>you open your eyes.
>you must have been amazingly still, as Celestia is still sleeping soundly on your tie.
>Luna, however, is trying to pull your upper lip back.
>you hear the sound of irritated struggle coming from your teeth.
>you pull your lips apart.
"That better?"
>"Anonymous!" Luna squeaks in desperation. "Help me here, there's someone in your teeth!"
>Jesus Christ, what?
>"Don't ask, don't say anything! Just... get to the lavatory, find a toothbrush or something!"
>you swiftly place Celestia on your nightstand without waking her and proceed to the bathroom with your hand over your face.
>Luna clings to your face by a tooth.
>you open a cabinet and pull out a box of cotton swabs.
>you remove one and raise it to your face for confirmation.
>"That'll have to do. Okay, Rainbow, push up!"
>you look in the mirror to find the next new arrival and see her between your two front teeth.
>a blonde head the size of a grain of sand.
>Derpy.
>you carefully place the cotton swab up to her face, and she grabs on.
>your upper front teeth have grown so that they create a notch-shaped space between them that gets wider closer to the gums.
>wide enough to fit Derpy through, you hope.
>through the strangely balanced combined forces of you and apparently Rainbow Dash, you eventually manage to pop Derpy out of your face and into Luna's arms.
>the sizes remain mismatched.
>Derpy is about the size of a grain of rice, while Luna's current scale has her at Chrysalis' initial large insect size, putting Derpy at a relative large cat size.
>Rainbow Dash jumps from the top of one of your lower teeth to your fingertip, which you raise to your lip for Luna to walk onto, then lower to the bathroom sink.
>Derpy falls out of Luna’s arms and rubs her leg, wincing in pain.
"I am so sorry."
>she looks up at you and gives a pained smile.
>"Not your fault," she says, bending backward to crack her spine. “I’ll just wait ‘til you wake up next time.”
>you hope there won’t be a next time for this hilariously specific scenario.
>you look to Rainbow Dash.
>she is covered in blood.
>licking at the area by your top teeth, you taste a bit of iron, and are thankful that you didn’t involuntarily harm anyone yet.
>Rainbow seems to notice you’re staring at her.
>”Yeah… this… I really didn’t think you were alive,” she says, wiping her hands off on her shorts. “Eugh…”
>the wardrobe of the two new arrivals is difficult to distinguish, but they appear to be in surprisingly good condition.
>they also seem to have wings. Insect wings, by the looks of it, attached to their necks of all places.
>it’s a little weird how they would keep theirs and none of the previous royalty had them.
>is this sort of thing going to happen every day?
>someone’s going to exit through one of two undesirable holes eventually, and you don’t think either you or the hypothetical mare-turned-humanesquine (you made that up on the spot) would find the experience particularly digni-
>Derpy flew away.
>”Anonymous! What is this sandwich doing in the trash?”
>and she’s found last night’s dinner.
>she drunkenly dive bombs into your right eye and bounces off onto your cheek with a grunt.
>your eye feels nothing.
>the blur that is Derpy sits up.
>"What are you, nine?"
"I'm medically proven to be exceptionally unhappy."
>"Oh. I guess that makes sense."
>you pick Derpy up by the wings, having faith in the addenda of the square-cube law that the humanesquines (yes, you're still calling them that) haven't already broken.
>Derpy appears unfazed, if only mildly irritated-looking.
>your heart may not be able to take much more of this.
>you angle Derpy so that she's lying on your thumbnail, and release her wings.
>you look over to Rainbow Dash and Luna.
"Do you suppose anyone else might be coming through?"
>"We went through the portal in an organized fashion with whoever had the necessary proficiencies," Luna replies. "My sister and I went first, followed by the changeling ambassador, followed by a- literal- handful of volunteer citizens. The real issue right now is one of scale and interval, but otherwise I'm sure you'll be fine. You seem to be an exceptional outward conductor."
>something other than your mum called you good at something!
>good god, what a milestone this week is turning out to be.
>this... work week.
>wait, no, that's right. You got fired the other day.
>how many grains of rice is a handful?
>"We'll be sure to be the first ones to find whoever exits you next. Until then you should just move as gently as possible, lest you accidentally flatten someone," Luna says.
