//------------------------------// // A Warm, Homegrown Welcome to a Technicolour Queendom! // Story: Hypocrisy is the Worst Policy // by Mactinto //------------------------------// My mind slowly brought itself back from the deep as a warm, wet cloth was dabbed all over my face and neck. Most of my senses were still muddled and my head felt like it had been filled with molasses while I was out. Doesn't feel like I got a hole drilled in my head... As visual input ebbed and flowed, I caught glimpses of a shaky, faded, blurry room with blobs of orange and green and red shuffling about, muffled words entering my ears. Slowly everything began to fade again. The sudden feeling of heat pulled me out of my trance, a searing hot lance applied all over my face. With the heat melting away any remnants of the sticky, slow substance from my brain, I shot up and let my eyes dart back and forth across the room. "Eeyup, he's awake," the slow, thick drawl drew my eyes toward the room's occupants. Well of all the things I could have woken up to, I was greeted by... "Technicolour horses?" They just stared at me, each one matching up to the colours I had seen vaguely in my hazey state before. One was a taller, red one with a yoke around his neck. He appeared to be sizing me up, but the look on his face couldn't be pinned by any words known to ponykind. What. Next, the orange one had a hat and long, wild blonde hair, and was shorter and more slender than the Tall Red, with a rounded snout as well. She had a look of confusion, and little awkwardness mixed in. How are they so easy to read? Finally, it seemed obvious that The Green Granny was an older one, with a rocking chair and knitting needles in her lap. She was smiling at me like a mother would, and almost absentmindedly as well. "I think ya meant ponies, sonny!" Oh! So they were speaking. This is making more and more sense every second! It's brilliant! The look on my face must have conveyed my own cocktail of emotions, because Tall Red and Goldilocks were giving each other a look. I took this brief respite in action to look down at myself to see if I had any tattered clothing left or anything was broken or not completely shattered by my fall. Sadly, what I expected was not what I received. In place of my bipedal body, I had the body of one of those things. White coat and four legs, along with a tail curled up over my the colour of a light pink cupcake frosting or something. Finally, to coat this injury with insult, I assumed I had a pair of wings. Which were the same pink colour. My hooves were a nice black colour, all matted and all that. "So, uh," I started off, looking up at the strange, strange trio before me. "Where am I?" Glancing back down at my body, my hooves began to shake. "And what the hay happened to me?" Tall Red's clippity cloppity hooves made their rhythmic noise as he made his way over to where I was sitting. "Yer at Sweet Apple Acres, in Ponyville. You passed out when my sister found you." He stuck out my hoof and I flinched. "Name's Big Macintosh." I hesitantly attempted to use my new appendages in a way that may be equivalent to socking his hoof, and it just felt naturally unnatural. Memories of my first time using stilts flooded back to me, and I bumped his hoof with my own. "Um, thanks?" "Well I don't feel much like lettin' myself on as a bad host. I'm Applejack. Nice ta meet ya!" She walked over and, somehow, in some disturbing, midichlorian way grabbed my hoof with hers and shook me into the air what the bu- "We'll help ya get some rest 'n figure out yer bearings. The least we can do after my sis scared the livin' daylights outta ya!" My hooves still shook as I set them back in front of my chest, and I attempted to sit up into an awkwardly animal position. The stance was a mirror of what my cats always sat like when they decided to stare at me and wait for me to figure out what the hay they wanted. What the hay is going on?! "Thanks, again. Now, where am I? Anywhere near the U.S.?" Of course, they had no idea what I was talking about and proceeded to scratch the backs of their collective necks awkwardly. "The ewe ess? No idea, mister...?" She trailed off, letting me finish the sentence. "Oh, my mistake. Um, my name is White Sk-" I stopped myself. What the buck was I saying? "Sorry, Whisssssskey is delicious but my name is..." My words caught in my throat and I stopped functioning for a few seconds. "What the buck happened to my name?" I must have muttered that louder than I had wanted to. The looks on their faces turned from confusion to realization as their enormous eyes. Well, except for The Green Granny, who looked like she was about to invite me over for dinn- "Well, sonny, sounds like you need some good ol' fashioned Apple Family Home Cooking to make you feel better!" Applejack and Big Macintosh both looked at each other, then at me. We all knew we wouldn't escape this one, even though I was having what some would call a terrible day. "Granny, I think we may want to let the poor stallion get some better help than our baked goods..." Granny Whatever-Her-Name-Is wouldn't have any of it. "Nonsense! Nuttin' like some fresh baked apple pies, apple fritter, apple strudel, apple turnover, and Appleoosan Apple Whiskey to make the colt feel better!" I was not weaseling my way out of this, and I had far more pressing matters to attend to than having dinner with two not senile techincolour ponies and one a little loose in the rocker. Oh, you know, like getting my