//------------------------------// // "Arriving" in Ponyville // Story: Changing of lives // by wariyoshi //------------------------------// I suppose it all started the morning before I left this world. I woke up as tired as any teenager is on a school day, groggy, cranky, and extremely hungry. I went through the same routine every morning, take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, wait for my sister to get up, and almost show up to school late. I didn’t have many friends at school and to be honest, I didn’t want any. I despised any contact with other human beings, which most definitely included shallow teenagers like myself. I would go through the gruelingly boring school day every day and come back home exhausted, not unlike a majority of my peers. Having been raised by a strict mother for half of my life and being in a teenage military program that required complete obedience to superiors, fights between my parents and I were rare. I respected them as adults because quite frankly they showed maturity that exceeded a vast majority of the population. That being said, I was a gloomy little nerd that preferred to avoid all human contact and just sit in my room for hours on end. The only things I laughed at at that point were memes and gifs, sent to me by my few friends, and the show “My little pony: Friendship is magic,” a show intended for little girls that received a large following on the internet by people who called themselves “bronies” At first when I watched the show, I was practically a depressant because I knew how society looked at me, but eventually I mellowed out a bit and just stopped caring about what society thought. At that particular point in time I was either in school or in my room, much to my parent’s dismay. My mother continually sought to spend quality time with me, which obviously wasn’t too much to ask, but was blown completely out of proportion due to the hormones flaring within my body. That day was the first time my mother and I had actually gotten into a major fight, involving yelling and multiple profanities on my part. It was quite obviously about the amount of time I spent isolated from everyone who cared for me, and how I should have been grateful for such a good life. I most certainly was, as I was determined to serve in the military so that I might at least TRY to thank this country for having me. I don’t know why fought with her, but to be honest, I wish I hadn’t. Those were my last “real” memories of my past life before what happened. I went up to my room with my laptop and I slammed the door loudly and angrily. Although that was the bulk of the fight, I knew it was inevitable that my mother would come into my room and make me feel stupid for “making a fool of myself” in front of the rest of my family. Then she would take away the most important and coveted privilege of all; my computer. I shivered with fear at this thought, as my computer was the only thing that kept me from putting a gun between my teeth due to the amount of rage I had against society in general. But I had a solution, which would at least temporarily solve the problem. If I went to bed early, she would not disturb me, as it would be immature to wake someone up just to yell at them. Then, the next day, when the bulk of her rage had subsided, I could avoid punishment by sincerely apologizing to her for my actions. It most certainly wasn’t the noblest way out, but it would have saved me a week or two of complete boredom. I went to bed, angry from my decision, because I knew it would be difficult to accept defeat literally in the face of my “opponent” in a sense. I prayed that night that it would be easy to apologize and that I could just get on with the life I didn’t really have afterwards. I slipped off into sleep about an hour into my prayer/rant; not realizing this would be the last time I would sleep in my own bed. That night I had the strangest dream, the kind that you’d want to tell your friends, but you wouldn’t for the fear that they would think you were crazy. I dreamt that I was a pony running around ponyville, and that no one could hear me no matter how loud I screamed. I woke up in a haze in the early morning and thought to myself “My god, let’s hope I don’t have THAT kind of dream again” I sat up for a second, blinking slowly and thinking about what my dream meant, when I felt a cold breeze chillingly slip past my arms. I shivered for a moment, and then I realized that I had probably left the windows open again. I turned to jump off of my bunk bed only to discover that I was on the ground. My next observation was that I was in the grass, in a forest. I was still in the hazy state of being asleep and awake, when I thought to myself “Oh, it’s a forest…I had better go put some pants on then” I stood up and then realized I was in a FUCKING FOREST. My eyes widened as I realized this was not at all normal. I spun around in a circle for a few times until it sunk into my brain that I was alone, in my boxers, in a forest. My first thought was that my mother had abandoned me out here for my behavior, and that I was being punished. That thought swiftly left me when I realized I was bigger than her, and it would be relatively difficult to carry me all the way to the nearest forest, a few miles away, without waking me up. I sighed loudly, and decided that the only way to find out what was going on was to get out of the forest. I walked down the chilly path in my boxers and thought to myself “Life sucks” I walked for roughly two or three hours in the forest, starving because I had passed up my usual breakfast time. I deduced from the angle of the sun that it was probably about eight in the morning, and that I could probably get out of my first three morning classes if I played my cards right. I walked through the forest until I saw an open field, along with a little cottage off in the distance. I was incredibly hungry by now and I just wanted to get a decent breakfast before I got to school. I ran up to the cottage and knocked