As I watched the horses, no they were too small so, ponies coming ever closer, something compelled me to move back into the forest and hide behind a few bushes, so they wouldn't see me. I wasn't completely sure, why I did so, so I just assumed, that it was the instincts of this body, even though they shouldn't work that way.
In any case, the ponies stopped a few meters before the entrance to the forest and just stood there for a while. I took that time to take a proper look at them.
There were eight ponies in total, two that had a horn on their heads, so unicorns, I guessed. At that point I didn't even care about how impossible that was, instead I just focused on how they looked.
One unicorn had a white coat and violet swirly main, with diamonds tattooed on her flank, I was guessing that the pony was female because of the mane swirls. The other unicorn wore some kind of golden armor, and was completely white with blonde mane.
Then there were three ponies with wings, so some kind of a pegasi. One was blue with a rainbow mane and a rainbow lightning tattooed on her or his flank, the second one was yellow with a pink mane and pink butterflies tattooed on her, probably a female, judging by the mane, and the last one also had golden armor and looked almost identical to the first golden armored pony, except for the wings.
There were also two seemingly normal ponies, one was orange with a blond mane, a stetson on his or her head and apples tattooed on her or his flank. The other 'normal' pony was probably the weirdest one, since her/his mane looked like pink candyfloss, not to mention the coat was also incredibly pink. The only signs of any other color on this pony was her tattoo, that showed three balloons, two were light blue and one was yellow.
And the last pony that was in the middle, between all the others had a horn and wings. The pony had a purple coat and a dark blue mane, that had a strip of pink and a strip of dark violet in it. The pony's tattoo was a six-pointed pink star, behind which another six-pointed white star was visible. Around the main star were five smaller six-pointed white stars.
From my observations it was obvious that that pony was the leader of the group, and the ponies with the armor were, the now dubbed purple's, bodyguards.
After they had stopped, seemingly talking, the option of which I didn't dismiss, even though it seemed absurd, the purple one did something that lit up the horn on it's head and soon afterwards a purple wave spread out from the horn in all directions.
Just as it seemed it will reach me, it stopped at the border of the forest, like a wave hitting a wall. For some reason I had a feeling that it was something that allowed the ponies to search for others, but for some reason the forest prevented searching from outside. That would also explain why the ponies were now coming into the forest.
But who were they searching for? Were they searching for me? But why? I had a feeling, that I didn't want to be found and I agreed to this feeling, since I ultimately didn't have enough information to just thrust a species I have never seen.
So when the purple one stepped into the forest, I jumped out of the forest and into some conveniently placed bushes. A few seconds later the violet wave hit the border of the forest, and not even a minute later another wave came.
I waited a few more minutes and the ponies came out of the forest.
Then the purple one did something, I didn't expect. She suddenly made another violet wave. I didn't have enough time to run into the forest, so the wave hit me and immediately bounced back to purple. Then purple's smile spread to look practically predatory, it certainly scared me, and suddenly she made a full on gallop towards my location.
Of course, I turned tail and ran into the forest, but still kept to the border. It was a smart idea to do so, since I could see the next wave coming and I stepped out of the forest to dodge it, then ran on. It seemed that purple figured my idea out, since the ponies kept running on the outside border and purple ran on the inside of the border, so purple could use the wave to make me come out of the forest and then the others could keep an eye on me.
Those were very unfavorable conditions. My body was malnourished and weak, so I was getting tired after only a few minutes of running. They were ponies, they obviously had better stamina than I, so what could I possibly do, to escape this situation?
'Think, think! What do you know about that wave? The moment it hits me, it bounces back, it isn't disturbed by objects, only by the border, it appears to be two dimensional... Idea!'
So I decided to test my idea, if it failed, I would be caught, like I would be, if I didn't try, but if it worked, maybe I could walk away as a free man, or I guessed girl in this body.
So I climbed on a tree and waited. I know, genius, right? For some reason I was so proud of myself at that moment. Anyway not long after I climbed on the tree, I saw the purple wave pass under me, but it didn't detect me! Then, not 15 meters behind the wave was the purple pony.
'Shit! I didn't even realize the purple one was so close!' While I was thinking that the purple one stopped and was joined by the other ponies. I pressed my back against the tree trunk and put my legs more together on the branch I was sitting on, so they hopefully wouldn't see me. From my position I could hear their whole conversation with general ease. The were only about 2, maybe 3 meters away from the three and weren't particularly quiet. The conversation went something like this:
"So Twilight, did you find her?" asked the blue pegasus.
"Rainbow, how do you suppose I find something, that doesn't show up on my search spell?" answered and asked the now named twilight, that was renamed from purple. The question was followed by another purple wave, that went under me.
"Maybe she is to far away Twilight, my dear?" Asked the purple maned unicorn. She had a posh, slightly British accent.
"No, that would be impossible, I am extending my search radius through half of the Everfree and you didn't see her come out of the forest. There are only two possibilities." Said twilight.
"An', those are?" Asked the orange normal pony, with a southern accent.
"She either somehow died, while we were trying to catch her, or-" Started Twilight, before the pink pony rudely interrupted her: "Shefiguredouttheproblemwithyourspell, right?"
"Hey, I am not rude!" Said the pink one afterwards towards the air.
"Pinkie, what do you mean? What problem?" Asked the purple maned unicorn, with genuine confusion.
'It seems, that usually so called spells don't have exploits', I thought to myself.
"The spell I am using searches for anything I want, but only in two dimensions, which means, that if you can see the spell, you can avoid it. Since I have been able to confirm, that she is one of the few sentient humans, and that she can see magic, something, even us ponies can't do, it is possible, that she managed to deduce, that she won't be detected, if she dodges the magic." Answered Twilight.
'It would appear, that she has been able to study the girl whose body I am in possesion of, before the girl escaped. It would also seem, that other humans in this world are incapable of rational thinking, at least as far as the ponies are concerned. And let's not forget, MAGIC EXISTS!!! And I can SEE it!' While I was thinking about all of the information I had just received, I overheard something troubling.
"Since it is possible, that she exploited the problem of the spell, I will now use a three dimensional version of the same spell." Said Twilight.
I was panicking. Twilight was starting to charge her horn and I still didn't know how to escape, so I just pressed myself to the three more and prayed to any kind of deity out there, that she wouldn't find me.
The energy discharged from the horn and a purple bubble started spreading out in all directions.