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// Lost at Sea, Found [Slice of Life; OC; Profanity/2nd Person] 
// Story: Scenes From A Hat 
// by The Hat Man 
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You weren’t planning on spending your life as a pony. You weren’t thinking to yourself, “Hey, Self, maybe life with TV, video games, and air conditioning are overrated. Let’s give that up for a life of eating hay and lacking thumbs.”

But then came that day when your cruise ship crashed and all those nutty kids dragged you and the rest of your shipmates to that tiny island and through a quicksand-y portal to a bizarre alternate horseniverse.

Yes, horseniverse.

Next thing you knew, you were staring down at a pair of hooves and surrounded by a gaggle of other humans-turned-horses who were likewise trying to adapt to their new bodies in a mixture of wonder and horror, much like yourself.

And then you had a niggling thought that crept forward to voice itself among all your other ideas: “Hey… we’re all naked now.”

They turned to you. And then you realized you said it aloud.

Well, congratulations, you. You’re now officially that person. You made an awkward situation awkwarder.

…Wait, how come the girl with the glasses was naked too but still kept her glasses? Seriously, why only glasses? What cosmic portal to another dimension decides, “Okay, we’ll transform you into an equine and strip you… but we don’t want you to be nearsighted when it happens. Oh, you want to keep your comfy wool socks? Man, FUCK YOUR SOCKS!!”

And so you found yourself brought to Princess What’s-Her-Name’s castle. Princess WHN looked just like Purple Naked Glasses Girl, but without the glasses. But she did have wings and you had to admit that wings were way cooler.

Not that you got any wings. Or a horn, as it turned out.

The speedy girl with the rainbow hair got wings. And, yeah, you had to admit that it kinda fit. You had the impression that this portal seemed to read what sort of person you really were deep inside.

And let’s face it… you are no unicorn.

The horses in charge of things, Princess WHN included, seemed keen to get you and the rest of your horse-people home, but it would take an hour to get some sort of magic mirror set up, so you had the run of the place.

You might have stayed in the castle, but the sound of hooves on polished stone was starting to drive you out of your goddamned mind, so you walked—no, trotted out into the quaint little village. You were greeted with thatched roof cottages, half-timbered exteriors, and colors that reminded you vaguely of that summer you spent in Brazil. The parts you could remember, that is.

You walked past more talking horses, all still naked, all still colored like they fell off a middle-school girl’s Trapper Keeper, and you found it was starting to feel… normal.

Didn’t make it any easier to feel at ease. You tripped over your own hooves for the twentieth time as you kept walking and still couldn’t shake the annoying, ever-present knowledge that your bits and pieces were just out there for the world to see.

Maybe this is why ponies evolved tails, you wondered to yourself.

You felt dizzy and started to wonder if ponies drank alcohol. If so, then you really needed to find a bar and pray to whatever Pony Deity - Poneity? - ruled over this realm that the beer wouldn’t taste like hay.

You didn’t find a bar, unfortunately, but in lieu of a hooch, you went with sugar.

“Welcome to Sugarcube Corner!” said the almost offensively cheerful pink pony who greeted you.

“Um… hi,” you said wearily. “I smelled something baking in here and got hungry. Could I get something to eat?”

“Sure! We have lots of those here!”

“I don’t have any… pony dollars or whatever you guys use around here, though,” you added quickly.

“Bits?” she asked. “And whaddya mean ‘pony dollars?’”

You swallowed and tried to grin like it was all a joke. “I’m from… out of town?” you offered.

She narrowed her eyes. “Hmm… hey, could you show me your hand for a second?”

You instantly raised your hand only to realize it was a hoof and immediately dropped it back down once again.

“Ha! I knew there was something weird about you!” the pink pony laughed in triumph. “You’re one of those crazy ‘humans’ Twilight and Starlight were going on about!”

You considered running just then, but then she patted you on the shoulder and said, “Well, if you’re visiting our town for a while, let me show you some Ponyville hospitality!”

Without further ado, she shoved a large blueberry muffin into your hooves. It was still warm and encrusted with sugar on its cloudlike top.

“Here you go, Human Thing! It’s on the house! Well, not literally ‘on the house’ since it’s not a house and we’re inside it anyway… but I hope you enjoy it, even if you are a weird alien biped who thinks in 2nd Person narration like a weirdo.”

You stared back at her, dumbfounded by her generosity and also by the insinuation that you were in any way a weirdo for narrating yourself like this. Why, you never!

“By the way, how long have you played the Prench Horn?”

You gave a start and stared back. “What?” you asked.

“Your cutie mark,” she said, pointing at your ass. And for the first time, you noticed the picture of the instrument on your flank.

“That’s gotta be your special talent back where you come from, right?” she asked.

“I mean… well, yeah, I enjoy it a lot, sure.”

She nodded. “That makes sense. I think Starlight said that humans don’t usually get cutie marks except for the weird ones that get a thing called a ‘tramp stamp.’ But around here, it shows your special talent to the world! A lot of ponies make it their hobby, and a lot of them make it their career! Say, stranger, what do you do where you come from?”

But you were lost in thought. You flashed back to your tedious classes, your parade of dead-end jobs, and the constant barrage of naysaying from your parents. The unending comparison to your more successful siblings. The exasperated sighs as you talked half-heartedly about your latest prospects. The single ticket you won for the cruise was the most luck you’d had in ages, and even that had resulted in a shipwreck and a trip to a dimension of decidedly cute body horror.

That had been your life for the last three years. The only time you’d been happy was the time you played in the orchestra in high school. But when you’d told your mother that you wanted to go pro, to study it more in college, to make your passion your career, it had been the same dismissive reply: “Pfft, you’ll never make money doing that. Get a real job.”

“Hmm? Yoohoo, Man-Pony-Thing?” the pink one asked, waving her hoof in front of your eyes to get your attention. “I asked what you did for a living?”

You heaved a sigh. “I… nothing,” you replied. “I don’t do anything. I just… bounce around.”

“Well, bouncing sounds fun to me, but I guess it’s not really your thing,” she said with a shrug. “I guess they have too many musicians where you come from. That’s totally a drag, especially since we have an opening for a Prench Horn player at the musician’s guild. You could make a lot of money here in Ponyville. Plus musicians are pretty popular. Always somepony breaking out into song around here!”

You stared back at her. Then looked back down at your muffin. You took a bite and were hit with buttery, lemony goodness and a burst of tart flavor from the blueberry as a fluffy, moist chunk of muffin filled your mouth.

“And where is this musician’s guild, by the way?”





If Princess WHN was looking for you or the other passengers or crew remembered you as anything other than the “we’re all naked” person, you haven’t heard about it.

You clutch your French- Prench Horn in your hooves, still impressed that you can somehow play it despite your lack of fingers. You take your seat among your new guildmates as the conductor introduces you to a round of grateful smiles and clapping - clopping? no, for some reason that sounds wrong - as you prepare for your first bit of practice. You catch the good-looking cellist stealing a glance at you before turning away with a blush.

If someone had told you that day that you’d end up naked and all fours and left for dead, you probably wouldn’t have believed it. Much less that it would be the key to turning your life around.

You sometimes wonder about your old life. The thought of your condescending family and jaded coworkers quickly discourages that.

All that searching for something and the answer ended up as a picture on your ass.

You smiled as you raise the horn to your lips. No reason to turn back. No U-Turns for you.

“All right, everypony, from the top! And a one, and a two…”