Princess Celestia lived at my house, now. Her stay here would only be temporary, but the fact remained... She was living at my house. She was living at my house. It was unbelievable... for more than one reason.

With her living with me, there was only one thing I was worried about. Her comfort. And right now, she was comfortable. She was comfortable living here and she was comfortable with me. As far as I could tell, she liked it here.

We had become friends. I never imagined that I'd even get to talk to a Princess, let alone become one of their friends. It was nice, and not just because of who she was, but because of what she was to me... My friend.

She didn't do much, from what I could tell. Not that there was much to do in the first place, though. When I left for work, she was on the computer, at least when she wasn't asleep, and when I came home, she was usually still on it, researching this world, or looking up baking recipes. The search history showed that she had looked up herself on the internet and found the My Little Pony Wikia. She did quite a bit of research about Equestria on that site, as well.

Celestia certainly wasn't a picky eater. All of my snacks had disappeared, seemingly overnight. There was no chocolate anywhere in this house anymore. The chips had taken a hit as well. The trash can was full of cellophane packaging and chip bags. The boxes that the chocolate came in had been neatly folded up and placed into my recycling bin that I kept near the fridge. At least she's not a slob about it. Outside of these, I haven't found even the slightest clue that she was the culprit.

I had finally gotten around to washing her dirty clothes. There were two sets downstairs by the time I started cleaning them.

Apparently 'handle with care' does not mean 'throw in washer and forget about it.' As I picked up her clothes, I noticed that her delicates were meant to be washed differently than normal clothing. That meant that I would have to directly handle her underwear and clean them separate from the normal clothes instead of balling them all together and just tossing them in. It was all very uncomfortable for me.

The bra she initially wore was huge. The cups were each almost the size of my head... And no, I didn't test that theory. It was... well it was impressive, to say the least. Like she said, though... No size tags.

I am rather glad that I found these tags before I washed them, though. If I damaged her underwear, it'd just make more work for me. I'd have to buy even more clothing for her.

After making sure her underwear was treated correctly, I returned upstairs, the first batch of clothing in a basket in my arms.

When I entered the front room, Celestia said, "Would you like me to help you with that?"

"I got it, don't worry." I replied, pushing the door closed with the plastic basket.

"Well... alright, if you say so."

She seemed a little bummed out by my response. Maybe the next time she asks to help, I'll let her. No Princess should have to work in my house.

I folded her shirts and pants neatly and put them into the drawer I had cleared out for her. My clothes, I were less kind to. They were folded carelessly and thrown into whichever drawer they belonged.

I looked into Celestia's drawer again. I paused. If I moved her skirt to the top, she'd wear it next time she bathed... That's... really creepy, nevermind.

I walked back to the front room, empty basket in hand. A sudden knock on the front door surprised the both of us. It opened without waiting for a response.

"Hey, what up, Phil?" asked the cheery guy who barged in, looking at me as he walked through my house without care. He passed Celestia without even noticing her and went directly for the kitchen.

"Yo, don't just show up!" I replied, "I coulda been cleaning the clarinet or something." With the arrival of my friend, I let a dirty joke slip out in front of Celestia.

"Hey, did I leave my dew here?" he asked me, ignoring my complaint.

"What? Dude, that was like a week ago. It's long gone."

"Found one!" he called out.

"Don't just steal my pop!" I replied, putting the basket onto the floor and walking to the kitchen.

"Mine now." He opened it and drank some.

"Damn it. Whatever. What's up?"

"Nothing much. You?"

"Uh, nothing much here either, I guess." There actually was something going on, but it might be more fun if he figured it out on his own.

He shrugged. "Right, then. Here, I'm done with this." He reached into his pocket, then tossed something small and white at me. Despite its size, I managed to catch it. It was a USB flash drive I had let him borrow.

"Oh, well... Thanks." I pocketed it, then headed back to the front room.

Celestia looked at me, a pleasantly confused smile on her face.

I just shrugged.

"Hey Phil, you..." As soon as he saw her, he almost spit out his drink. He swallowed, then coughed a few times. "Holy crap! Phil, who is this?"

"You?" I asked.

"No, you f..." He was not pleased with my joke. He stared at her for a little bit, then said, "Am I hallucinating?"

"Probably, but that right there isn't a hallucination." I said.

He rubbed his eyes. "What is this... She looks like Celestia." He turned to her. "Hey, you look like Princess Celestia." He looked back to me. "Does she even know who Princess Celestia is? How much did you pay for her?"

"That's the real deal right there, mate. The real Princess Celestia. From the show."

She smiled awkwardly and waved at him. "Hello."

