fandomhigh | Pony Express: Friendship is Cultural Exchange! Wednesday, period 1

Class met up outside Portalocity, where their extremely pink, extremely excitable teacher was pacing rapidly back and forth. "Hihihi everypony!" she greeted at high speed when it seemed like everypony had arrived (and maybe she rushed off and pushed the last student into line if they seemed to be taking too long). "I'm Pinkie Pie, your guide on this wonderful amazingest field trip class toooooooo --" No, you can't figure out where that drumroll is coming from. "-- EQUESTRIA!" Pinkie threw her front hooves into the air in an explosion of confetti.

Get used to that, kids, it'll be happening a lot.

"Now, I know the first week is usually all about introductions and all but that's pretty boring and I already know mooooooooooost of you, so we're going to get right on to it," Pinkie said, as she led the class through the portal that managed to appear just behind her, right on schedule, and somehow also actually led to where they were actually planning to go. "And you can introduce yourselves to each other while you introduce yourselves to some of my very bestest pony friends in my hometown," and somehow she'd managed to time the line moving through the portal so that the last student should hopefully step out onto the bright yellow path through bright green grass just as she said "PONYVILLE!"

Did you guess there'd be more confetti when she said that? YOU WERE RIGHT! HURRAY!

"Look out!" somepony shouted from above them, and a grey, blonde, cross-eyed pegasus went careening by, buzzing just over the students' heads. (You all had your brains broken already by now, right? Er. Sorry new kids, you're getting tossed into the deep end.) A blue pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail flapped above them, face-hooving. "Sorry about that!"

"Sorry," agreed the grey pony sheepishly, and she rose back into the air much more slowly than she'd come down.

Pinkie waved, unperturbed. "Hi Derpy! Hi Rainbow Dash!"

"This is your class, huh, Pinkie?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Yuppers!" Pinkie put her hoof in her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. "And we're already behind schedule. Hop-to, everypony! We've got a very special somepony waiting for us!" And she led the way through the quaint little vaguely-Elizabethan styled town towards a large tree with doors, windows, and balconies on it. She waved to everypony they passed, greeting many of them by name, a process that happened fast enough that all the syllables ran together into a nigh indecipherable mess.

She was clearly in a bit of a hurry.

"Here we are!" she finally announced as she reached the door in the tree. "Golden Oak Library, home of my very specialst purple unicorn friend, Twilight Sparkle!"

Confetti.

As advertised, when the confetti cleared a purple unicorn stood before them, puffing confetti out of her bangs with a slightly irritated frown. She blinked once when she spotted the students and smiled brightly. "Hi there," she said, her voice just as warm and cheerful as Pinkie's, but turned down on the squeakiness by several thousand degrees. "I'm Twilight Sparkle, personal student to Princess Celestia, and one of Pinkie's best friends. I'm here to help answer any questions you may have about Equestria's history or the variety of creatures who live here. It's very nice to meet all of you."

"Psst," Pinkie hissed, elbowing the nearest student. Because ponies have elbows. "That's your cue to introduce yourselves!"

At least it was maybe reassuring to note that even Twilight's smile seemed slightly strained by Pinkie's antics.

She was going to be cleaning confetti out of her books forever.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"And I'm just as excited to be here," Kathy said. "I have no problems picturing you coming from a town like this. Everything seems so happy and colorful here."

She was mentally comparing it to downtown LA, which was colorful, but not in the same way.

"Are human towns not as colorful?" Twilight asked.

They were all kind of the same color themselves, after all. . . .

Yeah, that was one of Kathy's biggest problems with Fandom, too.

"Not in the same way at all," Kathy said, shaking her head. "Some of our cities have colorful signs and bright lights, but the buildings are usually stone and steel and chrome. It's hard to explain."

But since pictures were worth a thousand words, Kathy pulled out her phone and showed Twilight Sparkle a picture of Fandom to illustrate what she meant.

"Oh!" Twilight tilted her head and reached out as if to touch the phone, but stopped before she quite got to it. "Well, we have some towns that look like that, but more . . . blue."

"And sometimes purple!" Pinkie said. "That's a phone, Twilight. It's part of humans' very special magic."

Rainbow Dash drifted down upside down behind Twilight to peer at the phone over her shoulder. "Weeeeeeeird."

"I can take a picture of the three of you on it," Kathy offered. "And then send it to Ms. Pie's phone so she can have it, too."

"You mean it doesn't just print them out?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Because ponies had poloroids. Naturally.

"Hush," Twilight chided. "That would be wonderful, Kathy, thank you."

Kathy shook her head. "No. You have to hook them up to a printer and then print out your picture, but these are saved, so you can send them to anyone else with a phone, or look at them whenever you want. It's like having a portable photo album!"

Kathy, you didn't have to defend your tech. Really.

Holding her phone up, she gestured the three of them closer. "Say...say whatever you normally say when getting your pictures taken!"

Pony Express: Friendship is Cultural Exchange! Wednesday, period 1

Re: Introductions!

Re: Introductions!

Re: Introductions!

Re: Introductions!

Re: Introductions!

Re: Introductions!

Re: Introductions!