//------------------------------//
// Change 
// Story: Cavadiso 
// by Piemaster128 
//------------------------------//

	The sun decided it was time for me to wake up. I groaned as the bright, warm and annoying rays of sun slowly began to filter through my eyelids as I lay prone on my back. I tried to move, to roll over on the soft sand to hide my face but my body didn’t seem to want to respond. I tried again and was rewarded with a slight shift in my head’s positioning, thankfully cutting off the light. But alas, sleep had left for the time being and wouldn’t be coming back any time soon. Slowly my hearing began to return, replacing that annoying ringing that had plagued my ears since before I had awoken. Nearby, I could hear the soft crashing of the ocean waves onto the beach I was apparently on. This soft background noise mixed pleasantly with bird songs that played gently in my ear, forming a perfect symphony of calming morning melodies. As my sense of smell returned, I could smell the salt of the ocean while I also began to feel the gentle lap of water on my lower legs. But as I began to return to the land of the living, a single question popped into my mind. Why was I on a beach again? Not wanting to move, I decided to try and recollect what had happened. 
My name was Quill. I had seen an advertisement one day while aimlessly wandering the streets of a random town I had stopped in for the night. I was between jobs, had no family members to miss me, and no friends to crash with. I was alone and out of gas money, wanting nothing more than a warm bed after being on the road for so long. In short, I was someone that had fallen through the cracks of society. 
The ad was, at first glance, completely ridiculous, but a second glance made me think it was too good to be true, and a third made me question how dangerous it was. A wealthy benefactor had hired an apparently skilled captain to launch a small expedition and he was now seeking to hire a crew. The only requirement was that we could follow instructions, were strong, and knew how to hold a gun. The ad promised a free flight to Hawaii where the expedition would begin, free food, and fifty thousand dollars for all members, one-hundred thousand if said expedition was successful. What it failed to mention, however, was what the expedition would entail. I, however, with nothing really left to loose, decided it might be worth a shot.
I groaned as a small lance of pain ran throughout my entire body. I could now move my limbs, but they were heavy and sluggish. With the water still taunting my legs, I decided to roll onto my side and then my stomach. I immediately regretted this decision as a sharp pain flooded through my side as I attempted to roll. Something was on my side, and it hurt. Did I break a rib or something? Of course, this thought didn’t last long as my head began to swim again, dragging me towards the depths of unconsciousness. I fought back against the black tide, but it was no use. 
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“This is crazy,” I muttered, gazing out over the forward bow of the large cargo ship from within the wheel house. “There’s nothing in there.” In front of the ship lay a huge solid wall of black storm clouds, lightning flashing and illuminating the outside every now and again. It had been two months since I had seen the ad, called the crazy guy who came up with this idea, and was shipped off to Hawaii. Upon arrival, I was “evaluated” and determined to be the captain’s personal body guard. To them, I was nothing more than a hired gun. The deal still seemed good at the time, but when the benefactor revealed the purpose of the trip two days before we set off, I lost my faith in him immediately. 
There was, according to him, a never-ending storm located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It was always there, covering about 250 miles of ocean 24/7. Satellites couldn’t see through it, and any ship that had attempted to pass through had never returned. It was like the Bermuda Triangle, only real. And now we were about to sail right into it. Our “generous” benefactor claimed that some sort of ancient paradise supposedly existed beyond the clouds. Our mission: find the paradise, loot it for anything of value, and kill anything that got in our way. Mister crazy was even coming along for the ride too, ranting every night about the great treasure we would find. Me, I just wanted to survive this crazy escapade. 
In the wheel house it was just me, the captain, and Mr. Crazy. Even now he was still ranting, possibly drooling over the prospect of what we would find. The captain was ignoring him, focusing his eyes on the storm. We were maybe half a mile away, and the sea was strangely calm, almost as though it was holding its breath, waiting for us to enter the forbidden place. As we neared, I could see some of the men on deck tie themselves down. Up ahead, the storm flashed as bolts of lightning began to fire with increased intensity, as if warning us from going further. I knew we would ignore the warning. Slowly, the front end of the ship pierced the front of the storm, and the ship disappearing into the dark maw of the the terrifying beast. Fear rose in my chest, my heart clenched and my breath caught in my throat as the storm passed over the wheel house. Then all hell broke loose. 
