Chapter 6: Not really a Choice
As you turn another page and start reading, you notice that the hoofwriting has changed dramatically. It's almost impossible to decipher the scribble that goes all over the page in big, smeared letters. Only on the following pages does it slowly but steadily become readable and finally as neat and clean as it used to again.
I could write there was blackness all around me, but that would be a ludicrously inadequate description. There was just nothing, a so profound absence of anything, that space and time only seemed to be a distant memory. This nothingness included myself. I had no perception of my body, I had no concept of my own self. All that was left was pure consciousness, my spirit, my soul if you will call it so.
There was no way to tell how long this dark oblivion lasted. Worlds could have been born and died and be born again in the meantime, or it could have lasted only a heartbeat.
But I do know that it ended at last, when Twilight Sparkle appeared before me. Not in the form of something physical, not ever curious eyes, not her face or voice; what appeared before me was what Twilight Sparkle was, the pure essence of her being.
“The Elements have weighed your soul, Hela Regian Mortium.” There was no voice that spoke those words, no amulet that botched up the translation, just the very meaning of her words conveyed to my very soul. “We have weighed you against harmony, and we have found you lacking!”
Her presence vanished and that of Applejack appeared before me. “You cheat and lie whenever it serves your purpose, there is not a grain of honesty in you.”
She too disappear and made room for Fluttershy. “You have no respect for any living creature, you maim and kill anything and anyone without remorse whenever you want. There is no kindness in your heart.”
Next up was Rarity. “You have never ever given something freely without calculating what you would get in return. You only ever think of your own benefit, you are a vain and petty woman.”
Rainbow Dash crashed into my consciousness like a storm. “Your only loyalty lies with yourself. You would murder those who call you friend if it served your goals. You know no friends, only people who don't want to kill you.”
“And you didn't eat the cake!” Of course it was Pinkie who broke out of the line. I had the feeling of the other Elements giving her stern looks. “What? What did you expect me to say? Alright, I'll try again.” I perceived something that must have been the mental equivalent of someone dramatically clearing her throat. “You are no fun lady!” And after that there was a metaphysical slapping of faces.
“But we can see that you are capable of all those things you consider as weakness.” At the end it was Twilight again to speak for all of them. “And since we are not without mercy, we decided to give you a second chance.” Her presence and that of the rest began to vanish from my perception. “Use it wisely Hela Regina Mortium.” The last words were but a whisper. “It will be your last.”
.oOo.
I woke with a start, and the world came back, crushing down on me with way too much light, way to much sound, way too much stink and way too much backache from sleeping in the wrong position. I let myself sink back into my pillow and raised my right hand to rub my face. But instead I was smacked in the eye by a heavy slab. Or rather I smacked myself in the eye with a slab, for I could feel myself touching something with my hand.
No, hand was the wrong word.
As my eyes slowly gained focus, I saw an almost black furred leg, with a blue shine to it and a hoof at its end, stretch out in front of me. I quickly lifted my other hand, to be greeted by a bleached skeletal leg with another hoof at its end.
I groaned and let my limbs fall back onto the bed. My sight was immediately interrupted again by the face of Twilight Sparkle. She had a look on her face I could not place. Relieved? Guilty? A mixture of both? She said something, but all I heard was the horsy gibberish the ponies called a language.
I sighed and looked around myself. All of my clothes were stacked on a nightstand next to my bed, my translation amulet among them. I thought about putting it around my neck, and so it did. Actually it was engulfed in a green aura and just floated onto me, but my mind was too busy with a more pressing matter to pay any attention to that small detail.
I gave Twilight a stern look. “Why I'm I a pony?” The words came out as incomprehensible mumbling; courtesy of my new stupid pony mouth, with flat, stupid, useless teeth, stupid lips and stupid tongue. Twilight could understand me anyway, which at least told me something about the amulet I had been wondering about; it translated what I wanted to say, the thoughts, not the actual sounds.