on the door. At that moment I realized that I hadn’t come up with a plan to explain myself to the person who showed up at the door. I didn’t know what they’d think about a 16 year old standing in his boxers at their door, but I didn’t care at this point. I waited for a few minutes before I realized that nobody was home. I sighed as I realized whoever it was was probably at work by now. I turned around and walked on a pathway to what looked like a town of some sort. I heard some humming and looked around to see who was humming. I eventually found the source, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Fluttershy? The pony from the show? I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out. I was in total shock when she looked over and saw me. She dropped her watering can and curiously said “A gorilla? What are you doing here?” A little insulted, as I would classify myself as ‘lanky,’ if anything, I responded “Err I’m not a gorilla, Fluttershy” Her eyes expanded drastically, and I had realized my mistake. “A talking, psychic gorilla???” Fluttershy shrieked in disbelief. I nervously tried to calm her down and said “Err, no I’m not a gorilla and I’m not psychic and I’m not talking” I didn’t realize I told her that I wasn’t talking and I think I made her seriously question her sanity for a second or two. I should have explained myself but what’s to explain? ‘Hello, I’m an alien from a different world. Bring me to your leader.’ I decided to just end the conversation there and I asked her where Twilight Sparkle was. “Twilight Sparkle?” she curiously asked me, still in a state of shock. I sighed and realized that this may have been months before Twilight even arrived here. I decided to just leave before I embarrassed myself further. I walked off to town and I saw a golden chariot flying through the air containing two purple objects in it. “That must be Twilight and Spike!” I exclaimed aloud as I started running towards Ponyville. I arrived in the town, panting and I casually walked through the streets looking for Twilight. If anybody could solve my problem, it was her. Slowly, I realized that I should have just explained myself to Fluttershy, so that she could explain my situation to the rest of Ponyville. Ponies were shocked at a strange creature walking on two legs strolling around Ponyville. At first I chuckled a little at how silly all the ponies looked, but then I felt embarrassed because I probably looked EXTREMELY silly compared to everyone else. I came to the center of town and realized that Twilight had probably already left by now. I needed to find her so that she could fix me and so that I could return back to my world as a human. I wandered around town for a bit and asked directions from semi-frightened townsfolk, until I came across the famously infamous Derpy Hooves. My first thoughts were “My god, one day she will start a LOT of controversy in the pony community” I was a little scared to confront her and so I just silently debated about it. I ran multiple scenarios in my head (One of which being that the town would suddenly implode in an inter-dimensional rift of time and space), when I heard “Hi there!” I jumped at the semi-high pitched voice and I turned to my right to see Derpy standing there, one eye looking at me. “Oh, um, hey there Derpy” I said as I internally face-palmed. “You look funny! Who are you?” She said cheerfully with her head slightly tilted. If it were most other ponies I probably would have told them they looked funny to me, but this was DERPY. I couldn’t even fathom being rude to her of all people. “Oh, uh, my name? Erm, right, my name is…” I stuttered as I realized that she might not like my real name. I decided to just go with the screen name I used for my accounts on various websites. “My name’s Wari! Er, Wari Yoshi!” I said with a smile. She seemed curious about me, and she said “Wari? That’s a silly name” I didn’t know where to take the conversation from there and then my thoughts went back to the task at hand, finding Twilight. I thought about where Twilight might be at this time, then I remembered; she would go to talk to Rainbow Dash to see how the weather was going. “Hey, Derpy, you’re a Pegasus, right? Can you show me where Rainbow Dash is?” I said after a long, awkward pause. “Rainbow Dash? SURE! She was in my class during junior flight school! I fell down a lot, but I got better!” She said cheerfully as she trotted away. It took me a second to register what she said until I realized that I had to follow her. We walked a long ways and I made the mistake of bringing up muffins in our conversation. On the next half of the way to Rainbow Dash, I heard the complete history of muffins, how to bake muffins, exotic kinds of muffins, and what percentage of particles in muffins were protons in a ratio compared to neutrons and electrons. My head was spinning the end of it and I began to wonder if Derpy was as dumb as the show and fanfics online made her out to be. I also wondered about my sanity; as I had just spent the last 20 minutes listening to a small, light blue pegasus talk about muffins. We had finally arrived at the cloud Dash was sleeping on when Derpy said “Wait right here!” She then flew up and bounced on Rainbow multiple times until she woke up. “Ow, OW! Stop it Derpy, get off me!” I heard from beyond the white cloud. “You have a visitor!” Derpy exclaimed cheerfully. The grumpy pony sighed and peered over the edge of the cloud, only to see me standing there. She was as shocked as every other pony was (Except Derpy, who completely accepted that I was an otherworldly being looking for a specific pony for unspecified reasons), and asked what I was. I had no time to explain everything that had happened so I just asked her where Fluttershy was. She pointed Derpy and I in the right direction and we started walking. Rainbow Dash probably thought she was still dreaming, so she didn’t pay me much mind at all, and she went back to sleep. Derpy and I walked as I listened to a one-sided conversation