I said I would look for a unicorn who’s great at magic. That took some time, a lot of time to do. Not because finding said unicorn was hard, but because I asked myself way too many questions which lead to self-doubt which led to a long philosophical moment of asking myself if I’d look suspicious doing that. Eventually, I decided to go for it and ask.
Surprisingly easy, the townsfolk pointed me to a mare named Twilight Sparkle, the owner of a library called the Golden Oak. The tree’s not golden nor does it have anything alluding to gold but whatever... I now know where to find the magic’s expert.
The hard part? Going back home with her aid. I can’t say what I am, nor that I want to go to planet Earth, ‘cause that’ll be a dead giveaway of my true nature. That means I must use the art of deception and manipulation, something I’m slowly getting good at. No, what am I saying; I’m not good at it. I almost blew my cover like three times already. I’m bad at hiding secrets, which might explain why nobody ever confessed their secrets to me.
Twilight Sparkle... oh yeah, I can use her to return home. Since this place is considered as a local library, I figured I can just enter immediately. Heading inside, I was greeted by a cozy looking place. The entire library was a literal tree! It was inviting. The walls were bookshelves, there were stairs leading up and down.
Overall, probably the nicest library I ever visited. The lavender unicorn in the middle of the room jumped the moment I entered. Didn’t hear a bell or anything when I entered which is odd. Usually there’s something to make a sound to alert the owner that a customer has entered.
Twilight Sparkle didn’t seem too pleased by my sudden arrival. “Oh, could you please knock before you enter? That was impolite.”
Impolite? That’s a library, people don’t knock on the door to enter. That’s like knocking on a store’s front door, that’s pointless! “Well, this is a local library.”
“You must not be from Ponyville, am I right?”
How did she figure that? Don’t tell me I’ve landed on another smarty pant! “Uh, correct..?”
Twilight smiled. “Figured, everypony around here knows that this library also functions as my house so, they knock before they enter.”
That explains how. Still, she’s clever and quick to pick up on things. Might be too dangerous to stand around her... and that voice. I swore I heard it before. It reminds me of someone, but who?
“Anyway, I’m pleased to meet somepony new. Welcome to the Golden Oak library. I’m always happy to help a pony who’s interested in literature!” Twilight greeted, still in that voice that taunts my brain with its familiarity. I’ve heard it before, plenty of times but I can’t place my finger on who. Whose voice is this?
“That’s nice. I’m interested in a book regarding magic.”
Twilight’s eyes sparkled (nice) with excitement. “You didn’t specify which type of magic. Am I to assume you’re interested in other forms of magic?”
Uh, shit. I don’t know a thing about magic, much less the types of magic. I’ve got to throw in a wild guess. Looking at her horn, I decided to go with the simplest answer, since I want to use her magic. “Unicorn... magic?”
Twilight blinked. “Wow, I’ve rarely seen a pegasus interested in learning about unicorn magic. Makes sense, you can’t use our magic so most don’t even want to bother with it but you’re different. You sound like somepony who has a thirst for knowledge.” She moved to a shelf, fumbling through the books with her magic.
Damn, so chatty, so familiar. I only know it’s been a while since I’ve heard that voice. Come to think of it, Twilight Sparkle sounds familiar. Feels like my brain is slowly recovering memories lost to time. “Y-Yeah, well, there’s a lot to unicorn magic and I was just curious to see how far... you, I mean unicorns in general, can go.”
“Oh?” Twilight glanced back. “Well just a quick reminder, not every unicorn can do what’s written in these books. It takes a unicorn with a special talent in magic to do the more advanced spells, which would be me as you can see by my cutie mark.” she showed her flank to me. Again, another thing I find uncomfortable with this world. Everybody, I’m sorry, everypony here is perfectly fine with showing their rear ends.
Hell, the things that makes them special is on their ass! “I see. Is there anypony else in this town who can do advanced magic?”
Twilight Sparkle shook her head. “I’m afraid not. You’ll find most of the talented unicorns in Canterlot, where there’s a school dedicated to honing a pony’s talent in magic. I’m the only pony in town who comes from that school.”
Gee, what an expository machine. Are they all that comfortable with being transparent? Most of the people I encountered refused to give the littlest of information unless I directly ask them. Meanwhile, Twilight gives out all sorts of answers to questions I never asked. It’s nice, actually. “That’s cool, what can you do?”