"From the show... Repeat that back to me." he said, ignoring her. "That's a grade-A prostitute right there, bro. A+." He looked back at her. "Shit, you must cost a fortune."

He's being rude to the Princess. I suppose I would act the same way in his shoes, but still.

"Are you implying that I would pay for something?" I said to him.

"Yeah, I guess that doesn't really fit you. Phil, what is she doing here?"

"I dunno. I found her in a parking lot."

"So you brought her here?" He looked back to me, then to her, then me again, then to her. "He didn't make you eat any eggs, did he?"

"I don't have any goddamn eggs!" I said to him. Now, I was displeased with his joke. Speaking of, I need eggs.

"You really met her in a parking lot?"

"Yep. Wal-Mart's a great place to meet women."

"So your initial reaction after finding some random chick who says she's Princess Celestia is to bring her to your house. Alright..."

"Tristan, don't be gross."

"Oh, like you can say that, Mr. 'I brought home a woman I met in a parking lot.'"

Celestia smiled, then giggled at us. "I like your friend." she said to me.

"That's a pretty good impression of her."

"My name is Celestia. And you?"

"Tristan. Nice to meet you. Are you two being serious right now?"

"Of course. I'm always serious." she replied.

"Well, I'm never serious." I said, "Glad one of us is. I guess you don't really have to believe us, though."

"No, I believe you."

"What?"

"Dude, there is a freaking supermodel sitting on your couch right now! What am I supposed to believe? You don't have this kind of game, man."

"Got more than you."

He laughed at me. "You've got as much game as a dead possum."

"Well at least my dick's not the size of a possum's. Uh... sorry, Celestia." Did it again. I need to watch my mouth around her.

Another laugh. "Fair enough, fair enough."

"Your penis is as small as a possum's?" asked Celestia. Maybe I wouldn't have to watch my mouth as much as I thought.

"What? No!"

"Yeah, it's more like a rat." I said.

"Shut up, Phil!"

"I think I'd like to see that." Celestia said with an impish smile.

"Well..." He shrugged. "Hear that? It's called game."

"It's not game if she laughs at it."

"Shut the hell up!"

Celestia lounged back against the couch, laughing. "Well, it's nice to meet you too, Tristan."

He sighed. "This is... kinda crazy, though. Are you really Princess Celestia, or are you two just messing with me?"

"I'm Princess Celestia, Tristan. There's no need to be so formal, though. You may call me Celestia if you wish. Any friend of Phil's is a friend of mine."

"Alright then, Celestia." I was so jealous right now... I didn't want to share.

"How... did you even get here? Like..."

"I don't know. I just... arrived here. Do you know about Equestria as well? Phil said that some of his friends would know me."

"Yeah, I know about it. I guess you're lucky Phil got to you before the police picked you up. You'd probably get locked up somewhere."

"Yeah, we do live in America, after all." I said.

"'Murrica."

"Muh freedoms."

Celestia just smiled at us and waited for an explanation.

"The... There's... It doesn't matter." I said to her.

"This is unreal." He took a sip of his soda as he stared at her. "We're just gonna pretend like this is normal? Because it's not."

"Well, there's not really much else we can do." I said.

"Am I dreaming, or what?"

"I could pinch ya."

"That's not... entirely necessary. So Princess, do you know anything about this place?" he asked.

"Not a lot." she replied, "Just what my student told me. And what I've learned from Phil's laptop."

"You're letting her use the internet?" he asked me.

"It's got strict settings on." I replied.

"Whatever. You seem to be taking this incredibly well though, Celestia."

"It's better than it may seem." she replied, smile never fading, "If I'm going to stay here, then I may as well make the best of it. I've been enjoying myself here. It's such an easy life compared to Equestria."

"So... you're staying here? With him?"

"Is this a problem?" she asked him.

"I... no, but... This is weird. Does anyone else know about her, or what?"

"Nah. Maybe the neighbors, but they're weird." I said.

Celestia stared at Tristan. "Are all of your friends like this one?" she asked me.

"Most of them. My friends are weird."

"You're weird." he said to me.

"No you."

"I guess you got me there. So when you said nothing was up... Did you mean that everything was up? Is 'nothing' code now?"

"Probably not."

"Alright then..."

I sat in my chair. He sat next to Celestia. I leaned forward on my knees. Before the awkward silence inevitably set in, I said, "Oh dude, I tried out a new pair of headphones recently."

"Uh... Really?"

"Yeah. Trevor talked me into getting a pair."

"Any good?"

"They sounded nice, but they're not as good as mine."

"There you go again, bragging about your freakin' headphones."

