>She literally fell out of the sky.
>Not from heaven, but from about 25 feet off the ground
>Reflecting on it later, I realize that she fell from about where the ground level would have been if the gravel pit had never been mined.
>Of course, if it had never been mined, I wouldn't have been there playing around with that home made MAC.
>She sprained her left knee pretty good, and her right ankle, and both of her wrists
>25 feet's a long way to fall, and she fell gracelessly, it's a miracle that she didn't bash her face in.

>I didn't worry about any of that, at first.
>Before I could examine her close enough to determine her injuries, I was struck by the look of terror on her face
>The look of terror and the fact that she was nekkid except for a bandana and a cowboy hat
>That was cause for concern, it was February and the high that day was 11 degrees F (-13 for you goddamn foreigners).
>I had her bundled in my jacket before I realized that her pained babbling about her coat was about a sudden lack of fur, and not about a literally stolen jacket.  
>I think the cries of “No Hooves!  Consarn it Twi!  Ah've got no Hooves!” was part of what clued me in to the fact that her body wasn't what she was used to.
>I mean, her clumsyness, inability to walk, and fascination with her fingers were all clues, that was clear in retrospect, but until she started to holler about not having the same limbs as she was born with, that all could be written off as injury and intoxication.
>I'm not that sure what drugs make you teleport to the historical ground level of a gravel pit, but I'm sure they are good ones.

>Once immediate risk of hypothermia was averted and I determined that she was lucid enough to talk to, she filled me in.
>Risky magical experimentation on the part of her unicorn friend (what a dumb sounding thing to put in writing) interfered with by the magic of her friends sister in law, turned into a mauve beam that seemed to hunt her out before blowing her to another world.
>Wizards, no sense of right and wrong.
>Blonde bombshells from the unicorn wizard dimension, no sense of body modesty
>OK, tall, stacked, hurt, nekkid girl from another world in my truck, 80s sci fi tropes, don't lead me astray
>hospitals means ID questions means government means girl disappears and wacky hijinks stop
>OK, time to bring in the friend network.

>Wait, actual first step is leaving a message for her people in case someone shows up looking for her.

>Clothes appear, black market medicine happens, black market other things change hands, 
>Can't stop the signal

>Back to the batcave, IE the ruins of my dreams where I live because I own the building, at least until the moratorium on tax seizures ends, or if I can come up with the tax money before then.
>Like that's gonna happen, “”non-essential business”” in a pandemic

>OK, she's a vegetarian...
>Is it a deal breaker?  
>With thighs like that?  
>Nah.

>Ovilacto? Pescicurious? I can cook that.

>Dessert?  
“How's a cobbler sound?”
>”What kinda cobbler?  D'ya have apples?”
“Yeah, I've got some baking apples left, they might look a bit sad, but they'll still cook up great.”
>”Sad?  Don't ya'll have any nice and fresh ones?”
“Well, it's February and we get hard freezes by late October, so they're a third of a year old at this point. Fresh apples would have to come from thousands of miles south of here and the varieties that travel well aren't as good as the ones that don't need to stand up to that abuse.”
“Well, Lemme look at 'em, Apples are one of mah specialties...”
>Apples turn her into a busybody, deterministic names, interesting.
>Catcalls cooking dinner?  That's new
>She sure can put it away.  

>Cobbler turned out pretty on point though, can't complain about a little bit of back seat driving if it gets you there that well.

>”Th' only thing that meal was missing was a good cider, beer, or brandy!”
“You want good Whisky or do we risk exposing your palate to this world's shitty mass market beers and ciders?”

>And so I took a trip to the liquor store and bought half a dozen different kinds of cider from the build your own 12 pack wall.

>Surprisingly her preference was for one labeled “Smackingtosh” in a gauche printed can.

>Also surprising was her evident intent at matching me can for can.  She might be tall, stacked, and strong, but I was linebacker in highschool and a fullback in college, and while I'm proud of the fact that I never caught ex-linebacker syndrome and fully lost control, I'm not any lighter than I was when I played.

>8 cans of cider in, and she's forgetting her strained joints and I'm wearing the hat.
>When the cider's gone, the Bushmills comes out.
>A lowball into that and she's trying to get me to armwrestle.
>2 lowballs into that and she's trying to get me in a headlock if I don't keep an eye on her.
>Half way through the third and I'm holding her hair as she worships at the porcelain altar.

>Once she's purged the evil, 2 tabs of aspirin and a quart of water with a packet of pedialyte and I've got her wrapped up in my sleeping bag on an air mattress.

>Half an hour before dawn, I awaken to a huge crashing noise.

>She's unable to extricate herself from the sleeping bag and she's flipped over the coffee table and pushed the couch into the wall..
>She blinks like a possum in a spotlight when I turn on the lights. 
>I zip her out of the bag and Jesus Christ, she was clothed when I put her to bed...
>I get out of her way and she sprints for the bathroom.
>AAAND she didn't close the door.
>I'm just going to ignore the unladylike cacophony that eminates from that portion of my living quarters.