“Oh, I'm so sorry, I just don't know what went wrong. Instead of curing your arm, the Elements turned you into a pony. Even the princesses don't know why that happened. I'm so sorry.”
I had to force myself not to scream at her. “It's alright, I was once shrunk down to the size of a mouse and had to battle my way through hungry cats. This is no stranger than this.” But the instant I had said that I knew it to be a lie. “At least not by much. Just turn me back now, and everything will be fine!”
Twilight Sparkle didn't reply right away, she just looked down onto her hooves, averting my gaze. I felt the edge of a panic coming on. “You can turn me be back, right? Just use the Elements again and make them do what you want this time.”
She slowly shook her head. “We already tried that when you were still unconscious. I researched every spell and magic I know of, but not even the princesses know how to undo this magic, I'm sorry. . .” I stared at her wide eyed, unable to say anything, unable to think anything, but I felt a murderous rage beginning to burn in me. “. . . but there is now way turn you back; you will have to stay a pony.”
“Mirror!” I forced myself upright in the bed and almost hit her face, when she didn't jump at my demand right away. “Mirror!” Twilight rushed out of the room and came back moments later, bearing a handheld mirror in her telekinesis. I yanked it out of her grip and held it in front of my face; again it was engulfed in a green aura, again I payed that no heed.
Looking back at me from the mirror was an angry unicorn. Her big eyes had the same green color as mine, her coat was the color of my hair, while her long flowing hair was of my favorite color; a dark and vibrant blue. She was way too skinny to look healthy and had a pronounced snout not unlike the princesses or those model, whose pictures Rarity had shown me. I had to cackle at that thought; in a way I still had those classical, noble features I had been proud of.
But the crazy merriment vanished as fast as it had come. I let myself fall back into the bed. The mirror slipped from my grip, fell to the flour and shattered. I didn't care. I didn't care about anything.
Twilight's face once again came into my field of vision, pouting anxiously. She opened her mouth to say something, but I cut her short. “Out!” She hesitated, didn't leave right away. “Out, now! Leave me alone!”
And so she did.
.oOo.
When I met Twilight Sparkle again, I was watching the night sky from a platform on the highest tower of the castle. She approached me from behind with careful steps, but kept her distance as not to startle me. I may have been leaning over the railing quite a bit.
“I have been wondering,” I said without turning around. “Can your newly born children stand on their legs and walk right away?”
She took a few moments, before she answered. “They can.”
“And can unicorns cast spells at that age?”
“Yes they do, and winged ponies can fly, though they lose those abilities once they learn talking.”
I nodded. “Just what I thought. You see, I woke up about an hour ago, and I was no longer in my room but up here; I had been sleepwalking. But as soon as I woke up and contemplated what I was doing, I stumbled and fell. I couldn't even stand on this four stupid legs. But know what? As soon as I stopped thinking about what I was doing, I managed to stand up and walk around. Took me only about half an hour to get used to it.
“It's different with the spell casting though. I remember I had been doing it right after I woke up earlier, but now I can't levitate anything, no matter how much or how little I think about it.”
I heard her taking a careful step forward. “Sapphire? What are you doing up here?”
“I'm waging my options Twilight Sparkle, I'm waging my options.” I looked down, saw the rest of the palace and the sleeping city of Canterlot spread beneath me. Falling from this height would kill me outright, even if I were unlucky enough to land feet first, my head would still be smashed on the ground before I'd notice the pain.
“You see, as far as I'm concerned, I have two options. On the one hand, I could jump. . .”
“Don't!”
“. . . and die. But I'm not sure what would happen afterward. Would Thargunitoth, or some other immortal from my world come and take my soul and do with it, whatever it is the gods do with the souls they gather, or, since I'm a pony in this world now, would I be reborn like you people believe. A blank slate, a new start. Maybe this time around my parents won't sell me to a bunch of horny old men and their stupid magic circle so they can feed their other five children.”
