//------------------------------// // (You) Take a Trip Down Memory Lane, Then Get Stuck on the Corner of Aw and Crap // Story: Harmony Among Fillies // by IsakeiAnon //------------------------------// Sire's Hollow was not a particularly large town. It was not a new one either. Just over a couple hundred years old, the villagers hadn't needed many buildings to get started. As far as looks went, the town's sole schoolhouse blended in with every other building. It’s curved, red-tiled roof capped off many a faded yellow brick. Compared to how many students it would actually need to house, however, the town founders will willing to make the schoolhouse a bit bigger than it would actually need to be. None of the original settlers wanted their descendants to have to worry about the need to expand their education in the distant future. The historians and farmers had agreed that this would help the village keep it's humble roots in the future. Even in the modern era, those descendants would still only have a small hooffull of students ready to begin their first ever day of school, with the school’s bell signaling the first ever ringing of yet another new school year. For one filly, that one day would also be the beginning of her own story. She was lean, green, and mean. Anonymous, daughter of Incog Nito, trotted proudly into the building! Her daddy had recently gifted her with an awesome new book! The Elements of Harmony! It had awesome stories about The Mare in the Moon and the First Hearth's Warming and Puddinghead's Pudding Parade and- Well, the pudding wasn't the point. The point was the Elements of Harmony were super cool, and she needed more of that coolness. First, she needed a friend! Lots of cool friends! Then they could go on adventures about Honesty and Kindness and Generosity and Laughter and Loyalty and! And, uh, Spark! Yeah, lots of sparks! They'd make magic sparks and have magic fun! Lots of fun! Friends liked fun, right? And books were probably fun, if they were all about things like the Elements of Harmony! And- BRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING -and she was late! Oh no! With only a little bit of panic (though the filly in question was already quite little, meaning that proportionally speaking, said filly was actually full of a LOT of panic) young Anonymous rushed up the stone steps, and into the schoolhouse. Or at least, she would have, if a rather rude and hard shove hadn't thrown her to the ground the second she tried to climb up those stone steps. Just what the hay bumped into her? “Oh gosh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to run into you!” Wait, that sounded like a colt! Did she have cooties now? “H-Here, let me pull you up.” Oh, that was nice of him. Then again, she had the weird feeling she was forgetting something important about this colt… Cooties! Of course, colts like him had cooties! Then again, she probably already caught them by now. Oh well, can't get more cooties if you already have them, right? Grabbing the colt’s hoof, Anonymous pulled herself up. “It’s fine. Just who the hay are you?” The colt was a little taller than her, but he somehow managed to have a mane that was wilder than hers. Said mane was darker than his lighter orange coat, which was covered in the occasional white patch. The colt was also a unicorn, like her, and was using his magic to levitate a giant book, just like she was doing with her giant book! Hers was bigger though. Just saying. The colt blinked shyly. “Oh, I’m uh, Sunburst. Who are you?” The filly grinned. “My identity is…” Sunburst began to lean forward in interest. “…Anonymous.” A huff, and a puff, and then a frown came out of Sunburst. “Fine, don’t say anything.” A bunch of giggles came out of Anonymous. “That was a joke, Sunny! My name is Anonymous.” “Oh. That wasn’t a funny joke.” Now Anonymous was the one frowning. She totally had her comedy routine down! This colt just didn’t appreciate it. “It’s more funnier than whatever you’re reading.” More huffing from the Unicorn colt, now with a hoof stomp for emphasis. “More funnier isn’t even proper grammar, and what I’m reading isn’t supposed to be funny!” Now the Unicorn filly had begun to huff as well. “Then what the heck are you reading? It sounds boring.” “Boring? There’s nothing boring about Quartz Diamond’s A History of Rockology!” “Don't you mean Geology?” “No actually, the difference is-“ “Boring!” “I, puh, what?!” “Boring!” “Look, Rockology is an ancient and noble art of the Earth Ponies, dating back ages before even Celestia herself!” “If you want to farm some ancient and noble rocks, then ba-bam!” "Oh! The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide!" "Yup! What do you think? Jealous?" "But those stories aren't funny either." "Oh come on! There's plenty of Laughter in