It’d been another hard night of sleeping on a lumpy bed, old aches, and pains keeping me awake till the wee hours of the morning. When sleep finally did come it was restless. I snuggled into a feathery down and fur comforter to stave off the morning chill, the sound of birds calling me from my slumber, the smell of earth and decay assailing my olfactory senses. It’s still dark so I’ve no desire to actually get up.
My first thoughts, I’d left the window open and the cats must have done something nasty in the vicinity of my bed. That or the dog has rolled in something. And that’s when it hit me… I don’t have a downy comforter or a dog for that matter. As for the fur... I have got an old fur stole I picked up at a rummage sale. Something I'd planned on adding to a Renascence outfit and second-hand doesn't support the fur industry. I never could get the smell out of it though. Did I for whatever strange reason get up in the middle of the night, and drag that thing into my bed? Clutching at the fur as best I may in my present groggy condition I found myself experiencing the most bizarre sensation. Not only could I not properly grasp it, but it seemed to be a tail. My tail by the sensation I was getting every time I tugged on it. It was definitely connected. And a most interesting sensation at that being it tugged my nether regions in interesting ways.
Well, that’s unique.
I slowly opened my eyes to discover I was now looking down a snout? Muzzle? Black on top. What the absolute fuck? Black fur, at least on the top of the muzzle, and white feathery appendages in which I’ve snuggled into. Are those wings?
Either this is the most amazing lucid dream I’ve ever had, or I’ve gone crazy.
Best not to panic.
No reason I can’t enjoy crazy. I mean, what’s the point of insanity if I can’t enjoy myself?
Never mind that my heart is racing, it’s not going to do me any good to panic. Sure I’m on the floor now, but should I panic I could find myself waking up in a hospital… or worse.
Maybe this is the worse?
My best defense is my advanced age. How is that you might ask? Easy, the older people get the fewer fucks they have left to give.
Looking at my arm… arm? It’s a horse leg!? Oh … Kay. A very little horse leg, but still a horse leg. A pony? Aaaaaaaaaa? I may have more fucks left than I realized.
“Shit!” I’m a pony?!
Pony leg, silver shoes, black fur from the knee down, switching to white above the knee. My hair hung down mostly white with a shock of purple and another of vermilion mixed with vermilion red. And attached to my white rump was a tail with purple and vermilion feathering out of which grew a very fox-like white tail with a black tip. That was different. Overall I was white. I’d even a crescent moon cutie mark with two stars. I know that cutie mark. It’s my original character’s cutie mark. A crescent moon in deep purple, and two stars rendered in that sort of pinkish violet shade. A small one directly under the overhang of the tilted crescent, and a large one a short way down from the tip of the overhang that was a smaller version of Twilight’s big star.
You’ve got to be kidding me?!
Or is that foaling? No, that just sounds wrong somehow. Bad pun or no I’m fairly sure I’m a foal. A little impossibly cute foal. Damn straight I’m impossibly cute, why would I be anything but? Never mind the canines that don’t belong on a pony, I just know I’m cute.
Taking a quick assessment of my present apparent self I can only come to one inescapable conclusion. I am my own original character. And I’m a filly. My original character, as redesigned for My Little Pony. I’d been a latecomer to the fandom, and writing little stories was just something to keep my mind active. But actually turning into a filly was proving quite a shock. Especially now that the fandom was winding down with the ending of the show.
Where am I?
‘And now I’m doubly fucked,’ I say to myself as I look around. I survey my surroundings, the crumbled down walls, the collapsed ceiling, rotten tapestries, and the thrones dedicated to the sun and the moon leave me but one inescapable conclusion. I’m curled up in the audience hall of the palace of the two sisters. At night no less. Which just happens to be in the Everfree if I remember correctly. At least my OC has good night vision, as I’d sure hate to be a regular pony – filly out in an old ruin in the Everfree at night. Granted that in the show at least the old castle the palace was part of what seemed to be an oasis of calm free from the hazards of the forest. I can only hope that holds true in my new apparent reality. Is this, is any of this even real?
