The book on her head glows teal and floats off her head, closing itself neatly and setting itself down on the floor. "You're some kind of beige..." She takes a few steps to the left; the bookshelf on top of him also glows teal before righting itself. "Ape creature."

She gets the books off of him and in stacks, but apparently despairs of putting them all on the shelf in order. "The librarian's going to be so put out. Well, beige ape creature, what are you doing here?"

"I'm a human, in case you want the actual words. Human, homo sapiens sapiens, though I guess the fact that I'm a wizard might mean I'm just a very close hominid? Homo sapiens miraculum?" He ponders.

"Human sounds like a serviceable word. You sounded like you knew what I am, so there's that. But what are you doing in the library of the school for gifted unicorns, please."

"Fucked if I know. Uh, I was walking down Fifth on my way to the pawnbroker, there was this... giant snake with a mirror for a face? And, I mean, it was wrecking the intersection, so I decided to get in my recommended daily value of vigilante monster slaying. But punching the mirror, instead of, you know, breaking the mirror, got me sucked through its face into... the library of the school for gifted unicorns. I guess. And I spilled a bunch of books, so, sorry about that?"

"...That really doesn't make a lot of sense, but I guess it sounds like you don't know any more about why there would be a mirror snake monster that takes you from apeland to here than I do."

"Yeah, on a scale of one to 'makes sense' I'm giving this a 2. What is this... universe, I guess, anyway? Is everybody pastel unicorns?"

"No. In this country approximately one third of the population are unicorns in a wide variety of colors, and the rest are mostly pegasi and earth ponies, with minorities of cows and buffalo and so on."

"Huh. So, there's all different kinds of the ponies... But they can all use the telekinesis stuff, right?"

"No, only unicorns can."

"They get along!" she assures him. "My mother is a pegasus and she can do most normal things without trouble. I'd have a problem because I tend to fall over if I'm standing on fewer than three hooves, sometimes even if I try to have one off the ground, but that's just me."

She picks up a book and turns a page.

"I mean, I suppose someone should tell the Princess, but I can just do that the next time I speak to her. You don't seem like a public emergency. You seem like you're probably a private emergency, but that's your own business who you want to talk to about it."

"Monster-slaying is not really common as an occupation. I suppose if someone has a problem with a hydra you could take care of that?"

"Ooh, hydra! But, like, I can be proactive too. Like, if the great beast sleeps 'neath the mountain and will wake a thousand years hence, I'm down for going 'neath the mountain and turning it into a gritty paste before it can do anything."

"Well," she starts making a halfhearted attempt at organizing the downed books in auras of teal light, "I can maybe look up some things like that, there might be a handful. What do you do when you've run out of thousand-year monsters? There aren't going to be very many, or there'd be some of them popping up every day from a thousand years ago, which there are not."

"...I might be used to a world with a higher density of horrible monsters, then. Last year I stopped two ancient sealed-off threats within two weeks of each other. And that's discounting vampires, faeries, loups-garou, etcetera etcetera, everything that just eats people for no reason."

"We don't really have that many threats around. Wow, that sounds exhaustingly dangerous."

"Eh. With seven billion humans, your personal likelihood of getting devoured isn't all that high. As evidenced by the fact that a shocking percentage of them just ignore that the monsters exist. And as to the exhaustion of fighting the monsters, it may be tiring, but long as I know I'm doing the right thing, I'll keep on going."

"That's very admirable. But we don't have as much scope for your talents. I can try to see if there's a way to put you back so fewer of those seven billion people get devoured, but I'm not immediately coming up with a solid research angle so it could take a very long time."

"Hey, I don't actually mind being stuck here a while. I mean, all things considered I'd rather not be trapped for the rest of my life, and saving people's great, but this place in general sounds like a tidy vacation spot, you know? And if I happen to clear out a few prophesied apocalypses while I'm in town, I'm still helping out the adorable ponyfolk."

"That seems like a very healthy attitude to take while you're here."

"I'm Clarity Bell." She knocks her hoof against his knuckles gently.

"...Hoofbump! Works for me. Nice to meet you, uh, properly, Clarity."

"Likewise." Pause. "You're very tall. I'm not sure where to put you. I suppose you could fit into my apartment if you crawled, but I don't have a second bed."

"Huh. Yeah, size may become an issue. I mean, you've got no need to put me up yourself, I just happened to land on you."

"Well, someone else might or might not be willing, but I think they'd all have the same problem: you just aren't pony-sized. I wonder if I could shrink you."

