While the two sides of the ocean had only one thing in common, no one in the universe has anything in common with a few folks on the moon a few days before Luna’s return to Equestria.

“Aeiou,” a figure in a white suit said, stepping out of a domed spaceship on the surface of the moon. His steps were slow and pronounced. “Aeiou,” he repeated, ushering out another of his species outside.

Princess Luna sat in front of the spaceship, quite still, wondering what was going on before her eyes. One moment she had been anticipating the last five days of her banishment, trying her best to take preventative measures against the return of Nightmare Moon, and the next, two bipedal, faceless creatures were trying to take her moon.

“Uuuuuuuuuuuu,” the second figure said, pointing to Luna. “Nine nine nine, nine nine nine, nine nine nine.”

“You—” Luna stumbled for words. “—you’re humans, aren’t you? Celestia told me rumours about you, living in far off lands with special magic we’ve never used.”

“John Madden,” the first replied.

“Question mark exclamation mark,” the second added.

“That’s... odd. I’ll call you John and Mark, is that okay?”

John and Mark walked over to Luna and scratched their heads. John turned to Mark and said: “Snaaaaaakee.”

“Eeeeeeeeeee.”

“Are you two alright?” Luna said, raising an eyebrow. “Do you speak the common tongue?”

“Yuoiyouiyouiyouiyoui.”

“Ebrbrbrbrbrbrbrbr.”

Luna scratched her head. “Do you”—she pointed to the duo—”know”—she pointed to her head—”how to speak this language at all?” She topped it off by motioning to her mouth.

John looked at Mark wordlessly, who looked back at him with a shrug.

“Holla holla...”

“...Get dolla?”

“That at least sounds coherent,” Luna said, chuckling. “Can you make anything else out?”

“Football!”

“Back to base John Madden.”

Luna frowned. “It sounds like you really do understand me. That’s common tongue as I know it. What’s going on here?”

“Ebrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbr.”

“Uuuuuuuuuuuuu.”

“...Really,” Luna said, standing herself up. “I’m definitely imagining things. You two can’t possibly be real.”

Without another word, Luna flapped out her wings and flew away from the men and their spaceship. They both watched as she left, the air empty and silent.

“She’s a talking horse, Neil,” Mark said. “With wings. And a horn. Shouldn’t we have tried to make better contact with her?”

“I guess so, Buzz,’ Neil replied. “It’s not like we were able to understand her whinnies anyway.”

“She seemed to respond to what we said. Do you think she understood us?”

Neil thought for a moment. “Eh, probably not. We’ll deal with it later. As for right now... one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Luna later convinced herself it was a dream.