//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1- Reveille, 1 Oct 15 (r2) 
// Story: Waking up a Unicorn 
// by Alden MacManx 
//------------------------------//

Rapid Transit met his granddaughter, Silver Strider, at the door to his modest house in Alexandria. With her were her twin six-year-old children, Silver Spiral and Silent Flight. ”Thanks for taking in these two, Granddad.” she said after pleasantries were exchanged.
“Hey, you and Coppertail deserve some time alone together. I don’t mind watching after these two. You going to bring me some more great-grandkids after you get back?” the old unicorn said with a smile to Silver Strider’s blush and the kids giggles.
Silver Strider gave her grandfather a kiss. “I’ll see you next week.” She said to him before looking at the kids. “Now, you two behave!”
“Yes, Mom!” The two chorused. She hugged the children before hurrying off, projecting a telegate ahead of her and going through.
Rapid Transit took the kids inside and showed them to the guest room, where the kids divested themselves of their saddlebags. After that, the twins, a unicorn and a pegasus, gang hugged their great-grandfather. “It’s been a long time since we last saw you, grampy!” said Silver Spiral, the young female unicorn.
“It’s only been six weeks since you were last here, kids.” Rapid Transit said with a smile, nuzzling them both.
“That’s too long to wait before seeing you!” exclaimed Silent Flight, the male pegasus.
“I know, kids. So, what would you like to do before Great-Grandma gets home?”
“We want to hear your stories about the beginning, Grampa!” the twins chorused.
Rapid Transit smiled. “You like my stories, eh? Come on, let’s get some milk and cookies into you and I’ll talk your ears off!” Once the three were settled, he started to talk.

It was the silence that woke me up. 
Normally, I sleep with a radio on, a habit started when I was a kid, with my parents having a radio set up tuned to WOR at night, and reinforced by my time at sea, when the silence caused by the stoppage of the ventilation system meant I had to get up and head aft to see what had shut down the reactor. 
I woke up to hear not Ned and Connie from KTAR on my bedside radio, but to the steady tick tick tick of the battery-operated clock on the bedroom wall. Opening an eye, I saw that the clock-radio display was off. The sunlight trickling through the blackout blind (so I worked nights… in the desert, it better than being up in the day) allowed me to see that the power was indeed off, my wig-wag persistence of vision clock still and dark. Okay, so the power was out. Not unknown, but annoying. I decided to get up and see if my father was all right, the old man having a lot of health and vision issues.
It is said that every man is allowed one mistake every day that is free of consequence from the universe. For many folk, they use it by getting out of bed. I think I had a serious backlog built up, because I found myself falling out of bed, my arms and legs not working as they were supposed to, cracking my nose against the night stand. After a few choice words (which I shan’t repeat here for fear of burning young ears) I managed to get to my hands and knees, or so it felt. My eyes focused to see my nose had become more prominent than before, and it was a silvery-gray color, one eye being shadowed by something on my head. Wobbling, I managed to crawl to my bathroom door, which has a nice big mirror on it. That was my second mistake in a minute or so.
Looking back at me from the mirror was a small silver-gray horse, with a purple and white striped mane hanging off to one side, and a similarly colored tail. A silver horn protruded from the horse’s brow. I tossed my head, the horse tossed its head. I raised a hand, the horse raised a purple hoof. My ears, and the top of my head, were white as new snow. “Capobianco, indeed.” I snorted, my name being Dominic Capobianco, which means ‘white head’ translated from the original Italian.
I shut my eyes and took stock of the situation. Okay, somehow, I have been changed into a small unicorn. Fortunately for my sanity, I have been a gamer since I was in my teens, and I’m nearing double nickels. I have gamed out situations in games I have run that were pretty bizarre, but turning into a unicorn was not one of them. I told myself not to panic and take stock of things, biting my lip as I thought, which led to another shock… I had teeth, my last natural ones having fallen out for good a couple years back. “Okay”, I thought to myself. “So, changing into a unicorn gave me my teeth back.” I looked myself over, finding I had lost a lot of weight (okay, so I was bigger than normal as a human, and liked it), my eyes didn’t need my glasses to see clearly (20/200 vision in right, 20/400 in left), and most importantly, my right foot did not hurt! I have been off work for almost two months because of plantar fasciitis in my foot, which made merely walking from my room to the kitchen and back so painful, I would beg my online friend in Texas to come out to see me, with his machete, and cut my foot off above the ankle. The only reason I didn’t ask my father, a retired butcher, was because I didn’t trust his aim.
“So, changing into a unicorn cures all ills.” I muttered as I looked myself over, liking what I saw, except for the purple in my colors. Purple was my best friend Jenny’s favorite color, she having died suddenly a couple of months before.