I turned halfway around and finally looked at Twilight; I saw fear in her eyes, guilt, hope. I had no idea why she would care about my fate, why anyone would, yet here she was, trying to save my worthless life. “One the other hand I could come with you and live the rest of my life as the only human ever turned into a pony; live the rest of my life alone in this world where friendship and harmony seems to be a religion, become resentful and bitter and then die anyway.”
Twilight took another step forward and reached her hoof towards me. “Please, we can do this together. I can show you around, teach you how this world works, how to be a pony. You could even stay at my place if you want to. And you won't ever have to be alone, I promise!”
I looked up to the sky again. “So I can choose between death and an uncertain future, or life and a bunch promises. Oh well.” I looked back at her. “That's not really that hard a choice, is it? And I really do like to live. But!” I looked back up again. “I just spotted your rainbow friend hiding in a cloud, waiting to swoop in and save the day.” A wide grin spread on my face. “And we don't want to disappoint her, do we?”
And with that I jumped.
.oOo.
I have to say, of all the irrational, rash decisions I have made in my life, that jump had been among the rashest. Not only did it take about an hour and Twilight to convince Rainbow Dash, the palace guards and medici, that I was no danger to myself and had indeed known that the winged pony would catch me, but Rainbow was also convinced afterward that she was no longer in my debt.
I will admit that getting carried in her strong hooves and flying through the air at impossible speed had been an exhilarating experience. Furthermore I came to the conclusion that the winged ponies use their inborn magic for locomotion, namely flying. It is all but impossible that a creature could fly, and fly that fast, with such a tiny wingspan. I wonder how earth ponies use their magic.
I took Twilight up on her offer and went back to Ponyville with her the next morning. The princesses had offered me stay at the palace too, but I was happy to put some distance between me and the immortals.
The unicorn was eager to teach me anything I'd ever want to know about ponies, but after a brief show around town, all that I was interested in was learning the levitation spell every unicorn seemed to know, to make up for my lost hands.
We started lessons on the day after we came back, immediately after breakfast. We went up to her solar for the lessons, while Spike remained downstairs to address the library and any visitors, so we wouldn't be disrupted.
We were seated on her bed, the curtains were drawn, the room only dimly lit; everything to make me comfortably and make it easier for me to focus on the arcane flows. A purple ball was sitting between us as an exercise target.
“Alright, since you are experienced with casting spells, I think you will know the very basics of tapping your magic energies and focusing them throughout your body.” I nodded. “Good, than I think this shouldn't take long at all; for you know, levitation is not so much a real spell as an inborn ability every unicorn has, a form free use of arcane power.
“Let me explain the process step by step. First you have to tap into your arcane reserve and draw as much power as you need to move the object. Then focus this power in your horn. Now you have to visualize the object you want to move and the way you want it to move,
and. . .” Her horn glowed, a magic aura engulfed the ball and it rose from the ground. “It will move the way you expected it to.”
She lowered the ball onto the bed again, and let go of it. “Here, you try, I'll guide your through every step.”
“Tap into you arcane energies, visualize it if you have to; imagine a bright ball of light within yourself.” I didn't really have to use visualization for that anymore, using magic was as natural to me as breathing, but I closed my eyes and did as she told me anyway to be on the save side. “Now imagine a single ray of light coming from that ball.”
“This is easy.”
“Take that light, and guide it through your body and into your horn.”
I frowned. “There might be a problem with that.” I guided the arcane flow into my hands, as I was used to, and they dissipated in colorful sparks of light coming from my fore hooves. I looked up to see Twilight blink at my hooves in confusion. “My astral body is still that of a human, it doesn't have a horn!”
“Huh, I hadn't thought about that, but yes! Of course it is. You know what that means.”
I sighed, Twilight beamed and clapped her hooves, and both of us spoke at the same time: “Yoga lessons / full body tickling.”
We looked at each other in surprise. “Let's do whatever you said!” I said before she could ask me about the method I had mentioned. I should have known there was an alternative for a young girl to get an astral image of her body, that didn't require her being tickled by a wrinkled old man with a goose feather!
