Equestrian Life

by StapleCactus

In which our tale begins anew

“Ugh, blasted sun…”

The sun was my most hated enemy in the mornings, what with its rays having the strength to penetrate eyelids and dreamscapes alike, ruining my latest attempt at a world-record sleep marathon. But as my mind cleared, I began to wonder why it seemed so particularly vengeful this time.

The fan isn’t working, I thought as I rolled over to blind myself of that most hated of fires. Did the power go out? Eh, if I just lay here long enough—

My leg fell out of my cocoon, letting me feel the breeze that shouldn’t be and blades of grass that definitely shouldn’t be my bed. I’ve dealt with ice-water splashing on me before, but this was a new experience altogether.

Why would someone put grass on my bed? On second thought, where’s the bounce and springs? And where is that wind coming from?!

There was nothing to it. I had to wake up to get answers, which only made me irritated. Everyone knows sleep is better than reality, that dreams are where everything is made interesting and fun, and that reality is nothing but a bleak reminder of what you will never have.

So I hated life. Sue me.*

Okay, now I’m getting up.

Aaany minute now…

Answers… a-hoy!

Okay, okay, I see how it is, Body. Listen just this one time, and I will feed you a salad. Does that sound good? Of course it does; I know you hate my Cheez-It binges. Now let’s do this!

With all the energy of a sloth (which I know has more energy than expected, but just go with me on this) I rolled onto my back and lurched into a seated position with my hand as a visor. My retinae screamed bloody murder all the same, however, so I opened my eyes only the barest amount to see.

It was times like this I am reminded I am blind. Okay, not literally blind, but I need glasses like people need their cell phones, which is to say “all the time in order to do anything.” All I could see was a haze of color.

There were no walls, so I wasn’t in my room. There was no bed, so the grass was actually telling me I was sleeping on the ground. At some point in the distance, the green ground blurred into a blue sky, so I didn’t have a floor or a roof. I could kinda-sorta make out a tree near me, but that was all the detail I had. In short, I was in a field somewhere at some time and I wasn’t fond of that.

Where the hell am I?!

Really not fond of it. Like, there were a lot more expletives in that thought than I care to relay. Needless to say, I had a small bout of internal screaming before I realized, just maybe, I should do something about the situation.

So I pulled up my big boy pants and stood. Said pants was actually the comforter I was cocooned within, as I didn’t have anything on but a pair of boxers. I tried looking for my glasses, but as I normally sit them on my nightstand, and said nightstand was nonexistent, it was a futile effort.

Step one, situation report. I’ve been torn from my home and left with nothing. Whoever did this didn’t have the decency of leaving me clothes, so I’m limited to my boxers, a comforter, and… a pillow… for whatever good that will do me. I crouched down to retrieve the pillow, internally playing the Zelda item collection theme song thing. I’m in a field, which my farm surrounds, so I could easily be within walking distance of home. Now, just how far away is that?

Using the extra three feet of height to see, I spotted a cluster of dark green which I could only mark as a forest and some...thing in the opposite direction. With bare feet and legal blindness, I marked the treeline off the list of options and took my first steps towards the something.

Grasses turned into bare dirt after only a couple steps and continued along my heading. I assumed it to be a path of some sort, possibly formed by animals, as I felt no gravel or exposed rocks. Good thing something is going my way. This road would be hell on my feet otherwise, I thought, not trusting the next step to be pain-free and glad for being wrong again and again.

Every second brought the object closer, clearer, but left me with a growing headache from straining my eyes. In time, it morphed into a town, one from the 1600s, with what looked like thatched roofs and exposed framework on white walls. Some of them had different colors on them, though, but that was nothing to the hunched blobs milling about the buildings.

Step two, fact check observations. Towns look absolutely, positively nothing like what I’m seeing. Whatever those blobs are, humans don’t slouch that much… even in Detroit, I’m sure. There’s a distinct lack of vehicles as well. Where the hell am I?

Someone spotted me, or at least made a motion that might have sorta been construed as spotting me, and started coming closer. I stood and waited, squinting as much as I could to recognize him or her before it was too late to react. It definitely wasn’t human, though, and surprisingly pink.