I decided to check out the house, to see if Fathead, er, FATHER, was all right. Getting out of my room was a challenge, there not being much room between the bed and the dresser to get out the door, but I made it, nosing the key ring lanyard hanging on the doorknob into my laundry basket to keep the door open. Jenny had given me those keys on my birthday a couple of years back, for luck. The living room was empty, door hooked open to let the cat in and out while fathead was awake. A terrible smell came from the kitchen, like something had long since rotted to a new form of life. I took a deep breath and held it, to go through the kitchen to the back of the house, where his room is. The room was there, but he was not. He wasn’t in the bathroom, either, and I knew he was not outside, because the door was hooked from the inside. I headed back through the kitchen to the front room, rearing back to knock the hook out of its eye with my horn.
My battered old truck still sat in the carport, though the tires looked a little soft. Some buds were on the saguaros outside the house, which was the next clue to me that some time had elapsed. Last I remember, it was the 23rd of May, and I was looking forward to the Coca-Cola 600 the next day. There were no flower buds on the saguaros last I saw, and they don’t appear overnight. My next problem was to see if I could open the door. Took a while, but I made it. That’s when I realized the key was still on my key ring, which is attached to my pants, which are hanging on a hook in my room. Getting the door open with a hoof was bad enough, now I had to see if I could turn the key, not to mention getting IN to the truck and closing the door, then re-opening. After a few choice words in Italian, Polish and Russian (words which I won’t reproduce here, because I don’t know how to spell in Russian and Polish), I went inside to get my keys, which by itself was a chore. 
By the time I got my keys, gone back out, get IN the truck, adjust the seat so I could see, bend my tail some so I wouldn’t yank on it, and manage to get old Zira started, considerable time had gone by. I was hungry, thirsty, and in general annoyed at the world. I managed to pull out of the carport without hitting a post, and went around to see what I could see, which was a whole lot of nothing. No people, no cars on the road, no power, and not many open doors. I cruised north to the Fry’s up on Bell Road to see if anyone was there. Only four cars in the lot, and they all looked like they have been sitting quite a while. Pulling up in front, I put Zira in park and left her running while I got out (okay, FELL out is more correct) and went to see what I could see. No lights on inside, and the doors were shut, despite the sun being high in the sky. So, frustrated beyond all reason, I went up and KICKED the damned door. The curse of an Italian heritage, Neapolitan father and Sicilian mother adding up to a long-burning fuse on my temper, but the explosion when it does go off resembles Tsar Bomba.
“What’s Tsar Bomba, Grampa?” Silent Flight asked.
“A real big bomb the Russians set off a long time ago. The biggest H-bomb ever made.”
“I hope I never see you get mad, Grampa.” Silver Spiral said seriously.
“I hope you don’t too, kids. I scare me when I get that mad. Now, where was I?”
Picking myself up off the concrete after faceplanting myself, I stared at the door. “Damn you, iceberg, I’m going to MOVE you!” I snorted as I set myself to attack the glass again. I felt a tingle go through me and out my horn. I saw a silvery light go from my horn tip to the lock on the door. After a couple seconds, the lock turned and the doors slid apart. A gust of unbelievably foul air came out, the only rival in my memory being the time they dumped a porta-john truck that had been sitting through a hot Arizona summer. The neighborhood by the shop stank for days! 
When I came to, the sun was farther to the west and the smell had gone from indescribable to desperate measures level. Being hungry and thirsty, I could say I was desperate. I pushed myself in and headed for the drinks aisle in the back quickly. I found I was in luck, everything being there that should have been. Nosing over a bottle of water, I bit the end off it and drank greedily, making quite a mess, but it was worth it. After my thirst was slaked, I went over an aisle or two and found the oatmeal. I loathe oatmeal, but something told me that would be the best for me, so I managed to break open a few containers and enjoyed my first meal in a while.
“Why didn’t you use your hooves, Grampa?” Silent Flight asked.
“Because at the time, I didn’t know how. I had just woke up as a pony. I was still thinking human, and my hoof training came later.” Rapid Transit explained.
Sated, I thought on what to do next. Getting a cart or a skid would have been a good idea as I came in, but I didn’t think of it at the time. So, I went hunting for one, and found it in the back, by the bakery. Took me a while to clear the remains of bread and whatever off the thing before I put my shoulder to it and started pushing it back to the cereal and water aisles to load up. Along the way, I grabbed some sugar, spices, and cat food. Why I did at the time, I couldn’t say, other than simply it being a habit to grab some whenever I went shopping. 
