And another one!
The presence in my dream was pleased. Very pleased.
He didn’t seem to say anything though. I just got a strong sense of happiness.
It wasn’t creeping me out or anything. Like the presence was happy, I was relaxed. You don’t really get to pick the state of mind in dreams the same way you do when you’re awake.
Finally, there was a chuckle. “Good. Very good,” it said.
‘Oh, right. I was talking about my plans.’
I reclined against… whatever I was reclining against, dreams aren’t always specific about details like this, and closed my tired eye. “Mmm, yeah. It’s a neat gimmick, but I need to figure out how to recreate it if I wanna make something useful out of it. Not sure what to call it, though. ‘Radio’ doesn’t seem appropriate.”
Was this what he found so pleasing? My ideas? Eh, who knows.
“You will. Keep practicing.”
“That’s the plan,” I said, and let out a peaceful sigh as I drifted away into deeper sleep once again,
—
The echoes of uneven sounds from uneven steps were swallowed up by the walls and fabrics around me as I made my way down the dusty corridor.
From the upper reaches of this place, where lay the realm of dreams and delirium, down to the nexus of worlds. Here, the knowledge of ages was stored, and I walked the hallowed halls with respect.
Respect, because it was a place of knowledge, and knowledge is power… and power is energy, and energy is mass, and mass is implied by density, which indicates that Snips and Snails are the most powerful beings in Equestria— “Morning, Gabe.”
I involuntarily snorted as I lifted my head in the direction of the voice. “Whu!?” I said, and looked up to see Spike sitting in an armchair with a newspaper and scratching himself on his uppermost ridge.
“I said good morning.”
“Oh, good morning, Spike,” I managed to answer before a yawn could stop me.
“Are you okay?” Spike asked, while still scratching himself, this time over his arms.
“Fine, just tired,” I yawned. “And you? Are you okay?”
“A bit itchy, but that’s normal. You nervous about school?” he asked, before I had the chance to inquire about his "normal itching".
I shrugged. “Maybe a bit. It might be unconscious association with the actual first day I went to school, though.”
Spike nodded, and turned his gaze back to the newspaper. “Well, Twilight should be back in the afternoon.”
“Right,” I said. “You’ve already had breakfast?”
“Yep,” he said, and scratched himself behind the newspaper again.
As I walked into the kitchen, I mused on how old Spike acted sometimes. At this point in time, I thought it wouldn’t have been out of place with fuzzy slippers, a moustache, and perhaps a pipe.
Then again, I had forgotten to ask, but I was under the impression that he was actually a bit older than me. ’”Baby” dragon indeed. Maybe I should call him “Uncle Spike”’
I hadn’t had a lot of meals by myself since I had gotten here. Sometimes, I would go on a pantry raid by myself, just to get the chance to eat in silence. It most likely had something to do with the way I was used to eating. Owlowiscious was often there, though, but that was okay — owls not being known for their intruding presences.
That probably sounded a bit depressing, eating alone, and maybe it was, in some ways. Meal times tend to be social activities, but being alone could often be very calming, at least for people like me.
So I sat there, lazily eating my cereals, slowly waking up, remembering how mom had fussed over me the last time I started school in this general age group, and perhaps letting myself feel a little sad.
It wasn’t one of those times when I tore myself up with memories. Those times were thankfully pretty rare, but remembering loved ones is bittersweet. That’s just how it is; a bit of temporary melancholy.
So it did nothing to dampen my mood as I walked up to my room again to get my saddlebags, tried doing an Angus Young duck walk down the stairs, (which only works for bipedal plantigrades, lemme tell you) saying "bye" to Spike, and walking out into the sunshine of a beautiful day.
Living among a people that could control the weather, you might figure that beautiful summer days would eventually lose their charm. It hadn’t happened to me yet, and ponies, who were very much used to it, didn’t seem to stop appreciating them either. Expecting beautiful days, but not really taking them for granted.
Speaking of loneliness, and how that’s not always a bad thing, I savored it as I walked down the more quiet streets of Ponyville. Spending day in and day out in physical rehab really hammered home how complicated ones feelings about company could sometimes be. It often seemed like you alternated between two states: being surrounded by people helping you, wishing you were alone, and being alone, bitterly having to admit to yourself how much you needed the presence of helpful people.
That’s why I was walking down the more deserted routes to the school; I wasn’t really walking, I was trying to swagger. I was finally independent to do such simple things as going for a walk without double checking a prosthesis, limping, or fearing a sudden onset of exhaustion or soreness in what remained of my leg.
‘I need cool sunglasses… and my own Harry Faltermeyer tune,’ I thought as I swaggered into sight of the school.
I stood there, in an alley (as far as that term can be applied to Ponyville), watching the school, and was about to keep going when I stopped.
‘Oh! Waaaiiit... Here comes another one...'
A light, and perhaps even funny feeling bit of vertigo, washed over me. I was a small, talking unicorn-pony, in a talking pony land, watching my soon-to-be classmates, other ponies, approaching the pony school I was about to attend.
It felt like my brain was tickling itself, processing my situation and the world around me. ‘I’m wearing saddlebags. I just left my home, a library in a tree, where my friend Spike, a small dragon, is reading a newspaper. I just walked through a town of magical equines, on four limbs, two of which are magical constructs, all of them having hooves at the end of them.’
I lifted my front hoof, the flesh and keratin one, to my eye, the one that sees, and wiggled it a bit. Then I put it down and did the same for my metal one, before putting that one down as well.
A shudder is often associated with negative things, but they’re not always. I shuddered as I processed my situation. It didn’t feel painfully wrong. In fact, it mostly just felt funny.
‘Maybe all the hugs I’ve gotten has had something to do with it. Friendly physical contact probably help the mind go "alright, this feels right, this is how it’s supposed to be".’
I shook my head, took in my surroundings again, shrugged, and dismissively flicked my tail. ‘I’m in Ponyville, I know this place, I like it... Alright. Let’s go.’
—
I entered the school building, immediately finding myself in the main room. The other foals were dropping in little by little, and the large, central classroom filling up slowly in the morning seemed to be standard procedure. Cheerilee was nowhere to be seen, though. Maybe she was prepping things in an office or something.
I timed my entrance pretty well. The foals heading towards the school weren't enough to form a crowd to blend into, but I had approached “between” two groups, so that I didn’t sidle up beside a bunch of curious strangers.
Scanning the classroom, I didn’t spot anyone I knew besides the two unicorn colts, who happily waved at me when they saw me. I waved back, and I’m pretty sure I managed to not make it seem forced. ‘Aah, Snips and Snails. One short and whiny sounding, the other skinny and kinda vacant, both awkward. Fuse them together and you get a Rick Moranis character.’
