I let out a dejected sigh as I poked at my breakfast, which happened to be just as unappetizing as the hospital back on Earth. The joys of staying in a hospital, am I right?
As I poked at my breakfast with a hoof, I reminisced on the previous night, which wasn’t much. I had found out that it was indeed the afternoon as the sun started setting not so long after those Wonderbolts visited me, along with the fact that my energy levels seemed to deplete even more as the sun continued to descend. I learned too through the very loud conversations in the room behind me that these creatures are called ponies, not horses. All was fine and dandy, though the one thing that gave me chills was when they came in and removed the catheter I had inside me, I’m still not sure how I never noticed it, I think I was still trying to process the talking horses thing. Anyway, that was the most uncomfortable, and embarrassing thing I had ever experienced, thankfully, I fell asleep soon after, so… yay?
I shivered at the thought of that catheter and decided that thinking about last night served me no purpose. Since I fell asleep right after that torture, I didn’t have a chance to formulate a cover story. I was about to get visited by what was most likely one of the most powerful peo- ponies in the country, and sounding like a lunatic in front of her wouldn’t look so good in my opinion. Though I was fairly nervous, I mean hey, I’m in a completely alien world about to get visited by a princess! If a princess is the same thing as on Earth at least… I’m going to be visited by royalty! What if I offend her? What if I blow my cover? What if she can read my mind?
I slapped myself mentally, ending the loop because at this point I was being stupid… right? Well, I didn’t know and wouldn’t find out until my time came, but back to the cover story. I’m in the body of a child, so they must think I have the mind of a child, which I don’t, so playing dumb may earn me some leverage. Along with the fact that I was found in the middle of the forest by myself, if I just act scared and sad, they just might take pity on a poor little soul like me. I’d also decided to just say I lived by myself in the wilderness, it’s not like they’re going to find my real parents. And saying I just came across that random metal thing in the forest and can’t remember what happened would cover the rest.
“Oh yeah, it’s all coming together!” I laughed to myself a little.
“What was that honey?”
“Agh!” I jumped in my bed, my heart freezing for a split second.
“Oh I’m sorry, didn’t mean to startle you!” Breeze said from literally right next to my bed. I must have been so deep in my thoughts that I didn’t even notice her come in, hopefully, I didn’t say anything else out loud.
“It’s alright,” I said, trying to calm my heart, “I just didn’t hear you come in.”
After a quick look at my bowl, she sternly asked, “And why haven’t you eaten your oats mister?” As she motioned towards my almost completely untouched food.
“I’m not that hungry,” I lied with a shrug.
“Well you need to get some food in you, young colt, so your body can recover.” She stated sternly, like a mother talking to a disobedient child.
“But-”
No buts,” she said, cutting me off, “you are going to eat that entire bowl of oats, or else you don’t get the surprise Spitfire has planned for you later.”
She drove a hard bargain, but I was too curious about what they had in store for me, so I caved.
I looked at the spoon next to the bowl, still wondering what I was supposed to do with that. I shrugged and just leaned over and stuck my whole face in, not sure what else to do. It was what I did earlier when she first brought it in, though the strangest thing was how natural this felt. My neck was much longer so reaching it wasn’t a problem. Along with my new muzzle, eating like this was very easy, though I still caught Breeze giving me a raised eyebrow out of the corner of my eye.
The oats actually weren’t as bad as I first thought, while it wasn’t exactly like oatmeal, it was pretty similar, though much blander and thicker. But after a few minutes, I had licked the bowl clean, Breeze taking it back to wherever she got it a moment later.
After staring at the opposite wall, going over my plan a few more times, I heard the door open. I looked over expecting to see Breeze or the doctor coming in, but instead, I saw Spitfire walk in, no longer in the blue spandex outfit I saw her in last, rather she had on a blue button-up suit top with a white undershirt on with a whistle around her neck and dark purple shades over her eyes. I’m not sure how she saw anything in here, but I had to admit that she looked pretty cool.
