"Where am I?"
Only the darkness surrounded me, I could not see my own body in it.
I could still hear the same metallic creaking of armor, which I can easily guess is Lord Hatred.
A glove touches my shoulder when I turn towards the sound. I scream and try to escape it.
"I'm warning you that this is going to hurt!" said Lord Hatred's ubiquitous voice in a calm tone.
"What?"
Suddenly four projectors lit up all around me as I found myself lying on an operating table that I was attached to with large belts.
Lord Hatred looks at me, sitting in a pleasantly furnished chair while smoking a cigar. Typing twice in those hands, I felt the operating table turn on by itself.
Sparks twirl around me. I feel my bones breaking, my waist diminishing, my nose tripling in volume. I struggle as hard as I can but nothing works. The pain becomes too strong to resist and after a final attempt to escape, I faint feeling my feet eviscerate.
I wake up in the same place on the table. My vision is still fuzzy but I catch a glimpse of Lord Hatred reading a newspaper. The table disappears and only the blinding white spotlight remains. Everything seems bigger and I can not feel my hands or toes.
I notice that I'm covered in a soft green fur when I try to see the extent of the damage. At the touch, I utter an adorable little high-pitched cry that alerts Lord Hatred of my awakening, who raises his head from his newspaper.
Calmly, he puts the paper on the chair as he gets up, putting his cigar in the ashtray before approaching as calmly as we would approach a frightened cat in the street.
I find myself barely at the height of his knees and begin to retreat, crawling. Unfortunately, this monster of metal is faster than me and grabbed me in his arms like a kitten.
He begins to caress my back as I struggled with this strange body.
"You are adorable!" he informed me.
"Let me go, you dirty monster!" I realized my voice was feminine and childlike.
"Let me show you what you look like!"
A mirror appeared suddenly in front of us. He put me down and went back to his pleasant armchair to continue reading.
Horrified, I was fixated on a blue-eyed green filly with a pink and black mane. I remembered that it was me and shook my head to see if it was fake. The filly perfectly replicated my movements. I turned to Lord Hatred.
"Make me anything you want, but not that!" I pleaded to him.
"No."
"Retransform me please and I'll do anything you want."
"No, you are a pony, and you will stay a pony."
I crawl towards him desperately and grip his left foot with my front hooves.
"Do you know that you look like one of those animals that cling to their master's feet to get on their knees?"
"Pity."
"No is no. In this paper you are accused of murder. If I had left you in your old form, he would have arrested you."
"But I wouldn't be a stupid filly! My life is completely ruined," I cried in despair.
Tears rolled from my eyes as I let go of Lord Hatred's foot. He continued indifferently reading his journal.
After a quarter of an hour, he put a blanket over his knees and picked me up, caressing my long black and pink mane.
Under the caresses and the nice blanket I fell asleep, too tired to fight. Lord Hatred murmured some barely audible words about the exploits of a certain Mondingus in the paper, but I heard little more.
I woke up feeling an icy wind attack my fur when I noticed I was not in the same place at all. I felt a lot of droplets burst on my soft coat.
I noticed that I was in what looked like a hole in the clouds, stuck in a very uncomfortable position. I got up on my front legs and clung to the walls that appeared to be made of wood.
Under the effect of my weight, what I thought was a hole turned out to be the inside of a barrel as it fell on its side. I was in a dark paved alley opening onto an avenue.
I walked down the path, my coat wet with a thousand questions in my head when I noticed a multitude of horses roaming freely in what was similar to a London neighborhood.
Afraid, I stepped back into the alley only to hit something hard. I turned and saw a horse dressed as a policeman with a brown coat, sky blue eyes and a striking chestnut mustache.
He looked at me sternly, lowering his head as I stuck to one of the alley walls again.
"Good evening young filly, may I know what you're doing outside at such a time all alone?" he asked me.
"I don't know," I replied, stunned that he knows how to speak.
"It's nothing." He straightened himself to look more friendly. "But," he went on, "go home, your parents must be worried."
"I'll go there immediately, Agent," I said, happy to be out of the woods.
"And don't wait outside," he advised before continuing his round in the neighborhood.
What is this crazy world, I thought. Horses talking? The WTF stuff on the neck looks pretty sad beside that. As I thought, I walked through the sad city that I did not know the name of.
The night began to dawn and I had no idea where I was going. My belly gurgled and I decided to return to my charming barrel.
But the night was dark and I did not really recall where it was. So I sheltered under a bridge lit by the lights of apartments, I huddled, shivering with cold.