>the idea makes you visibly nauseous.
>"But I'm sure they'll have the necessary capabilities to avoid that scenario if you fail to the best of your abilities!"
[1]"How many volunteers went through?"
>"There were at least a dozen," Rainbow Dash says.
>fucking Christ, this isn't over.
>you can't even think of twelve holes.
>pores?
>it's easy enough to open a pore, right?
>maybe they just spawn somewhere in your head and pick an exit.
>they wouldn't deliberately take the long way around, would they?
>guess there's only one question left to ask.
"Do you know who volunteered?"
>Luna and Rainbow think on the subject for a moment.
>Derpy has gone to use one of your eyebrows as a hammock.
>that's not what eyebrows are for.
>that's not grammatically correct in the king's retarded English.
>"Spitfire volunteered, right?" Rainbow asks Luna.
>"Yes... I remember she was in front of the pink one," Luna replies. "Twilight was holding the portal open, so she couldn't come through, but we still had to have at least three unicorn ambassadors."
"Okay, forget the names," you decide. "How many of each ambassador were there?"
>"Two winged unicorn monarchs, one changeling queen, three Pegasi, three earth ponies, three unicorns, a gryphon empress and a dragon baroness."
>so dragons are nobles?
>or there just weren't any cool-sounding titles left so they just became a monarchy with aristocratic terminology and 'baroness' probably just means 'representative' or something.
>empires are pretty cool, though, if the gryphon one's anything like what you've seen in Star Wars.
>...if she still has her talons, you're not going to have a pleasant experience when she gets out of you.
>this is really getting kind of gross. How did the sisters find you without being trapped in your skull beforehand?
>maybe the new arrivals just arrive in the center of the humanesquines who are have already arrived.
>you'll need to experiment with that, make sure they don't sleep too close to you tonight.
>you're drooling.
>you barely feel your eyebrow being pet the wrong way.
>are you really so fluffy at this relative scale?
>"Yes," you hear in your mind.
>you should probably tell Chrysalis about the changelings in your head, now that you know they exist.
>if you think hard enough, maybe you can feel them walking on your brain.
>instead you hear the little queen's heartbeat speed up until it sounds like a yawn.
>"Is it morning?" you hear her say.
"Yes, it is."
>"Very well," she says. "Did I miss anything?"
"Derpy and Rainbow Dash just arrived."
>"Who are you talking to?" Derpy asks, leaning her head out of your eyebrow to see your left eye.
"It's Chrysalis, Derpy. She just woke up."
>"Oh. Where is she?"
"Ear."
>Derpy scrunches her face in mild disgust, still succeeding in making it look adorable, and goes back to lounging in your eyebrow.
>"You know, you should really clean your ears more often if you want them to be more welcoming," Chrysalis says as her voice fades away. "Earwax isn't exactly a recognizable odor, but it's quite strong, believe me."
>you hear her step out of your ear canal and start feeling a boulder of something-or-other roll towards the outside of your ear.
>when it hits the edge, a pearl-shaped orange blob falls into view and splatters on the bathroom tile.
>"I could barely fit that through. I'm only doing this for you once, Anonymous. If too much of it accumulates, you're going to go deaf in this ear."
>that was... nice of her.
"Thanks..."
>you pick up a piece of toilet paper and scrape the stuff off of the floor.
>toss it in the bin.
>where did Luna go?
>she's hanging off of your back.
>now she's climbing up it.
"Luna?"
>"Don't talk! I'm fulfilling a millennia-old dream! A dream I've had since I was a filly! I AM SCALING THE COLOSSUS!"
>you have become the wish granter.
>a smile is starting to spread across your face.
>you look in the mirror and find the image horrendously uncanny, so you purse your lips to keep the grin down.
>Rainbow Dash has been lingering by your right hand, noiselessly flying around it to regain stability at its repeated movement.
>now that you have everyone with you, you decide to exit the bathroom for obvious reasons.
>you feel Luna lose her grip on your back, and quickly bend forward so she doesn't fall off.
>"Ah! Don't spoil the immersion, Anonymous!" she says irritably.
"Sorry."
>"THE COLOSSUS NEVER SPEAKS!" she booms, sending a vibration through your abdomen like an electric current. A series of light pulls on your eyebrow indicate Derpy is nearly shaken loose.
