Having successfully evaded Twilight Stupid I now found myself outside in an alley. I peeked out again to make sure she was nowhere to be seen before walking out. I looked around too see what held up with what I had read in that history book earlier.
It didn't take long for my eyes to start hurting from the colors.
I had never seen such vivid colors before in real life. I had to squint a bit as I wondered again where this was. I knew that it wasn't the Earth I knew, and judging from the colors I could guess that this experience wasn't something having to do with time travel either. There was no way that Earth would ever produce colors like that naturally.
Of course, when I mention these colors I'm not just talking about the plants. I saw a lot of ponies walking around of all sorts of warm colors. It felt like I had stumbled upon an Easter parade. Plus their houses were ridiculously decorated. I was quite surprised that there would be so many window-shutters alone with heart-shaped cutouts like that.
The history book had hinted at a few things that I thought would be odd like the names for some of their holidays, but this was really starting to look a little too much like a fairy tail land for my tastes. I walked out tremulously as I continued to take it all in. I was mildly surprised that none of the ponies seemed even remotely shocked at my appearance. However, I supposed that it somewhat made sense if I was in a borrowed body that they would be familiar with it. A few even smiled and waved at me.
I took that as an indication that I could go about a little more brazenly without too much trouble. I had a basic history of the country at least. I decided to go with the assumption that this really was a land with magic in it if it had been formed as a result of being forced out of their previous domain by spirits controlling what amounted to the north wind.
The ponies were doing pretty well for themselves in that respect now. They had a lively flora and fauna from what I could see. There were plenty of songbirds chirping and spinning around in the air. The flowers were vibrant. The sky was clear. In fact, as I looked up at the sky I noticed that there were a few Pegasi moving the clouds away. Now that was interesting.
I considered the implications of a creature able to manipulate the weather were quite important. How they were able to do so while still being able to interact with solid objects was beyond me. I could only imagine it had something to do with magic. Perhaps physics just worked differently here. Now there was an interesting idea.
I was so busy thinking about this that I was surprised when I walked right into something. I looked down from the sky at what I realized was a cart for selling carrots. The pony running it didn't notice me as she was haggling with a customer. I looked around a bit more and found that I was now in what I guessed was the market square. Evidently there were quite a few ponies selling their goods here. One had a trio of ponies selling flowers.
As I took in the sights, smells, and sounds of the marketplace I was hailed by quite a few of the ponies. None of them seemed overly interested, so I responded with a hand wave and a smile. I definitely didn't want to make a faux pas by not knowing their names and saying the wrong thing.
It was interesting to see that all the ponies paid for their purchases with golden coins. I would have expected a copper, silver, gold system honestly. I kind of hoped they at least had different denominations of those golden coins. It would be ridiculous to have to carry around a whole bunch of them for larger transactions. Judging from how much the food was being settled for, I estimated one of the basic golden coins at a value of about fifty cents in American money.
One pony noticed me eyeing her stand as I watched her sell apples to a brown coated stallion with an hourglass on his flank. She looked like one of the elemental guardians I had seen a picture of in the library book. "Well howdy there Spike!" she exclaimed as the stallion walked away with his purchase. "You come fer some apples?"
Great. Another pony who wanted to actually talk to me, or at least wanted to talk to this "Spike." I briefly considered going the route of pretending to know her, but quickly discarded it as untenable. There was no way I'd be able to hold up a charade like that for long on an unfamiliar planet without claiming amnesia. Vocabulary alone would probably give me away.
"Nope. I'm exploring the strange new world I find myself in. It seems that I'm in possession of Spike's body and have no idea where his consciousness is." I said all of this with a straight face looking at the apples. They were unreasonably colored. All of them were fully red or green. No splotches of either in between. It was odd and idealized, just like a lot of this world.
She blinked in surprise, taken aback by my answer which had clearly not been what she was expecting. "What was that sugarcube?" I smirked. It was already obvious from the stetson on her head that she was a country mare. Still, it was nice to hear some of my hometown origins in her speaking. You know how funny it is when someone with a remarkably large vocabulary uses works like "ain't" and "ya'll" on a regular basis? It's hilarious to throw some people off with it.
I decided to implement that trick right away. It would work even better for shock value if this "Spike" wasn't one to use country vernacular. "Well," I started off, laying a thick drawl on my words, "Ah don' exactly remember what happened before ah got here, but it was rather shocking to spontaneously find mahself under a pile of library books and introduced to a couple of mythological creatures. Evidently ah've taken the body of this 'Spike' but have no idea whether it was something on his end, my end, or both that caused this." I paused and reverted to my regular accent, which most would describe as being from the Western portion of the U.S. Having parents from either side of the country definitely resulted in a bizzare speaking pattern. "It'd be really awkward if this turned out to be a body swap. A kid from a world like this would likely be scared out of his wits."
The pony in front of me, whom I had mentally dubbed as Apples, was by this point looking at me with an expression that was clearly not amused by what I had said and didn't seem all that convinced. It was all in the half-lidded eyes and flat-lined mouth. Oh well. It had been at least worth a shot to hope that someone would believe me. "Spike. Ah don't fully understand everything you said, but ah don't take to kindly to yer mocking me like that." And now I had ticked her off too. Maybe I was a little more stressed at the situation than I thought if I was being rude enough to elicit a reaction like that without realizing it.
"Right. Sorry about that. Take it up with the purple unicorn. She'll probably swing by looking for me. Whelp! I'm off." I turned and jogged away hoping her duty as a salesperson held her at the stall. "By the way," I called over my shoulder, "I like the hat. Stetsons are cool."
Thankfully that left her confused enough that I could get away easily. As I left the square I felt a chill run up my spine. I'd never really felt something like that before, so I was caught unawares as I pondered whether it was a muscle memory or a fear instinct of the creature whose body I was inhabiting. I was very startled when something moving very fast and sounding like a small motor hit me from behind.
I'd like to say that I did an amazing back-flip through the air and landed in a cool three-pronged pose, but that would be lying my head off. Rather I was hurled into the air before landing in a moving vehicle uncomfortable on my back with my tail pinned underneath. "Gosh. Are you alright Spike?" I looked up into the helmeted faces of two ponies. For some reason that chill had returned with a vengeance. But there was no way it had anything to do with the smiling, innocent faces of children. Right?