Their waving brought me to the attention of some other foals seated by their old-timey desks, and they paused their conversation to observe me, some just curiously, but some skeptically, like the grey and the pink earth pony fillies I was sure I’d seen around some time before. One who seemed a bit still when watching me was a grey pegasus colt with a black mane.
My coolness and social poise was a Panzerkampfwagen VI. Tough, powerful… and somewhat prone to spalling, by onslaughts of curious and sometimes judging stares.
“Hey, Gabe!”
I jumped a bit at Apple Bloom’s voice sounding behind me, feeling a very short lived and very strange desire to back kick something.
“Whuh!” I breathed out, and turned around. “Hey, guys. Don’t scare me like that,” I said, to the ferociously friendly trouble trio standing there with smiles on their faces.
“Oh, sorry,” Apple Bloom said.
“Hey, what do you think of the school?” Scootaloo eagerly asked.
“I just got here,” I pointed out.
“Oh, right.”
“Hey, how was Canterlot?” Sweetie Belle said.
“Some bad, mostly good,” I answered. “It was a pretty short visit. Met some new people, made a random lucrative-seeming business deal, had a really bad bout of phantom pain, and I might have gotten an honorary ‘royal inventor’ title.”
“Oh,” Apple Bloom said dejectedly, her ears folding. “That pain part sounded bad.”
“Yeah, probably because I’m not used to using these muscles,” I said, and rolled my shoulder. “But it was a short affair. Don’t worry about it.”
“‘Royal inventor’, though, eh?” Scootaloo said, with an eager smirk. “I think you should go all the way to ‘mad scientist’, and invent something really crazy.”
I gave an even nod to that. “Possibly, yeah,” I said, a bit flippantly. ‘Like a technodrome.’
“Do you have any future plans?” Sweetie Belle asked.
‘Yes… a technodrome.’
“I have a few ideas,” I replied.
I jumped up again as something touched my withers, this time feeling a strange desire to rear up. “Uh!”
Whipping around, I realized that Cheerilee was standing behind me, trying to get our attention by placing her hoof on me. She had come up on my blind side, though.
I breathed out a sigh, realizing that I might be more tense than I’d thought I was.
“Hi, Miss Cheerilee,” the Crusaders chorused happily at their teacher.
‘“Miss”? Naaw, grade school teacher gets a honorific? How quaint.’
“Hi, girls,” Cheerilee said, cheerily. “Hello again, Gabrielle, or was it just Gabe?”
“Anyway you want,” I said. “But I prefer Gabe.”
“Alright then, Gabe,” she said, and turned her eyes towards my right foreleg. “I saw you in town with those the other day. Very impressive.”
“Thank you,” I said, in a practiced, but still genuine tone.
I took a quick look to see that most of the other foals had turned back to their own conversations and other little doings. Except for that one pegasus colt who kept glancing at us, and perhaps the grey and pink fillies.
“Did you get a chance to read anything on that list I gave you?” she asked, her tone devoid of judgement.
“A bit,” I said. “I liked the history stuff the most, but I saved it for after I’ve studied some common knowledge subjects. It’s probably more unusual to not be able to point out Seaddle on a map than not knowing historical figures.”
“Right,” Cheerilee nodded. “I’d like you to introduce yourself to the class, unless you really don’t want to.”
“I’m fine with it,” I said, and shrugged.
And I kinda was fine with it. Speaking in front of a class can be nerve wracking the first time, but I figured that once you’ve gone up by a whiteboard with an empty shirt sleeve dangling at your side, and having your prosthetic leg start coming loose mid-presentation, a room full of kids is a piece of cake.
“Good. Are you ready now?” Cheerilee asked.
“Sure, just one thing, though,” I said, as I moved with Cheerilee towards the front of the class, while the Crusaders made their way towards their seats.
“Yes?”
“Well, using only one eye can get a bit tiring, so if I’m closing it, I’m not necessarily nodding off during your lectures.”
“Oh,” Cheerilee said, a bit sheepishly. “Noted.”
“I can keep this one open, if you want,” I said, and lightly poked my right eye, producing a small "clack". “Just so it doesn’t seem like you’re fine with me not paying attention.”
“Ah, well,” Cheerilee answered, uncertainly. I guess this wasn’t something she was used to. “I guess if it’s fine with you.”
“Alright, attention everypony!” Cheerilee called, when we got in front of the class. “We have a new friend here in class today, and I’d like you all to help make her feel welcome.”
I quickly tried to take in the scene in front of me. The Crusaders were smiling encouragingly at me, and everyone else’s face radiated mostly curiosity, though Snips and Snails’ a bit less so.
“Well, hello, everyone,” I started. “My name’s Gabrielle, though I’m fine with just being called Gabe. I recently moved to Ponyville, so I don’t think I’ve seen many of you before now.” I turned to Cheerilee, and asked with a carefully measured pinch of flippancy, “What do you usually say in addition to this?”
Cheerilee turned her eyes to the class and asked, “Does anypony have anything they’re curious about Gabe?”
A few hooves slowly rose into the air.
“Uh, I guess we’ll sweep from this direction,” I said, and pointed my hoof towards a bright lavender unicorn filly with a blonde mane to the rightmost of everyone with questions.
“Where did you live before?”
“Canterlot, technically,” I answered. “I didn’t live there for long, though.”
I nodded towards the next one, a red-maned and glasses adorned filly.
She opened her mouth, and I almost took a step back in shock when she let out a sound like when you get something stuck in your vacuum cleaner through her teeth. “Uh, yeah. Uhm, were you raithed by gryphonth?”
I almost laughed at that. ‘I should have seen that one coming.’ I smiled, and patiently answered, “No.”
“What’s your cutie mark of?” the pink, tiara adorned filly I’d seen before interjected.
I had been a pony long enough by now to be on the ball with that one. “Enchanting,” I answered immediately, and nodded towards the next one up, a colt in a propeller beanie.
“You got any hobbies?” he asked.
That was where I stumbled a bit. I had hobbies, of course, but they had to take a backseat in the years before I came to Ponyville, due to studying and work, and it would be a bit weird to start explaining video games with disability friendly user interfaces during my presentation of myself. It means I also speak fluent Simlish. Sulsul, plerg majah bliff?
I scanned the class with an, “Uuuh,” as I stalled for time. The grey pegasus colt was looking at me with a very prominent blush, with his wings sort of squirming for some reason, while Snips and Snails were eagerly waving their hooves in the air in the back.