"That'd be some serious magic. Unless we're talking super different magic... dumb question, of course we are, you're a freaking unicorn. It'd be much appreciated, at any rate, especially if you could remove it."

"I'm not planning to irreversibly shrink you. But I've never shrunk a living thing before. I'll look into it. Fortunately it's not going to be in this scrambled section." She trots over to a different stack and starts floating down books.

"I can try to reshelve some of the books if you like." He picks up a tome at random and peers at the title. "...If they're not all in Lucky Charms Hieroglyphics, that is."

"Oh, they aren't, a lot of ponies haven't learned to read those either, it's just a little more efficient for some technical subjects. How's this?" She finds a book in a different script.

"Perfectly readable English, for... whatever reason. Weirder things have happened. D'you want them alphabetical by surname?"

"That would be great."

"That's actually an unexplained mystery! We're not even sure which direction causality goes. Some of them are family names, but not all - I don't have a family name."

"Wow. That's actually a weirder answer than I'd expected, and I was expecting some weird. What kind of thought process goes into the naming, then? Could I name my foal 'Asskick McSharkpuncher' and expect it to grow up like me?"

"Like I said, we don't know which direction the causality goes, so it's possible that your foal would grow up to match the name, but it's also possible that you would wind up feeling inspired to name your foal something less... that... in slightly clairvoyant anticipation of its talents and interests."

"And that would be a damn shame. I guess that's one advantage of being a biped."

"I suppose. Names vary in how particularly appropriate they are. My mother's name is Morning Rain, and it's fairly generic as pegasus names go, without any obvious reason for it to be her name specifically. Then again, Morning's a family name."

"Yeah, I'm Ari because my parents thought it was a cool name. I mean, I assume. Not like I can ask."

"Well, maybe you'll be able to go home eventually and inquire if you still care."

"Uh, no, that wasn't what I meant by that. They're dead. Like, super dead. Have been since I was a mewling infant."

"Oh. Oh dear, I'm sorry."

"I mean, it's not like I knew them or anything. I had a perfectly serviceable foster mother, and I've had fifty-plus years to get over the whole affair."

"Okay. ...I have no idea how to tell by looking how old a human is. I suppose I was assuming by default that you were around my age but obviously that's silly."

"Well, I don't actually know how old you are, but most humans who look like me aren't fifty, so your guess was probably pretty reasonable. Unless you're, like, ten. Wizards live for hundreds of years; humans live about ninety, in ideal conditions. We wizards kind of get all the nice stuff, really."

"I'm seventeen. Young adult in, uh, pony years."

"Young adult in human years too! That's good, I was hoping you didn't have the same lifespan as horses from Earth. That'd just be weird and sad."

"They don't live long?"

"Uh. No, but they're not... people, like you are. Can't talk, no higher-level thought, they don't come in pastel colors. Sorry, should've clarified."

"...Okay. That's... creepy though."

"Eh, I guess. We've got animals that look about as much like us as Earth's ponies look like you, and they aren't people, so maybe I'm just used to it."

"There are a lot of species of people around here and some of them aren't ponies at all."

"Oh, sure, we've got that too. There's hundreds of species of fae, demons, undead... A lot of them are human-shaped, but not all. I guess if you only count things with souls as being people there's less of them, but that's kind of restrictive."

"I'm not sure what you mean by things with souls."

"Souls! It's like, uh, a little bundle of energy some species have that means they're not controlled by one specific purpose, like making shoes or drowning lost children. Without a soul, who you are matters less than what you are. Doesn't mean soulless species aren't people, though. And I'm pretty sure you have a soul, for what it's worth."

"I... don't feel like I'm controlled by one specific purpose, this I will admit, but I'm not sure that even non-person animals tend to be that."

"Well, things that aren't people don't generally need a soul not to be soulless. It's complicated. Souls are complicated."

"...so things in general don't either have or not have souls? Also there are some really borderline animals, on the personhood question."

"Yeah, it's- I'm not a metaphysicist. In my world, something's either a person or not a person, and if it's a person it either has or doesn't have a soul. There's not really much grey area. The idea of borderline-people was not in my magic theory education."

"It's mostly animals that spend a lot of time around ponies, and can't speak but seem to understand a whole lot of Equestrian."

"Interesting. Come to think of it we have had some animals like that, but they're definitely the exception rather than the rule, and I don't think anyone's checked them for souls."

