When I woke up I was in the middle of sidesplitting laughter. "Oh my god, that was price... uhh." I found that I was currently viewing the ground, not the floor, but the grassy hill on which Fluttershy's home sat. "Since when do I sleep walk?" I disloged myself from the window sill I was bent over, my muscles protested immedietly. "Ow, ow, ow... how long was I failing to sleep like a cat?"I asked, my back raised to mimic my prior position and lessen discomfort. Deciding that asking the room any more questions would yield no answers, I did a quick, painful stretch to get my muscles in workable order. I picked up on an annoying tinkling noise as I did so. Switching on my magic sense revealed that my horn was still missing. "Aw man... I forgot about these stupid things." I forced the crystal fans closed so I wouldn't jingle like a windchime when I walked.
A tapping at my door sounded. "Uhm, excuse me, Argent? I'm sorry if I woke you up, but breakfast is ready," the door whispered.
I gave the speaking door a funny look, taking a step toward it, my back clicked and my ribs screamed pain. I fell over and contorted to lessen my pain. "Oh wonderful, perfect even! Now I need a chiropractor... joy." Silence reined supreme after that, with me lying on the foor, my face covered in my hair. "... Ah frick. Fluttershy?"
"..." nothing but the sound of the breeze coming through the open window.
"Fl-"
"yes?" I heard faintly from the door.
"Oh good, can you come in here and help? I messed my back up."
The door slowly swung open, followed by the sound of hooves approaching. "Oh my, are you alright?" the obscured yellow pegasus asked me.
"No, I woke up in the window sill, and threw my back out." I informed her.
She gasped. "Oh, you poor dear, can you stand?"
I sighed. "Apologies if I seem a bit snippy, but do you think I would be laying on the floor, like this, with my h-mane in my face, if I could get up?" I said impatiently.
"Okay then, well, would it be alright if I fixed it?" she asked in the sweetest voice possible.
"Err, is this the 'kiss it and make it better' type deal, or actual treatment?" From what I had gathered during my short stay here, I figured it could easily be either.
"Trust me?" she inched closer, I think, I still couldn't see due to the light blue fluff in my face.
Why avoid answering? I thought. Despite my better judgment, I felt compelled to give my assent. "Fine." I felt myself get lifted off the ground and wrapped in a hug. ...Thats it? Wonderful, I mean, I know nothing about pony anatomy or magic or any of it, but I am almost certain that a simple hug will not fi-
Suddenly the forelegs around me tightened, and I heard my spine pop from the base of my tail to my neck, afterwards I felt like jello. I still couldn't see anything, thanks to my mane, but I was put on top of something Super soft, like, what people imagine sleeping on clouds would feel like. My god this feels amazing. I thought. I'm not entirely sure what happened after that, but I'm ninety percent sure that it would have killed me if I was still human. The next time I could think straight was during a relaxing massage. Fluttershy was humming some song, which seemed strangely familiar for some reason, I felt my ears snap to attention to analyze the melody. Fluttershy must have seen my ears perk up, because she had a question for me.
"How in the world did you build up so much tension? I've never seen anypony this bad before." she asked, working a muscle section around my wings.
Could it have something to do with me being a biped, learning how to work a quadruped body? I thought, I really wanted to ask this question, even though I was fairly certain the answer would be a simple 'yes', the problem would be all the questions that would bring up afterward. I don't know if these ponies have Looney bins, but I don't want to end up in one. But... on the other hoof, this is a world of magic, and we came here through magic, probably, so maybe my situation has a few parallels? We- I, will have to ask Twilight about the possibility of a multiverse. Frick I'm starting to talk like Princess Nighty Light. I opted for the far safer question. "What am I lyyyyyyying on?" My words got stretched when she changed muscle groups.
"oh, it's nothing, just a low hanging cloud." she helpfully informed me.
Wait a second, that couldn't have been what she said. "Uhh, a cloud?" I asked for confirmation.
"Yes."
I blew my hair out of my eyes and made to confirm it myself, sure enough, Fluttershy had somehow brought a cloud into the room and set me on top of it. I gingerly poked a forejoof into its pillowy surface, it deformed around my hoof. "...How?" Is all I could manage.
"I'm sorry, what do you mean?" Fluttershy came around to my view, apparently done sorting out all the problems I had accumulated.
