenette.  It took him a moment to process just what he was seeing.

Overturned on the countertop lay a box of Cheerios, its contents spilled around the ankles of a small white humanoid about eight inches tall.  The little creature had wings, and a horn sprouted from the middle of its forehead.  It (well, she, Anon supposed, since the creature certainly appeared female) was clad in a white sundress that reached just past the knee.  She also sported a tail and an impressive hairdo - three colours that seemed to billow gracefully despite the lack of a breeze.

She was apparently just as surprised to see Anon as he was her, and was frozen in place.

“Sister!” came a high-pitched call.  Anon looked up slightly.

Above the white . . . thing was a similar creature, though she was coloured darkly, black with deep blue accents.  Her hair almost looked like plastic wrap, though upon closer inspection it twinkled with what seemed like starlight.

Anon hadn’t noticed her before, since she was half in the darkness of the cupboard, reaching down to the other creature, which was apparently her sister.

This was a lot for Anon to take in.  Being an average person, he had a rather small frame of reference for pixies and other small beings.

Well, at least they could talk.  Maybe he could communicate-

The door clicked shut behind him.

The white one blinked, then seemed to remember where she was.  She turned gracefully and leapt up to her companion’s outstretched hand.

Anon acted on reflex, rushing forward and grabbing at the two creatures.  They fled into the recesses of the cupboard, but they couldn’t escape.  In a moment he had one in each hand, white one in his right and blue-black in his left.  They squirmed, trying to uncurl his fingers.

“Now, hang on a second-” Anon started.

“Luna, cover your eyes!”  Cried the white one, lifting a hand towards Anon’s face.

“What are OW!”  Anon shouted, momentarily blind from the burst of light the white one hand hurled at him.  Anon lurched back a step, distantly paying attention to his captives’ banter through the haze of ocular pain.

“Tia, quickly!  We must away!”

“Well, that didn’t do anything.  Guess we’re stuck.”

“Sister, what are you doing?  Let us abscond!”

“Luna, he’s clearly fine.”

“We must still try!” There came a grunt of effort from Anon’s left hand and he felt a slight pressure on his thumb.  Then, a short pause.

“Oh, poo.”

 

 

Chapter 2

 

“So let me see if I understand this correctly,” Anon said.  The little creatures - no, he corrected himself, Celestia and Luna, who were apparently princesses - looked up at him patiently.  Well, Celestia did, anyway.  Luna pouted.  “You two are princesses from a land which is full of both magic and other beings like you.”

“Yes,” Celestia said.

“You were in bed one night a couple days ago-”

“Reading!” Luna interjected.

Anon paused.  “Yeah, reading.  You told me.”

“And nothing else!”  Anon wasn’t exactly a master of reading people, much less magical pixie pony things, but he was pretty sure she was blushing through her fur.  Skin.  Whatever.  Celestia had been rolling her eyes throughout their exchange.

“Right, yes.  Nothing else.”  He cleared his throat.  “Anyway, you were,” he paused, “reading and doing nothing else in bed one night when there was a big flash.”

“Yes,” Celestia said.

“And then then next thing you know, you had woken up in one of my cupboards, and you’ve been hiding there for the last two days or so.”

“Well, we didn’t know it was a cupboard when we were on the inside, but yes, that’s the gist of it.”

“And you have no idea how you got here.”

“None.  I’ve studied magic for millennia and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Hmm.”  Anon leaned back, chin resting in his hand.  “Well, that’s that, then.”

Celestia and Luna looked at each other.  “. . .What’s what, then?” Celestia asked.

“I’ve gone mad.  Only logical explanation.”

Luna stiffened, but Celestia seemed to get that he was joking.  Well, Anon thought he was joking.  Who knew anything when it came to insanity, really?  If he was insane, of course he wouldn’t THINK he was insane.

Or would he?  Maybe that was just what he’d WANT himself to think.  Or WAS IT?  MAYBE-

“Anon,” Celestia interrupted.

“Hmm?”

