As the sun sank low into the sky, tugged down into the sky by the ancient arcane ritual practiced daily by Equestria’s sovereign ruler, a miracle of spellcraft forming the bedrock for civilized life, the patrons of Jiraiya’s sake shop completely took the event for granted and stayed inside, where wooden walls blocked their view of the setting sun.

Flying Buttress laughed when the thought popped into his head. Not only did the kirin take the shift from day to night and back again for granted like most Equestrians did, Princess Celestia wasn’t even their monarch, so why should they equal the Equestrians in showering her with adoration? All of their reverence belonged to the Sovereign Emperor of Neighpon, which reached Celestia by proxy since she was supposed to be the root of the royal family.

Neighponese royalists had been trying to prove that Celestia had founded that particular lineage, and the only thing that opposed them from the homeland’s camp was reaction to assumed arrogance on the Neighponese side. After all, how dare these weird equinoids from across the ocean assert national worth equal to Equestria! And how dare they suggest that Her Majesty ever sullied herself with the act or reproduction.

The thought of what some ponies would go to in order to… honestly, Buttress didn’t know what the naysayers were trying to do. All he knew for sure is that the whole thing was actually pretty funny. Besides, he was lucky enough to catch a pictograph of the Empress, and the two monarchs had the exact same eyes. He’d eat his hoof if they weren’t related.

Letting out a chuckle, he noticed the level stares he got from the kirin sitting in the restaurant. Somehow he got lost in thought and forgot to take a seat. All eyes on the weird pegasus who just walked in and laughed at nothing. Such things weren’t done in Neighpon. Buttress slinked off and took a seat at the counter, leaning on it with his knees. A glance behind him confirmed that most of the stares had left him.

“Beer, please,” he told the server in Neighponese. He knew just enough to get by, and could pick up a specific phrase to get something he wanted, but having a conversation in the language was still beyond him. He’d met a lot of kirin who knew Equish, but it was only a matter of time until the accent confused him, or one of them would get to a phrase the other didn’t know, and then they’d just trail off into silence and he’d walk away feeling like he’d just tripped and fell.

Buttress sighed and watched the server deliver beer. She looked pretty cute, with the points on her antlers filed to little nubs and her pink mane having been combed flat and dyed with red highlights. Normally kirin manes had volume and stuck up in the air, resembling those of lions much more than ponies. The server kept glancing at her wings, which made Buttress fidget. When he first got to Neighpon, he stared too, at the scaly areas of skin on their backs, their cloven hooves, the two little whiskers on the side of their mouths that he saw them move like tentacles. After a month, he realized that those features were normal, and his wings were the new strange.

“Darling, are you sure you don’t have daiquiris here?” somepony next to him said. He turned his head and smiled. Somepony indeed. Somehow he hadn’t noticed that an Equestrian unicorn sat next to him. Her mane and tail, colored a deep shade of indigo, curled around themselves like ribbons, though a few hairs refused to sit in their rightful places. She looked like a million bits. Probably some kind of rich tourist, judging by the diamonds on her flank. But most rich tourists he saw around town were overdressed and couldn’t wait to display their fancy new souvenirs. This pony had tastefully applied makeup, with elegant lashes and blue eyeshadow, and wore a saddlebag with a clasp shaped like her cutie mark which looked like it came from a designer brand, as far as Buttress could tell. That was all.

The poor server or bartender or whatever her post was considered to be in this establishment looked confused as to what the unicorn referred to. They were about to speak again when Buttress cleared his throat, catching their glances. “Um, don’t think they have mixed drinks here at all,” he told the unicorn. “Sorry.”

The unicorn pouted her lips and sighed. “Well now, that’s quite a disappointment,” she said.

A flood of rapid, nearly unintelligible Neighponese spilled from the mouth of the server as her hooves gripped the menu and struggled to open it for them. Once she finally managed to get it open and point at what looked like a picture of some kind of cocktail, proving Buttress wrong, the unicorn looked her in the eyes.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked the server.