"How... am I on top of a cloud?" seemed like a good place to start.
"Well, you are a pega- oh! That's right, well, since you are currently a pegasus, I assumed you could cloud walk like any other pegasus, and I was right, so, here you are."
"Uhhhh..." I replied, processing the information. "...hhhhhh..." That... only answers like half of my questions, but my God! it's sooooooooo soft! "...hhhho, kay then." I finished, pounding both of my hooves into the fluffy awesomeness I was currently resting on, I was rewarded with a satisfying 'poff' noise, and tiny bits of clouds floating away from the craters I made. I hopped off before I could get too into playing with the cloud. Once my hooves touched the ground though, I found out that I was still comprised of about sixty three percent jello, and immedietly fell over.
"Careful!" Fluttershy cautioned, a little late. "You had a lot of knots I had to work out, so you might feel a bit wobbly for a few seconds."
"Yeah, I notice- holy crap, I feel so..." I couldn't quite put it to words, but I'm fairly certain I heard myself giggle. All the soreness in my muscles and other aches that I hadn't even noticed, were gone. I was left with the all encompassing feeling of bliss, and like I had just been remade from scratch, out of way better parts! "Oh this is nice~ I could probably just lay here like this all..." I was cut off by my stomach making sure I remembered it. "...or not." Fluttershy giggled at me, cute as that was, it was still at my expense.
"Well, it's probably a bit cold now, but we have food downstairs." I was led down the wooden trip hazard. Fluttershy simply glided down, but me having no acceptable experience with flight, I was left to measure each step, or at least, I thought I would have to.
"Holy crap, walking actually feels natural, what did she do? And can I get it done regularly?" I practically flew down the stairs, the motions automatic, like I had actually been a quadruped all my life. "I must have actually been a ball of knots. I wonder?" I opened up my wings, and stretched them skyward, no discomfort to be had, they felt natural, well, as natural as an extra pair of limbs can feel, but still quite nice.
For breakfast, Chef Angel had prepared gourmet quality pancakes, some blend of fruit, berry, and I believe flower, smoothie to drink, along with a flower omlet with garnish. I must say, if the food tasted this good back home, there would have been a lot more vegetarians.
After the meal, I pestered Fluttershy to no end, trying to help with every little thing. She went along with it at first, but eventually started coming up with excuses. She never outright said no, she is too kind to do that, but I could tell I was starting to bother her. Maybe I should let her be, but, she kinda fixed pretty much all of our immediate problems, so I kinda owe her, was the thought I went to sleep on.
For the first time since I had met her, Night Strider was absent from my dream. I Couldn't quite sit myself still, or set myself on a task while in the dream, so I left the game, and went back to the original dreamscape I had seen in my first dream. I had simply copied the landscape and moved it to the game, so "logging out" was simple enough.
I yawned. "Odd that I'm tired in a dream." I mused stepping outside my house, the considerably rounder landscape refreshing to see, there was one problem however. The main river, normally dyed just about equally in my highlights, was predominantly red, as was most of the landscape, almost every single flower, tree leaf, and bush, were red. I turned my face to the sun, also red. "What the heck is going on now?" I demanded answers from the red world around me. When it was evident nothing would change, I decided to head back inside, crack open a book, and relax. It started raining, and a random bucket full of red water drenched me before I made it to the door. "Well that's annoying," I muttered, brushing my hair out of my eyes. Once inside I willed my fur dry and pulled a book from the shelf, finding it blank. "Oh, right. Well then, how about we plan on how we can help out Flutters?" I asked myself, I agreed, and "we" set about devising what we could do to pay Fluttershy back till Twilight got back in town.
Fluttershy woke up early in the morning. She had to, so that she could have enough time to check on all of her animal friends. She looked about her room with sleepy eyes, before getting out of bed and making her way to the door. I have got to check on Argent for Twilight to, she seems to think that something odd is going on with her, but I think she seems like a pretty normal filly, well mostly. the yellow mare thought. She stretched her wings before opening the door, ready to start the day.
"Hi Fluttershy!" Argent greeted her. Causing the poor mare to squeak and leap back in suprise.
"O-oh, Argent, you startled me," said the pegasus, lying on the floor.
