“Why are you moving so slowly?” the orange pegasus asked me, sounding exasperated as she used her head to push me from behind. “We need to get you to the hospital! You could have brain damage!”
“Don’t push me,” I told her. “I don’t want to trip and fall over. And I don’t have brain damage.”
“Maybe that’s why you were laying on the ground earlier!” she continued. “Maybe you tripped and hit your head, and now you can’t remember what cutie marks are!”
“This isn’t real, this is a dream,” I silently told myself before speaking again. “I don’t have brain damage,” I asserted, “and I’m pretty sure no one in my family has a ‘cutie mark’.”
“Wait, what?” she started, taken aback as she stopped pushing. “Nopony in your family has a cutie mark?”
“No, not that I know of,” I explained, “which would be why I don’t know what that is.”
“Not even your parents?”
“Um, no?”
“How is that even possible!” she almost yelled. “Everypony has to get their cutie mark eventually! Right?”
“Well, my parents aren’t ponies, so…”
I said those words and immediately hated them. It forced me to fight back another wave of anxiety at the prospect of this... scenario being real. This wasn’t me. I wasn’t a pony. I was an adult human male, not this… horse girl. This was a dream. It had to be. At the very least, I would tell myself it was until I was proven otherwise. There were a lot of uncomfortable things I’d have to work through if this was truly reality, and I really didn’t want to deal with them if I didn’t have to.
“Hmmm…” she said thoughtfully. “I guess it makes sense why you wouldn’t know… Hey! I have an idea! Since you said you’re not from here and you obviously don’t know anything about being a pony, you could come to school with us today and learn about it!”
My inclination was to say no. I’d only been there a few minutes, but somehow it felt like saying yes was accepting this… situation as reality. But I forced myself to rid that inclination from my mind. This wasn’t real, and saying yes wouldn’t mean anything. The only way for this to be real was if God put me here, and while I couldn’t say for absolute certain he didn’t put me here, I still believed it was highly unlikely that that was the case. This was just a dream. A lucid, highly realistic dream, but a dream nonetheless.
“Come on!” she insisted, seeing my doubt. “Your parents won’t get mad at you, will they? If they’re not ponies, this could be your only opportunity to learn about cutie marks! Me and my friend Sweetie Belle could teach you all about them!”
I focused on the words ‘your only opportunity’ and let them relax me. This was obviously a dream, and my subconscious was trying to tell me so. It was saying that I should just go along with it because this wasn’t real.
“Well… if you say so…” I told her, deciding to play this dream out. “I don’t see why not.”
“Great!” she let out, putting on a wide smile. “I’m sure Miss Cheerliee won’t mind! Her classroom is actually really close to here! Just follow me!” The pegasus then quickly turned around and raced forward in what I assumed to be the direction of the school. I watched her run for a few seconds before she stopped and called out to me. “Come on!” she yelled, then started to run again.
“Lord, if it’s in your will, please let this be a dream,” I whispered in prayer as I once again started to make my way forward.
I stared at my feet, my hooves, the whole time as I moved. I talked to myself as I did so, telling myself which leg to move, gradually speeding up from a crawl to a slow walk. Apparently, though, the pace I was going wasn’t fast enough for the pegasus, as I saw her come rushing back to me. “You’re going so slow!” she complained. “It’ll take years to get there at this rate! What's taking you so long?”
“I don’t want to trip,” I told her as I continued to walk on what felt like my tippy toes. “How far away are we going?”
“The schoolhouse is right there,” she told me, using a leg to point in its direction. It was a small, red building, and looked to fit the definition of ‘schoolhouse’. From where we stood, it looked to be about three or four hundred yards away. “If we sprint, we could get there in, like, a minute,” she told me.
“I won’t run,” I responded. “Like I said, I don’t want to trip.”
“Well, no offense, but I’m gonna run. I’ll go down there and tell Miss Cheerilee you’re coming.” With that, she took off again, leaving me to slowly follow in her direction.
It took about ten minutes for me to catch up to her with as slow as I was going, and saw the building in full detail when I got there. It looked to be a one room building, with a large school bell on top and a small playground in the back. I thought it looked very girly, with hearts plastered all over the building and its overall red and pink color. There were also a lot of what I assumed to be kids standing around talking, all of them just as brightly colored as everything else around me. They were every color on the spectrum, from white to dark brown to brilliant blue to bright yellow. If the orange pegasus I met earlier was any indication, I’d guess they were in the seven to ten-year-old age group. I briefly considered not going, both because of the kids and the school's design, but eventually decided to play along with whatever scenario I hoped was a result of my subconscious.
“There she is!” the orange colored pegasus said to a larger, mauve colored… pony with pink hair, who I automatically assumed to be a school teacher, seeing as she was the largest person around. “That’s her!” she continued, pointing at me.
I felt myself blush at those words, embarrassed. I was uncomfortable by the use of the word 'she' to refer to me, and once again, the anxiety of this situation being real started to creep up on me. However, I forced myself to ignore it as the larger horse-creature approached me.
“Hello,” she started politely with a smile. “My name is Miss Cheerilee, and I’m the teacher of this schoolhouse. Scootaloo tells me you’re new here to Ponyville?”
She wore a smile while she said it, but I could tell she was concerned. She likely saw my slow, awkward walk up to her, and that pegasus, Scootaloo, might have told her about the fact that I was found lying on the ground. It would be an understandable reaction. Still, I decided not to be concerned about it since this wasn’t real.