“I take it you aren’t going to ask us any more questions, then?”

“Oh, um.  Probably not.  I think we’ve about pooled our knowledge.”

“May I ask you a question, then?”  Celestia shifted her weight a bit.

“Sure.”

“Could you please untie us?”

Anon had bound the two of them using the string his cat played with following the “really only temporary blindness” incident.  They now sat before him on the small kitchen table, each tied to a metal fork stuck into a small piece of cork board.

“Oh, right,” Anon said.  “Well, I’d like to, but how do I know you won’t just blind me again and disappear?”

“We won’t,” said Celestia.

“Sister!” Luna protested.  “We cannot promise anything to this brute!  He has strapped us to eating utensils!  Who knows what foul purposes he-”

“Luna,” Celestia interrupted her sister, “if he wanted to use us for any ‘foul purposes,’ he’s had ample time to do so.  I’d say that Anon here has been pretty easygoing, all things considered.”  She looked back at Anon.  “We won’t try anything.  You have my word.”

Anon considered the two of them.  They certainly seemed to be telling the truth, though it was bizarre enough that it didn’t count for much.  Still, they had been pleasant enough to talk to and seemed like nice enough people.  Ponies.  God, that was going to be irritating terminology.

“Sure,” he said.  With a few movements, he had untied them.  “You didn’t have to worry, though,” he said when they were standing.

They looked at him.  “Worry about what?” Celestia asked.

He shrugged.  “Well, y’know, like you were . . . y’know . . .”

Anon looked down at the two of them.  Looks of utter confusion stared back.

“I mean . . . I’m a vegetarian, is all.”

Luna cocked her head to one side.  “What does this word of yours, vejee-tarry-un, mean?”

“I don’t . . . I only eat vegetables.  And fruits and grains, and stuff.”

Luna kept looking at him.  “What else would one eat?” she asked.

Yep.  Definitely ponies.  “Ah, never mind,” said Anon.  He looked at the clock and realized how late it was.  “Jeez, I should be getting to bed.”  He glanced back at them.  “Though, hmm.  I don’t have anywhere for you two to sleep.”

“Oh, that’s alright!” chirped Luna.  “We don’t sleep!”

“Sorry what.”

“What my sister means,” Celestia said, “is that we don’t need to sleep.  It would be nice to rest after spending two days in a wooden box, though.”

Anon pondered for a moment.  “One second.”

He stood up and walked across the room, crouched, and fished around underneath an end table for a moment.  He returned to them with a soft circular object they didn’t recognize.  “Here.”

“What is that?” they asked in unison.

“It’s, well . . . it’s a little bed for my cat, actually, but he hasn’t taken much of a shine to it.  It’s free of cat hair, if you were wondering.”  He set the cat bed down on the nearby countertop.  The two princesses jumped the small gap between the table and the counter and looked it over for a moment before hesitantly glancing at one another.  Celestia took a tentative step into the fleece lining of the bed, then turned back to her sister.

“It’s actually really soft,” she said.

That was all the encouragement Luna needed.  She looked back at the cat bed, then jumped headlong into it, landing flat on her belly.  “Ooh, it IS soft!” she exclaimed, flipping over and making a fleece angel.

“Well, I guess that’s that, then,” said Anon.  “Give a call if you need anything.”

“We will!” Celestia said from beside her sister, who was having entirely too much fun for someone who had been displaced between realities less than 72 hours before.  With that, Anon stepped into the apartment’s small bedroom, changed into a pair of boxers and a T-shirt, and fell unconscious as soon as his head touched the pillow.

 

Chapter 3

 

Anon woke to the imperious buzzing of his alarm clock.  He made the kind of nrgh sound that only someone woken from the depths of sleep can make and batted at the alarm clock.  On his fourth try, he hit the correct button and the alarm turned off with a final buzzed protest.  Sighing happily, he rolled over on the small mattress.

“Meow,” his cat, Jerry, meowed.

“Goddammit, Jerry,” Anon muttered conspiratorially into his pillow.  “Your food is the same place it always was.”

