Whatever happened to danny?
To give up one's own boring life, and take the skin of another. Again and again, we hear of those who wish they could walk in the horseshoes of another, to take on a life in another time and place, to escape the problems and worries of one's own life. Ah, but what if those dreams are allowed to come true? Would the life we would lead be everything we desired it to be? And would we come to regret our decision? I, Tornado Firehooves, royal court scholar to Queen Majesty, now relate to you the tale of the boy Danny, and how his wish to run free came to grief...
Once, there were two sisters and a brother, who lived on their father's ranch in the human world. The eldest was the girl Megan, caring and wise. The youngest was her sister Molly, caring and fair. But the middle child was a young boy named Danny, who was noble and brave. The children of a professional race horse breeder on the open plains of Oklahoma, they were at home in the open fields and sunny skies. These three lived a normal life, in what they considered a normal world.
Danny and was a normal boy, not unlike any other. He had red hair and freckles, and wore a striped shirt and jeans. He liked to play baseball and ride his skateboard, and hated homework and school. Like many other boys his age, he spent time with his friends hanging out, and listened to his two favorite bands, Cold Slither and the Holograms. Danny spent his days scarfing down cheeseburgers, and playing video games. He liked going to the horse races with his dad, and dreamed of riding the rodeo circuit just like his father one day.
But Danny, unlike other boys his age, had a secret. His sister Megan had found the doorway to another world... a rainbow bridge, that took her to a magical world of dangerous monsters and talking ponies. She introduced this world of Ponyland to her two siblings, and together they had many adventures in this wondrous land of wizards and dragons. He formed a particularly close bond with the baby dragon, Spike... as they were the only two boys in a sea of girls. Sometimes Danny acted foolish, and got them into trouble. But his good nature always shined through, and together with his friends both human and pony, they would always triumph over the most evil of foes!
But the years came, and the years went. Molly grew up, and grew away from Ponyland. She turned her mind towards things like a future and a career, and forgot her friends across the rainbow bridge. Megan, however, could never forget her little ponies, so dear to her heart were they. She and Danny came again and again, even as they left childhood behind, and entered their teen years. As one sister drifted farther and farther away from a world she wanted to believe was nothing more than a childhood fantasy, the other sister came to become more and more a part of it.
For Danny, Ponyland was an adventure. An escape from a world of high school pressure, after school jobs, and the looming specter of adulthood. He preferred to ride on the back of his pony friend Surprise, soaring through the clouds, than being in a world of peer pressure, a trying high school baseball coach, and girls who turned him down every time he asked one of them to go to the Dancitron with him. Oh, how Danny wished he could leave the world of work and responsibility behind, and run free like the Dream Valley ponies do!
But one day... everything changed. When Danny had reached his nineteenth year, he and Megan came to help the ponies against yet another evil wizard who was trying to take over Dream Valley. The evil fiend had stolen a wand of transformation from ancient Equestrian ruins. The Ponies ended up in conflict with him, and Megan and Danny tracked him down to his lair in the Froggy Bottom swamp. It was here they did battle with the rouge spell caster, and it was here everything went oh so terribly wrong.
"I got the wand, Galaxy!" Megan yelled. "Let's try to keep it away from him!"
"Give me that wand, you filthy brats!" The wizard yelled.
Megan tossed it to Galaxy, who caught it in her mouth, and tossed it to Shady. But the game of keep away turned to disaster, when Shady messed up her throw to Surprise, and the wand smashed to the floor in front of the white Pegasus Pony, and cracked.
"Oh nooo!" Surprise yelped.
"Surprise!" Danny yelled, and jumped between the exploding transformation wand and his friend. The explosion knocked him to the ground, and he felt a terrible pain shoot through his entire body.
"DANNY!" Both Megan and Surprise cried out. It was then, that everything around the young human went dark...
...Danny came to lying in the Dream Valley infirmary, where her could hear the voice of Galaxy and his sister talking as consciousness returned.
"...Are you sure there is no way to change him back?" Megan asked.
"I'm afraid not, Megan." Galaxy whinnied. "The rod was a Penna artifact, from long before the time of the long-gone kingdom of Equestria. Using unicorn magic to undo it's affects could damage Danny's nervous system to the point of killing him!"
It was then that Danny awoke, to the sight of Surprise staring at him, looking worried. He tried to move his hand up to her, to let her know he was all right. But to his horror, he discovered he no longer had hands...but hooves!
"Ne-e-e-e-e-e-e-i-i-i-i-g-g-g-g-h!" He tried to scream, but all that came out was a pony's whinny. Horrified, Danny tried to stand up on his two legs... but it only resulted in him stumbling over his new wings.
"Easy, Danny!" Dr Medicin warned, as Surprise and Megan tried to steady him. "You're not yet accustomed to your new body yet!"
She was right, as Danny calmed himself down, everything was a new sensation for him. Every sound and smell was now much crisp and clearer to him. He could flex the ends of his new limbs- his wings and tail- much as he had once done with his hands. He could sense and feel things he never had as a human.
For he was a human no longer... now, he was a pony!
Where there had been a human boy, now there was a black stallion with a white mane. In shock after all that had happened, Danny could barely make out what happened over the next few hours. Promises by Queen Majesty that Danny could stay at the Castle for as long as he wished- a reward for all he and his sisters had done for the ponies. A promise by his sister to visit him whenever she could, as she hugged him goodbye. He struggled to hang onto his sanity, as North Star flew Megan back over the rainbow, to the human world...
...leaving him behind.