“Um, yes,” I answered, all of a sudden feeling very shy. “I, um, I…”
“She said her parents weren’t ponies, so I thought it would be a good idea if she came to our class for the day!” Scootaloo interrupted. “I mean, she doesn’t even know what a cutie mark is!”
“Do your parents know you’re here?” the teacher asked me.
I debated for a second whether or not to lie to her before opting to stay neutral. “I don’t think my parents would mind that I’m here.”
I didn't like saying that. I felt like I was lying just saying those words, even though it was probably a technically true statement. Even if it wasn’t true, it wouldn’t have been the fact that I was saying something I knew to be false, it was the fact that I was intentionally misleading someone to benefit myself. Still, it might not have been wrong to say because I wasn’t trying to benefit myself at her expense, but I didn’t like the idea that I only might have not been doing something wrong.
“No,” I thought to myself. “You’re not doing anything wrong. What you tell these… horses… doesn’t matter because this isn’t real. This is just a dream.”
Miss Cheerilee looked at me skeptically for a few seconds before she spoke. “Well, you’re certainly welcome to join us for class if that’s the case,” she told me. “If you want to head inside, we’re actually getting ready to start our first lesson in a few minutes.”
She probably figured that it was better to keep me in her sights than it was to turn me loose, and she watched as I followed Scootaloo inside the building. “You can sit next to me,” the pegasus chattered excitedly as she sat down, pointing to a desk next to her. "I’ll show you my friend Sweetie Belle once she gets here!”
I was suddenly feeling like this dream was lasting a very long time. I’d never had a lucid dream before and had only been here for a few minutes, but I was suddenly feeling like this dream had been going on for too long. I quietly sat in the seat next to her as I tried to put my fears out of my head.
“Stop it,” I whispered to myself, trying to keep myself calm. “Nothing is going to happen. This isn't real.”
“So where are you from?” Scootaloo asked curiously. “It has to be really far away for somepony to not even know what a cutie mark is and to have parents who aren’t ponies!”
I decided to take the opportunity to distract myself from my worries. Before I could answer though, I heard the teacher, along with about a dozen kids, join us inside the building.
“Alright class,” Miss Cheerilee said as they sat down at their desks, “we have a new student joining us for today, and I’d like you all to give her your full attention while she tells us about herself.” She then turned to me and asked, “Would you like to come up and introduce yourself for us?”
I blushed again, once again feeling shy. “Can I introduce myself while sitting here?” I asked.
“Everypony introduces themselves at the front of the class,” she explained politely with a smile. “Why don’t you come on up?” I don’t know why, but I shook my head, and she pressed further. “All you have to do is tell us your name and where you’re from,” she encouraged.
I sighed. “This isn’t real,” I told myself as I answered, "Okay," and stood and started the trip to the front of the room. “Just play along,” I told myself silently.
I noticed her watching my footsteps as I made my way up to her. She clearly trying to see if something was wrong with them, however, she didn’t comment on it, opting instead to ask me to turn around and face the class.
“How about we start with your name?” the teacher offered.
I took a breath and closed my eyes. “My name’s Ashle... er. Asher”
I had never been more insecure about my name in my whole life. My real name is Ashley, but I’d never really thought much of it. I knew it was a popular girl's name, but where I lived, I knew more guys with the name than girls. It wasn’t something I was ever teased about and I wasn’t ever really bothered by my having the name. However, at that moment, given my current form, I was feeling very bothered and insecure by the name I was given.
She clearly thought it was a strange name, or maybe she was confused by my stumble while saying it, but she quickly moved on to the next question. “Can you tell us where you’re from?”
“Um, I’m from a big city,” I answered kind of quietly. There was a brief silence, and I added, “It’s far away.”
“How old are you, Asher?”
My fear and anxiety made itself known again at that question, and I started to feel lightheaded as my limbs started to shake. It’d been a long time since I’d been this nervous over anything. The idea of this being real was absolutely frightening. I didn't want to be a child, I didn't want to be a pony, and I didn't want to be a girl. I certainly didn't want to be all three at once.
“Are you okay?” she asked me, concerned.
“I’m fine,” I lied, speaking softly. “I just need some water.”
“Well, we have a water fountain in the back of the class, near the restroom. You can take a seat after that if you’d like.”
“Thank you.”
I found my way to the water fountain and took several swallows. It tasted clean and sweet, and I tried not to let the thought of how real it seemed add to my fear. I knew I could taste things in my dreams. It had happened to me before. It wasn’t out of the ordinary.
I took another sip of water and swished it around my mouth, closing my eyes. “This isn’t real,” I thought. “I’m going to be fine. This isn’t real. There’s no reasonable explanation for my current... form besides the fact that I’m having a lucid dream. I should relax and enjoy it, especially since I don’t know if I’ll ever have an experience like this again.” Those thoughts didn’t make me relax much, but they did help a tiny bit. At the very least, my legs stopped shaking. “God’s not dead. He’s surely alive,” I whispered again, adding "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
I looked at the restroom in front of me and debated whether to use it or not. If I did, either I would wake up or I would prove this was real. However, I decided not to. I didn’t need confirmation that this wasn’t real, because I knew it wasn’t. Besides, I would wet myself in real life, and that wasn’t something I was really keen on doing.
I relaxed more, convincing myself more that this was a dream, and headed back to where I was sitting.