The calm sea was instantly replaced with towering thirty foot waves washing over the sides of the boat. The calm sky was replaced with a torrent of black clouds, white lightning, and a torrential downpour of rain. The crew off on the front of the ship was already soaked, holding on desperately to the railings and their safety lines as we rolled about. I had to steady myself on the captain’s chair as Mr. Crazy whooped and cheered in excitement. The captain grit his teeth and began to adjust the ship, angling it to meet the waves head on. For five minutes I endured the shaking and rolling of the ship until out of nowhere, a bolt of lightning hit the front of the wheel house, temporarily blinding me as well as the captain. As if seizing the momentary weakness, a rough wave sixty feet tall plowed into the left side of the ship and I was thrown to the right, rolling as the crunch of metal hit my ears. It was probably what saved me.
As my vision recovered, I began to feel the telltale sign of rain on my face and hear the screams of terror from the rest of the crew. Opening my eyes and blinking furiously, I observed the carnage that used to be the wheel house. The whole left side of the wheel house had collapsed. The captain was pinned, trying to crawl out from under a few hundred tons of steel. Mr. Crazy wasn’t so lucky, missing an arm, a leg, and a head. If I wasn’t so terrified I probably would have lost my breakfast. Trying to ignore the bleeding corpse, I rushed over to the downed captain and set to trying to free him, but what is one man vs. a few hundred tons? He just waved me off and pointed towards a discarded life preserver, shouting something I couldn’t hear as another lightning bolt lit up the sky, but the message was clear. Save yourself. 
Reluctantly I nodded and dashed out the door, grabbing the life preserver and running down the steps as the crew scrambled about. Maybe I could make it to a life boat, I thought, but I had hardly gotten ten steps when the entire ship lurched and I was thrown into a side railing. Looking back past the wreckage, I saw that the sea wasn’t done with us yet. Behind us loomed a wave that had to be at least 300 feet tall, easily eight times taller than our boat, and already I could feel the entire boat beginning to rise as the wave swept us up into its unforgiving embrace. With no other option, I waited until we were nearly standing on end and, standing on the railing, jumped towards the waters below. 
‘This ride definitely wasn’t worth the price of admission,’ I thought as I plunged into the unforgiving water.
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I groaned as my dream faded and the sun told me once again to ‘wake the h*** up Quill!’ The water was still only up to my lower legs, but I felt it best it I didn’t tempt the ocean to finish me off. Begrudgingly I tried to move my body again, and thankfully this time found it completely responsive, with no pain to boot. However, something just felt… off. I did a quick mental check. Legs? Check. Arms? Check. Neck and head? I certainly hope so. But as I moved around, it felt almost as though I had a few extra parts glued on, two of which were located down my sides below my shoulders and another above my butt. As I began to sit up, I came to another realization that I couldn’t feel my hands. But my arms were working just fine. What’s more, I could feel the sand against my body, but there was something soft and fuzzy that seemed to separate the me from it. But I had been wearing jeans. 
Slowly I brought my right arm up to my face and tried to rub my eyes, only to find that the end of my arm was blunt. No fingers. I slowly opened my eyes and blinked as the sun decided to further the suspense. GO AWAY SUN, I’M BUSY! As my vision returned I looked and saw not a hand on my arm, but a bright green hoof. No, seriously, I even brought up my other arm and, yep, I had hooves. I looked at the rest of my body to see that I was completely covered in bright green fur, with my legs now also ending in hooves and… was that an orange tail? 
‘Brain.exe has stopped working,’ I thought. Despite how most people would react, I simply sat there, blinking slowly. I felt something on my back move and turned around to see a green wing with orange feathers to match my tail. There was a matching one on the other side too. Again, I didn’t react. I simply stood shakily on my new hooves and walked (more like stumbled) over to a broken part of our ship that just happened to wash up next to me. I looked at my reflection in the metal and, yep, I was now apparently a pegasus. You know, those horses with wings from ancient mythology. Yet again, I didn’t freak out. As my brain began to reboot, I came to the only logical conclusion possible. 