The next few weeks were pure torment for poor Danny. Sundance had to teach him how to speak all over again, as the shape and structure of his mouth had changed. Moondancer taught him how to first walk, then trot, and then gallop around on four hooves. It was a very unpleasant experience, as he continuously fell on his face every step he took. North Star was terrified of starting his flying lessons, and Gusty was getting frustrated with how clumsy and Kluzy Danny was.
"It's annoying, Wind Whistler!" Gusty yelled. "He's as helpless as a newborn foal!"
"Have patience with him, Gusty! Danny just made the biological jump from Primate to equine, a major strain on his sanity!" Wind Whistler snorted. "His entire nervous system has been rewired, and his brain is still reacting to his body like he's human! Instinct can only go so far in helping him to adjust!"
But as time passed, Danny did adjust. Gradually, he did learn to trot and gallop, and to use his wings and tail in place of his hands. North Star taught him to think in three dimensional space instead of two, and how to use that to fly. Gradually, his mind adjusted to the reality of what had happened to him. But that didn't mean he still didn't have problems. Danny discovered that he could no longer eat cheeseburgers- one of his favorite foods- when Megan brought him one, and all it did was make his herbivore stomach ill. And while Gusty was able to teach him to play polo, he could no longer play baseball... not like there was anyone to play baseball with in ponyland, anyway.
But even though he was adjusting to what had happened, didn't mean he liked it. Danny would never see his father or Molly again. Megan had told him that she had arraigned (with the help of a little unicorn magic) for them to believe he had gone away to study in Europe. He could still send them letters through Megan, or record his voice (Which Megan could present as mail or phone calls), but he would never see them face to face again. All those dreams of riding in the rodeo just like his dad were gone forever (unless he wanted to be the ride instead of the rider), as was hanging out with his friends, or going to the mall. Where being free like the ponies once seemed like a dream, now it felt more like the worst of nightmares.
And so the seasons turned... and turned again. Time flowed by, and Megan came to spend more and more time in Dream Valley. She still informed him of the happenings in the other world- Molly had become a news anchor, replacing a retiring Hector Ramirez. And his father... his father had passed away. He hadn't even been able to go to the funeral, or say goodbye. And the fun and adventure of visiting a magical land was now lost on him, now that he spent his days running and hiding from the very monsters and villains that plagued that magical land!
Danny spent his days sitting by the Rainbow river, staring at his own refection. Whenever he thought of home, tears streamed down his face, and rippled on the water's surface. Oh, how he longed to be human again! It was during this time that his cutie mark appeared... a storm cloud, with rain coming down from it. Gusty recommended calling him Weepy, but Surprise gave him the more complementary nickname of Stormchaser. Danny was not alone, however, as Spike and the Bushwoolies still spent time with him. Danny drew a little joy from the fact some still cared for him.
It was at this time, that many of the younger single mares of Dream Castle began to take notice of Danny. They knew who he was, who had had been, and that he still saw himself as human... but the pull of the herd instinct was too strong to be denied, especially with a Stallion who always stayed around the castle. They tried again and again to start up conversations with him, to see if they had common interests so they could form an emotional bond. But Danny would have none of it, repulsed by the advances of these mares. What would he, a human, want with a girl pony? But it was soon to his horror, that he realized that the stallion he had become had actually wanted to bond with one of them. It made him feel all the more disgusted with himself..
It was only Surprise, the pony whom Danny had saved from the wizard's rod, did he respond positively to. She was the Pegasus who had only been a filly when Megan and the Ponies had fought Katrina. She and Danny had become friends when he first came to Ponyland, and had flown together on many adventures. She would sit beside him at the river's edge, and talk with him as the hours slipped by.
"Remember how we wrecked those Gizmonks lab, Danny?" She once asked him with a giggle. "We sure gave em a big SURPRISE!"
The energetic and irresponsible pony did something Danny never thought he'd do again... she made him smile. They would both trot and fly, side by side, across the hills and skies of pony land, as they once had as pony and rider. Although Danny was unable to embrace what had happened to him, at the sight of Surprise's smile at least made it so he could accept it.
The day came, when Megan finally abandoned her life in the human world, for a life in Ponyland. Although Danny was overjoyed to see his sister again, he was dismayed that she seemed to treat him differently now. Instead of talking to him like her younger brother, she now treated him as just another of the little ponies. Oh, she knew who he was on a conscious level, to be sure, but she no longer seemed to treat him as a human. This only served to remind him of everything he had lost, and made it hard to spend time with his own sister.
And the wheels of Time turned and turned yet again. No longer weepy and depressed, Stormchaser now races across the skies, laughing after playing a prank on some pony, then fleeing as his angry victim chases after the trickster stallion. Yet, like a could in the sky, he can zip away, and vanish in a puff of smoke.
Surprise is often by his side… as is Baby Surprise, their little filly. Stormchaser wouldn't trade them for all of the oats in pony land. Every day their human friend, Megan, visits Dream Castle, and plays with the little fillies and colts. She now lives in King Scorpan's kingdom, and is married to one of the King's knights- a would-be dragon slayer she had befriended in her youth. Hadn't this human, this Megan, been someone important in his life once? Stormchaser finds it so hard to remember sometimes.
Tonight he, his family, and his friend Spike are going to go, and watch the fireworks Sky Rocket and Glory are setting on near the castle. As he watches them explode, he remembers a human boy named Danny watching a display much like this, with his father and sisters at a state fair. But as Surprise nuzzles him again, it the memory fades away, like the dream it was….