Chapter on:
"A strange new world"
The sun had yet to set, when I opened my eyes. The back of my neck hurt, as if something had struck me right on the nape. I was feeling dizzy and all I could see was a mass of objects, whizzing around like a tornado.
I instinctively tried to get up on my hooves, yet the trembling of my legs was too much to juggle and I soon fell on the ground once again, hurting my chin on the cold surface of the road. The taste of blood was in my mouth; with all my heart I hoped I hadn't broken any of my teeth. Luckily a quick check with my tongue was enough to reassure me that my upper incisors were still intact; the blood was probably coming from a simple cut on the lower lip.
The pain in my head was growing stronger; I felt like the entire world was about to fall over me with all of its giant weight. Everything I could do was gather all the strength I still had and crawl toward a near lawn. The fresh green grass seemed the softest spot to rest on for now.
As soon as I felt the turf, pinching my skin, I laid down my head. At that moment I also felt an unbearable pain in my back, supposedly due to the crawling. It was then that I finally gave up the battle against the pain and closed my eyes, abandoning myself to the warm embrace of the approaching night.
I woke up briefly before dawn; my sight had recovered to the point that allowed me to distinguish the colours and the other things around me. The sky was still dark, yet the rays of the sun already painted the horizon in an enchanting pink tint, obscuring the last silvery stars and from the grass beneath my chin rose the distinguished smell of morning dew.
I now felt within me enough strength to get up on four legs and walk. As I placed my front hooves on the ground though, I began to feel an awkward sensation of cold and inching. It was then and only then that my mind was clear enough to be shocked by what my eyes saw.
My hooves had gone and been replaced by some strange kind of “paws”, but that was not all. My front legs had disappeared as well; instead of them I found myself with a new pair of ape-like arts. I was stunned by this change, for I had never seen such things, despite my numerous travels beyond the borders of the Realm. After the amazement, I quickly felt the necessity to regain my usual cold and collected composure. I headed to a nearby bench, realising that walking with my new “paws” was quite uncomfortable.
Having crawled on the pew, I glanced at my body: apparently my upper arts were not the only changes that had occurred to me. My posterior legs had grown taller and thinner, but also bulkier, furthermore my tail had disappeared. From that sight I deduced that my new anatomy was fit for walking on two legs.
The major part of this new physique of mine was covered by a layer of cloth: a deep blue robe, according to my observation, very similar to the one I regularly wore.
The only part of my body that was free was my face. A quickly touch with my new pair of “paws” made me realise that it still reassembled its original form. The high forehead, the sharp eyes, the small ears and the elongated chin, as usual covered in its long white beard, were still there; I was even still wearing my hat. The only difference I found was in the muzzle: it had in fact changed its shape, becoming much smaller and in some way more aquiline.
There were no words to describe the way I felt at that time.
The moment the pillars and I had decided to face the fiend of shadows, we knew very well what we were signing up for: if the worst had occurred, we would have found ourselves trapped in limbo along with the beast. Yet I had clearly made a terrible mistake in my calculations, since the place I had found myself in was obviously not limbo, but a world different to the one I had just left.
During youth, my passion and dedication to studying had led me to discover the existence of alternative dimensions: some of these worlds looked surprisingly similar to the Realm, while others were absolutely different. I had also found out that these dimensions were occasionally connected to one another, even if mostly for only a limited period of time. So one could easily navigate these worlds, finding or creating with the use of powerful spells a link that connected them, more specifically a portal.
After discovering their existence, I had quickly come to realise that such connections needed to remain unknown to all those who had evil intentions, so I had gathered and hidden many of them in a secret wing of the royal palace in the capital. It had not been a smart decision, for one night the youngest of the royal sisters had wandered into one of those mirror portals and, if it had not been for me and her sister, she would have remained trapped there.
To cut a long story short my knowledge about different dimensions was indeed vast, yet what had occurred to me was beyond anything I could have ever imagined.