"Ssorry about that. I was just wondering if there was anything I could do to help around here, to repay you for being so nice and all," the filly said earnestly.
"Uhm, okay, well, I suppose you could help with a few things. Wait, how long have you been out here?" Fluttershy asked her.
The foal closed her eyes as she thought of the answer. "About... two hours I think? I couldn't sleep after a while, but I didn't want to wake you." she explained.
"uhm, okay..." Fluttershy said, Argent's behavior seemed a bit odd to her, but at least her heart was in the right place. "So, uhm, I'm going to go check in on everyone, could you maybe take some feed out to the chickens?"
"Can do! Be back in a jiffy." Argent said, taking off towards the coop. Fluttershy picked herself up and glided out to greet all of her animal friends. She greeted all of the songbirds first, checking up on all the baby birds that had hatched a few days ago. Next she moved onto the squirrels, and raccoons. Followed by the tortoise, and mrs. Grizzly. Just as she was about to turn and say good morning to all the amphibians that live at the stream, she caught sight of the filly that was following her.
"Done! What next?" She said, all too eager.
"Uhm, nothing for now, but thank you." Fluttershy replied.
"Okay."she said.
Fluttershy greeted three more animals before turning around again, the filly was still following her. "Did you need something?" the mare asked politely.
"No, I just wanna be around if you think of something you want me to do." the filly said.
"Uhm, alright." Fluttershy continued her routine. She made her way to the chicken coop to check in. "Hello Elizabeak, how are you girls doing?" the chicken clucked a response that Fluttershy understood as.
"Well enough, but that peppy girl needs to stay away from our eggs."
"Don't be like that Elizabeak, she just wants to help." Fluttershy told the hen, with a warm smile. Elizabeak turned her head.
Fluttershy continued to converse with the chickens. Is that something she can actually do? Is that a special "pegasus" thing, or just a "her" thing? What are the rules on animals being allowed to speak? Does it just depend on how horse-like they are? Because apparently cows and sheep can talk. Why does this world continue to make no sense? I wonder if she has anything else for me to do. Despite all of these questions, I waited patiently for her to ask me to do something, I did kinda owe her big-time for that massage. Her conversation with the bird started to run long and I could feel the need to do something slowly rise.
I was a little disappointed in my new impatience, as I had to leave Fluttershy and try and do something productive. I sat down and started using my newly sorted out wing muscles, attempting to get flapping them down to second nature. Even if I don't plan on using them, it would still be helpful knowledge, should I need to use them. Compaired to when I just got them, I could now manipulate my wings with relative ease, though I still had a ways to go.
It was boring, but at least I felt like I was doing something. When I inevitably drew my self-taught flying lesson to a close, I went back to where I had last seen Flutterhsy, but she had apparently finished her talk with the hen and moved on. Shoot! She might have had something for me to help her with, and I just left! I chastised myself, running all around the property in search of the mare, to no avail. I made the circuit another two times before my search devolved to just being silly, looking under pillows and couch cushions inside, and underneath rocks outside.
I paced back and forth outside the front door. "Okay, think Petent,
She is obviously not on the property anymore, you would have found her by now. So, she most likely went over to one of her friends places. I know where Sweet Apple Acres is, as well as the Carousel Boutique, I don't actually know where Pinky lives, nor RD. Maybe I should head over to Applejack's first? But if I go that way and she was at Rarity's, I'll have just walked past her, but if I go to the boutique and she isn't there, I'm worried I'll be roped into a dress." I shivered at the thought. I don't care if this world made me a girl for some reason, no way am I going to be caught in a dress! I stomped my hoof for emphasis. "Focus Pergent, back on track. There is also the option that she went to Rainbow's or Pinkie's, and that would cause a snag in finding her, and its not like I could ask any of the animals where she went, unfortunetly. I began drumming my forehooves impatiently. Just then Angel hoped up to the front porch, some piece of paper rolled up in his paws. He held it out to me, soI took it, thanking him for his efforts. I went back up to my temporary room and fetched my reading key from its position as a bookmark. After a few minutes I had the thing translated.
Argent
I got a letter from Rarity, saying how Opalecence, her cat, was acting up again. I'm sorry that I stepped out without mentioning it to you, I hope I didn't upset you or anything, sorry.
I'll be back in just a short while, so please just hang out there okay?
