My first thought as I reached wakefulness again was that I left the window open. I could hear the wind whipping into my house, blasting me with cold air and sounding into my ears, trying to get me to stir. I did my best to curl up more and ignore it, trying hard to stay asleep. My alarm hadn’t gone off, and until it did, I wasn’t going to be waking up.
I really should get up and close that window, I thought, but remained unmoving. Where I was in bed, the sun would eventually move over me and warm me up. I’d close the thing when I got up. Not that I knew how it got open, since it was still February, and there was no way I’d open it myself, but that was a problem for future me to figure out. Present me wanted to stay curled up in her nice, soft bed.
Although the bed didn’t feel as soft as it normally did. It actually felt like the exact opposite, almost like I was sleeping on a rock. I twisted and turned, but no matter what position I put myself in, none of them felt comfortable. As well, it seemed I’d lost my cover, too, and was sleeping under a sheet. A fuzzy sheet, or a curtain or something, because it didn’t do as much to protect me against the cold as my blanket normally did. Enough that I would try and tough it out and stay asleep for a little while longer, but not more than that.
I was eventually startled into wakefulness, however. Not by the cold or the wind or the uncomfortableness of my bed. It was something more, something completely unexpected and unbearably revolting. Something so nauseating that I nearly vomited on the spot. It was the very last thing in the world I’d ever thought I’d have again, so far down the list of things I thought I could be woken up by that it wasn’t even on the list. It should have been an impossibility.
I had morning wood.
A wave of absolute disgust washed over me as I rolled over, only to faceplant into a pile of snow. The cold of it on my face got me fully to my senses and curbed my lower body’s ailment thankfully enough. It didn’t curb any of my repulsion and almost panic by the fact that I had such a thing attached to me again, however. I’d had sex reassignment surgery almost three years ago up to that point. The only time I ever had something like I had now was in my nightmares, which I would’ve thought this was if I didn’t have a face covered in snow to tell me that this wasn’t.
I had to push back my body’s desire to puke as I shook myself off and looked down at myself. Maybe this was a nightmare, because somehow I had become a male again. Or rather, a stallion, because that’s what I was. A stallion with an orangish red coat and a fiery colored mane and tail, much like Sunset Shimmer, although the colors were more muted and darker shaded. The stallion I saw seemed like he was quite the looker, someone who’d be absolutely handsome on anyone but me. I almost couldn’t believe it when his hooves moved at my command, I was in so much shock at what I was.
I took a few deep breaths before I screamed, closing my eyes as though that would protect me from what I was. A second later, I was curled up again, laying in the snow, already crying about my circumstances. Two minutes into my Equestrian adventure and I already wanted to go home, to wake up from whatever nightmare this was. It was probably some sort of world record for how fast I hated what I asked for. I didn’t even stop to think of Lord Zulu and what hand he might have had in this. He was the furthest thing from my mind at that point.
I was only able to cry for about a minute before the snow on my legs and body demanded that I stand up or risk starting to go numb. I shook myself off again and shivered, although whether because of the cold or because I was a stallion, I didn’t know. I did know from just glancing around at my surroundings, being a stallion was a lower priority concern at that particular moment.
It was a cloudy scene in front of me, the snowy landscape stretching out for what had to be miles before it turned into something green off in the distance. I was facing the edge of a cliff overlooking a mountain face below me and a snowy valley leading off of that. The green I saw was quite a ways away, how far, I didn’t know. I was glad it was in my sightline, but it was still absolutely terrifying to be so far away from warmth without any sort of protection, at the top of a mountain, no less.
Behind me was the rock I woke up on and nothing else other than the peak of the mountain farther up. Directly ahead from my rock was a deep, icy gorge that gave no information on where in Equestria I might be. The skies were a bit clearer in that direction, but I had absolutely no intention of heading up the mountain. To the sides of me, my vision presented more mountainous terrain. That left only one obvious direction to go.
I felt the fear welling up inside of me. I could see the green I should be heading towards, but I was still absolutely nerve wracked with worry. There was no way I’d be getting there within the day. That meant I would have to be camped out here in Celestia knew where for at least one night. It’d take that long just to climb down this mountain. A mountain that could host any number of dangerous things, nevermind the cold and the wind. It was a terrifying prospect to face. It almost made me want to ball up again and wait for someone else to come along and help me.
Come on, Raleigh, I told myself silently, shakily taking deep breaths and exhaling upwards to try and keep my face warm. You’re a strong woman. You’ve faced harder than this. Your name’s Rally so you better rally up some courage and start walking. The sooner you leave the sooner you’ll be closer to… something.
I wiped my tear stained eyes off on my shoulder before I started forward carefully. I couldn’t head down immediately, what with the cliff face, and so walked along the edge, looking for an easier way down. I’d only walked for a few minutes though, maybe half an hour at most, before the very worst thing that could possibly complete this whole experience began to happen.