>you hear a high-pitched grunt and look to the ground to find its source.
>Rainbow appears to have been swatted out of the air as a result of your spasms.
>she sits up and rubs her head in pain, her wings flinching in irritation. One of them seems to be moving a little more spastically than the other.
>you'll need to be much more careful with the pegasi.
>you reach down to pick her up, but she jumps at the sight of your hand.
>"I'm okay, I'm just a little dizzy. No need to help..."
>she isn't exactly the one to trust when it's quite possible she's hurt.
"How's your wing?"
>she looks over her shoulder and seems to wince a little.
>"It might be... just a little bit... numb?"
"Should you be flying with a numb wing?"
>"No... I'd probably be unbalanced like Derpy over there."
>Derpy mutters something insulting under her breath.
"So do you want me to carry you?"
>Rainbow shakes her head and stands up.
>"I think I'll just move on foot for now."
>that doesn't sound safe.
>that actually sounds extremely dangerous.
>you can barely make her out from standing height as a tiny blue insect, so you'll either need to walk ahead of her or stay crouched.
>she's not even moving in the right direction! Where does she think she's going?
>oh, wait.
>that's what she meant.
>she reaches above the tread of your left shoe and pulls herself up.
>this still doesn't look safe.
>she looks up, your head directly above hers now.
>"Alright, go."
>you'll just have to keep an eye on her.
>you know you can't win.
>fucking thrill-seekers.
>you stand up slowly.
>you feel Luna grasp the hair at the back of your head.
>first step, right foot.
>second step, left foot.
>Rainbow Dash flies back as you predicted, and clings to a shoelace that nearly matches her height in diameter alone.
>the image reminds you of that one scene in that movie about the ants.
>fuck Dreamworks, that shit was not fun for the whole family.
>it fucking horrified you as a kid.
>it was the reason why you leave the poor little bastards alone nowadays.
>you don't think Rainbow Dash would live through being crushed just because there was gum on your shoe.
>this idea induces nausea once more.
>you continue walking.
Rainbow is thrown back again, and slams into the knot of your shoelaces.
"Are you okay?"
>"I'm fantastic! Keep moving!"
>she's surprisingly durable.
>you would have figured she had weak avian bones, but apparently the laws of physics aren't so tyrannical in Equestria.
>nor do they apply so angrily to tiny dimensional anomalies.
>Rainbow Dash starts inching along the left loop of your shoelaces, and points forward commandingly.
>"March, Anonymous!" she jokes.
>you go back to walking.
>Rainbow has finally found a stable perch.
>a perch that is being repeatedly blown back, but otherwise she seems to have a tight grip on it with the combined force of her limbs.
>you see now that she has removed her shoes (balancing them expertly on top of her head) and appears to be using her still-yet-to-be-named hooves/claws to maintain a position in conjunction with her hands.
>you keep forgetting how exotic those damned things look.
>all blue and cloven and oval-shaped and shit.
>not like the sensitive rectangular bullshit you have to walk on every day.
>they must have a bunch of little spikes coming out of them that help them stick to things.
>like the things Spiderman had coming out of his fingers.
>the notch in the middle probably has a hell of a grip too.
>like, for holding things.
>could probably hold a pencil with them and write footnotes like the nowhere man from Yellow Submarine.
>long story short, they look really fucking useful.
>you're in your bedroom now.
>you've actually been here for a while.
>you're sitting down with your left leg crossed over your right knee.
>Rainbow Dash is staring at your face from the heel of your shoe.
>lying on her stomach and kicking at the air.
>she seems lost in thought right now. You can make out a ponderous look on her tiny face.
>Luna slams her boot down triumphantly as she makes the first step up onto your cerebellum.
>it really just feels like a little pebble of gravel fell on your head, though.
>once more, Derpy is disseated- this time you can feel enough of a struggle to assume she’s genuinely losing her perch.
>"THE COLOSSUS IS DEFEATED! HIS HEAD SHALL TOWER OVER OUR LAND ON A STRUCTURE NO TALLER THAN A PIKE! LET THERE BE HARMONY AND-!"
