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// Chapter 4: First Encounter 
// Story: Ponyville 
// by milawynsrealm 
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No one had to wake me. The reminiscent sound of chirping birds and the sunlight that now bathed the bedroom was enough to do the job. Looking around, I saw that I was still in the lower part of Twilight's room. With that I looked down to stare straight at my set of hooves once again, half expecting there to be hands instead. At this point, I had hoped that this was all just a dream that I would wake up from, but sadly, it wasn't.

As usual, my body ached as I got off the bed. A simple stretch helped to loosen out the stiffness, but the way I did so was different, especially with my new body. It wasn't that I was uncomfortable with my body that struck me as odd, but it was quite the opposite. I felt comfortable with my new body. I was under the initial impression that I had to get used to how to walk and even talk properly. I slightly wiggled my body in random motions to confirm the feel of my new body.

The sound of a door opened and up walked Spike with a small stack of books in his claws, unaware of my presence.

“Good morning Spike.” I said. Upon hearing my voice, he jumped, and in so doing, accidentally dropped the books on the floor.

“Sorry.” I said.

Upon getting up and brushing himself off, he looked around until he noticed me. “Oh hey Daniel. I figured you were still asleep.” he said as he gathered back the books he dropped. He walked over to one of the bookshelves and started placing books into empty slots, ensuring that they were placed in their proper order.

Again, I had to remind myself that ponies don't have to wear clothing. Spike just gave me a confused look as I looked around the room in a concerned manner. “Uh, missing anything?” Spike asked confused.

“I keep forgetting that I don't have to wear clothing. I'm so used to wearing clothing all the time.” I stated, not realizing that I was thinking out loud.

“So humans wear clothing a lot?” Spiked asked, now finished with putting the books away.

“Yeah. Where I'm from, it would be considered to be indecent and rude to be naked in public.” I said, now out of my bed.

“Well, you could always ask Rarity for some clothing if you're that desperate.” he suggested, slightly confused at the cultural quirk.

“Actually, I'll pass on the clothing for now. Seeing as no pony else is wearing clothing on a constant basis, I don't think that it's actually that important right now.” I replied.

“Well, okay. Whatever makes you happy.” Spike turned and walked down the steps that led into the main library. Moments later, he charged right back up, and told me, “Oh by the way, Twilight asked me to tell you that breakfast is ready. Hope you like hay pancakes.” With that, he charged right back down.

Great. Just great. I almost forgot about the bit about the new food options. Namely grass, hay, and flowers. Although I knew that it wasn't unheard of for some salads to have edible flowers in them and wheat grass juice that was commonly known mostly by health food nuts, this would still be a big step for me. Most others would likely shy away from eating foods that they are not used to eating. In this case, this first meal could be symbolized as a sort of unofficial initiation as a pony, at least for me. For a moment, this prospect practically gave the shivers.

But as I began looking at the situation, and realized that my humanity at this point is long gone for now, I began to calm down a little bit. When I thought about it, I was still essentially me. My body may have changed, but as far as I knew, I was still myself. I still had the same thoughts, the same personality, and believed in the same ideals.

A delicious smell now hung in the air, and the growling of my stomach confirmed it. Food. I entered the next room to see Twilight eating a mouthful of pancakes. Right next to her was a small stack of papers. Probably the questions she wanted to ask me.

“Oh hey Daniel. Good morning. How well did you sleep?” She asked after swallowing.

“Alright, I guess. Took me a while to sleep, but I managed.” I replied.

With that, she took out a piece of paper and wrote something down with her magic.

“You want some breakfast? Spike made them.” She asked, pointing to a plate full of pancakes next to a cup of apple juice.
As I approached the table, I noticed that the pancakes had hay embedded in them, with strawberry sauce on top. But they smelled delicious.

“Oh right. You don't have hands anymore.” Twilight said.

“Well that, and the fact that I've never had hay before.” I replied, still fixated on the pancakes.