"Well, mine are awesome."

"I know that! You just say it all the time."

"Yeah, yeah... You want them?"

"Wait, what? Seriously?" he asked.

"Yeah. They're in on my bed."

"Really? Sweet." He smiled and went to get them, quickly coming back. "These things look great. Thanks, man."

"Yep. Happy birthday!"

"My birthday was like half a year ago. You couldn't have been further away from my birthday."

"I forgot your present."

"You gave me some cash, didn't ya? Yeah, cause you told me not to blow it all on booze."

"Did you blow it all on booze?" I asked, a sly smile on my face.

"I may or may not have blown it all on booze."

"Alrighty then. Catch!" I tossed him my phone. He reached out to catch it, but it bounced off his hand. He scrambled for it as it fell, but failed. It hit the floor. "Great job, mate. Eight outta eight."

"Sorry."

"I'm the one that tossed it."

"Yeah, whatever." He picked it up and examined it for damage, then plugged the headphones in. It immediately started playing at a very high volume. He jumped and pushed the headphones back. "Jesus! Warn me next time."

"Sorry." I said, indifferent to his suffering.

I could hear a song playing from the headphones. After a little bit, he took them back off and said, "Yeah, these are pretty good." He unplugged them and gave me my phone back. "Alright, nice."

He slipped the cord into his pocket and wore them around his neck as he sat back down.

Celestia closed the laptop and gave it to Tristan, then stood up and stretched herself out. She went to the kitchen and got herself something to eat.

"Phil?" he started.

"Yeah?"

"What the fuck is going on?"

I shrugged at him.

"It's like... the walls should be melting, but they aren't. Are they?" he asked.

"Not... yet." I said.

"You see the size of that chest?"

"You implying I'm looking anywhere else?"

"Well, her butt."

A nod of agreement was shared between us.

Celestia stood in the doorway, looking at us while lazily chewing on a sandwich. Tristan was staring at her, absolutely confused. She didn't seem to mind. She was bored, even I could see that. What would the Princess of Equestria even like to do here? She's suddenly been relieved of all of her responsibilities as Princess.

Did they even show what she does for fun? I know she eats a lot of snacks, but that's not good for... well anyone, really. Maybe there's more in the comics. Should get around to downloading those. I got The Fall, why not My Little Pony?

"So, what do you do for a living?" she asked Tristan.

"I work at that Staples out by Wal-Mart. Just normal stuff, you know. Or maybe you don't know, I'm not 100% sure on this."

"Don't worry, I know. Phil works a lot, too. It gets a little boring here with nobody to talk to, but I manage."

"Yeah, usually I'm at work. Used to be, I always tried to get sixty hours a week. Sometimes I hit a hundred. Other than that, there's sleeping. I only got like two hours to myself a day... I think."

"Dude, it's been months since you worked that hard." said Tristan, "You're on Steam too often for that to be true, anyways."

"Shut up, you. I work harder than you do."

"Oh, no question there."

"You're too young to work that much." Celestia chimed in.

"Well, it's not like I had anything better to do. Got to be a bit much, though. I'm back to normal, now. More or less. And now, you're here, so it's not like I can just leave you alone."

"So if I weren't here, you wouldn't be, either?"

"Pretty much."

"I appreciate that you want to look after me, but I'm well over 2000 years old. I don't need a babysitter."

I shrugged. "I still prefer being here."

"What else do you two do?" she asked.

"Video games, mostly." he said.

"And music."

"Yeah, and music." said Tristan. "You know, you haven't been on your computer in days. What's up with that?"

I pointed at Celestia as if it couldn't have been any more obvious.

"Casual." he stated.

"Is that what's down there?" she asked, "Another computer?"

"You haven't been down there?" I asked her.

"No, I had no reason, I suppose. You told me that you kept your more valuable possessions down there. I wanted to be careful."

"Oh. Well yeah, there's that. That and the washing machine. And the drier."

"Not terribly exciting, one wouldn't think." she said.

"I don't know Celestia, the washing machine is pretty exciting." Tristan said as a joke.

"Washing machines don't excite me as much as you may think." she said, followed by a small giggle.

Was that a dirty joke? "Ah, whatever. Yeah, the only things I have here probably won't interest you."

"I suppose."

Brief awkward silence.

"It's hot in here." I said.

"I like it hot." said Tristan.

"That's because you weigh like 90 pounds." I said to him.

"I don't weigh 90 pounds, you weigh 90 lbs."

"I weigh 90 pounds more than 90 pounds more than 90 pounds."

"You weigh 270 pounds?" he asked.