“Meow,” Jerry meowed.  Jerry was a Persian and thus had perfected the art of annoying his owner for attention.

Anon swore sluggishly into his pillow before stretching his arms above his head and turning away from the wall his bed lay against.  He glanced at the clock - 8:30, way too early to be up on a Saturday - before turning his attention to Jerry.  Jerry was lying on the floor hogtied with gold chains.

That’s odd, thought Anon.

“Meow,” meowed Jerry.  His brown fur looked as though someone had pet him the wrong way.

Anon reached out and took hold of the chains, only for them to dissolve between his fingers.  The chains turned to dust and drifted away on some breeze he couldn’t feel.  Jerry meowed appreciatively before hopping onto Anon’s bed and nuzzling Anon’s hand.

“Something weird’s going on here,” Anon said.  Groaning, he lumbered to his feet before dressing himself in a pair of loose jeans and a clean T-shirt.  Jerry remained where he was on the bed and started grooming himself.  After a final stretch, Anon wandered out of the bedroom and into the bathroom.  On his way, he passed the circular cat bed on the countertop and the two Technicolour figures lying in it.

Ah, thought Anon.  It wasn’t a dream, then.

He turned this thought over in his mind whilst brushing his teeth, and almost made it the whole way through before he realized that two interdimensional travellers were asleep on his kitchen counter.

Anon burst through the bathroom door and into the kitchenette.  Sure enough, there were two small figures lying asleep in Jerry’s bed.  During their sleep they had moved and Luna was now hugging the side of her sister with all four limbs, head resting on Celestia’s-

Their clothing had shifted during their sleep, Anon realized with a start.  He’d had his doubts about what particular gender and species the two of them actually were, what with the horns and the wings and the heads that weren’t quite human or equine and the magical manes and tails, but if Celestia was anything to go by, they were female.

Very female.  One hundred per cent.

As Anon stood over them, the blue and black one - Luna, Anon corrected himself - stirred and disentangled herself from her sister.  She sat up stretching, completely oblivious to how much (or, rather, how little) clothing her upper body had.  If she had she been Anon’s size, she would have yawned mightily.  As it stood, she just sort of squeaked.  Then she noticed Anon and looked up.

“Oh, good morning Anon!  Thank you for this bed, as We have not slept that well in half a year!” Luna beamed.

“We haven’t slept in half a year, period,” said Celestia, playfully pulling her sister back down.

“Ah!  Tia, don’t!” Luna giggled before stopping her struggles and trying to get her sister in an arm lock.

Anon’s face had been getting progressively redder and he forced himself to turn away and move down the counter.  If Celestia and Luna were any sort of barometer, sisters behaved weirdly in Equestria.  Anon tried frantically to stop thinking about the two princesses, but their giggles and grunts made it extraordinarily difficult to focus.

“Anon?” came Celestia’s voice.  Anon turned hesitantly around, to see Celestia standing slightly outside the confines of the bed.  She was wearing a rich gold tank top with spaghetti strings and a pair of pale yellow short shorts.  Anon could see some sort of tattoo or design on her thigh disappear beneath them.  Luna, peeking over the bed’s rim, was wearing something similar.  “Anon?” Celestia asked again.

Anon focused on her face.  “Oh, yeff?” he asked, mouth full of toothpaste foam.  He frowned, looking into the sink for something to rinse with.

Celestia cleared her throat.  “Luna was a bit . . . sleepy, but we are honestly grateful for your hospitality.  This must be an odd experience for you.”

“Ah, iff nuffing, reery,” Anon said.  He spied a glass half full of water in the sink and reached for it.

“Well, I just wanted to make sure, since we took the liberty of using one of your wash basins last night.”

Anon looked questioningly at her.  “Waff bafins?  Whiff?”  He lifted the glass and took a swig.

“That one.”