I'm sorry if this bothers you, really, sorry.Fluttershy.
"Huh, well, if she doesn't want me to leave, I guess I'll stay here. But now what do I do?" I asked myself, sitting down on the edge of the porch. I stared up at the clouds in the sky for a solid two minutes before I had an idea. "I have one of those in..." I quickly stood up and raced to the top of the stairs, taking a flying leap onto the cloud still in the room. I rolled around on the heavenly soft object for an unkown amount of time. Eventually I started pulling the edges of the cloud up and sculpting them into shapes, simple at first, but then I made a cloud bunny, followed by another, and another. A dozen or so cloud bunnies floated around the room, me a giggling mess at the center of the faux-rabbit swarm, hugging two of them into my chest. Hours must have passed as I admired my handiwork, because the next non cloud bunny filled thought I had, was when I was sitting in the dream house.
"When exactly did I fall asleep?" I asked aloud. I flipped back to the game side of the dream, to see if Night Strider was anywhere to be found. My search turned up no hints of her presence, at which I shrugged. "Guess she has something important to do? Maybe she is staying up late studying for school." I guessed, she did look about school age, if she didn't sound it. Finding nothing better to do tonight, I switched back to my unicorn appearance and left my house, ready to throw in my attempt at one-upping Princess Nighty Light's castle. I built a dirt tower seventeen blocks into the air, replacing the top of the stack with a piece of smooth stone. "This will make a good starting point." I nodded.
Fluttershy came home About one hour after lunchtime. She had expected Argent to run up and greet her, based on how the filly was acting that morning, but she was nowhere to be seen. However, as the butter yellow mare entered her home, she heard a faint noise coming from up stairs. Following it, cautiously, back to its source, the room she had put Argent up in, the mare gave the door a puzzled look. The noise was easier to make out now, it was gleeful giggling. "Hello?" Fluttershy tried, but the light purple filly didn't seem to hear her. The pegasus opened the door a crack to see what was going on, to be greeted with a sight that was a little bit adorable. "Aww" she said, watching the filly roll around on the cloud Fluttershy had forgotten to remove. The filly had also apparently torn off about one third of the clouds mass and shaped them into cloud dolls, in the shape of bunnies, which were floating all around the room, save for the three or four in the filly's grasp. I guess she is very fond of bunnies. Fluttershy deduced.
The mare decided that she would leave Argent to play until she got bored. This didn't seem to happen, the filly played upstairs for hours, and past the sunset. Fluttershy was going to go bring her up a quick meal before sending her to bed, when the nigh constant noises of a happy child stopped. Fluttershy checked in on her to make sure everything was okay, to find the the filly had fallen asleep, using her cloud bunnies as a pillow. The pegasus mare closed the door as quietly as possible before heading to bed herself.
I woke up early again, and seeing how the moon was just setting, I figured Fluttershy would still be asleep. She didn't seem to take very well to how I greeted her the prior morning, so I decided I would go and try to make myself useful elsewhere. I tiptoed – hoofed? – down the stairs silently, making my way to the kitchen. On my way there, I caught sight of Angel coming in the front door, waving goodbye to someone, he turned and saw me. After a few seconds of just staring at eachother, he narrowed is eyes at me, swiped a paw over his mouth, and pointed up the stair with the carrot he was always carrying.
Uhh, what? I thought, replaying the motions in my head a few times, before it clicked. "Don't tell her?" I guessed, pointing in the same direction he had? He nodded. "Uhh, okay, I won't." I promised him. His eyes lost the hostile look and he smiled. I internally squeed over how cute that was, before asking him a question. "Would you mind helping me make breakfast for Fluttershy? I want to pay her back for being so nice to me."
he paused for a moment before nodding, and leading the way to the kitchen. Angel bounced up onto the counter, swapping out his carrot for a wooden spoon. He flipped through a cookbook, pointing to a picture once he found the desired recipe. Even though I can't understand animals the way Fluttershy apparently can, Angel was quite fluent in pantomime, so it was easy enough to receive instructions on what he wanted me to do, especially with the book right there. He guided me through the process of creating waffles, I've made them before, but the pony version called for a few different ingredients. Afterwards he tossed up a salad, and I did my best to make some iced tea. After all the prep, we put the waffles onto a plate, covered by a mixing bowl to maintain the temperature of them. Everthing was moved out to the table, the sun was just peeking over horizon when we finished. Fluttershy showed no signs of coming downstairs anytime soon, so I continued to practice my wing motions, it turns out that overnight I had forgotten most of the progress I had made yesterday, and had to re-learn it again. Once I had tired of that I went outside.