“What’s up newbie?” She said in her hoarse, hah… hoarse, voice as she strode over to my bedside.
“Nothing really, just bored.”
“I can relate, and so can a majority of the team. We’ve all had our fair share of accidents.” She chuckled a bit, staring off into the distance. “But anyway,” she leaned in close, pretending to look around, “how about I bust you out of here and give you a tour of the compound?”
I smiled a bit at the thought of finally being out of this bed, “Yeah, that would be amazing!”
“Alright! Let’s get this show on the road!” She shouted, a small whoops leaving her mouth a second later before she turned and started walking.
I pushed off the covers and turned myself so I could slide off the bed, though I quickly realized I had a problem on my han- hooves. I had no idea how to walk on four legs.
I said screw it and decided to go for it, and a second later I was on the ground on all fours just standing there. Unlike going on all fours as a person, this felt very natural, causing me no discomfort at all, though my mind was doing somersaults because of it.
I remembered seeing some of the other ponies here walk, and they alternated from front left, to back right, and vice versa. I thought about this and slowly began moving my legs. After taking a few steps, I realized that the motions were akin to that of crawling. And in no time I was slowly making my way towards the door, Spitfire holding it open for me.
“Sorry, I’m a little weak, having been in bed for so long,” I said, leaving out the other reason.
“It’s good, we got a while before the princess is supposed to show up.”
This made my fear resurface once again, but I pushed it down decided that stressing over it would do me more bad than good.
I took my first steps out of the room and was first greeted by a pretty standard-looking hallway that was painted the same colors as the room. We appeared to be at the end of the hall, left being the only way we could go.
“These are just some more medical rooms and whatnot, we can go to my office first.” Spitfire soon overtook me as she began leading me down the hall to wherever her office was.
“Hey Spitfire?” I asked as I soon began feeling a familiar pressure in my abdomen.
“What’s up?”
“Can I use the bathroom?” The pressure in my abdomen was slowly growing, and I knew pushing this off would most likely end in disaster.
“Sure, it’s just down here.”
We walked about two more doors down before Spitfire pushed a door open, and looking inside revealed that it was indeed the bathroom. I made my way in, the door clicking shut behind me.
I looked just like a bathroom on earth, with a small sink, paper towels, and a toilet. Though the toilet looked like something straight from Japan since it was entirely in the ground, though it still had the usual flush handle.
“Here we go…”
After pissing on my leg more than I would like to admit, I finally figured out how to not make myself yellow and relived myself. I walked over to the sink and pushed myself up, thankful it was much lower to the ground though still a bit high for me. I looked at the faucet but stopped when I saw my reflection in the mirror. I was a white pony with dark green hair and equally dark eyes. I just stood there, looking at my new self, my mind actively rejecting this new truth while also not know what else to make of it. I was me and I was standing right in front of this mirror as a fuzzy quadruped, what else was there to say? Everything looked so unfamiliar and unnatural while at the same time being completely natural, I was a human, not a pony… right?
I shook my head, still full of thoughts, and just washed my hooves to the best of my ability. I focused solely on washing my hooves and drying them before I made my way towards the door.
I took a deep breath, determined to not let this get to me, especially now. I put on a fake smile for a moment and knocked on the door, Spitfire opening it a second later.
I quickly forgot about myself as we continued down the hallway. I took in everything that was around me, the various ponies that walked by, some in those blue uniforms, others completely nude, something I was still very self-conscious about. Other than ponies, there wasn’t much in the halls beside the occasional plaque commemorating someone for something. They were too high up for me to be able to see clearly, and walking was not something I was as good at as I thought because as I was trying to read one of the plaques, I ended up tripping over myself sending my face into the tiled floor.
After getting helped up by Spitfire and saving my pride to the best of my ability, I saw we were right in the middle of the hall, Spitfire having opened a door to the right which much lead into her office.