 

After Anon had brushed his teeth again, and flossed, and rinsed thoroughly with a glass he cleaned himself, he set about the task of preparing some food.  He ended up making a breakfast of toast and fruit.  Best to keep it simple for now, he figured.  Luna had wanted to have Cheerios, but the lustre went out of her eyes after Anon explained that they weren’t actually tiny doughnuts.

“You live in a cruel world, Anon,” she remarked between taking bites out of a piece of toast almost as large as her.

“It’s not that bad once you get to know it,” Anon replied.  He turned to Celestia, who was enjoying a grape.  “So you can actually do magic?”

“Certainly,” she said.  That’s how we changed our clothes into pajamas and vice versa.  One of the benefits of wielding divine power.”

“That’s incredible,” Anon said, taking a bite of an apple.  “What else can you do?”

“Most anything, really.  Telekinesis, bursts of energy, you name it.”

“Can you change your size?” Anon asked.

Celestia paused, then looked at Luna.  “It’s odd,” she said.  “We ought to be able to, and I have numerous times in the past, but something about growth and shrink spells just doesn’t seem to work in your world.”

“Indeed,” Luna continued.  “Our telekinesis also seems to have minimal effect.”

Anon considered this.  Then: “So, could you, hypothetically speaking, make a gold chain out of pure energy and use it to hogtie my cat Jerry in my room?”  He looked down at the sisters.  They fidgeted nervously.

“Heh.  Yes,” Celestia said.  “About that.  See, we did a little exploring of the apartment yesterday evening.  While we were on the floor, your cat - Jerry, was it? - took an interest in us.”

“I wanted to slay the dread beast!” said Luna, mouth full of toast, “but Tia convinced me otherwise.  Mmm, what IS concoction you used on the bread?”

“Peanut butter,” said Anon.

“Fascinating,” Luna muttered, taking another bite.  “And delicious.”

“Well,” Anon continued, “I guess Jerry wasn’t really hurt, so no harm done.  Though you two would probably be less prone to cat attack with some more permanent lodging, huh?”

“That would probably help,” said Celestia.  “The cat bed is great, but there’s something about having a properly proportioned roof over your head.”

“Well,” said Anon before finishing up his apple and polishing it off with a glass of milk.  “I guess we’re going shopping.”

 

Chapter 4

 

“So this is how we usually get around,” Anon said.

“A horseless carriage,” Luna thought out loud.  “How intriguing.”

Anon paused to consider the implications of that statement, then thought better of it.  He closed the distance to his car  and lowered himself inside, then checked his coat pockets.  “You two okay in there?”

“Yes,” replied Luna.

“A bit cramped, but I’m fine,” said Celestia.  Anon’s coat had two roomy pockets on the front and the two princesses were each hiding in one.  They had been initially skeptical, but Anon explained that, his world being bereft of small winged humanoids, getting caught wouldn’t end well for any of them.

“Alright, good,” Anon said.  “So the way I figure it, we’ll head to the local toy store, pick up a Lego set or something, and then head back here.  Any objections?”

The princesses, heads and shoulders just poking out of Anon’s pockets, looked at each other, shrugged, and shook their heads.  Anon slid his key into the car ignition and turned.

A few mechanical whines later, he tried it again.

And again.

“Anon,” Celestia asked as Anon tried fruitlessly to start the car, “Is it supposed to do that?”

“Hmm?” Anon said.  “Oh, um . . . yeah.  Well, no, it’s,” he paused.  “It’s supposed to catch on the first turn, but it’s not a big deal.  I’ll just, um,” he trailed off.

“Do you two smell that?” Luna said.  Anon and Celestia looked at her, then sniffed the air.

“Smell what?” Celestia asked.

“Oh, son of a bitch,” said Anon.  The princesses looked up at him.  Rather than explain, Anon got out of the car and walked around to its hood.  The thin curl of smoke rising out of the engine thickened when he popped the hood.  Anon was hardly a car expert, but even he knew that smoke was a bad sign.  The rubber band-looking things flapping around probably shouldn’t have been doing that either.