Pulling out a book, the lavender mare approached me with the book I wanted. A complete guide to unicorn magic. It’s... quite the chunky book. “A lot of things. Too much to list, but I can tell you a few.”
“Go ahead, I have all day.”
Twilight smiled happily. “Well, for starters, one of the most impressive spells I’ve learned is teleportation.”
Holy shit, that sounds so cool.
“Then, I’ve learned to turn apples into oranges.”
Meh, sounds rather lame and pointless.
“I mastered telekinesis to the point I can fix an entire dam by myself.”
Okay, she’s extremely powerful too. Smart and powerful, too traits that spells danger to me.
“And I can grow butterfly wings on a pony, but that’s not really practical spell since the wings can burn in the sunlight.”
“Is there like a limit to what you can do?”
Twilight giggled. “Oh, of course! There are so many spells, I couldn’t have possibly learned all of them so soon! Maybe one day...”
That’s a guarantee considering you live in a library. Anyway, I finally left with the book in hand... hoof.
And then I returned to the park, making sure Lyra or Bon Bon isn’t in my immediate vicinity. I opened the book, which was a lot harder than I imagined. Remember, no fingers, and I got to read. Thankfully, as with the language of the ponies, I could read their writing.
The book covered the basis of unicorn magic, especially telekinesis, the spell most unicorns learn first. It’s also the spell that I wished I had to compensate for the loss of my fingers. Wings are cool, but not really versatile. Magic is, and now I’m jealous.
Makes me wonder if unicorns aren’t liked by the other ponies, especially the regular ones. No wings, no magic, just plain boring. It must suck to be them.
Twilight Sparkle mentioned she can teleport. I found that spell in the book. It doesn’t seem to be what I’m looking for, however. I wonder if there’s something like a body swapping spell. Hm... no, that may not be the solution. I’m going off a mere hypothesis here. If my guess is incorrect, I might be putting myself in more danger.
Still, I have not found a better explanation to my predicament, so I suppose I’ll roll with this initial plan until something comes to disprove my theory.
Beginner level, novice level, adept level, expert level, it took me a while to find that body swapping spell. Listed as an expert level spell, it seemed possible that Twilight could do it. The only problem, however, was that the spell needed the two bodies to be close for it to work. Being apart on two different world is not close at all.
Well okay then, maybe a, uh... portal could do the trick? If I can’t have my body back, I at least want to get my house back.
“I’ll be honest with you; I don’t see how learning about unicorn magic is going to help our case.” Holy shit, I nearly freaking jumped! Lucky Clover snuck up on me while I was reading. How long he was standing behind me, I don’t know!
“What do you mean by that? Unicorn magic can get us back home.” I defended my stance on the matter, thought he didn’t seem convinced that my idea held any weight.
“I see you’re reading about portal spells. You do realise that to work, the caster must know where the destination, right?”
“Why would that- oh...” Yeah, I can’t tell Twilight Sparkle where I’m heading so the spell simply cannot work.
But now that Lucky Clover is here, I can ask him a few things that are on my mind right now.
“Say, is it just me or could I have heard Twilight’s voice before?”
The stallion’s eyes widened. “Hold on, did you seriously borrow that book from her? That’s the single, most dangerous pony you can ever encounter in this entire town!”
Oh. “Well, she didn’t suspect anything. Sounded rather friendly when I mentioned I wanted to learn about magic.”
Lucky Clover sighed, hopping over the bench to sit in it. “If you bring up literature, it’ll distract her. Good call, I see you at least knew your stuff before going in. I haven’t even tried to enter the Golden Oak, gives off a bad mojo if you ask me.”
Still didn’t answer my initial question. I heard her voice before. Now that I think about it, it probably wasn’t in person. Maybe her voice was similar to a TV host or something...
As I looked up, I saw a pegasus taking a nap. On a cloud! “Wha-how?”
My new friend chuckled. “First time seeing pegasus magic in action! Boy you really must have been sheltered! It’s common knowledge that pegasi can stand on clouds.”
I know next to nothing about pegasi other than the fact they are horses with wings. I can’t verify his statement.
Well, if they can walk on clouds, then I should at least try to seem less suspicious by doing so. I stood up, ready to use my wings for the first time. I’ll never learn to fly if I don’t try, but just before I could reach for the sky, Lucky stopped me.