My mind went to the first place it could. Oh god, don't tell me. I must be hallucinating, or in a coma, or... or something. There's NO way I’m here.

The creature came close enough for me to get a basic idea of shape and sat down, tilting its head in confusion as I turned my squint all the way to eleven. It was pony-shaped, but not like a normal pony. No, I knew that shape.

“Hi!” It paused, waiting for a response. When I didn’t answer, its ears folded over. “W-what are you?” it asked, and I knew it instantly as the perky, although slightly more cautious than I remember, voice of Pinkie Pie.

The impulse was too strong. I couldn’t fight it this time. I knew it was a cliche, but it was too apt a time. My left hand settled itself over my face, feeling right at home as it made its own impression of the facehuggers of Half-Life.

I’m in Equestria.

If the universe let me, I would continue to stand there in my quilt, shaking my head at the insanity of it all. As it was, I peeked through my fingers to see Pinkie waiting patiently. Almost… too patiently…

Ah! Right, answers, she wants those. I lifted my hand off my face, though I’m sure it would have loved to stay there. “Uh… call me… Dex? Yeah, Dex! I’m a human… and I… just… Could you give me a moment?” I let the hand do as it pleased once more, this time pinching the bridge of my nose as I closed my eyes.

Okay…. Okay…. I'm in Equestria, apparently. Don’t freak out. Did I go into a coma when I went to bed? Is this just an extremely lucid dream? I never get dreams that I’m aware of enough to do what I’m doing right now. I need answers and I'm... I opened my eyes a moment to see Pinkie still standing there, though she moved sporatically, and went back to thinking. ...pretty sure that Pinkie won't have them. Maybe Twilight? If not her, maybe Celestia, or Luna? Alright, plan of action: get!

“...all my friends!” Pinkie concluded, though I have no idea what she concluded. I just know she did because she stopped talking and moving to look at me. I was… generally surprised. All it took was a simple greeting and she was already best friends with me or something.

“Wait, what was that? Sorry, I was thinking and completely zoned out. Something about friends?” Okay, so, as long as I don’t say anything I shouldn’t know, I won’t startle them. Just play it cool. ...Psh, yeah, like that will happen.

Knowing Pinkie, I didn’t bother paying attention to what she was saying and only picked out the important parts. She was blabbering on about what I said, something about zoning out and some pun or another, I’m sure. Then, she seemed to catch on and relayed what I can only imagine was the short version of what she originally said.

“I said, ‘I've never heard of a human before. Maybe Twilight knows something about you. Oh! You should totally come with me so you can meet all my friends!’” Then again, a short version wouldn’t have the same fillers like ‘oh’ and the animated movements she made.

I stared at her for a moment, contemplating whether she could help me or not, and said, "You just repeated yourself verbatim, didn't you? Yeah, okay, let's go meet your friends." Hopefully, with her next to me, I won't be stopped by anyone. The faster I can get to Twilight, the better. "Are we going to meet this 'Twilight' first?"

“Yupperoonie!” She exclaimed, then bolted for the town before I could make a sound. Oye. Oye! C’mon, I’m a 220 pound bipedal monstrosity, and you expect me to keep up with that? I sighed, knowing the plan failed in a way only Pinkie could do. This is going to be so much fun, I thought as I followed her general direction with shuffling feet.

When I reached the town’s edge, I recognized a large tree on the far side of town, if only because it was the only tree that big around. That must be Twilight’s library. Adjusting for the new direction, I sped up my walk, knowing that every second on the streets would draw attention to me, and a certain pegasus wouldn’t be far off. There were a few whispers and glances thrown my way, though I couldn’t pick out what kind of looks I was getting. Regardless, they scurried to the sides and gave me a wide berth.

“Stop right there!” came the voice of said pegasus: Rainbow Dash. I knew she was talking to me; the commanding tone wouldn’t have been used on anyone but a stranger, after all, but that didn’t stop me from hoping otherwise.

Oh please, oh please, let her be talking to someone else. I can’t deal with her right now.

“I said, ‘stop!’” I didn’t even have a chance to react before I was tackled to the ground. Now, I've never been tackled before, especially from behind, so my only reaction was to put my hands out in front of me. It didn't stop me from getting my face slammed into the dirt, but it did prevent anything from breaking as it felt like what I can only image being hit by a pillow full of rocks going fifty would be like. As luck would have it, I landed in a slightly softer part of earth, getting a mouthful of dirt.