“I’m dreaming,” I said out loud, surprised to hear that I was still speaking English. Of course I was dreaming. It was the only possible explanation. I had heard of lucid dreaming, but this is the first time I was experiencing it. But hey, first time for everything. As entertaining as it might be to explore this little dream my mind had come up with, (not sure why a pegasus though. I mean seriously, why a flying horse, or is pony a better term since I only seem to be about four feet tall?) I decided I should probably try and wake up. Since you wake up if you experience pain in a dream (allegedly), I decided the best course of action was to immediately and painfully bang my head into the side of the ruined ship. Too bad this didn’t turn out to be a dream.
As I lay there with a splitting headache and a rather large bump growing on my skull, I realized I was very much awake and that against all logic and science that I knew about in the world, I had, quite literally, been transformed into another species. My next course of action was to immediately scream and run around in circles. Or, at least, try to run in circles. As it turns out, walking on four legs is much harder than on two. I made it maybe three steps before face planting in the sand and getting a mouth full of the stuff. Thankfully, this immediately, if temporarily, cut off my panic and I began to truly examine the situation and my surroundings. 
I was on a beach that appeared to be a graveyard of washed up ships. Some places had just a few bits of a ship, like a random steering wheel or a flag pole. Other parts right next to me contained large pieces, all in varying degrees of rust. There was even a small fishing boat washed up here, rusted far beyond usable condition. To my right was the ocean, the large storm still visible, but it was surprisingly calm and at least a mile out. What’s more, the sun was up above the island, despite the fact that I was told no one could see into the storm, even a satellite, and there had been no hint that an island was in this area. Then again I was a pony, so I highly doubt that logic really matters in this place. Out to my left, I could see a few trees poking over a wall of destroyed ship parts, trying to get a glimpse at the newest oddity to wash up on their island. 
Despite the body change, I found that through some basic experimentation that everything still responded like it should. I could even wag my tail. The wings were what interested me the most though. Despite my body being a smaller size than before, there was no way they could get me off the ground. They were just too small, only about two feet wide each. I may be smaller, but I’m not that small. I also realized that they were incredibly flexible to the point that I could move individual feathers at the ends. I was even able to pick up a small rock with the ends of my wings and toss it from one to the other. Maybe this could help replace my hands, presuming this condition was permanent, which I prayed it wasn’t. Backing up a bit from the ship hull, I decided to test my wing’s strength. With a forward snap, I sent the small rock flying up and over the ship and out of sight. Well color me impressed. 
“OW!” A voice exclaimed, causing my heart to skip a beat. I wasn’t human anymore, so if I was found by humans, what would they do to me? Put me in a zoo? Experiment? Dissection? Forced mating (how the buck did my mind come up with THAT idea?)? My fear was abated and replaced with shock as a red furred, green maned pony head poked out over the top of the ship. “What’s the big idea hitting me?” He asked, glaring at me. I, as eloquent as ever, simply elected to stand there and practice catching flies in my mouth. “Wait, I don’t recognize you.” He said, his face taking a look of concern. “Are you a survivor?” He asked, using his wings to lift into the air and come to a hover right above me. It was then that my normal responses finally caught up with me. There’s only so much impossible horse manure you can see before your mind decides to shut down. A pegasus flying with wings much too small for its body and speaking English is where I draw the line. And with that, my eyes rolled up into my new head as I promptly passed out again. 