"No, I don't weigh 270 pounds."

"What do you weigh? I bet I'm close."

"Like 230."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"I'm like 170."

"I got muscles." I said.

"Pfft..." He stifled a laugh.

"I got bigger muscles than you."

"Yeah, fair enough."

"I go to the gym."

He let out a sarcastic, "Oh."

We both snickered.

"I bet you had to cancel like eight trips to the gym for this." he said.

"Eight? More like nine. I just go so many times. I don't even do anything, I just show up. Say, 'I'm at the gym!' Call all my friends, let them know I'm at the gym."

"Like, 'Hey Joe, I don't know if we had anything planned today, but I can't do it because I'm going to the gym. I'm actually there right now. Gonna do some labs, crunches...'"

I started cracking up. "Labs."

"You know, abs and lats. Just combine words because you can't spare a single moment because you're at the gym."

"Any moment at the gym should be spent working on my delts and tris and treps..."

"Treps?"

"Yeah."

"What's a trep?" he asked.

"Triceps."

"You said tris."

"Worked 'em twice."

He let out a laugh.

"But I don't wanna be redundant." I said, "That's one of my tricks. Refer to the same muscle group seven different times by fictional abbreviations. Who even knows? Most of the people I talk to are nerds who don't know anyway."

"You're a nerd."

"Course I am. That's why the company that I keep doesn't know anything. I don't even know anything. I just go in there and start pushing things. People, machines, doesn't matter. It's all there for me to be... jacked."

We laughed at each other for a small while.

"Are you always like this?" Celestia asked me after we had calmed ourselves down.

"Oh, more or less."

"This is so different from what Twilight told me."

"Yeah, well she went to a high school. We're out of that place. Like a few years out of that place. Five or so. Something around there." I said.

"It's seven, you idiot." said Tristan.

"Alright then, it's seven."

"Did you do well in school?" Celestia asked.

"Well enough to pass."

"Yep, same here." I said.

"What about you, Celestia? I'm sure you aced all your classes."

"Well, I was no star student, if that's what you're thinking. I was brighter than most of my classmates. It was boring. It's funny, everyone back in Equestria assumes that I was the best student in my school. Even my sister had far better grades than I did when she went. I really didn't care. I knew how smart I was. I didn't need good grades to prove it."

"Huh... Alright." I said. She's like the main character of a high school anime. Well... she's already a main character. Side character, I guess.

"Well..." She paused. "As far as I can remember, at least. It's been quite a while since I've been in any sort of school, though."

"Alright, then."

"Hey Phil, what time is it?"

I got out my phone. "Six..." I told him, "Nothing goes on at six."

"Alright... I think that's enough excitement for one day." Tristan said as he stood up. "Any more and I might explode."

"Taking off?"

"Yeah. Well Princess, I hope you get back home safe and sound. See ya later."

"Goodbye, Tristan."

He took off, leaving the two of us alone.

"People don't usually stay here long." I said to her, "When they do, they're usually downstairs."

"What exactly is the point of having another one of these computer things?"

"Well, the one I have downstairs is quite a lot more powerful than that one. It can accomplish a lot more than that small computer. I built it myself. It was so much fun, even if it did cost me a pretty penny."

"I don't understand."

"Well, it doesn't really matter."

"I suppose not." She looked at the laptop on the coffee table in front of her.

The other days were full of this. Just sitting around doing nothing. Even though she complained at times, Celestia seemed rather happy. For the most part. There wasn't a lot I could do about it right now, though.

"When my student came here, she was able to return within the same three day span she had arrived in. My three days have passed, so I must wait another month before even trying, but... exactly three days since I arrived, last night, something has been off to me."

"Off?"

"It's as if... I'm being pulled towards something. It's pulling from all directions. I can't tell where I should go. I can't use magic anymore, but my body is so used to using it. It's difficult to adjust. It can't use magic here... can it?"

"I don't know."

"I have the feeling that I can get back, but... I don't know how."

"Well, if that's all true, then it looks like you're stuck here for a month. And even then, if we can't find the crystal mirror, or whatever brought you here, we'll have to wait even more."

"And you'll let me stay every day, won't you?"

"Well, yeah."

"I must be such a bother to you."

"Nah, you're good. Well, if you think that we can find something in town, I can drive you around so we can look for it. We have time, right?"

"Yes, I suppose we do. That would be nice. Thank you. If nothing else, I can learn more about this town."

"Then it's settled."

She gave me a warm smile.

It was getting dark out. Too dark to do anything today. I wasn't tired, just bored. That's how it is in my house. Boring. I wish I could find something for Celestia to do before long.