It occurred to the server that she forgot the nationality of her customers in her excitement. She took a deep breath and pointed at the drink again. “We have mixed drink here,” she said, hesitating as the unfamiliar words tumbled out of her mouth. “Sour mix.”

“Ah.” The unicorn pursed her lips as she lifted the menu with her magic, scanning the pictures. Her face brightened and she levitated the menu right back. “Wine, please. A bottle of your finest vintage.”

“Vintage wine,” the server repeated in an accent that had problems letting her end a word with a j-sound. She took out the bottle and began pouring a drink.

Buttress met the unicorn’s eyes and gave her a sheepish smile. “Sorry. I tried,” he said.

“Oh, no trouble at all,” she replied. “I think we’re all having quite a time adjusting to our new surroundings, aren’t we?”

“Ain’t that the truth.” He gripped his glass of beer and took a swig. “What’s your excuse for coming here?”

His turn of phrase made the unicorn’s chest twitch with a silent chuckle. “Promoting a new eastern line of kimonos,” she said. “It’s been a challenge, having to work with an entirely new style of dress to cross cultural boundaries, but my colleagues have assured me that this project will give me and my brand a new avenue of exposure.” She gave herself a titter, covering her mouth with a hoof. “But I suspect that you aren’t terribly interested in the fashion world, are you?” Her eyes glanced at his cutie mark, a stone arch supporting two half-arches on either side. His namesake.

“Eh, not really,” Buttress said with a shrug. “Most I tend to wear is a pair of sunglasses when the sun’s too bright. Or the lights. Sweet princesses, there are so many lights here.” He laughed and took another sip. “Sometimes a bandana when I’m feeling dangerous.”

The unicorn lifted the drink to her lips and took a dainty sip, though Buttress saw her start to smile in the process. “Dangerous?” she asked, looking him over. She saw a tan Pegasus with a shaggy, grey mane and tail, one who looked like he’d been hitting the fried vegetables a bit too hard when he should have been hitting the gym.

Buttress burst into laughter. “Oh come on, let me have that one thing!” he said, taking a deep breath. “Yeah, you can see just how fashionable I am, right?” He offered her a hoof to bump. “Flying Buttress.”

She looked down at the hoof, her eyes narrowing as she scrutinized her hoof for dirt and dust and anything else she probably wouldn’t deign to touch. But after some hesitation, she gently touched her hoof to his instead of hearty bump. “Rarity,” she said. “I assume you’re some sort of architect?”

“Sure am!” he said, bumping his chest with a hoof. He got a bright smile on his face, which started melting off his face. “Except that I’m not having much luck in Neighpon. At all.” He went back to his beer.

“Oh really?” Rarity asked, adopting the position of one of those glamorous mares that Buttress had glanced at on magazine racks. He’d never read them, but they still looked pretty classy and easy on the eyes. “And why might that be?”

He glanced back at his cutie mark, then back at Rarity. “Well, you’ve noticed how buildings work around here, right? They’re all modern and metal, businesslike and utilitarian. They may put a ton of lights and lamps on them, and sometimes you get a modern art thing on the side or in the front, but it’s mostly just boring to look at.” He sighed. “It’s like if you were called over her to get work but all you ever got asked to make are black business suits, right?”

The analogy made Rarity flinch. “Oh dear, that would be dreadful,” she muttered, setting down her wine.

Buttress smirked and nodded. “Exactly. To be fair, though, it’s not like I came here to make more than one building. I can’t really make multiple copies like you do with your dresses.” Another sip. The beer was starting to warm up. “You do make multiple copies of those, right?”

“Well, of course, darling,” Rarity says. “Which buildings would you prefer to make, if you had the choice?”

“Stone!” he said, looking up at the ceiling with a wistful smile on his face. “I want to make something like the old stone castles you find in the Equestrian countryside, or something like the royal palace in Canterlot, or… the Trottingham Opera House!”