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I woke up to the sun on my eye lids for the third time today, assuming I wasn’t unconscious for a few days. As I brought my arm up to my face to block the sun, I became aware that I still couldn’t feel my fingers. A quick flick of my tail and, yep, this was in fact real. A part of my brain told me to freak out and/or cry and/or go into denial. A much louder part of my brain told the other part to shut up and try and figure out how the hay this happened. Unlike the sand I had been on before, I was now lying on a soft mattress with a light blanket draped over my body. Outside I could still hear the birds singing, completely ignorant of how crazy this day had been. Somehow, their singing always seemed to help me relax. Said relaxation would only last about another ten seconds, though. The bed gave lightly as I rolled over and tried to see the room I was in, only instead of seeing the room I currently occupied, I saw two bright blue eyes. 
“HI!” a loud, high pitched voice exclaimed literally three inches from my face.
“GAH!” I cried shooting backwards and right off the other side of the bed and onto the floor in a pile of sheets. After struggling for about half a minute my head finally poked out of the sheets. Sitting on the bed was a small pink pegasus with an incredibly curly pink mane. Judging by her size, she was only a child. 
“Oops. Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you Mr. Survivor Pony. My name is Pink Berry, but everyone just calls me Pinky. I was just so excited to see you waking up and I wanted to say hi but maybe that was a bad idea since you went all ‘AHH,’” she exclaimed, standing on her two back hooves and flailing her forelegs wildly before falling backwards onto the bed. Did this girl even need to breathe? She was about to start up again when the door opened and the red pegasus from earlier walked in. The girl shrieked in the perfect tone to make my ears ring before running over to the older pegasus. “Hi Daddy,” the girl cried excitedly, nearly tackling him to the ground. 
“Hey there sweetie,” the older pegasus said, playfully ruffling her mane and smiling broadly before looking over at me, as I simply watched the interaction with a light smile, despite still being trapped in a literal cocoon of sheets. “Sorry about that. My little filly just loves to greet new survivors. Name’s Rob. Welcome to Cavadiso.”  
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After being freed from my comfy prison, Rob gave me the basic rundown of what was happening. For years, people had been trying to get through the endless storm that seemed to protect the island. Although almost everyone who tried died, occasionally a survivor would make it through and wash up on the beach in a new body. Sometime it was griffon, a dragon, a phoenix, even a minotaur. The change seemed to depend completely on the location where you washed up, but why that was, no one could say. The only thing they knew was that no one ever remained human, or conscious during the transformation. Considering the change and the physics defying abilities of the species they changed into, the commonly accepted idea was it was some kind of magic. I would normally be skeptical at such a crazy story, but I was currently walking around (I got some practice so I wouldn’t keep face planting) with a red pegasus and a small pink pegasus bouncing excitedly on my head. Logic was pretty far gone at this point. 
Despite living on different parts of the island, all the different species actually lived together in relative peace, traded various goods and even migrated from village to village. What’s more, each species had a very extended life span (especially the phoenixes. I mean, they ARE immortal fire birds), with Rob being over a hundred years old and the oldest pegasi member dying at a ripe old age of 473. The only catch was that leaving wasn’t an option. Anyone who tried to fly into the storm was just turned around and brought back. This was a bit disheartening to hear, but considering the benefits and lack of family or friends back home, I took it surprisingly well in my opinion. 
As we walked, I couldn’t help but marvel at the large town of Cavadiso I now found myself in. All around, creatures of every color flew and trotted, waving and greeting me as one of their own. The majority were pegasi, but the other species I mentioned were here too. I even saw a few small phoenixes fly by overhead in a blaze of red and gold fire, quickly being perused by a small dragon. Kids will be kids it seems. Some creatures were helping build or repair new houses, while others brought in food ranging from apples to flowers (I was a herbivore now, so of course I ate flowers). Some were even selling clothing, although I wonder how they could make them without fingers. I would have been embarrassed about not wearing any myself, but I was covered in fur, so problem solved. Also, no one else seemed to mind. The big structure that caught my eye was the large ten story tower in the center of town. It was made with parts of various ships and what appeared to be clouds, and looking around I even saw a few pegasi napping on some low hanging clouds. Go home physics, you’re drunk. 