I had previously found myself in difficult situations, so I did not fear for my safety, but for the one of the other pillars. If my calculations had turned out to be so wrong that my banishing spell had caused me to end up into this new, bizarre world, there was no telling what could have happened to the rest of my group. I could not even tell for sure if they had been sent to the same dimension as me, to another or to limbo.
The thing that now frightened me the most was the possibility that the Pony of Shadows had managed to get away, too. If Stygian had really been sent to a place different than the one he was supposed to, then I had doomed the inhabitants of this or that world. The good news was that if the Fiend were free, he was probably as weak as I was after our last battle, so hopefully I had time to regain my former strength and locate him wherever he was, before he could do any harm.
The was only one little, disturbing detail which I had noticed, while touching my forehead: during my transformation my horn had disappeared.
The loss of my horn was the most unsettling and unfortunate of the things that had happened to me. A unicorn without horn is the same as a bird without its wings: it simply loses its purpose. All of my life I have devoted myself to the study of magic, memorising thousands of different spells and even invented new ones, but all that knowledge and power were now useless or at least that is what I thought at the beginning.
I have to admit that I felt lost, after finding out that my most precious tool was gone, nonetheless I quickly figured out a solution.
In my journeys through different dimensions I had come across the most bizarre of creatures most of which had indeed the ability to use magic, even though they did not posses horns or were ponies at all. So I figured that if such leaving beings were able to cast spells as they pleased, they must have found a way to channel their magical power through something. Furthermore if all of those creatures, despite leaving in different worlds could conjure sorcery, then magic must have been an element common to all of their dimensions. Moreover if horns were not required to them, perhaps I could have found a way to channel and retrieve my magic. All I needed to do was find a source somewhere.
I immediately realised that even if my plan made sense, finding a magic source would not be an easy task even for me, yet this new world did not look threatening at all. It was similar to the Realm in many ways: it had a sun and a moon, the sky above was clear and blue and the ground covered in grass. I had spent some time resting on a bench and the previous afternoon I had found myself, laying on a road. Those things meant that this new world must have been inhabited by thinking creatures which would possibly reassemble my new form. Furthermore if these living beings were really so clever, they could have known where to find a magic source.
Relieved, I took a long, calming breath. As I gazed upon the distant horizon, the sun appeared, illumining the blue sky above. The gentle singing of a bird reached my ears: at least for the time being, things looked positive.
I cautiously walked outside the green area, where I had spent time resting, searching around with my eyes for any possible sign of life, yet the only thing that I noticed was the an absolutely dead silence.
As I wondered the reason for such thing, I realised that it was still dawn and even in the Realm most ponies did not get out of bed at such time.
On one hoof that was surely reassuring for it meant that the inhabitants of this world shared at least some habits with those of the Realm. On the other the atmosphere around me conveyed a strong sense of fright without any creature, walking the streets.
As I proceeded through the many roads I began to think that I had been sent to a quite big city, yet it did not look like the kind of place anypony in the Realm would live in. The houses of the inhabitants of the new world were much taller than those of the ponies in the Realm: some of them even touched the sky with their roofs, disappearing among the white clouds. Those awkward proportions made me shiver, for if the creatures of that world, who obviously were more or less as tall as I, required such homes it could only mean that their number was so great that a smaller house could not contain them all.
I hoped with all of my heart that they were at least friendly.
The thing that struck me the most though, was the absence of vegetation around me. As I already said, the moment I first opened my eyes I had found myself surrounded by plants, many of which I had even recognised, yet, apart from that, there was absolutely nothing around me that even came close to the look of a plant. That explained why wherever I turned, my eyes always saw the same colour: grey. Obviously the creatures from that world did not take care of preserving the natural environment of the areas they lived in.
Although nowadays such behaviour would certainly be considered vile and inconsiderate, I can assure that back in the early years the inhabitants of the Realm had not fully understood the importance of environmental preservation, either.