I knew the word yoga from my studies of Tulamydian magic, but I didn't have a concept of what it actually was. It turned out to be a combination of contorting one's body into positions it was not meant to assume, and meditating on how uncomfortable that made you feel.
Or that's what it was like for me; I think I did it wrong. But it did serve its purpose. After a long day of self torture, I had somehow gotten used to have a pony's body, and had formed a workable astral self image of it.
We were once again sitting on the bed, the ball between us. By now night had fallen, and with it came the familiar ease I had at magic during nighttime. It was almost dark in the room, the only light source was the silvery glow from the moon shining through the window.
“Okay now, just as we practiced. Focus on your astral energies.” I took the tiniest bit of my arcane reserves. “Channel it through your body, and into your horn.” I imagined it flowing from the center of my being, and into the unfamiliar new appendage, concentrating it at the very tip. “Very good!” Even through my closed eyes I could see a light coming from my horn. “No, focus on the ball, imagine it in your mind's eye, visualize how you want to move it. Now, release the magic.”
In my minds eye the ball floated between me and Twilight, rotating around itself. But when I opened my eyes, it only wiggled a bit on the mattress.
“You did it!” Twilight smiled, and applauded, but I was not satisfied.
“I think I can do better, let me try again. This time with a bit more power.” I skipped the visualization of my astral source part and just focused on gathering some in my horn, once again I imagined the ball floating between us, spinning around itself.
I released the energy, and indeed the ball rose. It hovered between us and began to spin slowly. But then it was distorted in the green aura of my magic, and finally torn apart. It burst with a loud bang.
I laughed sheepishly. “I think that went pretty well, what do you think?”
Twilight levitated a shred of the torn ball from her nose with a somewhat unreadable expression and tossed it into a trashcan. “I think we need a sturdier ball.”
.oOo.
I spend a few more days at the Library, until I had mastered levitation to a point, where I could manipulate a single object almost as well as I used to with my hands, and knew the basics of levitating multiple objects, then I moved out.
I couldn't help but pick up a few particularities about pony culture along the way, the most interesting being weather management. I saw it myself on a very snowy day. Suddenly all of the winged ponies in town gathered under Rainbow Dash's supervision and cleared the sky by simply pushing the clouds out of the way.
I was of course very astonished by this discovery and had Twilight explain everything to me. It is some of the inborn magic ability of a winged pony. They can manipulate clouds with their hooves, even stand on them as if they were solid objects. Furthermore they can generate wind simply by flying fast in the direction they want it to blow.
With this they make the weather all across the land. There is nothing random to it, and no angry gods they have to appease so they won't ruin their corps. It's all efficiently planned and organized beforehand according to a schedule worked out to maximize plant growth and population's comfort. Knowing a week ahead when you would have a nice overcast day to go out, simply by looking at a schedule, was an unusual experience, but one I wouldn’t ever want to live without again.
So I could go out on nice overcast days, I had Rarity make some new clothes for me; not only for warmth, but mostly to hide my disfigurement. So to a pair, no make that two pairs, a quadruple, of white boots, I wore long, black socks all the way to my shoulders and hips under my new white cloak. I would have worn only one -over my skeletal limb- but Rarity said that this would only draw attention to it. And of course she was right, so I never left the house with less than four socks.
I moved from the library to a small house a bit outside of the village, at the edge of what they called the Everfree Forest. The place was generally shunned by ponies, because they were afraid of the way nature behaved there. As they told me it was completely unnatural; animals cared for themselves, clouds moved, all on their own. Living near it made me feel a little more at home.
The proximity to the Everfree, and the great unkempt hedge around my new resident's proper, meant that I only got view visitors. And that was just what I needed, for I had work to do, and I didn't want to be interrupted. For now the crown granted me an allowance for my rent and other expenses, but I hated being dependable and in dept to anyone. I had already come up with a plan to make money of my own, enough to pay back what I had been given and more. And for that plan, I needed some time to work uninterrupted.