“What do humans eat?” She asked curiously.

“Hmm? Oh, humans are omnivores.” I replied. She wrote something down.

“Do humans ever hunt other animals?” she asked.

“Some do, I think. But I've never hunted in my entire life.” I replied. I've never hunted, so I honestly don't know.

“Do ponies exist in your world?” She asked.

“Yes. However, none of them talk and they exhibit a low level of intelligence compared to ponies in this world. And they look mostly different than ponies here anyways. It would be easy to claim that ponies from my world are practically a different species than from...us.” I replied, nervous at her potential reaction.

“Interesting. What about Unicorns and Pegasi?” she asked. I guess I was wrong.

“Only in stories and myths.” I replied once again.

“Do humans use magic?” she asked right after writing down my response.

“No, I don't think so. Even though the concept of magic is known throughout many works of fiction, humans rely mostly on technology than anything else.” I said.

Since Twilight is a scholar, I decided to answer in a more academic fashion in regards to her questions. I figured that it would be easier that way and it would certainly help reduce possible confusion she might have about my answers.

Before she could continue asking questions, my stomach growled in protest.

“Oh right, I'm sure you wanted to eat breakfast. Sorry I got off track.” she replied.

“It's okay, but how do I eat this?” I said, pointing back to the plate of food. Twilight thought for a moment.

Twilight then demonstrated by simply bending her head down to her plate and taking a bite just with her mouth. Afterwords, using her magic, she took her cloth napkin and wiped off the crumbs and bits of berry flesh.

“I get the feeling that humans don't usually eat this way” she replied after clearing her throat.

“Although some foods are eaten with only hands, most Americans use silverware to eat food. But even then, there are exceptions to that.” I replied, shortly after swallowing a mouthful of pancakes myself. At that moment, I didn't care if I was eating directly from the plate, the hay surprisingly tasted delicious. I've once nibbled on hay when I was younger, for curiosity's sakes, but the flavor then was dull and flavorless. So I couldn't really compare the new taste to anything else.
“What is an American?” She asked, placing down her glass of apple juice.

“I come from the country of the United States of America. Or...USA for short. Or just US if you want to go even shorter than that.” I said, wanting to make sure there wasn't any confusion.

“Oh. The name of your home country.” she replied, writing it into her notebook.

“Speaking of which, has there been any progress on finding out what exactly happened that dragged everyone here?” I asked.

Twilight thought briefly for a moment until she could come up with something. “Sorry, the event that happened a week ago is still a mystery from what I've heard. I overheard some of the scientists claim that whatever happened left very little evidence that it ever happened. But that's just what I've unofficially heard.”

“A week? I've been here a week. To me, it only seemed like a day or so at least?” I replied, shocked at her answer.
“From what the doctors and nurses said, everypony from your world were not doing that well when you all came here. Your bodies were greatly dehydrated, undernourished, and under great stress from the transformation itself. I'm just glad that help from neighboring towns and cities came when they did.” she replied. I have no memory of feeling that weak before waking up. I guess they had me sedated pretty well.

“So what happens now?” I asked, examining my new body once again.

“Well, at the moment at least, there is no immediate way to send any of you to your home world or to your original forms. But from what I could get from Princess Celestia was that the only other alternative at the moment is integration. But that's worst case scenario of course.” Twilight said.

I spat out what little of the apple juice that was in my mouth. Since I no longer had hands and had no way to use magic at the moment, I was limited to using both my hooves to hold onto the glass. But even then, it was a challenge. Twilight could only grin at my unusual effort of setting the glass back down without spilling it.

After doing that, I wiped my mouth with my right foreleg, coughing what little juice that went down the wrong tube.
“Integration? You mean...being granted citizenship?” I asked, shocked at what I was hearing.

“Most likely. Princess Celestia says that she is trying to look into all possible options, but so far, I haven't heard anything new.” Twilight stated. Spike came over to collect the now empty dishes and even mopped up the mess that I had made. I thanked him as he walked to the kitchen.