I had just came back inside after feeding the chickens, again, when Fluttershy came downstairs. She had not asked me too, but she let me yesterday, so I figured there would be no problem. "Good morning Fluttershy!" I greeted her. She jumped, and hovered, a little bit, apparently I must have surprised her.
"Oh, good morning Argent, you startled me, I didn't think you would be up so early," the mare replied.
"Sorry about that, but Angel helped me make Breakfast for you." I said, passing her and leading the way to the table.
"You made breakfast, for me?" she asked, surprised.
"With Angel's help, I'm not exactly a wiz in the kitchen, but I think things turned out pretty good." Angel was on top of the table, and lifted the bowl off of the plate, revealing the still steaming waffles.
Fluttershy gasped, in a happy way. "You did all this for me?" she asked, looking out over the meal the bunny and I had prepared.
"Of course! Think of it as a thank you, although I feel like I should still do more, for putting up with me these past few days, as well as for that massage earlier."I said, hopping into a chair.
"I don't know what to say! Thank you both, so much!" the pegasus said, pulling me out of the chair and into a hug, I waited patiently for it to end, then got back into a seated position. Fluttershy took a bite out of one of the waffles, and I waited eagerly for a response. "They are very tasty." she said, taking another bite. Assured that we had done a good job, I thanked Angel for his help and we each went to eat our own breakfasts.
After we finished our meals, a nock at the door grabbed my temporary host's attention. "Who is it?" she asked as soon as she was near enough to the door.
"It's us." A familiar voice said.
I zipped over to the door in an instant, my wings buzzing with exitement. "Twilight! Spike! I shouted, throwing my hooves around the two before I knew what I was doing.
"Why hello Argent!" Twilight greeted, wrapping a singular hoof around me with a laugh, Spike had quickly gotten tired of the hug and was worming out of it. "Did you miss us that much?" The purple mare said, a smile on her face.
"Heh sorry about that" I apologized, relishing my grip. "Things have been rather nice lately, so I guess I'm a little excited."
"That's quite alright Argent, it's actually reliving to see you acting your age. So did you have fun at Fluttershy's?" She inquired.
"I'm no-Yes! Clouds are amazing! And Angel is a really good cook and- oh yeah, I have a few questions for you." I cut off the recounting of my stay.
"Would you mind answering one for me first?" She asked, a face of intrigue looking down at me.
"Of course I wouldn't mind!" I hopped into the air, wings stretched and buzzing. I have no idea why I am acting like this, but right now who cares!
Before she could voice her question, she caught sight of Fluttershy, and went to talk over my stay with her, I suppose. "So, Spike, how was Canterlot?" I asked.
"Oh it was pretty good, I wasn't allowed to go with Twilight when she discussed things with the princess, but I got to hang out in my home town. Next time we go, you should come! There is this doughnut shop, best in all of Canterlot, it's called Doughnut Joe's."
"Sounds like a plan. I haven't really had anything in the way of local pastries, so that would be awesome."
"Hey, did you dye you mane?" Spike asked me.
"Uhh, no? Why?" I turned my gaze skyward, I didn't see anything different.
"Because the stripe in the middle of your mane seems, brighter." Spike remarked, getting a really close look at it.
"I don't know what to tell ya," I replied. "At this point, it really wouldn't surprise me if my colors decided to start shifting, I mean, I have wings right now."
"That makes sense, I guess." Spike said. Tapping a claw on my wings. "Did you ever figure out how to fly with these?"
"Eh, not really, but I have managed to stop rocketing off every twenty minutes, hey do you need any help around the library when we get back? I would be happy to help." I offered.
"Really? That would be great! Cause we stopped by there before coming over here, and the place was a mess! Books were everywhere!" Spike waved his arms in the air for emphasis.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. "Sorry about that Spike, Rainbow stopped by before you guys left for Canterlot, and I just didn't know where everything went."