>"I'm AWAKE, Luna," Celestia shouts to her sister from your nightstand, throwing her makeshift pillow at her head with perfect accuracy and causing her to stumble off of your head and land on your shoulder with an irritated grunt.
 >the vibrations from Luna’s shouting finally cause Derpy to fall out of your eyebrow.
>you place your left hand under the plummeting Pegasus person and (hopefully) softly break her fall.
>you look into your palm and see she has landed on her face.
>she pushes herself up so that she’s sitting on her shins, which is an extremely uncomfortable way to sit.
>she looks down, looks confused, then looks up and briefly takes on an expression of abrupt understanding before smiling at you.
>you reflexively smile back at her.
>subtly. You don't want to give the poor girl nightmares.
>she hovers onto the tip of your middle finger and lies back down under your nail.
>Celestia appears curious.
>”Who might that be, Anonymous?”
"It's Derpy," you whisper. "She and Rainbow Dash arrived this morning."
>"The incident with your teeth must have taken- quite a toll on her, for her to be resting so soon after arriving," Luna says as she sits up. She finally regrows to her initial scale and repositions herself so that she is once more dangling her legs off of your shoulder. "I'm sorry I didn't wake you earlier, Anonymous."
"No harm done. I would hope."
>Derpy continues to look at you.
>what's always noticeable, it seems, is that no matter how small they are, you can always make out a pair of shining irises.
>two grossly incandescent motes of kindness that so fantastically pierce the ether of an otherwise endless sea of bigotry.
>2deep4me
>Derpy stretches out her limbs and yawns.
>silently, like a kitten.
>she points her legs out and her pedal appendages appear to open wide in a way not unlike the mandibles of a territorial ant.
>you wonder what happened to her shoes.
>you use your non-Derpy hand to frisk your eyebrow and see two gray flecks like dust particles fall into your left palm.
>Derpy looks over to the meteorites and nods at you.
>"Thanks."
"No problem. Just keep better track of them in the future."
>Derpy closes her eyes and scoots further under your fingernail. She's starting to regulate her breathing.
>it feels strange.
>like that one time you pulled a tick off of your neck and got it caught in the same place.
>poor bastard spent its whole life camping on a leaf to get a little sustenance and you flung it back into the grass in a split second.
>maybe it got its proboscis into a squirrel or a rabbit afterwards.
>looking at Derpy now, you really wonder if the tick wanted anything from you.
>it's a little far-fetched, but maybe it wasn't planning on sucking your blood.
>maybe it just needed somewhere safe to rest between meals.
>probably not, though.
>it was probably just engorged already and queuing up its dinner.
>still, cute little bastard.
>you look up at Celestia.
"I don't think we can do much today."
>"We can still talk."
"What would you like to talk about?"
>"Could I pick a subject, today?" you hear from inside of your ear.
"Fire away."
>"Love."
>god dammit.
>you purposefully tilt your head (which you've been keeping quite steady up to this point) to the left and place your left hand under your ear.
>Chrysalis slides out and lands in a kneeling position a la Alex Mercer, sans shockwave.
>you feel her increase in mass back to formicarch scale and skitter up your arm under the sleeve.
>oh god it tickles.
>she emerges from your collar and perches herself on the end.
>she's wearing something other than her abdominal shell this time. It looks like a torn cloak with a hood.
>and a concerned expression.
>again.
>"No love in your past life, Anonymous. Is this normal?"
>...none?
"What do you mean?"
>"I couldn't find a speck of a speck of a speck of compassion in your mind, Anonymous. Even when your mother birthed you, not a single atom in your body felt the unfathomable energy of love. Not. One. Atom."
>your answer comes quickly.
"Yes. Completely normal. Humans are a little too... soulless to love."
>Chrysalis looks down from your eyes.
>she puts her hand to the left of your chest.
>your heart.
>"How does it work...?" she murmurs.
>"We make it work, you know," your mind whispers.
"Blood."
>Chrysalis removes her hand.
>"Blood? Without love?"
>you're starting to get a little sad.
"Yeah. Just... metals and oils and shit. We really like those."
>"Do you?" Chrysalis remarks, smirking.
>you snicker.
"I needed that."
>Chrysalis takes a breath and exhales pleasantly, shrinking a little in the process.
>"That's what I'm here for."