The idea of becoming a citizen of a country that I knew very little about scared me. I could think of a number of scenarios that could play out where I say something that to me seemed harmless, but to them, it would be the equivalent of dropping an f-bomb on a young child. Or if there was something that is legal and normal in my home country that I did that is here considered illegal or immoral. As much as I warmed to the idea of being away from a country with a failing economy and political stagnation, the idea of now living under another country still made me nervous.

“Don't worry, I'm sure you'll do fine here.” Twilight reassured to me.

“That's easy for you to say. You've lived in Equestria your whole life. You know how to interact with everyone. You know how this culture works. I don't. I'm just afraid that I'll say something that's harmless to me, but to everyone here, would instead be profane and upsetting.” I said as calmly as possible, although I was failing miserably.

“And I'll let you know when you do.” Twilight answered, placing a hoof on my shoulder. I could only raise an eyebrow to that. After giving my situation more consideration, I sighed.

“Thanks Twilight. I really appreciate it.” I replied.

“Hey, what are friends for.” she replied sincerely.

Friend. It was a long while since I have heard anyone use that word at me. Back in high school, there was one friend that I had, but even then, we only really spoke at lunchtime. But since we both lived so far away, I could only spend so much time with him. After I graduated, I had no friends. All that I did was focus on my school work.

“Twilight?” I asked. No response.

I looked up to find that she was no longer in the room. Was I really that lost in thought?

As I was getting up from my sitting position, I accidentally leaned forward enough to bump into the table in front of me. If I hadn't caught it in time, the wooden unicorn head statue would have fallen down. After assuring that it could stand on it's own again, I got up again as carefully as I could. But as I did, the statue fell down before I could catch it.

This time, I backed up a bit first, then got up. It was going to take a while before getting used to this new body. It was still surreal that my body felt normal, the same feeling of normalcy as if nothing was different. But as I look at my body, and move with it, tells me a bit of a different story. Walking around is one thing, but doing anything else seemed like a chore to me. I know I've had my moments, but I was never been this clumsy before.

Just then, a bell rang. I turned to front door to find a violet, mare earth pony at the front door. I instantly recognized her as Ms. Cheerilee. However, since I didn't want to give myself away too quickly, I decided to pretend as though I didn't know her. Besides, I didn't know what her real name was anyways, and didn't want to confuse her if I did get it wrong.

“Hello. Is Twilight Sparkle in right now?” she asked. The voice was even spot on.

“She stepped out for the moment. I'm not sure when she'll be back.” I replied.

She reached over to her saddlebag and grabbed a book with her teeth. When I could get a good look at the book, I could see that it was called, “Tales of Humans: Myths and Legends.” She placed it on the table.

“I can hardly imagine what has happened this week. I'm having a hard time believing that the newcomers used to be another species. At first, I thought it was just a bad prank that somepony tried to pull. But when Princess Celestia made an official announcement about it, I wanted to know as much about Humans as ponily possible.” she said.

“Yeah, I know. I'm still wondering how it happened. Even from what little I know about it, I still can't make heads or tails on it.” I replied. The goal was to be honest, but not immediately give myself away.

“What do you know about it, mister...?” she asked.

As I struggled to come up with a pony name that fit me, she took that moment to examine me from a distance. Then her eyes widened.

“You were the first newcomer to be sent to the hospital. I remember them taking you there.” she stated, now nervous about my presence.

“Um...I-i...” I started nervously, but I just froze, not knowing what to do or say next. The last thing I wanted was the entire town to be scared of me.

We both just sat there waiting for the other to make a move. After a few moments of deafening silence, Ms. Cheerilee asked, “Are you okay?”

After quickly clearing my throat, I just replied as honestly as I could, “I think so. How about yourself?”

“Fine I guess. So...you're not going to eat me?” she asked.