“I did say pegasi can walk on clouds. That’s the key thing, only the real ones can. We’re clearly not pegasi at the core, so I doubt we can pull off such a feat. If we screw up in front of them, it’ll be a dead giveaway. So... wouldn’t try if I were you. Just saying.”
Ugh... can’t I do anything cool for once? Am I just a downgraded pegasus? “I can fly at least, can’t I?”
Lucky Clover gave me a look of utter incomprehension. “Well, yeah of course. Just use your wings... You do know how to fly, right?”
“Um, that would be a no. Just got here, remember?”
My explanation didn’t quite work to convince the stallion that I was essentially a chicken in my current state. He muttered something under his breath before sprouting his wings. “Alright then, this calls for a flight lesson. So listen up, and listen good, newbie. I will make you reach for the sky in minutes, and that is a fact! Now, you will drop this book and stand at attention!”
Yep, I was right. He’s clearly a soldier under that pegasus body. “Okay... I’m, um, standing at attention.”
“You’re still eyeballing this book, newbie! How can you learn to fly if you can’t focus for one second?! There are many, many dangers in the sky. You can’t assume it’s like a peaceful stroll down a road. Birds, other pegasi, even dragons can accidentally fly into you if you’re not paying attention!”
Right, that makes sense. It’s not like I’m a plane flying in a controlled state in the sky. Danger can come from the front, the back, above and below which is much different than walking where I only have to pay attention to what’s ahead of me. Be right back after this training montage.
Okay, so... no. No, I’m not telling you how it went. I’ll just say the embarrassment came real close to killing me. As it turns out, suddenly being a flying animal is hard. Using these things is really not intuitive, which explains why there are flight school in Cloudsdale. It’s a city above the clouds meant for pegasi. I get that they can walk on clouds, but building on clouds? I don’t know how they can do that and I’m certain I’ll never find out.
Anyway, the lesson ended and now I’m left on a tree branch, with Lucky Clover snickering over my tired body. Boy am I glad that phones do not exist here! People would be having a field day if they could record my first ever flight lesson.
My poor friend had to invent an excuse about me being disabled to explain my major fuckup. So here I am, burying my face in my furry hooves, wondering how long I’m going to be stuck here.
Lucky Clover flew back to me. “Well, I got them off your back for now. Still, it’ll be hard for you to stay under the radar with that embarrassment of a lesson.”
“Gee, thanks for sticking the knife in. You know, maybe next time we could practice away from Ponyville? That’ll keep me under the radar.”
I glanced at his motif, starting to feel a little jealous. His was a lucky clover, as his pony name would imply. Good luck sounds much better than my crummy deal which isn’t even a talent, it’s just a diss at this point.
“If it’s any consolation, you did better than most foals would on their first time.” God, that only made it worse!
“Yeah, being better than the bottom of the barrel isn’t much consolation. You’re gonna give me a banana or something for my ‘consolation prize’?”
Lucky sighed. “Not like you’d get much out of it.” He glanced at the sky, noticing it was getting dark. “Celestia’s sun is going down, did you get something to eat?”
Man, now that he mentioned it. I was pretty damn hungry! With the money, I mean bits, I have I can eat at a restaurant or do my groceries, though I have no place to stay. “Nah, your training has given me quite the appetite. Wanna crash at a restaurant or?”
“I know a cheap place that sells good food, and quickly too at that!” Hold on, do they have fast food in this world? “Though you might want to find something better afterward. That restaurant just isn’t going to cut it.”
Well as it turned out, yes! I’m standing before the pony equivalent of a McDonalds. After spending an entire day without eating, I can say I’m hungry like a hippo! Even the interior looked like your average fast-food restaurant.
I gotta say, it’s weird to know I’m in a completely different world, yet it operates so similarly to Earth. It’s like we somehow had some influences over this world, or maybe it’s just a pure coincidence.
Lucky Clover and I ordered two hayburgers, which I’m guessing is the pony equivalent of a hamburger. Two loaves of bread, ketchup and cheese, but the beef is replaced with hay. I now know why he said this restaurant wasn’t going to cut it. The hay wasn’t doing it for me. Almost made me wanna throw up, but the rest of the burger was tasty.
Lucky also had the same problem. I could see it in his face, cringing with every bite he took. It’s quite an achievement really, to make me wish for a hamburger. Normally I like to eat healthy and avoid fast food restaurant, but I can make an exception for this. If I’m starving, anything’s free game.
