Sneak Peak: · 11:13am February 8th
I'm writing another story. not gonna lie, it's another slice of life, but I want it to be a bit more of a slow burn. the first chapter's gonna be a bit quick, but everything is going to more or less be day by day. if the quality seemingly goes down halfway through the draft, it's because i probably wrote some of it while drunk.
So, there are some experiences I wish I could tell people without looking like a crazy person. I am only writing this now, because… It’s been about four weeks since I could write. The problem that I am currently experiencing is… I’m a horse. I’m a horse, or rather, a pony. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but I am a horse-pony thing. I sorta… woke up in a crater one day, injured and aching all over, and woke up again in a hospital room. From there, I was met with another horse… wearing a nurse hat.
I’ll do my best to write out how that interaction went.
“What the fuck!” I yelled.
“He’s awake!” The nurse pony gasped.
“You can fucking talk!?” I yelled again, before rolling out of my bed and scampering away from the thing in front of me.
“Of course I can talk-”
I didn’t care, I managed to work out how to move my legs. There were four of those now, I just noticed, and broke off into a gallop towards the door. You see, in my state of panic, I forgot that I had no arms, or hands, to open the door with. So I ran face first into the door and got knocked out again.
So that was my first interaction with one of the many ‘people’ in this world. You see, unlike Earth, I am on a planet called Equus which has the same geography of Earth, just everything is named differently and the sea levels are different, so places like Florida are just gone. There’s also less ice in the world, so Greenland was melted into three different islands. It was kinda neat, seeing the world in this way.
The poles were still frozen, so there was still ice, and Antarctica was still the frozen hell hole that it is on Earth.
So, I’m living on an alien planet, which is really just Earth in another universe. Humans don’t exist, so ponies took over the world, became sentient, sapient, and built civilization. The country they built up was named Equestria, and was roughly where the U.S.A was on Equus, but only took up the eastern and midwest part of the country. The western were labeled the Badlands, and it was basically uninhabitable. It was just a giant desert. Up north of Equestria was Griffonia, because Griffins are a thing on Equus.
Cuba was the land of the Minotaurs, dunno the name for it, as they don’t really have one.
Speaking of Equestria, after I managed to thoroughly scare the shit out of my nurse, and knock myself out, I later learnt that I was being kept inside of a castle’s infirmary, because a pony showing up in a crater, in the middle of town where a strong residue of magic was a thing, would concern the rulers of Equestria. Where was I found? Ponyville. Apparently a magical mishap happened, and I became a unicorn.
Anyways, I learnt that Equestria was ruled by a single pony, her name was Celestia. She stopped by to check in on me after I woke up again after I knocked myself out.
Here’s how that went.
“Uh…” This pony was tall. Like really tall. She wore a golden crown on her head, had a sun tattoo’d into her butt, and was incredibly tall. At first I thought the door frame was a little too tall given how none of the ponies here were even half the size of said door frame, that was until I saw the door crack open and see a very tall, winged unicorn walk into the room. Even I could tell that by pony standards, she was beautiful. She kept her wings folded, likely in an attempt to seem less intimidating, and she walked to the front of my door, and sat like a cat.
“Hello, my little pony,” she greeted
“Hi…”
“I can tell that… you have a special case.”
“Yeah, I was just told by my poor nurse, tell her I’m sorry for scaring her by the way, that I’m in a hospital that’s built into your castle. I’m assuming I’m in this hospital for a reason.”
“Well, you were injured, and the crater that I had found you in is rather… interesting. If you have a name, do speak up… just know that we may have to change your name should you want to fit into pony society a bit better.” I raised an eyebrow. “I know you are not of this world. The crater you were in… had no magic in it whatsoever. The soil, that is usually full of magic, was gone. The burns in the crater, every single millimeter of the crater had no magic in it. You yourself do not radiate magic like most do, and you’re a unicorn!”
“Huh… Say, what’s with the tattoo on your butt?”
“...That’s my cutie mark. Everypony has one.”
“What’s that?”
“...We are going to have much to discuss.”
“Okay. Do you have a name?”
“I’m Princess Celestia.”
“...Can I call you Sun Butt? That’s easier to remember.”