At that time the capital and its royal palace had not been built, yet and for unknown reasons the crews, who had been hired for such purpose, were always running out of supplies. So the foundation of the the capital of the Realm kept being delayed. When I asked the building crew for explanation, they replied that the woodland creatures, living in the nearby forest, were to blame, for they would come at the building sight to steal construction material during the night.
I must confess that I did not believe in their words at first, but after seeing the young Princess Luna, coming to me, holding the blue prints for a completely new and improved building project, I remained astonished. The young mare explained her older sister and me that during the previous night she had unexpectedly met with the woodland creatures which had helped her, drawing the new blue prints.
According to the princess's tale though, the interaction between the animals and her would have been impossible without the help of a certain elder mare. Unfortunately Luna had not been able to identify the pony in question, since she was wearing a hood; only a long time afterwards I finally learnt that the mysterious elder mare was the legendary Mistmane who had joined the other pillars and me to rid the Realm of the forces of evil.
It took approximately two hours, until the first faces started showing up. Despite having already seen my new facial features, which of course reassembled their own, the sight of those creatures still managed to upset me.
Exactly as I had predicted, they did walk on only two legs and, judging from what I saw, they had no problem with holding their balance. That certainly explained why they did not require tails, while I on the contrary, after loosing mine, still had some issues with moving.
The inhabitants of the new world had hair on their heads which surprisingly reminded me of our manes. The major difference between our hair and the one of those creatures is that theirs is much shorter.
Like us ponies, the inhabitants of the new world came in all shapes and sizes, although they did not seem to distinguish each other from their own species. More specifically there were absolutely no difference between one living being and another that could remind me of the difference we equines make between unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies.
Another thing we equines and the inhabitants of the new world had in common is the distinction between the two genders. The showed differences in the colour of their skin much like ponies do, yet, unlike us, they seemed to consider clothing an essential part of their daily routines.
They did not show to be bothered by my presence which indicated that either they did not mind interdimensional visitors such as me or that my transformation had completely turned me into one of them.
I curiously approached them to try to communicate, but all of them ignored me.
It was stunning for me to discover that I could perfectly understand what they were saying to one another. From this detail I presumed that either my astonishing transformation also allowed me to speak the language of the inhabitants of that dimension or they used a speech which was surprisingly identical to Ponish. The major issue for me now was get one of those beings to speak to me and I presumed that using violence would be inconvenient. Instead I preferred to hide among the crowd and gather some more information about their habits.
According to my observation, the creatures of that dimension do not normally display their emotions as openly as most ponies do. Many of them in fact kept walking the street without even bothering to notice one another. Instead they oddly talked to themselves, while holding some kind of strange little box in their “paws”. I must apologise for not gathering more information about this particular habit, but, as I have mentioned before, these creatures are particularly hard to talk to.
As I kept following a group of those beings, I noticed that they entered a tall building from which they did not exit for all the time I waited for them and so did many others. I struggled to find an answer on my own to why they would do such a thing and ultimately came up with the idea that something was keeping them busy. Although I followed many other individuals, I was unable to gather new info.
I had been walking for almost an hour, when I finally spotted something interesting: a group of youngsters. These creatures seemed a lot more cheerful and extrovert to each other than the adults, so I thought that following them would probably be the best idea. Of course in order to get their help I would eventually need to stop my observation and approach them properly, but I still needed to figure out how to talk without scaring them.
After a relatively short walk, the youngsters and I reached another building; this one clearly different than the others. It was not too tall, yet it could clearly contain a large group of youngsters, judging from the number of individuals in front of its doors. The most peculiar detail about that place was a tall statue, shaped like an equine, relatively close to the entrance.
At the noisy sound of a ringing bell, the youngsters seized their chatting and rushed into the building and the ones I was following along with them. I knew that if I had lost them, the time I had spent that morning, coming after them, would have been wasted and I had so little of it. So I, too, entered with the rest of the crowd.