“No, no, no, no, no!” I complained as I saw the side of the sky I was walking towards start to darken as the sun began to set. “No, Celestia, you can’t do this to me! You’ve gotta be fucking kidding!”
She, as it turned out, was not kidding, and neither was her sister, Princess Luna, because within two minutes, the sky was completely dark of everything except for a few stars on the mountain top behind me. It was just the most perfect way to tie everything up in a neat little bow. I was alone on the top of a mountain in the cold at night with no sort of protection or any tools. And I was a man again, just to top it all off, after years of work and thousands of dollars spent trying to not be that.
“Just kill me now, why don’t you?” I got out as more upset tears dribbled out, my body shaking from the cold. Suddenly, I was thinking of that guy, Lord Zulu, and calling out, “What the fuck did you do to me? How the hell is this any of this- god! What the hell is going on?”
I was thinking back to our conversation, remembering how he said he would teach me a lesson for trolling him. It turned out that his idea of a lesson was to make me have to find a way to survive at the top of a mountain at night all alone. Because that was the appropriate reaction. Someone messes with you a little bit, and you basically give them a death sentence, because staying up here meant death. Not to mention a little psychological damage by turning them back into the very last thing they ever wanted to be. Or rather, the most you could possibly get away with giving them in one go. You know, the normal punishment for pulling a joke on someone. I didn’t even decide to consider how this could be possible at all. I was too wound up to care.
I wanted to stand there and cry all night, but a particularly painful bite of wind told my body that I should get out of the cold as quickly as I could. Not that there was anywhere warm for me to go to for miles, but a piece of shelter to insulate me a little bit would be nice, or at least something to protect me from the wind.
My teeth chattered as I walked, keeping my eyes on the cliff next to me, absolutely not wanting to take a wrong step and tumble down to my death. It was cold, extremely cold, and it felt like the temperature was rapidly dropping off now that the sun was down. I had a coat to protect me a little bit, but it felt like it offered me no more insulation than a hoodie. I could feel the tips of my ears and nose and my cheeks rapidly going numb, and I made sure to keep taking deep breaths to keep my lips and face warm as I exhaled.
Probably the only good thing about it being so cold was that it gave me something to focus on as I walked besides the wave of dysphoria that crashed over me in the last hour I’d been here. I could feel my extra appendage dangling off of me, that terrible hormone that I hated, testosterone, coursing through my veins, feeling like it was infecting me, poisoning me like it did before. Just the thought of it was making me feel absolutely terrible, but I did my best to ignore it, focusing on the cliff face and taking deep breaths to keep my face warm. The very first chance I could, I was going to meet with Twilight and get this taken care of. If I ever got back to Earth, I would make sure to find that Lord Zulu person and punch him in the face.
But first was getting off this mountain without dying somehow, and I put my focus on that, trying to ignore my body. I moved slowly, scanning for anything that I could possibly climb down on four legs. It took a long while, so long that the sky began to clear up and the moon began to show, brightening the scene around me. It was a good thing, too, because had it stayed as dark as it was, I might have missed the trail off the cliff face, barely visible in the dark as it was wedged between two large boulders.
Just because it was a trail, however, didn’t mean it was automatically safe. It had to have been over a thirty degree incline that I was descending, incredibly steep, so steep that one false step would definitely send me tumbling. I moved extra slowly, wanting to avoid slipping and breaking my neck, which, given the circumstances that I faced since arriving here, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I did.
By the time I found something that I thought I could use as shelter for a little while against the wind, a piece of rock that looked cut out of the mountain that had three sides protected against the wind, my whole face was numb, especially my ears, which I was concerned might start to become frostbitten, as well as the bottom of my hooves. I didn’t feel sleepy at all, but I was tired, and wanted to stop for now. I didn’t like the idea of walking all night, and this spot seemed as good as any. I didn’t want to continue walking and risk having to come back up here for this piece of shelter.
Stepping into the little piece of shelter provided a little bit of relief from the cold, the wind at least. I huddled myself into a corner, placing my back against the wall as I cradled my face close to my body to try and protect my nose from the cold. I didn’t know how, but by instinct, I tucked my tail against my middle, grunting in frustration and letting out a tiny choke of a sob as it brushed up against something I didn’t want to have.
Oh, God, just let this be a nightmare, I thought to myself as I closed my eyes, trying to ignore my body and rest for a little while. Let me just wake up and have this be a bad dream.
I wondered what Shorey and Forrester and my group chat friends were going to think about me being here. What would they say when they realized that I was offline all night in the wake of whatever the heck that spellcaster did to me? I didn’t know, but I hoped there was something they could do.