Oh, of course, I thought, and almost smacked myself in the face when I remembered that I had rekindled an old love recently. “Music,” I said. “Mostly the guitar, but I’ll give just about anything a shot.”
“Why do you keep saying ‘everyone’?” the grey filly next to the pink tiara-filly butted in.
The tone of the question, and the one of her friend, didn’t really rub me right. I thought playing it neutral would be my best bet, though, and simply shrugged. “It’s just the way I’m used to,” I said.
“Weird,” she said, mostly to herself though, it seemed.
Next up were Snips and Snails. I braced myself, pointed at them, and hoped for the best.
“Uuh,” Snails started. “Weren’t your legs gone that one time?”
Cheerilee eyes widened, and every foal’s gaze in the room except mine were suddenly pointed towards Snails, observed his genuinely confused face, and turned at me
My own neck muscles had disengaged in exasperation, and my head dipped towards the floor. ‘So much for that.’
I raised my head, and breathed out a sigh towards the ceiling.
“Maybe she doesn’t want everypony to know,” Apple Bloom growled at Snails through gritted teeth, her and the other Crusaders’ ears splayed back.
Snips just gave her a confused look. “We just wanna know where she got them from,” he said, and shrugged.
The rest of the class were shifting their gazes between me, Snips, Snails, and Apple Bloom.
“Alright then!” Cheerilee eventually called out in a bit too perky voice. “If there aren’t any more questions, I think we should get on with today’s class. Gabe, if you could take a seat right over there, please, I’ll start with today’s lesson."
I walked over to the bench, and I was the center of everyone’s attention for a second until Cheerilee called out, her voice practiced to perfection to demand everyone’s attention while still sounding sweet and friendly.
“Now then, everypony,” Cheerilee started, and reared up to pull down a map of Equestria in front of the blackboard with her teeth. “Today we’re going to start a new segment on the Crystal Empire. It’s a bit of a new addition to the curriculum, so ask away, and if there’s anything we can’t figure out together, let’s send those questions on a report to the ministry of education, hmm?”
I placed my bag next to my bench like everyone else had done, idly wondering if it was luck or Cheerilee’s foresight that placed me here, since I ended up with Apple Bloom on my blind side, mitigating the risk of awkwardness or unintentional aloofness if a stranger who didn’t know about my eye tried to get my attention.
The grey pegasus colt was seated to my left, and it looked like he had finally gotten his wings under control. I figured that they probably need stretching every now and then. He kept glancing over at me, but he stiffly turned his head away whenever I shot him a friendly smile as I took my seat.
The class was really interesting. I’ve had good teachers before. Ones that could really hold your attention and present the subjects correctly and in an interesting way. I was also kind of a sucker for a good history documentary. I ended up with tons of facts about wars in my head, especially about the big ones, but really, that was mostly because of its prevalence.
It was a bit of strange lesson, though, considering how little was still known about the Empire. I thought it was kind of understandable however. They had apparently been subjugated, and then locked away in some sort of stasis for a thousand years before reappearing. The memories of people there were a bit hazy, and it would take a while to go through the historical sources, both in Equestria proper, and the Empire itself, separate facts from myths, then turn it into education worthy material.
“But Miss Cheerilee,” the beanie-colt asked, his hoof raised in the air. “What happened to the princess?”
“We don’t know,” she said. “The stories go that Sombra defeated her, and then either locked her away, or perhaps even turned her to stone, before proclaiming himself king, but nopony really knows.”
Everyone’s ears drooped. This was apparently a bit of a downer as far as history lessons go, and sure, the actual events weren’t happy ones, as far as the facts went, but it didn’t come across as bad to me.
I kept it to myself, as the events seemed more like a near miss than a tragedy to me. It was like coming to another version of Earth, and learning that once upon a time, Franz Ferdinand has been tragically assassinated and then, miraculously, there hadn’t been a war.
It was also really interesting in that the period the class covered was over a thousand years into the past, and then it jumped to present day. The history of the Crystal Empire just stopped, and then suddenly continued, with Twilight and her friends as central players.
I already knew that, of course, but to have a history lesson with the woman, or mare, that I was lodging with, and her friends, was really cool.
Speaking of Twilight and her friends, there was suddenly a series of bright lights and loud thumps in the distance, and everyone’ attention was immediately drawn to the windows at the side of the room.
Muted thumps and screeches, and Pinkie’s voice… She was apparently rapping something.
After a little while, the sounds came to an abrupt halt, but everyone kept looking at the windows in confusion.
“... O-kay,” Cheerilee said. “Let’s continue.”
I looked around for my pencil, a proper pencil; not a quill, before finding that it had dropped to the floor.
I bent down and reached for it, and just as I grabbed it, a grey hoof placed itself on mine.
I looked up into the face of the grey pegasus colt from before, if his face was a toaster, his cheeks were the heating coils.
It might not have come across as very genuine, but I still gave him a smile.
He whipped his eyes away, and immediately went back to facing Cheerilee, though his eyes were aimed down, looking very unfocused.
‘Hmph! Well, I think my eye looks good up close.’
—
“Well, everypony, it’s time for recess,” Cheerilee happily called out.
‘“Recess”. That wasn’t yesterday. “Lunch break”, sure, but not recess.’
I hopped out of the bench, and searched around for what people around here did during recess, when the cutie mark Crusaders flocked around me and started dragging me towards the exit.
“Hey, Gabe. Let’s find something to do,” Scootaloo’s voice said.
My surprise wore off as I started walking beside the Crusaders. I realized that being the new girl surrounded by eager friends would help a lot when making a first impression. I would have liked to think that I could manage being the outsider, but I still thought it was a really nice gesture of them.
“Uh, sure. What did you have in mind?” I asked.
“I have some ideas for the playground carousel outside… and your right foreleg,” she finished surreptitiously, as we exited the building.
“Hah. Well, as long as no one gets hurt,” I said.
“Hey!” A high-pitched voice said loudly behind us.
We stopped and turned around to see the two fillies who had interrupted me earlier standing there, scowling, with the rest of the class standing behind them with curious looks on their faces.
“Are you three already dragging the new girl away before she has a chance to meet anypony other than you?” the pink one asked.
‘Hmm. Well, I guess that’s technically true. Not that I mind...'
“We’re just hanging out with our friend, Diamond Tiara,” Sweetie Belle said.
‘I think I’ve heard that name before.’
“Oh, so you’ve already decided that she’s gonna hang around a bunch of lame blank flanks?” the apparent Diamond Tiara asked.