He shut the hood, then looked down at his pockets.  “Looks like we’re taking the scenic route, girls.”

“Ooh!” cried Luna, “I will greatly enjoy seeing more of your world!”

 

“You certainly seem to like concrete,” Celestia remarked.

“Metro tunnels aren’t exactly made to be pretty,” Anon said quietly.  He was slumped sourly in the back of a metro car.  By some miracle, it was mostly empty.  The only other occupants were a young coffee-skinned man and a grey-haired woman who looked to be about 700 years old.  The woman was a few seats in front of him, reading, but the man was almost at the front.

Celestia looked up at Anon, who was staring out the car window at the concrete an arm’s length away from him.  “Anon, is there something the matter?” she asked, making sure to keep her voice down.

Anon shifted before answering, jostling the two princesses around.  “It’s nothing.  Just angry about my car.”

Luna piped up.  “Has your ‘car’ wronged you?  Because We excel at the cooking of revenge!”

“Isn’t revenge best served cold?”

“Precisely!”

“Luna, please keep your voice down,” Celestia whispered harshly.  

Celestia was closest to the aisle and had seen the old woman sitting ahead of them turning around with a puzzled look on her face.  Anon simply stared at her.  There was an awkward pause, then the woman turned around and went back to her book.

Anon slunk lower in his seat.  Sheltered from curious eyes, the princesses allowed themselves to sit on his lap.  “‘Wronged’ me, huh?” he said quietly.  “Not completely inaccurate, I guess.  It’s just a machine, so it didn’t really think about wanting to screw up my day, but it definitely did.”

The princesses’ faces fell.  “We aren’t inconveniencing you, are we?” Celestia asked.

“Oh, no, hardly.  I didn’t exactly have much planned today.  It’ll probably just cost an arm and a leg to have it repaired.”  Luna put a hand over her mouth, shocked.  “It’s just a figure of speech, Luna.”

“O-of course,” she replied, lowering her hand.  “I knew that.”

“Yeah.  Just a pain, is all.  Something bothering you, Celly?”  Celestia seemed lost in thought and didn’t respond.  He didn’t have time to press the matter.  “Ah, this is our stop.”

 

Once the trio had left the metro station, the mall had been only a few minutes away on foot.  Anon had entered the local toy store and was making his way through the aisles towards the Lego section.

Celestia peeked around Anon’s head, where she and her sister had been relocated to provide feedback on their prospective houses.  “So what exactly are we going to get?”

“They’re like little houses,” said Anon.  “Well, not really little in your case, but y’know.”

“Like dollhouses?”

“Yeah.  Like dollhouses.”  They walked the rest of the way without chatting.  Celestia and Luna stole glances out of Anon’s hood, taking in as much as they could without exposing themselves.  Anon, for his part, did his very best to hide the oddly pleasant sensations that two tiny women clasping the back of his neck created.

Anon could see the displays of Lego behind a final row of shelves.  Taking a shortcut, he turned into the next aisle.

>I regret this decision.

The sheer volume of pink that greeted him almost sent him reeling.  The intensity of the colours didn’t help either: no matter what shade of pink the toys were, they could all count as ocular hate crimes.

The entire aisle was top to bottom pink.  Everything.  Every toy, every box, every plushie.  It was all pink, and it was all stamped with names so syrupy and saccharine they almost made Anon gag.  He strode forward, trying to power through it.

“Ooh, We like this place!” came a voice inside his hood.

Anon froze.

“I’ll admit, it has a certain charm,” Celestia said.  “This looks like a fine place to find a dollhouse.”

>Shit.

“. . . A-are you sure?” Anon asked, voice wilting.  “Because the Lego stuff is-”

“Modular?  Yes, you told us,” Celestia continued, “but in all honesty I don’t really count that as an upside.  Manual labour is so passé, you know?”

Luna chimed in.  “Ah, look at that one!  It’s enormous!”  She lurched forward, grabbing onto Anon’s ear and almost pitching herself out of his hood.

>So this is what losing control of your life feels like.