these! It's a whole Element and everything!" "It's fascinating sure, but those stories aren't real facts." "Have you ever taken a good, long look at the moon? And I mean, really take a good look at it? Don't you ever feel like there's something more to it than meets the eye?" "Anonymous, that 'unicorn pattern' everypony sees on the moon is just a foal-friendly explanation for all the maria on it." "The mare-ia?" "No, mare is singular. Maria is the plural." "Nice pun." "That wasn't a pun! Maria is what astronomers call the lowered elevation of the moon's surface. The moon isn't flat, it's full of large empty basins that once held a lot of water!" "Cause Nightmare Moon drank it all! Even princesses need water!" "Anonymous!" "Dang it, Sunburst!" Anonymous? "What's the matter? Got nothing left to say?” Hey, Anonymous! Huh? I blinked. These phantom memories or whatever the damn term were starting to piss me off. I looked around for Sunburst, and sure enough, instead of standing around at Sire's Hollow, we were standing around at Canterlot's train station. More accurately, we were standing around the mess of a crowd in Canterlot's train station. Seriously, ponies don't see crowds in this kind of frenzy outside of lunatic filled towns like Ponyville. But fancy-ass nobles and brain-dead tourists clashed with minimum wage workers in a mess that would have made Discord proud. Shit, what about Discord? The whole town had to be reassured by Celestia the terrorists didn't win! ...eh, I used Harmony. His statue should be fine. Right? "I'll have you common folk know I was scheduled to take a sabbatical in Manehattan. Instead, I have to deal with this headache on top of my actual headache!” “Our sincerest apologies sir, but it’s standard procedure to revise the revise the structural integrity of our trains in the event of a magical incident. Everypony on staff’s still trying to deal with our magic being temporarily unbalanced as well.” “Ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous! How can one possibly turn off their magic?” “That’s not what I meant, sir.” As the two continued their public shouting match, the crowd around was being even louder than anyone else. The reason wasn’t anger, however. ♫“March through the town we proudly trot~”♫ ♫“Those around us within our hearts and thoughts~”♫ A musical. My nonsense got everyone to do one of Daniel Ingram’s classic song and dance routines. It wasn’t all the same song either, on the walk here from the Royal Castle we must have passed at least a dozen different renditions of ‘I Secretly Love You Princess Celestia!’ So not too different from walking around your typical brony convention. “Are you alright Anon?” Oh yeah, Sunburst was still here. Wow, was it weird to see a little pony colt being so expressive. Especially when those eyes were filled with concern. For me. "I'm fine, just remembering old stuff." "Tesla Coil discovering how to use magic as a power source for more advanced technologies in 457 A.C?" "Air Conditioning?" "After Celestia." "Eh, not that old. Just how we met." "Well, I certainly remember those days, you mischievous little filly." Oh hey, our parents were walking up to us now. What a sentence when referring to ponies. I remember that Sunny Flare had plenty of sentences to say me back when I first became friends with her son. "You managed to get my little Sunburst late for his first day of school, then tried to magic duel over it. You're lucky Firelight and his daughter were able to intervene." Thanks Obama. Er, I mean Starlight. "Yeah, yeah Miss Flare.” I replied. “Any luck on us going home yet?" Then Incog spoke up next. "Not happening for a few hours, you two. Everything's been delayed while the train's crew get their work sorted out." "So that's my fault too. Great." Golly, it sure was fun seeing the results of your domestic terrorism pay off. Not. Before I could be further swayed into becoming Cozy Glow 2: the Sequel, I got picked up by my daddy. The cons of being tiny again. "Now now, you haven't done much harm here, Anonymous. Celestia herself said this was a blessing, and that's what today is. Tell you what, while we wait for the trains to reactivate, let's celebrate both of you tykes passing your entrance exams with your favorite food!" Bacon and eggs? Oh. Fuuuuuuuuuuck. Restaurant Row, a place I actually remembered from the show somewhat. Rarity and Pinkie Pie had been told by Harmony to go recreate the British version of Kitchen Nightmares. Don't start a business with your family, kids! I couldn't recognize The Tasty Treat, however, so I just let my old man lead our group into one of the endless restaurants on these long ass streets. The restaurants menu, however, was exactly what you'd expect from a horse based diet. Plants and hay everywhere. Apparently, daffodil