I followed her in and saw that it indeed was her office. A standard wood desk painted a deep shade of purple sat in the middle, just in front of a few windows, various papers and other office supplies were scattered across it. To my right and left were file cabinets twice as tall as me. Finally, each wall to the right and left had a shelf with various trophies and medals covering them. It was pretty easy to tell what Spitfire valued more if seeing how clean her awards were versus her desk was anything to go by.
“This is my home, and other than the paperwork, I love my job!” She said as she spun around in her chair, causing me the laugh a little at how carefree she seemed to be.
“Are these all your awards?” I asked as I walked over to one of the shelves, craning my neck upward to try and get a better view.
“Yep! Every last one of them, from my first flying competition win all the way to my acceptance letter into the Wonderbolts!” She pridefully exclaimed, walking over to my side, grabbing me with her forelegs, and holding me up allowing me to see the trophies that lay in front of me.
It was a tall, brass trophy with a that read Spitfire, 1st place, Cloudsdale Young Fliers Competition on the placard. She told me about how she nearly lost the race after narrowly avoiding a collision before coming from behind to steal the win in great detail.
We moved down the line, Spitfire telling me about the dramatic win, or how she beat her best friend for first, and various other stories that went along with the important memorabilia. But after about fifteen minutes, she had gone over nearly all the awards and placed me back on my own legs.
“Wow, you’ve won a lot of things!” I said as we began walking towards the office door.
“Yep,” She exclaimed, confidence oozing from her voice, “not everypony’s good enough to be the captain of the Wonderbolts.”
We were soon back out in the hall, but we didn’t go far as we stopped outside the door next to hers. She opened the door to what looked like another office nearly identical to Spitfire’s other than there being two desks, each on opposite sides of the room.
“This is Soarin,” she motioned to the baby blue pony with a dark blue mane sitting to the left, who looked up from his desk and waved at me to which I responded with my own, “and this is Fleetfoot.” The arctic blue pony’s face going from a small frown to a big smile the instant she saw me, her white hair also seemed to perk up a bit… weird.
“Oh hey, kid! Finally out of that bed? I can relate…” Her frown reappeared for a second but just as quickly disappearing. “Let me tell you a little secret,” she said as she walked over and leaned in close smirking the whole way, “Soarin wets the bed, don’t tell him I told.”
I had to hold back a snicker, covering my mouth with a hoof as Fleetfoot nonchalantly walked back to her desk.
“Hey, what did you tell him?” Soarin asked, putting his pen down.
“Oh, nothing, just how cool all this paperwork is!” Fleetfoot said, trying to stifle her own giggles.
“Hey! You told him-” He was cut off by the door as Spitfire pulled me out of the doorway before shutting it.
“Those two knuckleheads have been my friends since I was a filly,” a smile gracing her face as she appeared to be thinking about the past, “Soarin is second and Fleetfoot is third in command, every day is a fun day with those two around. I’m still amazed they get any work done at all considering they share an office.” She laughed.
“Yeah, they seem pretty funny,” I said as I finally got my little laughing spree under control.
“Alright, that’s all the exciting stuff inside, so let me show you where we practice!” Her voice gaining a little excitement.
We turned around and headed back towards the middle of the hall which led to an atrium opposite Spitfire’s office. There wasn’t anything too exciting in there, but I stopped mid-stride the second I walked past the outside doors.
My jaw dropped at the sight before me, rather than just being kinda high, we were above cloud level on top of what must have been the peak of a mountain. I had no idea how something like this could be made, actually, flying ponies, duh. But the real sight to behold was the rainbows that seemed to just fall right off of the few clouds around and above us. Rainbows weren’t liquids, so how the heck did they do that?
After a few moments, I stopped gaping at the sight that would make any scientist scream and took a look around at the various pegasi flying around in the sky, most in those blue uniforms. Some were doing various ariel tricks and stunts, and others seemed to be doing the duties of the ground crew that you would find at an airport. It looked like a little airport, except for pegasi, well, it was for pegasi.
