Twilight’s eyes creaked open a tiny sliver. Her head was throbbing, like she had been slamming her cranium against the wall for a good solid minute. Her attempts to focus on her surrounding environment was proving fruitless. The area surrounding her looked to be foggy. In fact, the fog seemed to be the only thing that she could see. She felt like any minute now Pyramid Head might come out of the haze wielding his massive knife.
She shook her head around and stood up. Despite the seeming nothingness that surrounded her, she desperately looked for a landmark in this sea of murkiness. She squinted and bit her lip, slowly pivoting her body around slowly in a circle. She used the large knowledge receptacle that was her brain to do all the calculations and came to a solid conclusion; she was in a void of absolute nothing. She groaned. “There’s nothing here. Just emptiness.”
She sighed. “Maybe there’s more in the distance.” She trots forward, her head swiveling occasionally to her sides, keeping an eye out through the mist. She trotted. And trotted. And trotted. Her head was slowly sinking, her head turning was becoming less frequent and more sloppy. But off in the distance, she noticed something off. There was something dark blue in the distance.
Twilight squints her eyes. The discoloration was moving up and down in a solid, concise manner. It was also getting closer. Twilight tensed up, an electric shock running up her spine. She dropped her head down and stared ahead at the unusually colored light. Eventually, the blob started to take a more definite shape. The ambiguous blob gave way to an equine quadruped. Twilight gasped.
“Are you...Princess Luna?” she muttered in awe. She had never met this pony in her life and yet the name seemed to come to her mind immediately.
“You...know my name? I’m sorry, but I’ve never met you before.” Luna frowned. “And yet...you are Twilight Sparkle. I know that...somehow. I'm unfortunately not quite sure why I know that though.”
Twilight flashed Luna a sad look. This dream was definitely different from the others. That much was certain.
“Listen Twilight. I need to talk with you and your friends. Is there a place we can meet up and talk?” Luna asked.
“Well, we do have our ‘Magic Meeting Room’ that we get together at. It’s the Side Room B in the Recreation Room.” Twilight stated.
Luna chuckled. “That’s a bizarre name for a place but if that’s where you want to meet, we can meet there.” Luna nodded and started to trot away.
“Ah, wait! Luna, isn’t this a dream? Aren’t you just a figment of my imagination?” Twilight asked, confused.
Luna turned back to Twilight and grinned. “That’s what I thought too. I’ll tell you more in person.” She turned back and faded into the fog.
I opened my eyes. That dream was different from the others, no doubt about that. Until now, they had never really been that lucid, just a series of random events loosely related to my feelings and my experiences of the previous day. But now I was getting specific instructions and things related to my life and my immediate surroundings.
There was something else that seemed to bother me about that dream as well. I was dreaming about Twilight but it didn’t feel like I was dreaming about someone else. It felt like I was the one doing the motions in that dream. But Twilight still didn’t feel like me, not quite. Am I supposed to be Twilight or is Twilight supposed to be me?
I ran my hoof through my mane and stood up. Seems I was taken back to my room after my little fainting spell that happened earlier. I'm still racking my mind that I was able to levitate something. Levitation! My mind is constantly stacking on more crazy and bizarre stuff for my mind to process. Anyway, I figured now was a good time to check myself for changes. Part of me considered skipping the whole rigmarole of examining what parts of my body changed, but ultimately I chose to do it now, lest I get surprised later.
Looking ahead, I immediately noticed my nose was wider, looking more equine than ever. I suspected I’d get exposed to a lot more “why the long face” jokes now, give the current circumstances. I placed a hoof on my new snoot and felt fur there. I had the feeling no amount of shaving was going to get rid of that fur.
The change wasn’t just cosmetic either. I could tell my sense of smell had gotten heightened a bit as well; I could smell black pepper, salt, a small amount of dill and the pungent smell of burnt fat. It was the breakfast I had yesterday, but more than that I was able to individually catalog the different scents of the constituent ingredients. I could tell that eating was going to be a much more involved experience from now on.
I looked down and saw that my arms were now looking a bit more equine than human. Both my hands were now fully hooves and there was no trace that there had ever been fingers there at all. The fur had now grown past my elbows and was well on its way to going up my forearms. It seemed that my arms were about 60% transformed.
Moving along, I felt something poking my backside, so I decided to take a look at my back. That was easier said than done however. After a bit of a struggle, I maneuvered my line of sight so I could get a look behind me in the mirror. Perched under my shoulder blades, I saw a small pair of lavender wings. They were comically small compared to my body but since my body had already shrunken a decent amount, I had the feeling that would change very soon.
After looking at my back, I also noticed another strange thing about myself. My ears had moved. They seemed to be migrating up the sides of my head, putting themselves more near the top of my head instead of being placed on the side. These new ears also seemed to have a mind of their own. Looking at them in the mirror, I saw that they would twitch and swivel without my input. They seemed almost...cute.
I mentally cursed at myself, realizing I had just called my own ears "cute" of all things. My ears seemed to share my sentiment, pulling flat against my sides. Hiding my emotions would be much harder thanks to these ears telegraphing how I was feeling. Guess I should refrain from playing Poker anytime soon then.