I felt her shuffle on top of me, sitting on my back like a triumphant… something that’s triumphant. What sits on the back of the thing they defeated, anyway? “I got you now! You won’t be terrorizing anymore ponies while I’m around. We’re going to wait right here until my friends show up.”

She honestly thought her weight alone could stop me. With her feeling nothing more than a couple sacks of concrete, 160 pounds for the slow ones, I felt like she was adding insult to injury. Of course, with me being the only one sounding injured, the insult just took that much more.

Spitting out what dirt I could, I turned as much as I could to look at her. “If you didn’t already notice, I was heading to the library to do just that!” Crap, bad move. Mouth, stop doing whatever you want! We are in a situation here!

"Huh?! And just how do you know who my friends are?!” I twisted as much as I could to see pony blobs surrounding us. If Rainbow Dash was yelling to draw attention, she certainly got her wish. “Are you a spy for some weird hairless ape country? Huh?!"

Well, if I didn’t know who your friends were before… "You just answered that for me. And no, I'm not a spy.” I paused for a moment to think about what she had said. “And I'm not an ape! Get off me so I can talk to Twilight!" Dammit, again, Mouth? Really?

"Aha! I didn't tell you my friend’s name! You are a spy!" How has none of her friends shown up yet? Wait, maybe…

"Ugh. Pinkie. Pinkie told me. She met me outside of town and told me to go to the library." Just get off me already. I know I could throw you off, but still!

"Uh huh, and what if you're lying?" Dash started to sound unsure at this point, and the shuffling on my back just added to my assumption.

"Just follow me there. You tackled me, once; you could do it again."

"And give you a chance to get away? No way!"

"Do you not trust your own abilities? Maybe you just got lucky, then." Take the bait, take the bait, take the bait!

"Oh yeah? As much as I’d love to prove you wrong, I am the fastest pony in Ponyvile after all, you could be dangerous.” ...Seriously? She… what?

Screw it. I moved my hands under me and pushed, causing Dash to tumble off me as I got my feet under me and stood. She was already on her hooves with her wings spread, no doubt about to jump me again. “That’s why you can trust me.” Upon tilting her head, I continued. “If I wanted to cause harm, I could have pushed you off from the beginning, but I wanted to have you at my side as I went to Twilight’s. So here’s what we’re going to do…”

I leaned down and whispered, making sure the ponies nearby couldn’t hear me. “You will play the guard and escort me to the library like I wanted and you can be seen as the hero you seem to care about being so much.”

Rainbow glared at me, then looked around at the others, and finally nodded. “Try anything funny and I’ll knock you flat again,” she growled.

I grabbed my dropped pillow and placed it on her head. “Please don’t. I’d rather not attempt breaking something again with this hard head of yours.”

If a glare could become a beam of hatred that sucked the soul out of the recipient, Dash would be close to creating it. “I’m watching you, monkey,” she said as she threw the pillow at me, though it didn’t have the force behind it I’m sure she was hoping for. “Now march!”

“Not a monkey, either,” I said off-hand as I continued on my way, pointedly trying to ignore the colorful pony watching my every boxer-clad move. The further we got, the more at ease the ponies around us seemed to become, but I had the distinct feeling a few of them were giving me a similar look Rainbow was. Comforter, have I told you how much I appreciate you? I thought as I hugged the blanket closer.

*Please don’t actually sue me.

Author's Note:

And so we start over. Some parts I really don't care to change, like the next chapter, but I'll see what all needs it. I made this a new chapter to let the old readers find it once more.

Comments

[PotatoManato]

...I don't like..

It has so many views...

...but it's so cliche..

...but it might be a good story!!...

WHY ARE YOU MESSING WITH MY HEAD!?!?!?!

[datLunarRepublican]

5257744 just click the like button.

[Even Evil Has Standards]

5257744 Maybe the author is really Discord

[0Z0mbie]

7618615
well then tell him he isn't truly chaotic because he still follows *most* of the laws of physics.

[VeryDeadlyBee]

*Please don’t actually sue me.

too late. I expect 1 dollar by next week,