We continued on down the small path, me by her side, as we made our way towards the tarmac.“This is where we do most of our training and conditioning, and take a look over there!” She pointed to our left showing, Rainbow Dash I think it was, absolutely grilling the life out of a light green pegasus. Even from here, I could sense the fear and panic radiating off of that pony as they got scolded for whatever it was they did. “He’s a part of the group of newbies that just started in the academy a few days ago, probably said something about her hair.” She laughed a bit, before saying, “Reminds me of my days, I just could never keep my mouth shut, though all the extra laps and wing-ups did me good.” A smirk spread across her face, “You gotta ask Fleetfoot about her time in the academy if you see her again, if I had it bad, she had it ten times worse!”
So far I liked this place, if I just forgot the fact that I was talking to a pony, it would be just like I was talking to one of my old friends. She kept the conversations loose and upbeat while keeping them interesting. Though I was still a child and she talked to me like one, still something I was getting used to. I constantly felt welcomed, everyone around me seeming to genuinely care about me.
I left my mind and saw that we were right on the edge of the tarmac, though as soon as I began to take another step, Spitfire put her foreleg in front of me, stopping me mid-stride.
“Wait a second, you’re forgetting the most important rule.” She said, leveling a gaze expectantly towards me.
“Uh, I don’t know... make sure to look both ways?” I said, not sure what else to say.
“Correct,” she declared, much to my surprise, “Dash forgot that on her first day, that’s why we nicknamed her Rainbow Crash.”
After looking both ways, we crossed and stopped right in the middle of the field of grass. Though after looking around, I spotted a purple sphere rising through the clouds off in the near distance.
“Hey Spitfire,” I asked, poking at her side, “what’s that?” I pointed towards the growing purple shape, a brown something now visible underneath it making me realized it was a hot air balloon.
“Oh hey, that must be the princess, and it looks like she brought her friends along too. We better get you back inside, she’ll probably want to meet with you right away.” With that, Spitfire began ushering me back towards the building we came out of a moment ago.
After a few moments of walking in silence, we were back in the small medical room where I woke up, the sheets having been done up by somebody in my absence.
“Sorry we didn’t get much time outside, I was gonna show you a few of my moves and let you fly around a bit, but oh well. See yeah later kid, the princess should be in here in a few minutes.” With a wave, Spitfire took her absence, leaving me all to myself once again.
I got comfy under the fresh sheets, however, it wasn’t long before the sound of the door opening reached me once again. Looking over I saw Tender Breeze come in, this time accompanied by an unfamiliar purple pony.
“Hi Evan, how was your little tour of the base with Spitfire?” She asked, sounding a little nervous for some reason, as she and the unknown pony made their way to my bedside, the purple pony pulling over a chair with her own aura.
“It was pretty cool, she even showed me all her awards!” I exclaimed, it was kinda cool to see all her achievements throughout her life, not gonna lie.
“Well, I’m glad you had fun and got out of bed for a little while, but anyway, this is Princess Twilight Sparkle, she’s here for a visit as I’m sure you’ve heard.”
“Uhh, hi Princess, am I supposed to bow or something?” I asked with a slightly concerned smile, worried if I already messed up.
“Oh no, it’s alright, and please just call me Twilight.” The purple pony said reassuringly from her chair situated right next to my bed.
“Oh ok, well it’s nice to meet you Twilight.” So far so good…
“I’ll just leave you to be, you can push the button on the wall if you need anything.” And with that, she hastily made her leave.
And there were two… “Hello, uh, my name’s Evan by the way.”
“Hello Evan, how are you doing here?” She asked, reassurance filling her voice.
“Pretty good,” I responded with a shrug, “kinda boring at times but it’s not too bad, everyone here has been pretty nice though.” Twilight seemed to raise an eyebrow at something I said, worrying me a bit, but she appeared to let it go.