Either I’m crazy, or I’m actually here. Part of me is freaking out, part of me is squeeing with delight. It’s both a fantasy come true and a nightmare from which I can not wake up from. But what should I do? I can't help but wonder if maybe I should just try going back to sleep? On the other hand, make that hoof, inaction may not be the best idea in the world.
Might just be a good idea to get out of here. Even if I’m to assume this is all in my head, I still think I should probably get up. I’ll know soon enough if I’ve gone crazy. If I have I’m bound to run into some solid object I can’t see like my bedroom wall.
That’s when it strikes me that I can’t remember what I’d been doing the night before?
Not like I haven’t been there before.🍸
At the same time, I’ve memories of a life in Equestria knocking at the door so to speak. I lived here once upon a time, or so my mind is trying to tell me. Here, and possibly even Canterlot? “Well, best see if I can figure out how to be a horse,” I say as I start maneuvering to see if I can get up. Sitting up was the easy part. After all, sitting up is easy. Raising to stand on my hooves makes me feel like a newborn foal. I swear I’m not much bigger and every bit as wobbly as I struggle to figure out these newly modified appendages. No doubt I'm not much bigger than a foal and right about now I find myself longing for the herd.
My long luxurious locks of hair aren't helping either as I hobble about.
It feels like I’m standing on my fingertips, and if I remember my anatomy correctly, I am. The idea that I’m flipping the world off with all four limbs elicits a little smile.
I hobble around on my legs to try to get the feeling of them, though the wings, white with silver to black tips… having an extra set of limbs I don’t quite know what to do with isn’t making it any easier, and nearly distracted me from the fact that I already have my cutie mark. Not like it does me any good if I’ve no idea how to actually do anything as a pony.
I can’t help but wonder if this is the fate of all Bronies, and what was it, pegasisters? To be reborn as a pony, and to find ourselves out in the Everfree where we will likely be eaten before finding our way back to some semblance of civilization?
Only those capable of surviving the trek may live in this world.
The pendant? The one my OC got from Luna, I think to myself, and sure enough, I’m wearing my moon pendant. The pendant was exactly as I imagined it would be, one small blue gem and one large green stone that seemed to be pulsing with its own magic. “Moonie? Moonie, if you are there I need help?” I say as I tap the pendant with my right hoof. Selena?
Nothing.
“Figures.” Well, I should have known it wasn’t going to be that easy. Then again, I did have to go through quite a lot in my ‘fan fiction’ to unlock Moonie my ever-lovable Nightmare Moon companion NPC. Things are different now so there’s no way of knowing if the Nightmare Moon simulation spell even exists.
I decide to continue walking around and soon find myself climbing the steps that eventually lead up to the library and the chamber of the elements beyond. One nice thing is that the movements of all six of my limbs are coming to me intuitively. It’s like my brain already knows what to do, I just have to remind myself.
Everything being much as I remembered and/or imagined doesn’t really help. No Twilight Sparkle in the library to rescue me either.
I pull out a book and find that oddly enough I can actually read it. Well, most of it. The fact I can read also strongly suggests that this is not a dream. Some of it even makes sense. Placing the book back, I decided it might be best to start out for Ponyville. Assuming I can even find it.
⚔
Had there been anyone around they’d have seen a little black and white pegasus foal wandering about an old castle in the dark. She emerged once again from the study, and after hesitating a few times spread her wings and glided down the stairs. On landing successfully she pranced, and then on a whim chased her tail until she fell down and rolled over with all four hooves in the air. She rolled back over, got up, and chased her tail in the other direction till she fell over again. After that, she decided to try flapping her wings to see if she might actually be able to fly. Her attempts were less than perfect.
It was hunger that prompted her to stop stalling.
First off, woah, second, tracked
You have my attention. As for the first person italics problem, might I suggest putting everything not in first person within italics? Alternatively, you could simply show a shift in perspective with a line break, which you already did. Honestly there shouldn't be a need for italics as long as you immediately begin a new perspective shift with a quick signifier as to who is being viewed.