There was one pony however who just wouldn't let me be alone. I think Twilight had kept her at bay, while I still stayed at her place. But once I had moved, the pink menace came upon me. So far I had barely avoided four “Welcome to Ponyville” parties, one Pinkie had set up in my own house, while I was asleep. I put triple deadlocks on my door after that.
I guess it was her useless special talent of making people around her smile, that drove her to wanting to make me feel welcome, and shower me with -what she probably thought were cheerful- surprises.
I was walking home from buying some groceries at the market, when she ambushed me. As I entered my front yard through a gap in the thick hedge -where at one time a gate must have been-, I heard a bang and was suddenly showered in colorful sprinkles and blinded by garish decorations, that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere all over the place. Pinkie Pie jumped out of a cake and blew a party whistle into my face. “Surprise!”
It was the fifth time she had thrown me a welcome party; this time no pony, she had invited, had come; it was just me and her. The silence after she had blown the whistle was almost touchable.
I shook my head to clear sprinkles from my hair that had stuck there. “Pinkie, what are you doing here?”
“Duh, this is your Welcome to Ponyville Party! It will be a blast, there are drinks, and cake and games, and music. . .” I shoved a hoof into her mouth to shut her up.
“I told you before, I don't want a party! I don't want to make friends to anyone, I don't want to dance, I don't eat cake and I don't drink!” Though I have to admit, that drinking myself senseless had seemed like a great idea after I had become a pony. But the fact that I couldn't lift a bottle without holding it in my mouth had kept me from indulging in that idea.
I let go of the meddling pony and started to move around her to my house; she followed me, bouncing at my side.
“But you always look so gloom, like you are really lonely and could use a good friend, and hugs, and cake. Please, I just want to make you smile.”
I stopped in my tracks and turned to face her, leaning forward, almost thrusting my horned forehead into her face. “Now listen to me, and listen carefully! I was ripped from my world and thrust into this madness you call your home. Everyone I knew is either dead, or I won't ever see them again, because I can't ever return to my world.
“And you know why I can't? Because your stupid Elements of Harmony turned me into a stupid pony! Even if I were to find a way home, I wouldn't have much fun being there. They would view me as a curiosity, catch me and put me in a cage. Some rich bastard would buy me for a ridiculous sum, so he could look at me and parade me in front of his friends for their amusement. But that would grow old sooner or later, and then they will seek new ways for me to entertain them.”
I had talked myself into a rage. Pinkie tried to get away from me, but I followed, driving her back step by step. “They will take turns raping me! Every one of them, and they will have animals mount me for their entertainment. Then they will try to breed me. But that won't work, and once they grow tired of me, they will skin me alive, cook me and serve me for dinner.”
I had forced her all the way back to the hedge, she sat on her backside, looking up at me in horror. I absentminded noticed that I was about half a head taller than her; that meant I was still a bit taller than the average woman, so no change there from my natural form.
“But they will not stop once I'm dead, oh no! My bones will be sold to the highest bidding necromancer, and he will raise me as his undead thrall, to parade me before his circle. The rarest undead specimen in the entire world, the only undead unicorn pony in all of Dere. And you know what worst of all of that is?”
By now she was a shivering pile of misery, cowering on the ground; I think her mane had visibly lost some of its absurd curly volume. “With the curse still on me, I don't even know if I would die from all of that, or be conscious throughout, my soul forever bound to this damned decaying shell!”
After this outbreak it took me several deep breaths to calm down. Pinky was still cowering before me. I gently touched her quivering forelegs, she hid her head under; I stroked them, coaxed her to show me her face. When she did, I put a hoof under her chin and forced her to look up into my eyes. “So you see, I have all reason to be gloomy. Now be a good pony and stop bothering me. I promise I will smile once you are gone.”
“OK” she sobbed and dragged herself out of my yard. And don't you know, I really did smile when I saw her crawl away.
After that there were no more surprise parties for me. But I don't think she ever gave up; she just changed her approach. I had the strange feeling that someone was working in the background, doing her best to explain my eccentricities to the peasants, doing her best to make me feel welcome in a town I don't think has any reason to welcome me.