Oh hey, I remember girls like this. Weird. I would’ve thought it would seem more quaint seeing this behavior as an adult than it is. Twilight wasn’t kidding, these marks really do seem important to kids around here.
I found myself at a strange loss for words. I kept looking back and forth between the Crusaders and the two superior-looking fillies, with the rest of the class loosely gathered behind them.
When I had thought about going to school the last few weeks, I had been fairly certain that I would be able to shrug off any teasing or bullying, especially since it seemed very unlikely that these happy magical ponies would be outright cruel to each other. I even suspected that I, with my long education and my years of lurking on the internet, would be able to run in circles around anyone who would try to verbally lunge themselves at me. Now I wasn’t so sure.
In my mind, someone would say ”Your legs are freaky,” and I’d wink, do a Fonzie at them, and go “gotcha,” and walk away.
But no one was being mean to me; they were being mean towards my friends.
One could walk up to the fillies in front of me with an outraged expression and tell them to leave my friends alone, but that just wasn’t how I operated. Fools rush in. Were these two the most popular kids in school, and I would make myself, and the Crusaders, the enemies of the whole class? Would the Crusaders come across as weak and cowardly, needing someone else to stand up for them?
Subtle social nuances were complicated, and I had spent the last few years in the presence of adult, disciplined professionals on another world.
And so I just stood there, my calm demeanor just making me seem indolent.
“She can be friends with whoever she wants,” Apple Bloom said.
“Can she?” the grey filly asked. “Is she, like, not-lame enough to hang out with any popular ponies?”
‘Heh, “lame”. Funny choice of words, there.’
Perhaps I was getting caught up in the moment, but I figured that maybe it was time to play the princess card, and activated nonchalant-mode. “Well, if you consider that I’ve got a sui—”
“Hey, what did Snails mean when he said that your legs were gone?” Diamond Tiara asked me.
I let out an internal sigh. Of course this was going to come up. “Well, he’s right there. You can ask him yourself.”
‘... Whoops...'
As soon as I finished that sentence, I realized that the cat was out of the bag. The class’ eyes turned towards the brain duo.
Snips and Snails, exalted at being the center of attention, (and provoking a smidge of sympathy from me with how disproportionately excited they seemed about it) immediately began retelling their exciting story of having seen me without my prostheses.
Snails was first. “Yeah, the first time we saw her, she didn’t have any legs on one side.”
The class turned their gaze at me at that. I felt my withers tense and my ears droop at that.
“That’th weird,” the filly with the poofy red mane and glasses said. “Don’t look like they’re mithing now.”
“It’s true,” Snips said. “Also, she had an eyepatch.”
The colt with the beanie and the blonde unicorn filly walked up closer and looked at my right hoof.
“Yeah, look. It’s all shiny,” the filly said, intrigued.
“It’s made of metal,” the colt said.
Spurred on by two in their group approaching me without incident, the rest of the class, minus the pink and grey fillies, started swarming around me with curious murmurs, almost managing to block me off from the Crusaders.
“Can I see?” the beanie colt asked.
Mostly feeling relieved that there didn’t seem to be a fight in the making, I just let out a sigh of relief and presented my foreleg to the colts’.
“They’re really fake legs,” he said.
“Wow,” the blonde one said, in fascination. “Where did you get them?”
“Uuh, to address you both, they’re not ‘fake’, I made them,” I said.
“Hey, her hind leg is all metal-like, too,” a voice sounded, and I couldn’t help but notice the grey pegasus colt’s wings unfurl.
“Cool. How did you do that?” the filly asked.
The Crusaders were wading through the crowd from one end, and from the other, the two fillies were pushing their way through, angry scowls on their faces. I suspected that their tauntings petering out to nothing, and the new girl managing to not rejecting the lame blank flanks or aligning themselves with established targets were not according to their script.
“Lemme see that!” Diamond Tiara said, and snatched my leg out of the beanie colt’s hooves.
“Look, uh, this is getting kinda weird,” I started. “. At least for me,”
By then, the Crusaders had made their way to me from the other direction. “Leave her alone, you two!” Sweetie Belle shouted, and put her forelegs around my shoulders, pulling me in the opposite direction.
Diamond Tiara just growled in response to Sweetie Belle’s words and started tugging harder, while I was stuck in the middle with a very uncertain look on my face. I strongly suspected that now it was less about her wanting to see what everyone had been so interested in, and more about not being denied something.
The grey filly joined in on Diamond Tiara’s side, while Apple Bloom and Scootaloo joined in on the other. It was a tug of war, and I was the rope.
“Alright, everypony, just what is going on here?” Cheerilee voiced from the side.
Just as her voice sounded out, the Crusaders’ attention was drawn to it, their counter pulling ceased, while the two fillies on the opposite side gave a synchronized tug.
I let out a startled, “Whoa!” as I was pulled towards my right side. But I was stopped by the weight of the Crusaders, with their forelegs still around my neck.
The sudden lack of resistance made Diamond Tiara and her crony fall backwards, and land on their rumps in the grass, just as physics did its thing, and made the Crusaders perform a triple headbutt into my neck.
The crowd had made way for Cheerilee, whose eyes, alongside just about everyone else’s except for the two fillies on their rumps in front of us who had their eyes closed, followed what happened next with utmost clarity.
The world seemed to slow as it happened. The Crusaders’ headbutt launched my prosthetic eye out of my socket with what I was later sure was an audible "plopp"-ing sound. It lazily sailed through the air in a high arc, descending towards its mark as if with a purpose.
Diamond Tiara’s eyes opened, and were immediately and instinctively closed again as my eye hit her between them with a "smack".
It rolled down perfectly, and came down to rest at the end of her muzzle, and as she opened her eyes, she at first seemed to be in a daze from what she saw.
Slowly, her face gave way to shock and disgust, as she registered the orb unblinkingly staring at her from the edge of her muzzle. Then critical mass was reached.
“AAAAAAH!” screamed Diamond Tiara and her crony, as she swatted the eye away from her, frantically pawed at her muzzle, and started running in panic, her face pointed towards the sky, eyes closed, with lungs and vocal chords working together to create the loudest scream they could.
After critical mass followed the chain reaction. Not counting me and the Crusaders, who were just staring at the scene with stunned looks on our faces, every foal, with a few exceptions, started running around and screaming in disgust, some in shocked disgust, others in the delighted kind. The beanie colt had fallen over, and was hugging his stomach, while desperately kicking his hind legs in the air as he seemed to be trying to laugh his lungs out of his body.