about “the muffin vote,” as she called it, in politics, until I saw the distinct tree Fluttershy used to practice the bird orchestra on. I had unfortunately forgotten that Fluttershy went with Twilight to the party, and I sighed loudly. “What’s the matter?” Derpy curiously said. “Oh, erm, we have to go to the library, do you know which way it is?” I said a little angrily due to the fact that I knew I would hear about muffins for the next half hour or so to come. “Erm…no…” She said as her ears flopped down in disappointment. I decided to pick a direction and walk in it, hoping that it was the right one to the library. As I saw civilization and the library off in the distance (Listening to an informative speech about the seriousness of sterilizing your tools before you bake muffins for fear of getting the “Muffin simplex virus”), I could hear the faint beat of party music. I asked myself if I really wanted to go home, because after all, this society was peaceful and safe for all. My question was quickly answered as Derpy annoyingly started explaining the elaborate “Muffdratic equation” to calculate a muffin’s potential on the market. I could hear the distinct chatter of extroverts and the beat of pony dubstep, no doubt being played by Vinyl Scratch, when I arrived at the door. I hesitated for a second, and then listened to Derpy’s lecture of the grammatical usage of “muffins” in sentences. After an earful of that, I sighed, and then opened the door. As I walked in the party I remembered that one song about apple bottom jeans and boots with fur, and how everyone in the party was looking at her. A slight grin appeared on my face because of remembering that song, until I realized the irony of it all as literally everyone in the library stopped and looked at me. The only sound that could be heard was the music (And Derpy continuing her lecture), but nobody was dancing to it or singing at all. Everybody stopped DEAD in their tracks and stared at me. I asked myself why I hadn’t planned for this, as it shouldn’t have been a surprise at that point. After all, pretty much everypony I met had the same reaction to me. I awkwardly said “H-hello, er, ponies! I’m here to visit my good friend Twilight! I hope I’m not interrupting anything!” I put on a fake grin and casually walked towards the staircase. I walked up the steps with everypony’s eyes still fixed on me. Before I could get up the staircase, I heard “Wait a second! I’ve never met you, and I’ve been with Twilight my whole life!” It was Spike, and he seemed concerned for Twilight’s safety. “Oh, well Spi- I mean baby dragon whom I’ve never met before, I knew her since she was extreeemely little. In fact, it may have been before you were born! Er, I mean hatched!” I said with a fake grin on my face. After a long, awkward pause I took another step without looking and fell off the staircase. I face-planted RIGHT into the snack table. I lost consciousness after that. When I awoke everypony was gone, and I was alone. Nopony had bothered to take me off of the snack table, and I wondered where exactly everypony went. I heard evil laughter off in the distance and I saw a black cloud leave some sort of stadium. “God dammit” I said under my breath “This is the whole fucking Nightmare Moon story all over again!” I kicked the wall angrily, and then I held my toe and muttered random expletives. I decided to just wait here until Twilight showed up. I decided I would help her with this whole “Nightmare Moon” bollocks before she helped me with my whole “Getting home” stuff. I heard the clop of hooves and I realized that somepony was coming towards the door. It was Twilight. She was as shocked to see me as I was relieved to see her. “Oh Twilight, I’ve been looking all OVER for you” I said with a sigh of relief. She gasped and bucked the highest point of my body she could reach, my groin. I fell down in pain and shouted angrily “OH MY GOD, IN WHAT WORLD WOULD THAT BE OKAY TO DO!?” She seemed a bit startled and she said “Are…you working with Nightmare Moon?” This angered me more as I said “Of COURSE I’m not working with Nightmare Moon, I’m here to help you get RID of her you ungrateful…GAH!!!” She showed sympathy as I shakily got up. Just then, the rest of the gang arrived, and demanded to know what was going on. “What in the HAY is goin’ on here!? Who’s this feller’!?” Applejack inquired. I was about to tell them the outcome of the plot, but then I realized that if they knew what would happen, Twilight wouldn’t learn about friendship and such and wouldn’t be able to use the elements of harmony to defeat Nightmare Moon. So I just said “Nevermind, you ponies go find the elements of harmony in the Everfree forest. No time to explain, just GO!!!” They didn’t argue, they just did as I asked and went into the forest. Spike and I stayed back and struck up a conversation. When the five got back triumphantly, I realized that I probably should have gone with in order to talk to Princess Celestia. I sighed and realized that I had to explain myself to the ponies. I took a deep breath and told them everything about my world, what happened, and how I knew what was going on. They didn’t know what television or computers were, so I told them it was like a crystal ball. That solidified the belief that I was in fact a psychic gorilla. I tried to explain I wasn’t at all psychic but then I decided to just roll with it. I at least got it through their heads that I wasn’t a gorilla, but a kind of animal from the same family, a human. I asked Twilight if she knew what to do, but she shook her head. She told me she would need to research this, as it defies time and space. Time and space…time and space…time and space…those two words kept wandering through my head. I was mid-sentence describing Earth and how ponies can’t talk on our planet (That bit shocked them all quite a bit), when I realized that somepony here MIGHT be able to help me! Somepony who has been experiencing the same things I have! And that pony was the doctor, Doctor Whooves.