sandwiches and hay bacon were my new favorite foods in this world, but the thought of eating flowers was too goddamn unappetizing when I'd had not-hay bacon for breakfast at the start of this long ass day. Instead, I settled for a bowl of lettuce. Sorry, I meant I asked for a salad. The restaurant only had daffodil salads. That's what you get for eating at The Delicious Daffodils. Great lemonade, though. I tried to grab my salad fork, but sure enough my butterfingers (or total lack of) were in full effect and failed to keep the fork attached. So I tried again. And again. And again. You really need a description for this? “Come now Miss Anonymous, stop joking around!” Oh yeah Miss Flare, I’m having a ball here. Two of them. Oh whoops, I don’t have those anymore. Wait. “Oh.” Way to blend in dumbass. Okay, levitation magic. According to my ‘memories’, Sunburst already explained this shit to me. Thoroughly. Apparently, since levitation magic was literally baby's first spell, I just had to think about the object I wanted to levitate, then will it. As easy as actual psychokinesis. Except I didn’t know what actual psychokinesis was like, and I already tried to do the spell exactly like that when I first got here. Total dud. Then again, I now remembered what it was like to successfully cast that spell. If I could just focus on that specific memory, and recreate how I felt back then… My horn shimmered, and the fork shimmied. Anonymous, you’re in. Holy shit, I’m in Equestria! I’m in it’s best magic school, with actual magic! That I can really fucking do! “I’m in. I made it, I’M IN!” Fuck yeah! I was so excited my magic shot up, and the fork with it. Oops. It had to fall down sometime, right? Right there, off in the distance, where you can’t see it anymore. “WAAAAAAA!” “Whoops.” “MY MANE! FIRST MY MIND AND NOW MY GLORIOUS, LUSCIOUS, BLONDE MANE!” “Don’t worry about him kiddo, just enjoy your meal like everypony else.” You mean everyone. Fuck. I couldn't drown my sorrows in alcohol anymore (at least not without a lot of stealth and effort) but at least I still had a little slice of Earth with me. Specifically, a wedge of it. Get it, cause of the lemon wedge? On a glass of lemonade? Whatever. This time I gently magic’d the glass to me, and brought the straw to my mouth. It’s surprising how much that felt like using hands, but maybe that was just years of reading fanfics featuring ‘finger motor control is superior to literal, powerful, and refined telekinesis’ doing the talking. Fuck yeah, that’s good lemonade. If I couldn’t get drunk off of alcohol at the moment, I should try to get drunk off of lemonade! “Yo Sunburst! Bet I’ll finish my lemonade before you!” “Good luck Anon, you’ll need it when I finish first!” Ha. "Get juiced, Sunny!" "Suck my lemons, Anon!" I laughed my ass off so hard, I spilled my drink and had to forfeit the competition. Sunburst was sucking his lemonade('s straw) and then some. Ha. Lemonade was a favorite of mine on Earth, and apparently also on Equestria. Another thing I had in common with this new life, and though there were differences, there weren't many of those compared to all of the similarities. The things that Anonfilly did in her memories even felt like the sorts of things I myself would have done. So why drop me off in the middle of a magic school test instead of having me come out of my new mom's vagina at Sire's Hollow? Actually that may have been an upside and/or gay. Also I didn't have a mom in this world, what the hell. What did our similarities and differences mean for Anonfilly's existence as her own person, and what did it mean for mine? When we finally got a train ride back to Sire’s Hollow, it was clear that even though Sunburst won the battle, he and Stellar Flare weren't winning the war. Instead of sitting down with us, they were going around, cabin-to-cabin, looking for the train’s restroom. You’d think Miss Flare would have a plan for that, but nah. "Anon, I noticed you didn't you eat your daffodils. You've been a lost in thought a lot more than usual, too. What's on your mind?" Oh yeah, another goddamn wrench in the question that was my new existence. The man who was somehow both my dad as well as Anonfilly's. "Sorry Dad. I'm just uh, thinking about today again. And tomorrow." And all of Equestria after that, apparently. "All of Equestria?" Oh hell, I need to learn to shut up, fast. "Anonymous, you don't have to worry about the future just yet." Yeah, about that future, 'Dad.' "You may be taking a big step in your life, but you don't have to stress yourself into a bundle of nerves over it." I'm trying to have a moment of teen angst here, Dad. Hell if I even know why at this point. "Just take it one day at a time. Don't fret over what other ponies think just because of something you can't control for certain." For