I barely managed to stifle a laugh. “No. What gave you that idea?” I asked, eager for her response.

She pointed her hoof to the book that she was returning. Her lack of response told me to continue.

“While it's physically possible for humans to do, I've never seen anyone do that before. Where I'm from, that would be considered very strange to see. And besides which,” I began, letting reality sink in a bit more. “I'm a pony right now. If I were to eat meat right now, my stomach would be giving me fits and I would most likely throw it up fairly quickly.”

She gave a sigh of relief. She spent a few moments collecting herself and then looked at the book as if she just realized something. She walked over to the book and opened it with her hoof. Then, using her hoof in a similar fashion to how I would skim through pages in a book with one's hands, she continued to turn the pages until she stopped.

“Does this look like a human to you?” she asked pointing to an illustration. I walked over to the book and took a good look at what she wanted me to look at. It was what appeared to be an illustration of an evil-looking human holding a sword and armor, his left leg resting over a fallen pony soldier while giving out some sort of war cry.

“Er...mostly. But humans don't have sharp teeth like that.” I said. Then I thought to use my tongue to feel my teeth. Surprisingly, my teeth were nothing even close to how an equine from my world is. In matter of fact, the only difference between my old set of teeth and new set of teeth were my now lack of canines.

After explaining my former teeth to her, I continued to get a better look at the illustration. “The closest I've ever seen red eyes and skin that pale is from an albino. Also, humans don't have sharp claws. Instead, human nails are flat and rounded. 

So overall, this illustration is exaggerated to say the least,” I stated, moving from part to part. “I know that some humans might be as bad as him, but to compare this illustration to all of humanity would be a very inaccurate thing to assume.”
“Do you think that any of the other 'new arrivals' are bad?” Ms. Cheerilee asked, worried.

“I honestly don't know. I was rushed out of the hospital before I could find out, and even then, it was getting too late to ask any pony anyways. So at this point, I probably know as much as you do on that. But I hope that none of them are bad.” I replied, hoping that would satisfy her for now.

“What's your name?” she asked.

“Daniel Freeman. What's yours?” I asked. I could tell that she was still a bit worried, but at the same time, seemed to grow a little more confident of my presence.

“Ms. Cheerilee. I teach at the local school here in Ponyville.” she replied.

“It's very nice to meet you Ms. Cheerilee. Well, I know that it's been about a week since it happened, but anything happen while I was still asleep?” I asked. It was now my turn to ask questions.

“Well...nothing serious. The hospital has a lot of tents around it with the newcomers inside, and nopony has been allowed inside. The guards say that unless your a guard or a part of the medical staff, that nopony is allowed inside under any circumstance.” she said. I gave a small, exasperated sigh. So much for visiting them today.

“And what about the new houses?” I asked, realizing that I may not be able to see my parents right away.

“That's under guard too. From what I've been hearing lately, they are already done with the initial checking for anything dangerous and now the scientists are now examining it.” she said.

“I guess I'll have to wait around for a while before checking on how my parents are doing.” I stated.

“Your parents are here too?” She asked.

“At the hospital, yeah. I just want to make sure they are doing alright.” I replied. I had this image in my head of what my father could look like as a pony, with him cursing his head off left and right. The prospect of being on another world in another body, I couldn't even begin to imagine what his reaction would be, especially with talking, colorful, and magical ponies that would normally be seen in cute, girly shows. I just hoped that the calming stones could take the strain.

“That's nice to hear. Well, I have to be heading off now. I have homework to grade and a class to get ready for.” she said before getting up and heading to the front door.

Before opening the door, she turned back towards me and asked, “Will I see you around town?”

“Maybe. If not, then I'll probably be here.” I told her.

“It was nice meeting you.” she said right after opening the door with her hoof.