Celestia surprisingly giggled at that. “If you call me that, I suppose it would be better than the usual ‘your highness’ or ‘your majesty’ or the quivering ‘Princess!’. Though I would prefer that you call me by name once you get more acclimated with it in the future.”
“Will do, Sun Butt. you’re… surprisingly chill for somepony that’s ruling supposedly a leader of this country.”
“And you are surprisingly ‘chill’ for somepony that just hopped dimensions.”
“Oh, I’m getting over the shock of the fact that I’m no longer a human being. I’ve worked out the initial fear after I ran face first into a door.” I leaned rolled onto my stomach and sat up. I looked at my own butt to look at my cutie mark. It was a bunch of ones and zeros… given that I was trying to code a game before I ended up in Equestria, I can’t complain. That was the one thing I was good at back on Earth. “Huh…”
That is an idea for a name at least; it’s what I went by on the forums for the fan game I was writing, so I would respond to it just fine.
“You can call me Source Code,” I sat up. “I feel like I should try to bow, but I think I’ll fall on my face if I try it. I’m barely able to sit up,” I gestured to myself.
“Think nothing of it… However, there are some things I would like to discuss with you. Would you like to join me for a walk? It would help a bit with a change of scenery, and you can get to practicing in your new body.”
“Sure thing, Sunbutt.”
“Splendid! Come, I have a personal drawing room that we can go to.” I nodded and hopped off the bed… only to nearly fall on my face. When the ground never came up and gave my huge nose a kiss, I realized I was floating. I was set up on my hooves as Sunbutt. Her horn was lit, and I was surrounded with a golden… aura that felt pleasantly warm. Just like a fire in the fireplace; pleasantly warm but not smoldering hot. “Perhaps you shouldn’t be jumping off of beds; it won’t do you much good.”
“Yeah, I suppose it wouldn’t. I prefer not breaking my face; I’m sure you wouldn’t want to break your face either.”
“That does sound rather unpleasant,” she said with a chuckle. I quickly fell in line at her heels, my head came right up to her rear. I was wobbly, I was barely able to walk, but I was walking. And it felt like we had been walking for hours while we made our way through the castle, up several stairs, and around dozens of corners. During that time, it was full of lighthearted conversation. I had to explain to Celestia what my hobby, and my job was.
“So what do you like to do in your free time, Source?”
“I work in a crummy fast food place. It kinda sucked, but it paid bills.”
“I see. Was that your special talent?” I tilted my head. “Your special talent, it’s in relation to your cutie mark.”
“Oh heck no! I hated that job. My boss was a dick, my coworkers were lazy sacks of shit, and the customers were awful. In my free time, I, and a few buddies of mine would… try to code a game. Think of making lines of ones and zeros, commands and whatnot all to make things on a screen happen… Like say ‘make model X run cycle underscore one until X meets destination A’. It’s something I liked to think I was quite good at, and even took schooling for it.”
“I see, that sounds like magic. You use your horn to write down the right ‘runes’ or commands, and then something happens. You had something similar?”
“...No. I never heard of magic until now.”
“Oh. What’s magic like, if I may ask.” Celestia summoned a book… from somewhere with a golden flash of magic.
“Look at this,” she turned to a page, and revealed… what looked like an alphabet of some sort. Each symbol didn’t look like a symbol from any language I’ve seen before. However, under each symbol was a letter from the English language. Twenty six characters, twenty six runes. “You make each rune with your horn, which you will learn how to do in time, and what you write out is what happens. For instance, I will spell out ‘light’.” Celestia did just that, and her horn turned into a flashlight of sorts. “For more complex spells, you make sentences for what you want to happen. For instance, if I wanted to make a fireball, I would write out fireball. The more complex spells take more time to perform due to this… And good horn dexterity.
“There are ways around this, as I’ve seen, but this is the most widespread system for unicorns. Technically every unicorn is capable of three different systems of magic, but the ‘rune system’ is the easiest to learn, even if it is more taxing and slower than the other system. Levitation,”
“That looks like telekinesis.”
“That is basically because it is,” Celestia agreed. “Back on topic, levitation uses the second system of magic where you impose your will onto an object. This school is mostly illegal, as it is a gateway to mind control spells, but simple stuff like levitation is perfectly legal.”
I read over the alphabet six or seven times… I want to learn this. This just sounds like coding.