“That’s great, I also brought along some of my friends because they wanted to meet you as well. Would it be alright if they came in?”
“Sure, I don’t see why not.” I shrugged, what harm could a few more ponies do.
“Everypony can come in,” Twilight said loudly, looking towards the door.
“HI, THERE! MY NAME’S PINKIE PIE!”
“AHH!” I screamed, my heart stopping for a moment, as I spun around, only to instantly be greeted with a wall of pink. “Could you not do that please,” I said, looking at the very pink pony while making sure my heart still worked.
“Oh I’m sorry, it’s just that you’re new here and I wanted to throw you a welcome to Equestria party, but Twilight said no, and then I thought, what if I-” She was cut off as an orange hoof got stuffed into her mouth.
“Ah sorry sugarcube, Pinkie can do that sometimes.” Came a new voice, looking to Pinkie’s left revealed an orange pony with blonde hair and a brown stetson adorning her head. “Name’s Applejack,” she said in a thick southern accent. I quickly noticed that neither this Applejack nor Pinkie Pie had a horn or wings like the other ponies, I was curious if they were jealous in any way.
“Hello Applejack, I’m Evan,” I said back, she offered a hoof outward, not the one she took out of Pinkie’s mouth, to which I assumed would be for a han- hoofshake.
I wasn’t sure how a hoofshake would work, but I swear it felt like she had a hand and was gripping my hoof somehow in her own. I stared at my hoof for a second after she let go, boy did she have a firm handshake, contemplating how the heck she just did that.
“Oh darling, what have they done to your mane!” Came a concerned, posh voice from right next to Applejack.
“Uh, what’s wrong with it?” I asked the white pony.
“Darling have you looked in the mirror recently?! That style is committing a fashion crime of the highest cruelty.” Her speech as well as her body language quickly told what kind of per- pony she was.
“Hey, leave the little guy alone, I like his mane style!” Said a familiar raspy voice from the other side of the bed.
“Oh, hey Rainbow Dash,” I said as looked over and saw Rainbow Dash standing next to Twilight giving the white pony a challenging stare.
“Hey kid,” she said, not breaking her stare.
“Oh, well I guess it does fit him quite well on second hoof.” The white pony said in reluctance after a few moments. “Well anywho, my name is Rarity, aspiring fashionista.” She said, her profession not surprising me in the slightest.
There are a lot of ponies in here now, I thought as I looked at the five ponies on either side of my bed. I figured they must know Rainbow Dash since she is in here too, but I wonder why Twilight brought them all along.
“Hey, where’s Fluttershy?” Twilight asked, looking around the room for whoever Fluttershy was.
“Eep!?” A soft voice squeaked as Rainbow Dash grabbed a pink tail from behind Twilight, pulling a butter-yellow pegasus apparently named Fluttershy into view.
“Time to introduce yourself Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash stated as she pushed the meek yellow pony right next to my bed.
“Are you Fluttershy?” I asked her, to which she gave a meek nod, hiding behind her mane. “Well, it’s nice to meet you.” The moment I finished that sentence, she made her way back behind Twilight, keeping herself out of view.
“Please excuse her, she is a bit shy towards new ponies, but she’s very nice once you get to know her,” Twilight said, a smile never leaving her face. “Now, I need to ask you some questions before we get sidetracked,” my features sank a little at this, knowing that I was going to most likely have to lie, “but you don’t have to answer any of these questions if you don’t want to, alright?” She reassuring said, placing her hoof over mine.
“Alright, I’ll answer them.” It’s make or break time…
“Alright,” she began, “that’s good, and I know how hard this all is for you, which is why I brought my friends because I know where you’re from and what it’s like.”
My eyes widened and my heart stopped, all my blood instantly running cold. How could she know? Did I really mess up without doing anything? What’s going to happen to me? All these thoughts and more ran through my head as I forced myself to respond in a last-ditch attempt to save myself.
“What?...”