The blonde unicorn filly was chasing my prosthetic eye around the hooves of all the other foals running around, the grey pegasus colt was looking at the scene with his mouth hanging open, and the filly with poofy red mane and glasses just looked on with a dopey smile, breathing the word, “Cool.”
‘Well, at least everyone’s attention is pointed somewhere else. Nice going, guys.’
I put my hoof against my empty eye socket and walked up towards Cheerilee with the Crusaders. She was standing there with a stunned expression, which was slowly morphing into exasperation.
“First days of school are always interesting,” she said, half to herself. “Not always this interesting though.”
The blonde filly came up to me with my eye on her hoof. “Uh, here you go,” she said, a bit uncertainly.
“Thank you,” I said, and gave her a somewhat tired smile. “Hey, Miss Cheerilee… Teach?”
Cheerilee took her eyes away from the chaos around her. “Yes, Gabe?”
I held up my eye so that she could see it. “I think I might need to swing by home and pick up a spare.”
After a few seconds, she nodded. “Uh, yes. Right. I… think we could extend this recess for today.”
“Thanks,” I said, and turned towards the Crusaders, not being able to stop a grin forming on my face. “As for your question, Scoots, school seems great.”
We turned towards Diamond Tiara, who was lying by a puddle of water from a drain pipe, desperately splashing water on her muzzle, and smiled.
—
We were trotting along in Ponyville, spirits high, and laughing at the scene we had just left.
The Crusaders were telling me about the ponies I had just met. The grey filly who had helped yank at me was called Silver Spoon, her family was rich and she was spoiled. The pink one was Diamond Tiara, whose family was very Rich, with a capital R, and she was even more spoiled.
The blonde filly was Dinky, the red-maned one with the slight speech impediment was Twist, and the beanie colt was Button Mash.
They apparently hadn’t thought about the grey pegasus colt as someone who had stood out during the morning, but after I mentioned where he was sitting, they realized who I was talking about. Rumble, was his name.
We came up to Golden Oaks, and I turned to the Crusaders. “Alright, I’ll just be a moment. Gonna pick out a new one and put this one in water.”
I walked through the empty library, collected a bowl from the kitchen and filled it with water, then went up to my room. I placed the bowl on my desk, plopped down my dirty eye in it, and floated up the attache case I got from Prism onto my bed.
Opening it, I felt very uncertain as to which I would pick. I was certain that there had been another one matching my remaining eye, but I just couldn’t spot it. I floated up a few different ones. One had a golden pupil, another had a pink heart instead. I thought Rarity had gone a bit overboard on her list on what sorts I should have, but I’m pretty sure that some of these were things that even Rarity hadn’t requested.
Thinking that I didn’t want to keep my friends waiting, I just muttered, “whatever,” and plopped in a blank one, still a bit amazed at all the small perks that came with being a magical creature.
Looking to my side when I came down, I saw that Spike was still sitting in the same armchair as before, and still hadn’t moved.
‘Is he hibernating or something?’
I carefully walked up behind him. I could only see part of his side, but he seemed perfectly still.
“Hey, Spike,” I asked carefully. “Are you okay?”
His scales looked dull and matte. I lightly poked him in the side, and I fell over as I took a panicked step back; half of him sagged like a balloon.
I watched the morbid scene in utter horror, until I heard the door opening to the side.
Whipping my head around, I saw another Spike happily walking in with a garbage bag in his claw, whistling a chipper tune.
This one’s scales almost shimmered. He moved with a spring in his step, waved to me with a happy, “Hey, Gabe,” and walked up to the other Spike, grabbed him in his claw, and casually shoved him into the bag.
“I was helping Twilight helping Rainbow study for her Wonderbolt exam, so I didn’t have time to clean this up earlier,” he said, and casually sauntered out of the room again.
After a while, I managed to get my heartrate under control again, and walked out to the Crusaders waiting for me.
They seemed confused by my dazed and slightly peeved expression.
“Hey, you okay?” Sweetie asked.
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “I think I just saw Spike’s molting.”
“Ooh,” they nodded in understanding.
“By the way, that looks awesome,” Scootaloo said, and pointed at my eye.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m sure I have more that look natural, but I couldn’t find any.”
“I think that looks cooler,” Scootaloo said.
“It looks pretty cool, I admit,” I said. “But it kinda draws attention to itself, and I think it makes me look tougher than I am.”
“Scars do make you look tough, and yours are genuine,” Sweetie Belle said.
“Well… alright, that’s true,” I had to admit.
“Hey, you guys wanna go to Sugarcube Corner before next class?” Scootaloo asked, and the rest of us murmured in agreement.
“Wait!” I suddenly said, and stopped. “I’ll just be a minute.”
The others looked at me in confusion as I ran back into Golden Oaks, and came back with the flight goggles I got from Rainbow strapped across my forehead. The twins might be there; can’t be too careful.
—
“Soooo…” Twilight started, for some reason sounding hesitant. “How was school?”
“Pretty good,” I said around some kale. “At first I was all set on not letting it bother me if everyone found out about my prostheses, then I did get nervous, but it mostly turned out fine.”
Twilight visibly relaxed a bit. “That’s… good,” she said, and thought for a moment. “Uh, how much is ‘mostly’ fine?”
“Well, it didn’t stay secret for long, but there were just these two pink and grey fillies that seemed to be bothered by it,” I said, and shrugged.
“Oh, were they now?” Spike asked coolly, and with a bit of tiredness in his voice.
That chilliness didn’t seem to be pointed towards me. “Yeah, so I think I can handle it. You seemed a bit apprehensive just now, Twilight,” I said, in my most casually inviting voice.
“Well, on the subject of school... it was just that we really struggled today with Rainbow and her Wonderbolt entrance exam. I’m glad that you didn’t seem to have that problem, at least.”
“How did she do?” I asked.
“She aced it, actually.”
“Hm,” I simply said, glad for my friend. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. If she thinks as fast as she moves, she obviously would.”
Twilight just smiled at me for a moment before continuing. “So, tell me about your day.”
“Well, alright,” I started. “It was the first time I ever had talent hour.”
—
"Talent hour" was a bit like a workshop class. All the kids in school could use this time to train their talents, or just about anything they wanted, but talent was of course on most everyone’s top list of stuff to do. All under the watchful and guiding presence of Cheerilee.
“So I’d be free to go out with you and try out things to help you find your special talents?” I asked.
“Sure,” Sweetie Belle said, “this isn’t compulsory.”
I looked around in the room. Most everyone was still here, and those who weren’t were just outside, practicing talents better suited for the outdoors.