As we climbed the tower, Rob explained that it was used to keep a lookout primarily towards our stretch of beach in case of new survivors, which were usually indicated by large chunks of ships that would appear overnight. He had apparently been looking in the ship for survivors when I hit him in the head with that rock. After apologizing again, we reached the top of the tower and I gasped, staring out at the surrounding country side even as Pinky began to poke the side of my head, asking if I was still alive. 
The entire village was surrounded with green rolling hills with a few random trees and a large array of flowers. Some land was taken up by farm land, but it was surprisingly little compared to what I thought the population of the town might need. We were about half a mile from the beach I woke up on, and I could see the hills stretch off in both directions as far as my eyes could see. There was also a small, lush forest near the beach and a few scattered rock formations that formed small cliffs hanging over the water. What I loved most was the way the wind blew around on top of the tower. I couldn’t help but stretch my wings and laugh slightly at the feeling of wind in my wings. 
As the tour concluded, Rob and Pinky told me to explore while they left to file a housing request. No one was really in charge here, he explained, but they did have a joined council of about thirty members that helped keep everything organized. They would let the town builders know I needed a house and they would let me know when it was ready. Rob had graciously allowed me to stay with him and his family, laughing about how his wife Hope would love me. For being over a hundred years old, he was incredibly trusting of some random stranger. But then again, this place was pretty laid back all things considered. 
“Hey,” A voice called. I turned to see a brown pegasus with a blue mane waving me over. He was currently holding a large beam of wood with assistance from a few other pegasi near a new building foundation. “We could use some help here.”
“But I can’t fly,” I called back, somewhat embarrassed. 
“That’s alright, we need someone on the ground for this part anyway. We just need you to hold this beam up for us.” Shrugging, I walked over and was directed towards a small pre-dug hole. There other pegasi lowered the beam while I directed it in, then held it in place while they repeated the process with another hole before bringing in a third beam to connect the two. For the rest of the afternoon I helped them work on the house. I wasn’t very good at geometry, but I did have enough strength to hold some of the larger chunks of wood in place while they connected them. It might not have seemed like much, but helping the group of pegasi that agreed to take me in felt like I was repaying a debt somehow. It just felt right. This place was really starting to grow on me. Maybe once I learned how to fly, this place would become even more incredible. 
The next day…
‘Screw it, I hate this place,’ I thought as I emerged from the water after jumping off the ten story cliff for the twentieth time. Contrary to popular belief, flying, even if you’re gifted with wings, is incredibly difficult. Don’t let movies and stories fool you, it was hard. I think there might be a “I Believe I Can Fly” joke in here somewhere, but I’m not going there. Also, apparently my body is extremely resilient now, considering I just fell off a ten story cliff twenty times and I still feel fine, if a bit wet and tired from climbing back up just as many times. I was supposed to wait for flying lessons until a week after the change, but I was anxious to get these things working, so I went to the flight instruction spot on my own. Thankfully only a small part of the beach contained the graveyard of ships while the rest was relatively clear. Why? Because magic, that’s why. 
As I climbed the cliff for the twenty first time, I looked back over the rolling hills to the village. There the survivors went about their daily lives, most more than happy with the change. Below me a small crowd had gathered to watch my attempts. There was no jeering, no laughing at my flops, no rude comments of any kind. In fact, some of them had even offered advice to help me out. That may have been the most amazing thing about Cavadiso. The people… er, ponies and other species here were nothing like the people back home. It’s as if all the negative and harmful emotions had been erased, leaving nothing more than a wonderful group of possibly naïve settlers that simply enjoyed every day to the fullest. It was, in its own way, a paradise. Now if I could just learn to fly. ‘Oh well,’ I thought as I ran and jumped, spreading my orange wings as far as they could go. ‘If at first you don’t succeed…’ 
As I fell, I suddenly fell into a large updraft. My wings extended and pulled taut. I felt my body begin to rise as the wind pushed me higher and higher. I let instinct take over as the wind left me and I began to glide for the very first time. Down below me, Pinky began cheering, jumping up and down while excitedly fluttering her wings. The rest of the crowd followed suit, stomping, clapping, and shrieking at my success. Sure, it was just a glide, but to me it was the most amazing feeling in the world. Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all.