Drearily, Anon let himself be steered towards a large box advertising itself as “The Perfect Peachy Playset For Any Pretty Princess.”  He mentally raged against the heavens.

“See, this doesn’t look too bad,” Celestia remarked, appraising the pink and purple castle as best she could.  “It has two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and an attic.”

“There shall be plentiful room for activities!” Luna chirped.

“That too.  What do you think Anon?”

“Celestia this is the size of my torso.”

“Well of course it is.  If it were smaller, it wouldn’t be large enough.  Is that all?”

“Is that all?” Anon asked, vaguely offended.  “IS THAT ALL?  It’s loud!  It’s pink!  It’s . . . on sale for half off?  Well I guess that isn’t so bad-”

Anon was then slapped in the back hard enough to make him trip forward.  He looked indignantly to his left, then froze.

>No.  No, not him.  Not here.  No no no no no no no no no no.

“Anon, how are ya?” asked Anon’s boss loudly.  His name was Lance, and he looked and spoke exactly like the kind of person who would have been named Lance.

“Oh . . . Lance . . .” Anon said, reaching madly for a response.  He felt Luna and Celestia disappear from his hood into the polyester depths of his shirt and his brain threw higher functions to the curb.  Then it stomped on them a few times.  If the two princesses had been distracting before, they were impossible to ignore crawling around inside his shirt.  Anon hoped he was wearing enough layers of clothing.  “How, um.  How.  Hi.  How.”

“Hello yourself, Anon.  You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”  He guffawed.  “I’m just joking of course, as ghosts are fictional creatures.”  He leaned closer, putting an arm on Anon’s shoulder.  “I’m just picking up a gift for the kids.  APPARENTLY one of them has a birthday today.”

Anon just looked at him.  The sisters had gotten into some kind of kerfuffle around his waistline and it was all he could do to keep a straight face.

“Anyway, I’m in the market for a good toy for an 11-year-old girl.  Though, oh, I suppose she’s 12 now.”  He sighed frustratedly, looking to Anon for sympathy.  “Children, am I correct?”

Anon nodded, a hair’s breadth away from losing it.  “Yeah, kids.  Confusing.”

Lance nodded sagely, then turned to consider the array of pink in front of him.  “Well, this one certainly jumps out at me in only the way a child’s toy could.”  He pointed to the castle that Anon and his baggage had been discussing.

>Are you serious right now.

“Uh, yeah, um.”  Anon had almost worked through the array of sensations when the princesses stopped their movement.  He was about to speak when they plunged into his trousers.  Bravely managing to contain a screech, Anon realized that they were fortunately outside his underwear.

“I was thinking the same thing.  The perfect choice in a land of tempting choices.”  Lance reached for the toy castle.

“No, sorry,” Anon found himself saying.  Lance looked at him as though he’d forgotten Anon could talk.  “What I mean, though, is that you can’t have it.  It’s the only one and I’m getting it.”

Lance continued to look at him.  Anon tried to elaborate, but the sisters had yet to stop moving and his crotch was noticing them in a big way.

>You cannot be fucking serious.

“How bizarre and/or baffling.  I hadn’t had you pegged as a homosexual,” said Lance.  He paused.  “Hah, pegged.  Like sodomy.”

“Sorry what.”  Anon’s speech was on autopilot.  He tried frantically to think about something other than the two immaculate specimens of the female form moving around in his pants.

“It is truthful.  My gaydar is normally as precise as a Distant Early Warning System, but you thwarted it.  Congratulations, comrade.”  Lance patted him on the shoulder, then hoisted the toy castle and thrust it into Anon’s fumbling arms.  Anon heroically managed not to completely drop it.  “I suppose my lovely daughter will just have to make do with men’s toys.”  Lance wandered off.  “Now where is that sports aisle . . .”

Anon stood where he was for a solid minute before dropping the castle and fishing the two princesses out of his pants.  Ignoring their protests, he shoved them into his pockets before bringing the castle to the register and paying for it.