“Huh. My old teachers would have loved this level of willing attendance,” I said.
Then again, school wasn’t as demanding as back on Earth. Modern Earth society was complicated, and so obviously, a great deal of education was needed to keep the expertise required to run it, and while a lot of things were easier than back in pre-modern days, food still didn’t grow itself and wares still didn’t move themselves.
This wasn’t the case in Equestria either of course, even though powerful unicorns and earth ponies could convince you otherwise. The point is that ponies had a lot more free time than humans, both as foals and as adults.
“So you wanna go out with us someday and do some crusading?” Scootaloo asked.
“Sure,” I replied, not minding now that I knew the dragon-nip in my legs was completely sealed. “Especially since you’re staying here and helping me with this stuff.”
“No problem,” Apple Bloom said. “Besides, I’m loving this. I haven’t seem Diamond Tiara this angry since she won Blue Hay tickets for her dad and had to go with him.”
“What are they doing now?” I asked.
Apple Bloom glanced over my shoulder, turning away from the table with all the ideas for future adventures and inventions. “Still glaring at us.”
—
“That sounds... nice,” Twilight said.
“It was,” I agreed, skeptically eyeing some boiled and seasoned hay, wondering if I should perhaps take the great leap to try it. “I shared ideas for human technology that I wanted to recreate with magic.”
“Like your computer?”
“Nah, that would be a bit of a leap, but communication devices, perhaps.”
—
“‘Walkie-talkie’?” Scootaloo asked.
“Yeah, I never liked that word,” I said. “If it’s technology, it needs a complicated name. ‘Portable Communication Device’, a ‘PCD’.”
“Yeah, I like that,” Apple Bloom said.
“Besides,” Sweetie Belle said. “Until we manage to make several of them, it’s not gonna be a ‘walkie-talkie’, it would be a ‘walkie-monologie’.” To which we shared a small laugh. “Or a trottie-soliloquy.”
—
“That sounds like an excellent idea,” Twilight said, impressed. “Though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, considering what I saw in the other human world. I also thought you’d be interested in putting in that arcano-dispersive shocker into your prosthesis.”
“I am,” I said. “But we figured that we’d keep that under our hats while in class, especially since I can’t even do a lot of the simple things yet, like light magic. Could seem a bit arrogant that I’m gonna try my ha—hoof at a project like that before I know I can. I have some other ideas for things to install into it, though.”
—
“So can Miss Cheerilee teach light magic?” I asked.
Sweetie Belle shook her head. “No. I don’t think so, but Snips or Snails might.”
“Oh, wonderful,” I muttered, and stood up to walk over to Tall & Small. There was a small and slightly glowing aura whenever I did any magic, of course, but a real magician should know how to create actual light. ‘It’s like the most basic spell in D&D. Then again, and this might be for the best, the overall power level in Equestria might not be exactly the same as in D&D, considering that Twilight is the only magician I know with a familiar… though now I’m not sure if it’s Owlowicious or Spike.’
Snips and Snails were staring with intense interest on what looked like a miniature horse racetrack. I hovered over them, and noticed a pair of snails very, very slowly making their way down the track.
“Riveting,” I commented.
The duo’s heads shot up from their attention to the race and turned towards, and I winced in sympathy as they knocked into each other. “Ah!”
“Oh,” I said, flinching. Equines have a lot of strength in their necks. “You two okay?”
“Oh, hey Gabe,” Snips said. “What’s up?”
—
“So did they teach you anything?”
“Not really,” I said. “I finally had to ask where they learned it, and they said it was from a book called ‘Your First Magic, Yearling Edition’.”
“Oh, that’s a little foal’s book,” Twilight said.
“Yeah, I figured. Good thing is that if it’s here, no one has to see me checking it out,” I said.
“Just as well,” Spike interjected. “Those two aren’t really teacher material.”
“I noticed. Also, for some reason, Rumble looked about as relieved as I felt when their attention finally went back to their race,” I said.
When Twilight and Spike didn’t answer, I looked up from my plate at them.
“What?” I asked. Twilight was giving me a slight smile, but I recognised a hidden smirk when I saw one.
It sounded like Spike started saying something, but when I looked at him, he was just staring in confusion at Twilight with a purple aura around his snout.
‘There’s a joke being played here, and I’m not sure I’m up for playing along.’
—
I held up one of the two connected gems in my magic. “Alright, I think it might be ready,” I said.
Sweetie Belle picked up the other gem. “Oh, I wanna try.”
“Talking or listening?” I wondered.
“Listening.”
“Alright,” I said, and held the other gem up to my mouth. “Testing, testing. T, K, four, two, one, there are four lights, vive la révolution... hearing anything?”
Sweetie Belle looked skeptically at the gem. “I’m not sure. I think there were some sounds, but it’s kinda hard to tell when you’re right by me.”
“Alright then. Keep listening,” I said, and walked away to the other side of the room.
I raised the gem to my mouth. “Alright, how’s this?” I spoke into it. “As the old jungle saying goes; don’t puncture your rubber raft if you don’t want to row hard.”
The Crusaders had been huddling around the other gem in Sweetie’s hoof, and it was clear that something happened when you spoke into this one, but after I was done talking, they looked at me wonderingly, and Scootaloo tilted her hoof a bit.
I started looking around the classroom, wondering if there perhaps was some sort of interference, perhaps by ponies’ passive magic, just like what my prostheses were shielded from.
I say "started", because I saw Rumble sitting by a bench next to me and looking at me, and my attention shifted to how his gaze immediately whipped to the book in front of him when he saw that I was looking.
“Hey, uh… Rumble, right?” I started. His eyes, accentuated by his reddened cheeks, reluctantly turned to me. “I know a lot of people think prostheses are weird, but I’m not grossing you out or anything, right?”
His eyes widened a bit further, and after a second, he quickly shook his head.
“Okay, good,” I said, not quite believing him, since he still hadn’t said anything. I gave him an easy smile. “Hey, you wanna help me with something?”
His eyes shifted around for a moment, before he nodded, and slowly started walking up to me.
“Alright, just hold this,” I said, and held out my gem to him. “When I get back to the other’s, just say something into this. Or, you know, just make some sort of sound.”
I placed the gem in his hoof, and halfway to the classroom, Dinky walked up to Rumble and looked at the gem with curiosity.
I took my place by the Crusaders around our table, waved invitingly at Rumble, closed my eye, and projected myself into magic-sensing mode as we all huddled around the gem, our ears tickling each other.
The gentle swirlings of magic in the gem just… swirled. Nothing seemed to happen.