There didn't seem to be any other physical changes so I decided to go and get ready for the day. If that dream was legit, then “Luna” would be waiting for me in the Magic Meeting Room. I might be able to get some explanation for why she was in my dream and maybe find out more about what's going on in this place.
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
I walked over to the very familiar Magic Meeting Room and opened the door. Inside I could see all of my friends. My vision was immediately drawn to Nathan. He now had a wonderful looking hairstyle that I had never seen on him before. It was VERY feminine looking, with a nice curl on one side of his head. He was chatting with Juan and he had a comb in his hand. Juan still seemed nervous but was a lot less tense, even chuckling at a statement Nathan made.
I turned my head over to see Darnel and Will. Darnel and Will seemed to be playing some kind of board game. Darnel was relaxing in his chair with a calm, almost smug look on his face. Speaking of his face, he now sported some freckles and his hair was almost all blonde. He was eating an apple and he had a small bowl of fruit sitting next to him. By contrast, Will looked like he was under an interrogation given how much sweat was developing on his brow. His eyes were darting from the cards in his hand, to the game board where his pieces were situated. He grabbed one of his cards and gripped it tight for a brief moment, before shaking his head and looking back at his hand.
Pulling my eyes over to the other side of the table, I could see Alex and Meghan drawing. Occasionally, the two would show each other their work. Meghan seemed to be drawing a cartoon looking alligator doing some silly things. Alex’s art was a bit more reserved by comparison, just drawing a simple looking rabbit. Meghan caught me out of the corner of her eye and waved me over.
“Heeeeeeeeeeey Penn! Come over here!” she yelled enthusiastically. I grinned back at her and pulled up a chair next to the two of them. I sat down and leaned back in the chair.
“Hey guys. How are you doing? I see you guys are drawing Alligators and Rabbits.”
Alex tenses up and flips his drawing face down. “It’s...it’s supposed to be a frog.”
“O-oh. Sorry, I didn’t know.” I pull back in my seat.
“Hey, practice makes perfect!” Meghan positively rebutted. She then turned to me. “So, when do you think Luna is coming by?”
I suddenly sputtered, taken aback by her question. “Wh-what!? How do you know about Luna?” I asked, genuinely curious about how she knew about her.
“In my dreams of course!” Meghan gleefully explained. “That’s what happened to all of us!”
Nathan nods, having overheard our conversation. “Yes, we all had similar dreams to each other, and all of us had encountered somepony named Luna.”
“Huh, and I’m guessing she told you all to meet up here?” I inquired.
“Yup,” Alex replied. “We’re all told to meetup here because ‘Penn told me this was a place you all meet up at.’ So we did.”
“Hmm” I tapped my chin with my hoof. “That’s pretty weird that she was in all of our dreams, all telling us the same thing. She said she wants us to talk about something. Do you think she knows something we don’t?”
“Noooooo!” Will screamed to the heavens.
The entire room was quiet for a few seconds.
“You know,” I began. “A simple head shake would have worked just as well.”
Will crossed his arms and gritted his teeth. “It’s...it’s not that. I just...I. Hate. Losing.” He bluntly spattered out, staring daggers at Darnel.
Darnel simply shrugged and started to put the game pieces away. “I know yer mighty passionate Will, but sometimes you gotta take things easy. Not everything has to be a competition. You can just play for fun.” Darnel said, giving Will a calm smile.
Will said nothing, simply breathing out through his nose in a huff. Darnel sighed as he continued to put the items away.
I turned over to Meghan, getting back on subject about the dreams we had last night. “So, what exactly happened in your dream?”
Meghan tugged at her cheek with her hoof, seemingly lost in thought. “Weeeeeell, I was moving through the field of dancing pumpkin pie flowers on my way to the city of Sweet Treats where I encountered this Wizard called Mary Jane who offered up this magic herb that-”
I held my hoof up. “Well that sounds like a completely normal dream so Alex what did you dream about?” I said in one continuous breath.
Meghan scrunches her nose up a little while Alex adjusts in his chair. “Me? Oh, you don’t wanna hear about mine. It was a pretty boring one about school and stuff until Luna showed up. She told me that she had already talked with you and Juan already about this and she asked me to come here, dropping the ‘Magic Meeting Room’ by name. She didn’t mention anything other than she has something that she wants to talk about with us.”
“Yeah, that makes me wonder if she knows something we don’t.” I mused to myself.
My thoughts were put on hold as I saw the door to the room open up. As the door swung away, I saw another pony-person walk in. The fur they had was a very vibrant dark blue and they had hooves for hands as well as fully transformed legs like the rest of us had. There were three things that stuck out to me though. First off, they had both a unicorn horn and a pair of wings. That was something that I hadn’t observed in anyone else except myself. Second, they seemed to be taller than everyone else. It wasn’t by a large amount and they still seemed a tad short for an adult but it was still impressive looking compared to how tall the rest of us were standing. The last thing that struck me as bizzare was the hair. It had a bizarre, almost ethereal look to it and it was moving on its own which was bizzare to see.
“Hello there,” The person began. “My name is James, though...most of you probably know me better as Luna.”