sanity back, or returning to the realm of the living, or just figuring out what the hay was going on. And with that, I did the best thing I could do. Still sitting like a stalker cat, I put my front legs down in front of the chair I was on and tried to lower my back legs behind them, which had the undesired effect of sending me face first into the floor. After letting out what may or may not have been cursing, I put my legs out back under my body and pushed myself into a laying down position like a cat (again). "Oops. Hold on." My new hooves made walking the most difficult task I had ever set out to do. The singular part of them felt like I was walking on plates, and my balance felt right and wrong at the same time. Extending my legs, I raised myself up like an elevator, methodically. My new appendages were giving me a little trouble, but I thought I could walk without visible effort on my part. I lifted up my hooves a little and put them down. "So, um, what are we going to do?" I said, not noticing their looks of shock from my failure to even walk properly. Applejack shrugged. "I guess Granny Smith has... the best idea right now. Maybe we can introduce you to everypony." Her eyes began to gleam, and she dreamily added, "I think you might like some of the baked goods we can whip you up! Ain't nothin' like some home cookin' to cheer a pony up!" With that, she turned around and trotted into the kitchen, muttering something about apple related foods of all kinds under her breath. "This is going to be interesting..." The big red pony left in the room just gave me an understanding look, and the green mare just smiled an awfully friendly smile. One incredibly filling and delicious meal of apple this that and the other thing later, I was pretty stuffed and ready to fall into a food coma. That reminded me of my current situation. No dream was ever so vivid as to create the most amazing buffet of desserts and courses all centered around one item. Indeed, it seemed, this was not a dream, if the whole sensory input thing wasn't just very well done on the part of my brain. Looking around the table, the colours and smells and depth and just... everything, seemed to pop out and stand on it's own too much to be a figment of my imagination. The way they talked, held things with their hooves and mouths, and the interaction in a comical way with the world was so detailed, yet simple, that I was at a loss for words. Tends to make answering questions difficult. "I think that apple sauteéd noodles with the nuts and berries was my favourite. Sheesh, I'm so full of food I think I could sleep just right here," I said, as I laid the side of my head on the table. Truthfully, sleep started to reach out its warm, inviting embrace as my eyelids slid clo- Mrs. Smith yelled in her strangely Southern accent, "Sonny, that table wadn't made fer yew to be sleepin' on willy nilly!" She yanked my head up by my mane and looked me in the eye with some kind of slightly crazy yet silly grin she must not have even meant to put on. "I'll git Applejack here to bring you to yer room!" Huh. Apparently I get a room. "Well of course ya git a room, sonny me boyo! What kind uh hosts don't give their guests rooms!?" With that, she grinned her grin at Applejack, who just looked at me with some kind of face on. "Ya really need ta stop sayin' things out loud, ya know." "Yeah, I know." The door the the room opened, and as I looked inside I noticed there was a bed, some dressers, a night stand, and a window pouring in moonlight and the sounds of crickets, cicadas and the wind rustling the leaves of the apple trees outside. While I trotted in, Applejack lit a candlestick mounted on the wall and put down her matchbook. "I like the room," I said absentmindedly, turning around as I did so. "Do you usually have guests over?" The orange mare looked at me and chuckled. "Not so much anymore. When I was younger we'd have ponies over all the time, but over the years it's been less and less often..." Her ears laid back and she adjusted her hat, a little display of... some kind of emotion, maybe disappointment? I merely glanced away and nodded. "That's what happened with me too. When I finally moved out to college and was off on my own, my family quit visiting my dad, while at the same time stopped calling me up." A long sigh passed my lips and I muttered under my breath, "and now I'm here." Applejack nodded sagely, contemplating my words. As she stood there, I trotted to the bed and sat down on the side, my hind legs underneath me as I sat upright. Sadly, my body wasn't designed for this, and after sitting like this for some time, my back started to ache. Pushing my back legs up with my new body's muscles, I pushed my forelegs down to lift myself backwards, and soon I was sitting like the other ponies had at the table. When I looked up at Applejack, I met her gaze immediately and we stared at each other for a second as I felt my mind go blank. Time ticked away. Tick tick tick. ... Yawning, I spoke again. "I think I should get some sleep, it's been an interesting day." My hooves stretched out into the air, and soon the tension left them. She merely smiled a small smile. "Alright, g'night Mr. Skies." Returning the smile, I nodded back. "Wait a second, how'd you know my name?" Turning around, she smirked. "Ya must be pretty tired to not remember any of the dinner conversations. Get some sleep, now." And then she was out the door, having blown out the candle. And I was out like a light.