Suddenly in the gusts of wind through the dark night I heard a noise above my head. I raised my head only to see the dirty underside of the bridge. A voice across from me took me by surprise.
"What are you doing here, my little one?" asked some sort of hybrid between a horse and a bat in shining armor with wide yellow eyes.
I screamed in terror at the sight of this creature straight from hell and rushed to slide out onto the pavement.
The bat-pony mare came across the usual fear from a pony who had never seen a bat-pony like her. The little filly falling painfully to the ground cut off her thoughts.
When she approached to try to help her up, she screamed, struggling to run from whomever approached her.
The young mare, the adult that she is, was good despite the desire to put an apple in the mouth of this filly with horrible incessant cries as she questioned what the filly was doing here alone.
The little filly, calming down, began her story in a delirium about demons, dead people and a monster in red armor. Finally, she took the filly in a hug with her wing to calm her as the filly cried.
She asked where the filly's parents were, but she persisted in telling the same crazy story where her parents live in another dimension. Defeated and without information, she decided to take the filly whose name she had learned through intrusive questioning to her home and wait for the next day to find her parents.
-Anon-
The monster grabbed me by the skin of my neck with its teeth without hurting me and flew with me. I screamed, terrified to be several meters above the ground at the mercy of this crazy hybrid.
I closed my eyes for the first five minutes of the flight but reopened them out of curiosity to discover a city dimly lit by the lights of the houses and a few lanterns.
Eventually we arrived at some sort of big hotel where the hybrid too me into the corridors after being greeted by the horse at the reception desk on the first floor.
She knocked on the door explaining the situation to her superior hybrid and positioned me in front of her so that I could not escape. She nodded and called another guard to take over the patrol.
Then she held me by the hooves and took me into a dark room where she turned on the lights.
"Do you want to eat something?" she asked as she opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water with her mouth.
"No thanks."
"Don't worry, I know you're scared of me but I promise I will not hurt you, okay? Sleep here tonight and then the princess will help you find your parents!" she explained.
"Who is this princess?"
"Princess Luna, the Mare in the Moon if you prefer."
"The Mare in the Moon?" I echoed.
"So you do not know the story?"
"No."
"You will have to take remedial classes because, no offense little one, this is one of the basic things we learn in Equestria."
"Equestria?"
"Stop making fun of me; you can take the bed if you want, the toilet is in the left corner of the living room. Don't hesitate to ask if you need me."
I nodded and looked out the window at the strange world around me. Outside, a heavy rain hid part of the landscape; despite this I could see a green statue that looked like the Statue of Liberty.
Tired, I headed for the bed so kindly offered by my protector, who was reading a newspaper like people while sitting like a dog in a chair facing the table. She wished me good night and resumed reading.
I lay down on the soft blankets of the bed and fell asleep immediately.
In the morning I was awakened by a hoof giving me a little shove.The broad-bred hybrid smiled at me and invited me to the breakfast she had prepared.
On the table was neither meat nor eggs, but a bowl of milk with green cereal. I found the taste strange but said nothing out of politeness towards the hybrid.
The meal went on in silence, after which she took me to see Princess Luna before leaving to see a conference in the city. In front of the doors guarded by two more hybrids, my protector stopped and explained that the princess could be quite impressive meeting her for the first time.
I shrugged, not knowing what to expect. The guards opened the door to make way for us. Inside I saw a large blue mare sitting on a chair having breakfast with two other guards with whom she was joking with. She turned to us and signaled for us to enter.
"Hello, what do you want from me so urgently, Night Sparkle?"
"Hello, Your Highness, I found this filly lost during a night patrol. She could not tell me where she lives."
"Poor little girl," said an stallion at the table.
"Tell me, my angel, is there not a place in the city that you would recognize to allow you to go home?" an another guard, who happened to be a mare, asked.
"No."
"Don't worry, we'll help you find your house, young filly!" imperiously said the giant blue mare who was even bigger than me.
I shook a little at her strong voice. Seeing my fear, she lowered her voice a little. "Sorry, I'm not used to this volume yet."
She asked what had happened to me and I told my story again, which gave me a skeptical looking audience.
"Poor child, she's taken a hell of a blow to the head," said the mare from the dining table, horrified.
"You have to find her parents and understand what her story is! Night Wings, have placards posted about her everywhere. Purple Aurora, make a patrol and ask all the ponies you meet if they know about a family missing a young filly," instructed the giant mare.
"Understood, Princess."
"Received, Princess." Then the two few out the window, not too late.
My protector, Night Sparkle, snored lightly at their passing. Luna smiled and looked at me.