“I don’t think he’s saying anything,” Apple Bloom said.
I de-projected and we turned to look at him and Dinky. He was standing there with a very nervous expression on his face.
“He does speak, right?”
“Yes,” Sweetie said, sounding more amused than confused when she told me.
“Oh, good,” I said. “Would be kind of ironic if I was too dense to notice someone else’s disability.” I waved at him invitingly again while smiling at him, once more leaning in with the others to listen to the rock.
There was a soft chiming sound, and a very girlish voice spoke, sounding a bit distant. “Am I supposed to talk into this thing?”
We looked up to see Dinky standing with the gem in her hoof. I sighed gently and waved her over, deciding not to bother Rumble anymore.
—
“That’s impressive,” Twilight said. “And it could be a really useful invention.”
“Well, thanks, but...” I started, “much of it is a modification from Scrap’s work, it’s not working properly yet, and I don’t think the range is gonna be all that great. It’s not gonna beat you and your breath,” I said, turning to Spike.
“Weeeellll, obviously,” Spike said, and leaned back against the the backrest with a pleased look on his face.
“So what did Cheerilee think about your education level?” Twilight asked.
“Well, it’s pretty much all over the place,” I said. “It’s gonna take... quite a while before math catches up to my level, though I’m not complaining. Cheerilee asked me if I wanted to help out with math when it’s not during lecture.”
“Oh that’s nice of you,” Twilight said.
I turned my eye to my plate. “Well, I didn’t say yes yet.”
“But wouldn’t that be nice?” she insisted. “You can get to know everypony in class.”
‘That’s certainly true.’ “Yeah. I also got some other subjects to swat up on, so we’ll see.”
—
Two days later, by the lake, I held up my metallic hoof towards Apple Bloom, who had a rubber mallet in her mouth.
Sweetie Belle finished up with the cork where my frog would’ve been. “Alright, hit it.”
I braced myself, and Apple Bloom swung the mallet at hard as she could, and, with a dull "thump", plugged my leg up, a stout rope still attached to it.
Holding up my hoof and looking at it critically, I eventually buried my muzzle into the opening, and blew as hard as I could a few times.
“Yep, that’s airtight,” I said, flippantly pleased.
“Hind leg,” Apple Bloom said.
“Someone else needs to do the air tightness check,” I said.
“Not it!” Scootaloo and Apple Bloom immediately exclaimed.
Sweetie Belle looked at us in confusion for a second, before her ears fell. “Aaw!”
“Alright, geez, I’ll do it myself then,” I said, with a roll of my eyes, and sat down to remove my leg. A quick maneuver with the activation switch, a strike with the mallet, and another inspection later, I was ready, and plopped my leg back on.
Apple Bloom, having already untied her bow and dropped the mallet, immediately ran out onto the jetty, then jumped out into the water and made the biggest splash she could possibly make. Scootaloo followed after, and hovered a bit through the air before coming down as well.
Sweetie Belle and I took a much more measured trek over the planks towards the steps at the end. After a moment of consideration, I removed the coverings for my legs, losing the rudimentary sense of touch arrangement I had come up with, which revealed their metallic nature and the new addition to my equipment; a gem tied in a nylon arrangement by my fetlock.
“How’s the water? Cold?” I asked, as I secured one of my lenses over my prosthetic eye, just in case.
“Of course not,” Sweetie Belle said. She waded down and began paddling over towards Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, who were splashing each other with water. ‘Oh. Duh, controlling the weather.’
“Alright, hold up, I haven’t gone for a swim in years,” I said. “And it wasn’t as an equine.”
At first I couldn’t confirm whether Sweetie Belle was telling the truth about the water, since I stepped into it with body parts that didn’t really react to temperature.
Sweetie Belle turned around and waited for me, and after taking it a bit frustratingly slowly for a while, I took a deep breath and simply let myself fall into the water.
I wouldn’t say that swimming was easier as a pony, at least not as a unicorn (I figured that wings could possibly help though), but the earliest parts of learning to swim is simply about keeping your head above the water as you get used to it, that was an easy task with my longer neck.
I came up for air after being completely submerged, the sheer volume of my mane preventing it from lying flat against my skull.
“You doing okay?” Sweetie Belle asked.
I struggled a bit before I managed to right myself. “Kinda,” I said, and waved my prosthesis. “We might have done the plugging a bit too good. They feel more buoyant than the rest of me.”
Scootaloo’s voice sounded from the gem on my wrist. “This is Orange Lightning and Red Storm, calling Blue Thunder, come in, Blue Thunder, over.”
I grinned at the band held around my leg. When describing human communications, I had also mentioned old style field communication discipline, and the Crusaders simply would not have it any other way after that.
I pressed the gem. “This is Blue Thunder, with White Flash, responding to call, over.”
We looked over to Scootaloo and Apple Bloom a small ways away from us, waving enthusiastically. “How’s it going, swimming as a pony? Over.”
“You can literally see us,” Sweetie Belle deadpanned against my wrist. “Over.”
“Affir… mative,” Apple Bloom said, struggling a bit with the words. “Calling for a rendezvous at our position. Over.”
“Affirmative,” I said. “Establishing approach vector and proceeding along determined route. Over and out.”
Sweetie Belle giggled at me as we started slowly swimming towards the others. “I don’t think that means anything,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “But it’s fun.”
I was struggling to keep up with Sweetie Belle, who obviously was better than me at this.
“What are you doing?” she asked me when she turned around and saw me lagging behind.
“Well, I’m trying to swim, but it’s not working,” I said.
“That’s a strange technique you’ve got there,” she said, and stopped.
I came up to her, slowly. “It’s the breaststroke,” I said. “Pretty standard back home.”
“Oh, well, I learned to do this,” she said, and started paddling past me.
It looked a lot like simply cantering in the water, but it clearly worked.
“Alright,” I said, and started to do as she did, which also made it easier to keep my head above the water.
“There you go,” she said. “Much better.”
I figured that a backstroke might work well too, since I could keep my head in a traditional equine eating position to keep it above the surface, but this was working out fine.
After a few moments of swimming at a leisurely pace, we reached Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, the latter had a look of annoyance on her face.
“Finally,” Scootaloo said.
“Are you on a schedule?” Apple Bloom asked her. “I thought we were just here to take it easy.”
“Alright, fine,” Scootaloo said. “How’s the swimming going, Gabe?”
“Well enough,” I said. “Getting your coat wet is still an interesting sensation.”
“What’s it like to swim without one?” Apple Bloom asked.
I shrugged. “I think the best way to learn is to simply try without one.”