"How do you check?"

"Easiest way is through a soulgaze - if a wizard looks into the eyes of someone with a soul for more than a couple of seconds, they simultaneously go on this very vague symbolic vision-questy thing through each other's souls and understand things about who the other is. But you can't, like, see their thoughts or something."

"That's very strange."

"Compared to the other things we've been weirded out by in this conversation, it's kind of small potatoes."

"I suppose."

"Humans don't like hay? I mean, we eat a variety of things, but I don't know what you eat."

"I've never personally tried it, but I'm pretty sure we don't have the stomach acid for any kind of grass that hasn't been processed into flour. Things we eat... Meat is big, but I'm guessing ponies don't have a lot of that. We can eat fruit, corn, spinach, bugs- lots of stuff. Might be easier for me to look at a menu and rule stuff out."

"Okay. Fruit and corn and spinach and flour are all available. Bugs you might have to catch yourself if you want them."

"Bugs are not my all-time favorite food, don't worry. Included for completeness only. Want to go get something to eat?"

"Sure. You'll be looked at strangely, but as long as you don't bother anypony, ponies will probably just assume you're a really exotic visitor."

"'Anypony.' Your dialect is... It'd probably be offensive to say 'adorable,' but your dialect is adorable. Lead the way, at any rate. Any joy on that shrinking spell?"

"If you want to eat now instead of in an hour, I'll have to come back and look for it a little harder then, but we can find you an outdoor café and you can sit on the ground?"

"Works for me. The ground is a fine place to sit."

"All right. There's a place with a pretty good selection about two blocks from here." She trots to the library's exit, opening the door with her teal teekay.

And here is a cute little pony café, with many vegetarian foods for Ari to eat.

"Gemstones can be pretty readily traded for bits, but I can buy you lunch until you know more about your long-term financial situation."

"Well, that's very kind. If nothing else I can dig up a heap of rubies to throw at the market, but with any luck I can get some kind of monster-hunting retainer. Unless you don't have any monsters, in which case I guess I could go into architecture or something."

"I mean, no one will complain if you go out and bother some hydras, but I'm not sure it's a budget item." She munches her apple arugula salad.

"Fish. I think. I'd want to ask someone with a special talent relating to animals before I guaranteed you that. Most kinds of insects."

"Good, good. I can make do with cricketburgers and sashimi for however long, but nothing but greens would probably start to get on my nerves."

"There's also fruit and bread and - well, you saw the menu. And this is only one restaurant."

"Yeah, but there's something about having meat that you just can't get around. Little omnivore things, I guess."

"I wouldn't know."

"How big is giant?"

"Pony-sized, I guess. Maybe a little smaller. I'm wondering whether I could get a flank steak off a three-foot-tall spider."

"Not that I know of. You'd probably have to range out of inhabited Equestria to find anything like that."

"Well, it was worth a shot. Fish is fine. Or bugs, if fish turn out to be people."

"They're probably not, it's just worth checking, because what if they were?"

"Well, it'd suck for the fish."

"Yes. Yes it would."

"I mean, I don't want to make it sound like I don't care. Eating innocent sentients is a shitty thing to do. But it's kind of funny."

"I don't think so."

"Understandable. I had a morally questionable upbringing."

"Hm?"

"Faeries kind of think that right and wrong are things that happen to other people. I was raised by one, so I'm sometimes a little less conscious of, uh, subtler moral points. Like not laughing at horrible things."

"Yeah. If I'm hurting somebody, it's bad unless they're doing bad stuff; if somebody else is hurting somebody, it's bad and I should make them stop unless the people they're hurting are doing bad stuff. And various extra rules in that theme. But I never really got around to the little finicky stuff. There was usually bad stuff to stop."

"There is a minor subtlety that even if the target of hurting is doing bad stuff that should be in some way relevant to the hurting - if somepony's kicking other ponies for no reason this is not justification for stealing their possessions - but yeah, that'll probably do for most purposes."

"Yeah, those would be the extra rules.That and similar. My moral code isn't two sentences long, don't worry. And I've got the basic moral instincts, just not- you know, whatever you get from being raised by someone who isn't weird and evil."

"Well, you're from a completely different culture anyway, so I'm not sure it'll amount to much more difference than there would have been regardless as long as you're here."

"Eh. You seem like nice enough folks. I might fit in alright."

"If I figure out how to shrink you."

"Magic and a sense of humor! I like this one."

Hee hee.