For example:
I walked out of the front of the castle, ready to make my way through the forest.
⚔
Princess Celestia felt a disturbance in the Force, as if somepony who shouldn't exist suddenly came to be.
Basically just make sure that a character's name is in the first sentence.
10519618
I've found that if I can remember to hit the italics button twice while the document is highlighted it cleans it up. What I've found is happening is that every time I edit the original document it adds formatting code around the edit. Which seems a really bizarre way to program a word processor. All that hidden formatting code gets turned into BB code and not only does it effect editing, it messes up the reader too.
I believe "chef" is the word you're looking for.
10520061
Chef as in a trained professional cook and tradesman who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation? No, don't think so. She doesn't do any cooking at all.
Chief would imply a leadership position. She's brilliant and an over achiever but not necessarily at the top of the leadership chain. Or anywhere near the top. In referring to the character as a "supper mega nerd" I'm deliberately overstating. I'm saying that she's no nerdy even nerds call her a nerd. She's into everything and this helps to explain why she doesn't go into a full blown panic on finding herself a little filly out in the middle of the Everfree. She understants that she might be crazy and that what she sees might not even be real. Her decision is based on a character in a comic I read many years ago who on finding themselves in a similar situation decided that rather then freak out or otherwise be put out about it in any way, they may as well enjoy it while it lasts.
10520103
I was making a joke. You had mispelled 'super' (great, substantial, etc.) as 'supper' (the lattermost meal of the day).
10520152
Oh... OK. I completely missed that. I use the reader to catch wrongs words in the story. I'm not always going to spot stuff, especially if my dyslexia is acting up.
Yep tracking this one too.
i am on my second time reading this it is tied with my other favorite story
Yeah, pretty much every "rich-text" editor does that. Because - the conventional logic goes - why not? It's not like anyone will ever see it...
Except, then you get "rich-text capable" websites that can parse that... and you've got a disaster, ranging from spaghetti code that takes up 5x the space the original text did, to completely non-unfuckable styling on styling, applied to styling... It's a right mess. And don't even get me started on editors that attempt to divine something out of stuff that can't be rightly represented in pure HTML...
My suggestion is to edit in a text editor - a fancy one if you want, but a text editor nonetheless. Yes, there won't be any styling... and that's precisely the point. Apply all styling you need on the site, when putting the chapter up. Alternatively, style it however you want - but then copy & paste into a text editor before copying again and pasting here. Yes, it'll remove all of the styling (which, again, is the point), but at least you'll have your original document to take styling cues from. And believe me, the less markup you have, the better for a whole number of things - the database, the connection that fetches data about the story, the snippets all over the site, the auto-generation of eReader formats...
And for whatever reason, I've yet to encounter a WYSIWYG web editor that makes any sort of attempt at simplifying the code. Unless you include WordPress, but that's a whole another nightmare in itself.
I'll be honest - the moment I read that bit, my mind went "Uh-oh!" right away. I mean, I try not to confuse the story with the author, but that's a red flag to me. "How do you tell if someone's a vegan? You don't - they'll tell you." comes to mind, you know?
Still, I'm not entirely sure how this could possibly be an issue in an MLP story. It's already mostly fur-product-free, and I don't doubt the characters would balk at the idea on principle. So, as-is, it mostly seems to be an off-hand comment without any deeper meaning - and I'll treat it as such, until it's proven otherwise.
And for the record, I don't wear fur (anything fur-like is some imitation... which, admittedly, was most likely produced at a much higher overall cost to the ecosystem, if we're being honest here). I do wear leather, though... Well, I doubt I've ever even seen real leather, but...
Anyway.
i am re reading this again
This is my third time reading this I think, and this is still adorable to me.
Oh - kay, isn't this just perfect(and hilarious) ??
is this the beginning of the story?
could you complete the linkage for us to read the story in the correct order?