>”So what's th' plan for work today?  Helpin' out's the least Ah can do!”
“Work?  Sorry Jackie, there's no work to be done.  It's a pandemic, and this was a slot car racetrack, game room, and makerspace.  We've been shut down by the Governor and I've already caught a fine for trying to operate without their permission.  Nah, I just ice fish, go shooting, and prepare for my upcoming bankruptcy where I give this place to the tax man and piss off my bank.  Anything I do productive now, I'm likely to lose when the moratorium on tax seizures is lifted, because that'll happen when the governor rescinds his state of emergency declaration, they aren't going to let us open before that happens, and even if they do, I won't make enough money to cover the debt unless the moratorium extends for a year or better after they open our doors.”
>”What!  What'll you do then?”
“I've already used the makerspace machines to duplicate themselves and the slot car track and stashed those where the taxman and the bank can't get to them, so all I'll need is the credit to lease a new commercial space, if I can bring myself to give all this another try.”
“What would yah do instead iffin yah didn't?”
“If I could go back in time to when I bought all this shit, I'd tell myself to fuck off to Vietnam and farm shrimp or some fucking thing instead of trying to bring back a business that I'd loved going to as a kid.  That's where this all started, there was a slot car track that my father would bring me to while Mom was at work in the day, because Dad was working nights, and I started the makerspace as a place for people to build their slotcars because most people don't have the tools at home any more, and the game rooms are just the best thing I could think to do with the space I wasn't using.  But it's been 10 months with no legal revenue, and the dream is dead.”
>”Sugarcube...”
>Wow, this is the best hug I've had in years, and not just because of the bare titties.
>Hug her back a little and she gropes my ass?  Turn-about is fair play.
>Ah, now we get a little bit of embarrassment and modesty urges from our interdimensional guest.
>”Don't feel alone, dreams are tough.  Ah'm too tall an' too rough t' have much luck with the stallions back home, and we outnumber them 5 to 1.  Ah always figgured mah best bet was t' court a stallion with a friend of mine or two, it ain't how mah Momma went  'bout it, but Ah'm closer to mah daddy's size, an' Ah lost mah folks before Ah could learn mah momma's charm, but all mah friends who can talk to a feller without tying their tongues or who want th' same kinda things in a Stallion that Ah do are fixing t' court mah brother, an' that had me feeling right locked out of th' future Ah'd been imaginin, too”
>Her eyes twinkle as she looks at me as she finishes speaking.
“Well, I find you charming, Miss Jackie, but I don't have the credit or capital to open you an orchard or whatever you'd wanna do, and one night of dinner and drinking is an introduction, not a courtship.”
>”Mah intuition is a powerful thing, yah can't deceive me easy, but Ah can't uproot mahself an' move t' this world permanently, mah friends an' Ah have t' work t'gether t' control these ancient magical artifacts that help us protect our homes.  Ah couldn't leave them without mah part of that.”

>It's been a month, and other than one delightfully old fashioned note tied to a stone at the gravel pit, confirming that her friends know where she's at and assuring us that top unicorns and others were working on the problem, there's been no communication from her home. 
>She puts on a tough face and pretends she's not worried, but I can tell that she's not just trying to get me to think of ways to support myself that aren't filing for bankruptcy and starting over at something risky that she's got no talent or patience for, for my own sake.
>Having her live with me is great, but bizarre; it drives me to be better and take better care of myself, but her ideas and my ideas for division of tasks and labor don't match up perfectly and our discussion and discussion resolution styles and methods barely track.  
>I compromise some, she compromises some, we butt heads, and generally make something work.
>Overall, it's shockingly easy and pleasant to include her in my life despite the culture clash.

>The first week had ribald teasing, but that cooled from mutual hesitance when it threatened to become  too real.

>The second week was friendly but extremely correct and was characterized with exaggerated social space.

>Week 3 was more familiar and comfortable, and less exaggeratedly platonic.

>By the middle of week 4, the fact that my living space in this commercial space is defined by thin panel walls instead of being real rooms was starting to strain me.  I was considering turning the heat back on in the game rooms to reclaim private space.  Here I was in close contact with an incredibly beautiful woman for 14+ hours a day and I hadn't cranked one out for over 25 days for fear of her hearing me masturbate.  In short, my faculties of reason were becoming a little twisted, and I began to turn up the heat in our interactions.

>More compliments, more innuendo, more aggressive gaze, spicier food with more zinc, heavier weights in my morning workouts, cornering her so that we had to touch to pass each other.  She'd alleged that it was the feminine role to put voice to mutual desire, so I held off on directly asking her if she wanted to sleep with me, but short of voicing my desire or just flat out grabbing her by the pussy, I did all I could to make it clear that I was down,  She hadn't worked up the courage to overcome any last mental blocks, but her gaze showed she was at least receptive to the attention.

>That weekend, we drove 3 hours to have dinner with my folks.