"I'm taking you with me to the conference, maybe some ponies will recognize you. Honeymoon, take Ms. Night Sparkle to her bed!"
One of the guards at the door came and put my poor Night Sparkle on his back and then left. Their names are really weird.
Luna went to wash herself, giving me a small figuring of a pony with both wings and a horn like her but with a completely different coat and mane.
Then we went to the conference. In just one day, I had met a princess who would help find non-existent parents. During our carriage ride, she stared at me with her teal eyes and looked away when I looked back.
She ended up asking a question that had been bothering her for a while. "Anon, I have a question. Can I ask it without you getting angry?"
"Yes?"
"Are you already going to see a psychologist?"
"No."
"Then I'll make you an appointment at the end of the day if we do not find your parents, although I do not want them. You do not have the attitude of a normal filly. Generally, they cry when they lose their parents and shout 'Nightmare Moon' when they see me." A small tear appeared at the corner of her eye.
I felt bad for her, but how could I? Who was this Nightmare Moon? I tried to reassure her. "You are a kind person, I know that I can trust you." Actually, no.
"Really?" she asked hopefully.
"Yes." Not at all.
"Thank you so much Anon, not all fillies are as understanding as you!" she said happily.
I blush at the compliment as we soon arrive. The conference was held in a huge ring-shaped building where the princess, accompanied by me, stood on a platform facing hundreds of horses in reporters' outfits with old cameras.
I was standing behind the princess as she assembled her notes behind a desk with a microphone. She turned around to smile at me and asked if anyone knew about a filly that disappeared, then she took me by a hoof and held me up to the reporters. It reminded me of a scene from a familiar cartoon.
They were eager to take pictures and notes. Then the princess rested me behind her and started her lecture while a hybrid drove me to a child's playroom where he took a magazine and sat in a corner, looking up at me from time to time.
Time passed while I was occupied before I heard the long grinding of a door as it opened that I would have sworn not to have seen a few minutes earlier. I looked in the opening, only darkness.
I stared distractedly at the guard, who seemed to not be breathing as if time had stopped. Then a long hand like the ones from the movies came out of the formerly nonexistent door, slowly moving towards me. I stepped back to the other door, only to find that it was blocked. The hand grabbed me and quickly pulled me into the darkness of its door.
A huge white flash occurred before my eyes before I realized that I was on a chair. Lord Hatred was sitting in front of me on a red leather armchair in behind a wooden desk. He was staring at me as he turned the lamp that had flashed in my eyes away.
"Hello Anon!"
"What do you want from me?"
"Is this how you are treating me, your only friend on this earth?" He turned his back and pretended to sulk.
"I repeat, what do you want?" I asked him.
"I just wanted to know if everything was going well for you," he replied, turning around.
"Well, can I leave?"
"No, I propose a challenge. If you succeed, nothing happens. If not..."
"What?"
"I would be delighted to pass you off as an escapee from an asylum."
I had nothing to say to his statement.
"It is a challenge of the day. This one is simple, tell the princess that she is sexy," he offered.
"Are you sick in your head or what?" I retorted.
"Chosen: asylum."
"It's very disturbing. Besides, I'm not a zoophile."
"Invalid argument, you've chosen, you have until midnight."
"So I'm not going to end up in an asylum if I take on something like this?"
"Play well and nothing will happen to you," he said.
I was propelled at full speed into the corner of the room, where I left through the door that disappeared immediately. I came across the cube castle that I had been trying to build for an hour.
Time seemed to resume as the guard raised his eyebrows and came to help me up and assist with my pretty little cube castle so that I would not cry. I couldn't help thinking about this dilemma.
Princess Luna entered the room several hours later where she invited us to eat with her in a restaurant. We followed her as we were accompanied by a dozen other guards who were also invited.
We ate on the roof of a skyscraper with a small exotic garden overhung by a glass dome. The menu was essentially composed only of plants.
I made a quick order and saw to my joy that everyone was focused on the menu as I whispered to Luna. "Princess, I think this waiter said that you are very sexy," I said, innocently pointing to a passing server.
The princess turned a little red in her ears and asked me, stammering slightly, to return to my menu and stop listening to such stupidity. I was happy. Challenge accomplished, I thought to myself.
Some guards noticed Luna's embarrassment; some of them looking at me questioningly, to which I shrugged; pretending that I did not understand what the princess was so embarrassed about.
Nobody dared to ask the question and the subject went elsewhere, such as the magnificent speech of Princess Luna or the marriage of a guard whom I did not know was living in Canterlot.
I was finally going to be quiet before I was brought a herbal soup that made me grimace. Where are you, beloved meat that once brightened up my meals?