“Another branch of is very similar to the first, as it uses runes, but are quite unknown as to which rune means what. It’s still somewhat manageable to learn, but I only know a few hundred ponies that could use this system effectively, and exceed it. I have been alive for thousands of years, Source. There is a fourth ‘system’ of magic, called… Dark Magic, which is completely off limits, though not illegal. It is very addictive and corrupts the user’s mind and soul. It’s more of a ‘use at your own risk’ system. And if anypony gets… too advanced and is too corrupted by this system, I end up putting them down.”
“Damn… I might try my hand in each of these systems. Mostly the first and third one. Those seem like something that I could be decent at…” I looked up and down Celestia… she looked jittery.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked. She looked a bit less composed than usual.
“My apologies, Source. I have… found great enjoyment in teaching. It’s one of the few things I find great satisfaction in, even after all my time being alive.”
“And you’ve been around since… forever, basically.”
“I have.”
“...Jesus christ, I cannot imagine how much shit you’ve seen. I… I feel sorry for ya. If I’ve seen half the stuff you’ve been through, I think I would go insane. So seeing you being… nice. I gotta give ya props for your resilience, Sunbutt.” Celestia gave me a warm smile as we approached her drawing room.
We made ourselves comfy on the couch. For some bizarre reason, Celestia insisted that I lay against the side of her stomach. “So, Source, I must ask, since you brought it up. What are humans?”
“Oh, that’s what I was before I came to Equestria. I was… an almost completely hairless, ape. I walked on two feet and covered most of my body with clothes. I’ll be honest, humans eat just about anything. Meat included. We weren’t… exactly dangerous for the most part. If you gave us the time to think, humans could, and would find a way to eventually blow up an entire country.”
“So you’re dangerous?”
“I’m… not. You could probably break my neck right now; I can feel how much muscle you’ve got under that coat of yours; you’re a fucking brick. A very nice, plush brick, but a brick. Clob me over the head with a hoof, and my head’s coming off,” I hummed. “Anyone can be dangerous anyways. To what capacity is what you should be worried about. And their willingness to be dangerous. For instance, a guy with a sword is dangerous, but a sword can really only be used to stab somebody. That’s assuming the guy with a sword wants to hurt anyone.”
“That is a good point. Are you willing to hurt anyone?”
“No. I don’t like the idea of hurting people. I can barely even tolerate the thought of it; I like to think that I’m a relatively peaceful guy. I would much, much rather spend a night coding with my buddies, having a beer, or just relaxing on the couch to some good music than hurt somebody.”
“Then I see no problem in you living amongst my ponies, Source Code. I figured you wouldn’t want to, given your… demeanor.”
“Hey, you’re being relatively friendly to the weird alien that you found in a hole in the ground. I might as well return it.”
“I see,” Celestia hummed. “I have two offers for you, however.”
“Hmm?”
“I would like to teach you how to use magic.”
“Why?”
“I love teaching, and it would help you out. I saw how you hungrily stared at those runes…” I flinched. “I have a sharp eye, my little pony. Worry not, you’re just curious and have a hunger for knowledge.”
“Well, if I’m gonna learn from anyone, I might as well learn from the immortal princess that’s been around long enough to learn how to be good with magic. Though there’s a second reason.” Celestia raised an eyebrow. “I can pick up on details too, Sunny. It comes with game testing.” Celestia giggled. “That’s kinda cute, you gotta stop before I get heartburn.
“You… think my giggling is cute?” Celestia asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“It’s just been forever since anypony considered any one thing about me ‘cute’...” Celestia giggled again, she is getting very close to giving me heartburn. “Well, it would also help my personal student out as well. With somepony to work alongside with, I am willing to bet that she can… come out of her shell a bit more. She’s not the most friendly or outgoing of ponies.”
“Mmm… Alrighty. Teach me how to use these runes after you can get me to get this,” I tapped my horn. “To work, then I will try my damn best to catch up.”
“Wonderful! I will be giving you a weekly stipend, but I do expect you to find work so it will not be much, just enough for rent and food. Worry not, since you are my student, that will be covered. Your classes will be early in the morning, and they will be pretty frequent for the time being; I cannot teach you magic if you never figure out how to use it, can you?”
“Good point. I look forward to meeting up with you, Princess.”