listening to the wise old man's sage advice, I received a head pat. And then the old coot ruffled my hair. Er, mane. The hoof felt...kind of soft, actually. Way softer than my own hooves would have implied. One day at a time, eh? What did I know for certain? Well, let's start with how the story should have begun. Looking out the train window, I could see the namesake of Celestia's current student taking place. On planet Earth, it would have been a nice, slow process. The sun would decide to take a break from it's day job and lie on the horizon as if it were a bed. Said sun would then have it's yellow light flutter away towards the white, elegant clouds that were it's neighbors. Those clouds would then puff up as they became as pink as a sweet, scrumptious pie. The sky's blue would dash away to an honest, humble orange. Or was it the clouds that became orange, and the sky that turned pink? For all I know it could have been both, I already wasn't sure anymore. Equestria's sunset was happening way too fast for me to really compare and contrast it with Earth's. Before I knew it, precious day gave way to eternal night. Then the stars arrived. One by one, the bright lights of the night began to move into their homes in the sky. I rarely got to see the full beauty of Earth's stars thanks to light pollution, but the Equestrian stars were even more beautiful than I remembered Earth's ever being. I swear the Equus stars twinkled far more often. The more those stars danced, the more the moon began to rise. But no matter how invisible the stars were back home, Earth's moon shined brighter than Earth’s sun ever did in the daytime. So I looked directly at the sun without sunglasses a lot. Sue me. Back at...I guess my first home now, you could make out the occasional patches of grey, were it a full moon. The patches were usually a random pattern, but here on Equestria? The moon still shined, but the spots on it held far more darkness to them. The patches were pitch black, and formed a very familiar alicorn pattern. Luna. The twilight would always follow the night. To redeem and eventually succeed her as a, nay, the Princess of Equestria. All the other Elements of Harmony were your typical, generic gems when Luna and Celestia wielded them against Discord. The only one that had a unique design was the Element of Magic, which shared it's design with the Tree of Harmony that grew it. Twilight Goddamn Sparkle, the spark (ha) that would ignite the warm fuzzy feels of friendship and redemption in the hearts of even the bitchiest of supervillains. Unless you were a pony hater in the YouTube comments section, in which case you probably wouldn't have had much of anything to begin with. Anyways, Twilicorn McSparklybutt was predestined by Harmony itself to become a billion dollar toy mascot. Merchandise, spinoffs, and, from what little of Generation 5 existed before I bailed on real life, nostalgia bait for the little kids who grew up on Gen 4. I promised that damn Tree I wouldn't mess around with it's chosen one's destiny, because there were plenty of Bronies out there that would be more than happy to prevent Twilicorn's ascension. I just wanted to make sure the Tree wouldn't juice me to death via hentai tentacles or whatever that episode was about. And then I literally blew up destiny. Whoops? The million dollar question: I broke my promise immediately, and now I had to unbreak it somehow. Twilight was supposed to be the faithful student that succeeded Sunset Shimmer when she fucked off to no-hooves-land, not me. Then there was also the obvious question of should I let Sunset hate Celestia and run off to become a raging she-demon? I mean, I already changed Sunburst and Starlight's lives just by being here. And I haven't even 'met' Starlight in person yet. It'd be a dick move not to try to do the same for my horse waifu in real life. Again, other bronies would try to put the moves on her right now, but I'm not into horses. Yet. I wasn't looking forward to dealing with horse puberty, but maybe there were magical ways of dealing with that. Worked for Starlight! Man, I hope not a single soul in this world ever tried to put the moves on me in the future. That was a subject I'd dedicate the rest of my new life to not thinking very hard about. Not like I already had plenty of other shit I'd be distracted with in the future. At least I could just bring Twilight into the fold when the Sonic Rainboom gets Celestia to notice her. That was the easy part. The hard part was figuring out how to bail afterwards. Run away with Sunset? I wanted to get some stuff from the Mirror World at some point, but leaving Equestria for so long wasn’t appealing. Fucking Tree. Starlight better be as easy to deal with as Twilight, because I don’t want to grow up in a bad end of Equestria.