I managed to get the skid back to the entrance, the pungency from produce now more bearable. Next problem- getting the stuff from the skid to the bed of the truck. I sat down to think. Since I used whatever it was, call it magic, to open the doors, why couldn’t I use it to put the stuff in the truck? Pretend the magic was a pair of hands to load the stuff. Whaddaya know, it worked. The water, food, and other stuff I had gathered was engulfed in a silvery glow emanating from my horn. I thought ‘up’, it went up, and into the bed of the truck. I thought down, and the stuff went down. “So that’s what TK feels like.” I muttered as I managed to get back into the truck. “Glad I’ve played some TK’s in the past.”
I guided faithful old Zira (a 2002 S-10 with over 250,000 miles on it) back home, parking out on the pad instead of in the carport. The door was standing open as I had left it, and there was someone sitting there waiting for me, my cat, Sethra, an older gray tabby I had picked up a few years ago. She looked much leaner than before, and had a scarred ear, but she was just as imperious as ever. I got out of the truck and looked at her. “Kitty cat, pretty cat, how my pretty silly cat?” I called out. She trotted down the steps and over to me, rubbing around my ankles (or whatever you call them, my sister having been the horse lady, not me.) and looking up with a ‘where the hell have you been’ expression. I rubbed her with my nose before picking up some water, oatmeal and the bag of cat food in my silver glow. I brought them inside, carefully climbing the stairs and in. Once settled, I opened a bottle of water and poured it in her water dish, which was dry. As she went over to lap some up, I opened the bag of food and filled her bowl. She was definitely happy, I could tell. 
The next thing to do was to dig up my phone, which I had left hooked up to the charger. A nosing of it had it turn on, to show ‘Oct 1 2015 4:00 pm’. “October first!” I exclaimed. “Talk about pulling a Rip Van Winkle!” A line from an Allan Sherman song I liked came to mind. ‘But that big hunk of liverwurst has been there since October first, and today is the twenty-third of May.’ Okay, so the dates were reversed. I thought it fit. Next chore was to bring the place to some sort of habitability, meaning open all windows I could and hope that a breeze would come along and help relieve the heat, which I was starting to notice now that I was thinking about it. The simplest thing would be a nice big chunk of ice, but how would I make it in the ninety-plus degree heat of an early October afternoon in north Phoenix, Arizona?
I sat down to think and think hard, but sideways. Unicorns have magic, I’m a unicorn, ergo I must have magic. But what KIND of magic? Sure, I have a form of telekinesis that is good for lifting and fine manipulation, but how could that help me cool off? I thought about my games, especially the one I have been playing since before my nephew was born, and that was over thirty-five years ago. Ray of Frost, maybe? Getting up, I dug a pot out from its storage place and poured a gallon of water into it. (It’s a BIG pot, one Fathead loved to make bean soup in whenever I got a ham.) I stared at it, willing my silver beam to come out and turn the water to ice, going over a door in trying. That didn’t work…
“Silly Grampa! Magic doesn’t work THAT way!” Silver Spiral laughed.
“So I discovered. Remember, I had just Returned and didn’t have the teachers that you do, kiddo. It was all try it and see at the time.”
The next thing I knew, I felt some painful points in my left flank. My eyes opened and I let out a yelp. I turned my head to see Sethra looking back up at me. The lighting was dim, the sun setting in the west. I could hear the howl and barks of coyotes in the not-very-distance. Promptly, I shut the door. “Thanks, Sethra.” I said to the cat, who accepted the thanks as her just due before sauntering off. Looking in the pot, the water was still in its liquid state, and not at all cold. I looked down at the water and snorted “Fiddlesticks!” The silver beam leapt from the tip of my horn to the water, extracting heat and turning the water to ice, nice thick ice, or so I thought.
“Okay, lateral thinking, just along another axis.” I said to myself. Feeling quite drained, I managed to pick up the pot and move it to my bedroom. I turned on some battery powered lights I keep in there to light up the night before getting up into bed via some gymnastics I never would have been able to duplicate had I not been a little unicorn before passing out colder than yesterday’s pancakes. Well, you know what I mean. That is in itself highly unusual, because I have had sleep disorders all my life, and now I need potent meds to shut my brain off so I could sleep.
“Well, I did then. I don’t now. Grandma’s home, and I’ll pick up the story later.”
“Got that right, Grandma’s home!” came a still-refined British voice from the kitchen. The kids squealed happily and ran to their great-grandmother, Soaring Heart, a white pegasus with a mixed blue mane and tail, with a cutie mark of a large red heart mostly filled with smaller golden hearts and blue wings, gang hugging her gleefully.
“More story time later, kids! Let’s eat!”