“See? I told you this wasn’t going to cut it. Our diet’s different. What we need to eat is the one thing that fuels us.”
I nodded, occasionally glancing at the other tables. The hard part was to eat meat. It’s a rarity in a world ruled by herbivores. I have to hunt for my meat. The first thing that came to mind was fish.
If I can find a river nearby, I can catch some fish and cook them, which is also a problem since I need to learn to make a fire.
“Is that going to be a problem?” Lucky Clover asked.
“Uh, no. I think I figured it out. I don’t suppose you already got your food covered.”
He nodded, placing down whatever was left of his hayburger. “I’m good for now, but I’m afraid I’ll have to find a riskier option soon. My reserve’s running out.” Glad to know it’s not a me problem.
Well, since we’re together in a mostly discreet location. “Anyway, care to tell me more about yourself? I believe we should know each other since we’re working together.”
Lucky Clover wiped the ketchup stains off his mouth, cringing. “Okay then... I’m not really sure what else I can tell you.”
“How about you start by telling me how you got here?”
He blinked. “Well, I’m certain you already know the answer to that. I mean, it’s the same thing as you.”
Oh, so he met the merchant, did the whole incantation and came here. “So you just landed here in Ponyville or where you sent elsewhere?”
Lucky Clover frowned. “Close by. Since I was lost and disoriented, I figured Ponyville was just going to be a small stop. Turns out, I’ve been here for days and I still can’t remember the way home. I just... knew it before the damn blast.”
“Oh, that’s unfortunate. I was counting on you to return home. Don’t you have any idea? I’ve been thinking of a few, but I don’t believe they’re gonna work.” Twilight Sparkle is a no go. Anything involving unicorn magic is a dead end. Unless there’s a natural portal somewhere we could jump in, I don’t see how we’re returning to Earth.
My last idea was to somehow compel a pony here to aid use despite knowing our true nature. Lyra seemed like the only pony fit for the job, but Bon Bon made sure that plan was destined to be a horrible failure.
That leaves us with only chance and geography as our allies. Not a good look.
“I see. Well, we’ll keep searching, maybe subtly ask some of the ponies here for direction and then we’ll head home by ourselves. With our wings, we can go just about anywhere.” Lucky proposed.
“I know a pony here who seems fairly optimistic. I could give her a shot.”
That idea pleased my new friend. And so, we split off, making sure our meetings are no less than thirty minute to avoid drawing suspicion. I went to fish off my food at a nearby pond near the Everfree Forest. Difficult, oh so difficult with hooves but eventually I managed to snatch one. I’ll spare you the boring and embarrassing details regarding the fire, just that I finally got it working.
I can call that an accomplishment, to cook a fish by myself. Too bad this new skill won’t help me at all once I get home. It’ll be back to buying my groceries. In fact, none of what I’ll learn here will truly help in our human society. This is all a big waste of time! I’ll make sure to beat up that merchant once I see him again.
Anyway, once my meal was over, I was full. No longer starving which meant I can now return to my task. I walked back to Ponyville and searched for Lyra’s house. I passed by a fancy looking house, think it’s a shop based on its name alone, Carousel Boutique. Um, the whole place just screamed gaudy so I didn’t stic-
“Ooh, I don’t think I’ve seen you before!”
Uh... crap.
I spun around and saw a white mare approaching me. Her mane was in a spiral shape, something that just defied gravity itself. Everything about her screamed gaudy. From her eyelashes to her mane to her motif. Three gems, was I looking at a stereotype or something?
“And you seem fairly handsome. Would you be a dear and help a mare out?” Uh, please don’t let it come to that. I’m no pony so I can’t judge their perception of beauty. I only knew that I didn’t want to stick around, but now I guess I’ll have no other choice but to help her out, else I’ll run the risk of looking suspicious.
“S-Sure, I guess.” Immediately, the white mare grabbed me by the foreleg and dragged me inside her boutique.
Just before she shut the door, however, I saw my good friend Lucky Clover again. I expected him to mock me for being dragged around like a kid but instead he looked genuinely stressed. He stuck his lips out and muttered something I could only decipher as being “danger” and “foe”.
“I apologise in advance if Ponyville seems a bit unwelcoming to you. We all had a terrible run-in a few days ago with those dreadful imposters, especially my friends and me. Some still suspect that they’re among us, but I’d rather believe they’re gone for good.”
Oh. Danger...