They all looked down at the wet hair covering them.
“Pass,” Scootaloo said. “Alright, so you ready to show us your latest?”
“Sure you want to?” I teased.
“Yes. Do it,” she commanded.
“Alright. This is like a proof of concept, I think. You should see the jump module I’m working on. That’s the reason I wanted to make sure I can swim, because I might want to try it here,” I said.
“Jump module?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Yeah, something to help me jump really far installed in my hind leg,” I said. “I got the idea from a game.”
“Less talking, more shooting,” Scootaloo said.
I chuckled at that. “Alright, check this out. My cannon has a cannon,” I said grinningly, and raised my foreleg, pointing it towards the sky, all seven eyes focusing on it.
In science fiction, cybernetics that have capabilities numbering beyond what humans are capable of often needs augmentations in the nervous system to be able to be controlled. Which makes sense. Humans don’t have the ability to switch on infrared vision, and neither do ponies for that matter, so some addition in the grey matter could very well be required for that on/off switch to be there if you want to control it with thoughts.
This, luckily, hadn’t been the case when it comes to magic. I already had experience with suddenly being able to move my ears, getting a tail, and having a magic growth out of my head. Adding another functionality to one of my limbs was old hat by now.
So, I simply activated my projectile launcher in my foreleg, and started charging up, figuring that the thoroughly tight fitting cork would fly pretty far when it came loose.
With a popping sound, it did. Very far. So far that it vanished from sight pretty much immediately.
Or so the Crusaders described it to me later. Maybe because I wasn’t used to doing this yet, but the magical inertia manipulation thingie that all ponies have to varying degrees, and which my prostheses have in abundance, wasn’t activated by this, and so I followed the laws of physics at that moment; cork went up into the air, I went down into the water.
It’s a rousing experience, suddenly finding yourself several body lengths under the surface of the water.
It’s terrifyingly also one that might provokes gasps of surprise, a risky venture when under water.
I might’ve done just that, but stopped myself before it became really bad.
Instead, I focused on getting used to seeing under the surface. The Crusaders were above me, seemingly still focused on the sky, somewhere in which, a cork was flying around.
The standard breaststroke didn’t work as well with the somewhat pudgier form of a pony and its round hooves.
The paddle that Sweetie had shown seemed to be going frustratingly slow as well when swimming vertically.
‘Oh, come on! Well, it’s been a few weeks since my last hospital visit. Is it time again?’
Finally, the Crusaders seemed to notice that something was amiss, and Apple Bloom shoved her head into into the water and saw me.
She immediately submerged and approached me.
I internally let out a sigh of relief as she grabbed me and started hauling me upwards, as I suspected that my magic reserve was a bit low.
We both let out gasps as we surfaced, me coughing up some water that had snuck down my throat at first.
“Are you okay, Gabe?” Apple Bloom asked, still holding me, probably noticing how groggy I was getting.
I tried nodding, but that just provoked fresh coughing.
“Do you need CPR?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“I can do it,” Scootaloo said.
“If,” I started, making room for one more cough. “If you really want to, just no tongue, please.”
It took around two seconds before my words sunk in, after which we started laughing at the danger passing, one of us starting out a bit puffed up before giving in.
—
Scrap looked up from my notes, splayed across his workbench. “So this ‘mass accelerator’ actually works?”
“It does,” I said, smilingly. “Had a little adventure with it the other day by the lake.”
Scrap looked over to the rack where his oversized arbalest rested. “I wonder if I should make a new version of Hot Pink, then?”
“If you do, I recommend you let me get a functioning version of the inertial dampener enchantment working before you try it,” I said, my fondness for science fiction serving me well when it comes to naming things.
Scrap laughed. “You’d be a fine royal artificer yourself, I think. The Royal Intelligence Agency, which I will not confirm the existence of, would love somepony like you working for them."
I considered that for a moment or two. ‘Oh, like Q! “Gabe branch”. Try not to trample anyone with it, double-O seven.’ He’s my favorite character. “I’d consider it,” I said. “Take a look at the ‘vertical traversal unit’.”
He rifled through the papers until he found it. “This?”
“Yeah, notice how the hook part can be controlled? I need a metalworker, and I thought I’d ask your opinion on how best to make this.”
Scrap was quiet for a moment, before letting out a barking laugh.
“Celestia in a tutu, Gabe! You are absolutely insane... I love it.”
“Thank you, very much,” I said. “I actually never realised how much I wanted to be an inventor of magical stuff.”
“You seem to setting yourself up as an adventurer at this rate,” Scrap noted.
“Well, perhaps I’m just trying out my inventions before I let others use them… but yes, I will buckle all the swash.”
—
I was standing alone on my vantage point, overlooking Ponyville.
You’d think I might not want to try this alone, after what happened last time, but I had done the calculations, and taken precautions.
I walked up to the edge of the hill, and looked down on my metallic hoof. I was gonna have to implement some sort of safety mechanism, but right now, this would do for testing purposes.
I aimed my leg at a nearby bush, and with a raygun like sound, I sent a section of the leaves on it flying, with an otherwise physically harmless arcano-dispersive pulse. I hadn't gotten any actual use out of the thing, but it still felt exciting to have. My years of being short a few limbs might be making me go a bit overboard with what I want my new ones to be able to do.
‘That’s never gonna get old. And it’s so much easier than concentrating with my horn,’ I thought, and shook my leg, listening for rattling sounds. ‘Everything still seems solid. Let’s do this.’
Locking my eye onto a lone cloud above and ahead of me, I widened my stance, lowered my goggles, and lifted up my right foreleg.
With an authoritative sound, a grappling hook launched from my leg, its wire following tightly behind, and with the help of one of Twilight’s spells converted into an enchantment, buried itself into the cloud as the music in my mind surged.
I stood there for another moment with a cocky grin on my face, letting the music build anticipation.
I jumped, and the music swelled as I sailed through the air, my mane and tail billowing behind me.
The music reached a crescendo…
“Wooooooo!” I cried out in triumph.
… only for it to peter out as I started losing momentum.
I came to a halt a good way up into the air, and started swinging the other way.
“Woooo?” I whooped uncertainty on the way back.
My pendulum swings were pretty soon not very dramatic, as I was left hanging from the cloud, with my hind legs dangling a few inches above the ground.
I gave a few experimental shakes to see if I could perhaps move myself closer to the ground, but no dice.
I looked around for possible solutions, up at my leg, with the wire sticking out of it, and around again.
After doing another fruitless jig in the air, I let out a sigh and deflated.
“Horseapples.”