“It was nice meeting you too.” I replied, waving my hoof. With that she calmly left and closed the door right after her.
I thought that went well. At first, I was all too afraid that this would end up where my first encounter with the town would consider me the equivalent of Godzilla causing wanton destruction to their peaceful town. But instead, I just met someone, or should I say somepony, and we had a pleasant conversation. But I had to also had to bring myself back to reality. Since Ms. Cheerilee was able to recognize me fairly quickly, there was the chance that others might recognize me.

Shifting my focus on the table, which was still missing the horse head statue from it's top, I decided to try to get up again. Since I was now facing away from the table when I was talking to Ms. Cheerilee, I could get up without bumping the table again, although it took a while how to figure out how to actually get up. Funny how I can walk as naturally and comfortably without any kind of training or practice, but when it came to maneuvering my body or doing activities that requires the use of my new hooves, that's when it becomes hard and a learning experience at the same exact time.

After managing to get up, I walked over to the statue. I didn't want to get teeth marks all over it, so I had to try to pick it up with my front hooves. But that proved to be futile as I couldn't get that good of a grip on it and I kept falling forward. Soon after, I gave up on the effort to restore the statue to it's rightful place and instead decided to find where Twilight was.

“Twilight?” I called out. Nothing. After a brief investigation through the library, I couldn't find either her or Spike. They must have gone out. And with that, I heard the front door open. I walked to it only to find Twilight and Spike. Twilight had a creme colored saddle bag practically crammed full with books. On the side was a symbol I recognized. Looking to my own cutie mark, I verified whose saddle bag it was hopefully intended for. That was really nice of her.

“I could be wrong about this, but I don't remember you telling me that you were going out.” I said, as she put the apparently heavy saddle bag on the ground.

“I did too.” she protested, still catching her breath from carrying the bag.

“Uh Twilight? All you did was nudge him a little bit, and told him we were going out. I don't think that him making a small sound really counts as him responding back.” Spike corrected, as he walked over to the statue that I had knocked over and placed it back on the table.

After that, she turned and headed to the bathroom. Afterwords, she came back to the main room. By that time, I was already examining my new present. I still couldn't open it, but I could tell that she wasn't going cheap on me. But then again, I have perceived this society as one that makes everything from scratch. But even then, I could tell that this bag was well made. It wasn't made of canvas, but the cloth was thick and sturdy enough to last a good long while.

“Do you like your new present?” Twilight asked.

“Wow. Are all these all for me?” I asked, still trying to get the bag open.

“Yes. Do you remember when I said that I was studying humans?” she asked, looking as though she was about to trail into question she was nervous asking me about. I nodded to get her to continue.

“Well, I quickly realized that you are all ponies right now. The doctors did a DNA sample comparison between your people and Equestrian ponies, and found no real difference at all. They even went as far as saying that they could have been easily fooled into thinking you all were born as Equestrian Ponies.” she said.

“Okay. So what's your point?” I said, wanting to know what she wanted to say.

“Wait a minute. Aren't you shocked or scared about this? I know that crystal was supposed to keep you calm, but I don't remember bringing it back with me.” she said, confused at my response.

“I pretty much accepted my new reality when I ate breakfast this morning. Although I'd be lying if I were to say that the experience isn't nerve wrecking to me and wasn't creeping me out. Doing things that I normally do on a day-by-day now seems like a chore, and I'm still trying to get used to the idea of having no hands at all.” I said.

Twilight took a moment to think about what I said, then she smiled as though an idea just hit her. “Since I realize that I cannot study humans directly, my studies are limited right now.” she said.

“So what are you going to do?” I asked wanting her to continue on.

“Well, since both the new houses in Ponyville and most of the hospital are both closed off to the public, even to us, then the only other thing to do is for me to teach you how to live life as a unicorn. I know that the princesses are looking into all possibilities, but this would really help out with my studies a lot. So, what do you say?” she said, nervous but excited.

“Alright. When do we start?” I asked. With that, she was off like a rocket, Spike only steps behind, desperately trying to catch up with her.