"That's alright, its not your fault." Spike said, patting my head. The action caused me to flare my wings and freeze, giving him an odd look while I rebooted. "Uhh, sorry about that?" Spike tried, I remained motionless.
"Is everything okay out here?" Twilight asked, taking note of my impression of a garden gnome.
Spike waved his claws in front of my eyes, poked me in the fore arm-area, and whistled in my ear. "I think I broke her.
I was having a mild internal feud. Why!? Why would he do that? I screamed.
It is most likely an expression of gratitude, you told him the truth and he attempted to reward you. my brain replied, as if that was obvious.
For a child Maybe! I'm a grown man! Not to mention I have known these guys for about two weeks, and that's not an action I would let some of my closer friends do!
They perceive us as a child! And you liked it, don't lie. my brain retorted calmly.
This would have gone on for longer, but I could feel my lungs starting to burn, so I broke off the argument. I sighed, slumping down. "Argent, are you okay?" Twilight asked, all too close to my face.
"I'm fine!" I shouted, scrambling back. "Just, losing an argument... with myself..."
Twilight nodded. "O...kay then," she turned to look at the yellow pegasus over my shoulder. "Thank you for taking care of Argent while we were gone."
"Oh, it was no trouble Twilight, she was a wonderful house guest," the butter yellow mare assured her friend.
"Well, I suppose we should head back home, see you later." Twilight, turned back to us. Fluttershy waved us off as we headed back towards Golden Oaks. It felt like I hadn't been there in a while, even though, in reality, it was just three days.
"So, you know the ruler of the country? What is she like?" I asked Twilight.
"Oh she is amazing! She thought me magic personally, and she is kind, warm, intelligent, and so wise! She is the pony who let me stay here in Ponyville and study friendship." She continued to gush over her apparent mentor.
There is that thing again. "Okay, what exactly do you mean by, 'study friendship?' What's there to know?"
"You really wanna know? Oh, where should I start?" Twilight asked, clearly excited.
"Uhh, can you give me the abridged version?" I didn't want her to be disappointed, but I also didn't want a lecture on friendship of all things.
A story is what I got instead, she told me how she wasn't exactly a very good friend before coming to Ponyville, and how Nightmare Moon attacked on the Summer Sun Celebration, threatening to bring about eternal night. She told me how she set out with Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie into the Everfree Forest to stop Nightmare, and how she came to realize how truly wonderful the magic of friendship was along the way. Her words not mine.
"So was Nightmare Moon that dark colored mare with the reptilian eyes?" I asked, trying to piece together that odd scene I saw when I first came to Equestria.
"Indeed she was, but me and my friends used the Elements of Harmony to defeat her, and free Princess Luna, although we didnt know it was the princess at the time," Twilight informed me, as we reached the front door of the library.
"Time to get to work." Spike reminded me, he made the motions of rolling up his sleeves, which only served to confuse me.
"Oh yeah, I promised Spike I would help him clean up," I told Twilight, following after the baby dragon. "Finish the story later?"
"Perhaps. Alright, let's get those books back on the shelves." Twilight said. I didn't know she was going to be helping, but I wasn't going to complain. It took about three hours to reshelve all the books, with Twilight unbending the pages with her magic, while me and Spike put away most of them. When all was said and done, it looked like a library again, and not like a tornado had torn through the place. "Good work!" Twilight said, looking between Spike and me. "Now then who is ready for lunch?" A loud grumbling noise sounded, and for once it wasnt me, but Twilight who answered her own question. We went out to a local restaurant for lunch, Twilight ordered for me, something I would have been against, but the menu we had to order from had been done in a fancy font, or something, so I was unable to read it at all. I had a daisy sandwich, Spike had a large plate of hay fries, and Twilight had a slightly larger daffodil sandwich, with a small order of fries.
After lunch, we went back to the library, Twilight got a letter almost immedietly after we got inside, leaving me and Spike to entertain ourselves. While my wings had mostly crumbled away, something that turned a few heads at lunch, my horn had yet to actually grow to a usable length, so I was still stuck with using my hooves.
Spike and I were discussing what game to play when Twilight came into the room. "Argent, guess what?" She prompted.
I shared a look with Spike before answering. "I don't know, what?"
"All of the arrangements have been made, so tomorrow we are going down to the school to get you enrolled!" she cheered.
"... Oh no."