>”Ah'm not foolish or blind, Ah'm just traditional.  Ah know yah haven't jess asked me straight t'bed because yer tryin t' respect what Ah've told yah 'bout th' order of things back home, an' believe me, yah light me up somethin' fierce, Ah'd have backed ya up 'gainst th' wall an' made yah put action t' threat iffin Ah could stay or yah could follow me.”
“I'm not gonna lie and say I haven't considered it.  Following you, that is.  I'm fairly traditional myself, though, the dating pool is awful scarce of women who both want to have children and don't already have children, and even if I can't follow you for some reason or another, I don't know that I'd mind sending you back with a little part of me, something tells me that your family would help you take fine care of a little one.”
>“Ah-h hold on, Ah ain't ready t' think 'bout something like that yet.  Ah figure iffin yah followed me, th' same magic that made me the same kinda creature as you would turn you into a pony.”
“Not a unicorn?  I guess I figured you were all unicorns, or is that just the mares?”
>“No, there's 3 kind of ponies, 4 if yah count th' princesses. The unicorns have th' most obvious magic and th easiest time casting spells, being able t' control things small things finely with their minds.  The pegasi use their magic to help them fly and control the weather.  The earth ponies use their magic to help things grow and to work with rocks and metals.  Th' princesses can do all 3.”
“Huh, so what kind of pony are you, 'earth'?”
>”Y-yeah, how'd you figure?”
“Given how you say that earth ponies can use their magic to help things grow, I suppose you guys have a pretty big advantage over the others when it comes to farming and orchard keeping.”
> “Yeah, us Apples are the best there is at apples, and pretty good at most everything else that grows.”
“Y'know, it looks like your friend is gonna find a way to open a safe portal, so if she can do it once, d'ya think she could do it again if she wanted?”
>”Ah've learned not to doubt that filly when it comes to spellcraft, what're yah thinkin'?”
“I just don't know if I could live as a pony and not a human.”
>Her face drops.
“BUUUT if I had the chance to give it a try, knowing I could come back if I can't hack it, I might take that chance.  AND if it works out, and I can hack it, I'd like my parents to know their grandchildren.”
>She didn't quite drop her panties and present, but we did skip straight to 3rd base until we remembered it was time to check the gravel pit.
>In the gravel pit was a large canvas and wood bound tome with papyrus pages, an ink pot, and a giant quill pen.
>This made her very excited.
>“This'll let us write messages back and fourth to Twi!”
>Back in the truck, we opened it up, and she read the strange horse script aloud to me.
> “Ah hope you are well, Applejack, All is good at th' farm, Equestria is safe so far.”
“That's good to hear.”
>“Everyone sends their love, 'specially th' girls, Mac, Bloomy, and Granny”
> “We've validated th' spell in testing, and Ah've had Celestia, Luna, and the archmages of th' college verify the scribework, what remains is for us to cut a sapphire large enough to handle the power demands, this spell is incredibly power thirsty.”
“Well, we'll have to write her to make sure they get one oversized enough that they can portal more than one and that it remains reusable.”
>“mmmhmm”
> “Limestone (My friend Pinkie Pie's older sister) says they should have one big enough grown in about a week.”
>“Again, everyone hopes you're doing well and making friends, Twilight Sparkle.”
> “Ain't that sweet of 'em.”
“Write her a confirmation back, make mention of increased power requirements.”
>I wink at her and she makes a cute nose scrunch as she grabs the quill and starts to write that bizzare calligraphic script.

>Plans changed on the other side to account for terrain and power requirements and D-Day gets pushed back, and pushed back.  
>I don't mind, gives me time to liquidate some chattel, transfer hidden assets to my siblings, pick up my mass limit of durable valuable gear and arrange with the bank to deny the state my assets/foist the tax liability off on an organization with enough liquidity to settle those debts and make something of the place instead of just auctioning it to a developer.

>Finally it's t-2hours on D-Day.
>I call my folks to drop the bomb.  
“No, Mom, I can visit, it'll just be very difficult to do so with any regularity.”
“Yes, Dad, that nice girl I brought over for dinner.”
“Love you both, but the magic portal is opening.  You'll get the book via Speedee tomorrow, and we'll be able to write each other, goodbye.”
>The phone gets dropped in a flower pot full of thermite and the feeling of liberation is indescribable.

>T-1 hour, we are paddling a canoe out to a wooded island in a park lake.

>T-30 minutes, we've got the canoe unloaded and we're 'stripping down for modesty.

>T-5 minutes, everything's packed up for the world's first interdimensional portage

>T-5 seconds, the portal snaps to life in front of us, we share a kiss for good luck

>T-0.

>Can you perceive a Planck Second?  
>How can you feel something happen in stages when it's also instantaneous?

>I land in a heap, my canoe shielding me from the eyes of the world.
>Deep breaths, this isn't irreversible, this is the fresh start I needed.
>I stretch my arms|forelimbs out before me, and stare past the|my muzzle.
>Forest green fur, oak brown hooves, I glance upwards, a mahogony forelock drapes between my eyes. 
>”'Non, you all right?”
>”Sugarcube?”

>I gather my legs and rise, to what almost feels like a my hands and knees, but I know is actually my full height.
>I look in the direction of her voice, and meet the same green eyes I've come to know so well in the concerned face of an umber mare with a blonde mane, standing next her family and peers.
“I think I'm gonna be fine, babe.”