Rarity let out a gasp. “Oh, I’ve been there! It’s such an amazing and humbling sight, isn’t it? The acoustics are simply beyond my ability to describe, darling!” She sighed and mirrored Buttress’s star-struck expression. “I can completely understand why you would wish to design such a grand building. Perhaps you could make something similar here?”

“Eh.” Buttress made a face and finished off his glass. “Doesn’t really work that way. Every time I brought up the possibility of making something out of stone, they had to explain to me how earthquakes work here. They get a ton of earthquakes around here, and they have to design their buildings around that. Stone and mortar stuff just isn’t gonna work, and if I tried to build anything like the Trottingham Opera House, it’s collapse in ten years, tops.” He sighs. “I still have some adjustment to do. Neighpon in a nutshell, huh?”

“Well…” Rarity thought for a moment, sipping on her glass, pouring another one, sipping that again. “As much as I find myself getting caught up in the zeitgeist and energy of the Neighponese fashion industry, I can’t help but feel that the country is far more suited to Pinkie Pie’s tastes.”

“Who?” Buttress asked.

“Oh, she’s a friend of mine from back in Ponyville. Quite the social butterfly, that one.” Rarity’s chuckle seemed a bit strained to Buttress. “Dear Pinkie has the hyperactive demeanor that suits Neighpon to a tee… and yet she might still be a bit too uncouth for more private aspects of the culture, especially the business side of things.” Rarity thinks for a moment, pursing her lips and leaning her chin on her hoof. Then a smile came back to her face. “It just occurred to me that Pinkie Pie dearly loves throwing parties for new arrivals in Ponyville, but I don’t believe I’ve seen how she celebrates being a new arrival to a city herself.”

“I’d show her the karaoke machine,” Buttress said. “Bet she’d get a kick out of that.”

He could have sworn that the very thought of it make Rarity’s mane begin to uncurl, a reflexive straightening that she barely stopped. “Oh my word! I’ve heard drunken stallions and mares sing karaoke before and it was such a horrid spectacle! I can’t possibly subject Pinkie Pie to that! Or rather, I can’t allow her to succumb to the temptation.”

“What?” Buttress turned her head to look at the karaoke booths in the back. Most of them had a party of kirin packed inside. They always seemed to be packing themselves into tight spaces. Heaven helped any claustrophobes who had to come to the country. He could see a few kirin putting their faces up to a microphone, almost touching it, and then proceeding to belt out lyrics without an ounce of shame. He assumed they were drunk. Not that he could hear them, as the booths had thankfully been enchanted to block out all incoming and outgoing sound.

“Look at them, Rarity. They’re all having fun. They may laugh at how terrible their singing was when they all sober up, but everykirin gets a turn to make fools of themselves, so who are they to judge?”

Rarity turned her nose up at Buttress. “You assume that all of my friends are abysmal singers. What makes you think that we would all make fools of ourselves in the booth?” She glanced back down at him and smirked.

“Well, that’s for all of you to decide, really.” Buttress got up from his seat and stretched his legs.

“Are you not staying for dinner?” Rarity asked, looking at the open menu again. She glanced over at a picture on the menu displaying vegetables that looked like pea pods dusted in salt. “These look delicious. What are they?”

Buttress shrugged. “Edamame. They’re delicious, but they’re also appetizers, so you’ll want another course after that. And I wish I could, but I’ve got patrons breathing down my neck and too many ideas competing for attention. I’ve gotta sort them out.”

Rarity nodded. “A feeling I know too well. Perhaps we’ll meet again sometime?”

“Sure. Same time tomorrow?”

“I’ll see if I can make it.”

Buttress gave Rarity one last smile and walked back out to the exit. Coming here was just what he needed. He wouldn’t have to face this new, bewildering country on his own anymore. He could finally share that experience with somepony else.