So running might have been a good strategy in the short term, but I was beginning to see the problems with it. For one running through the middle of the town is probably the best way to get yourself seen, and I really didn’t want anypony knowing I escaped the mass genocide I had just witnessed. I “solved” this problem by climbing onto the rooftops and jumping from one to the next. Though I must admit at the time I took the high road because it seemed like more fun than being stealthy. Hey cut me some slack! I was only a couple hours old; I’d like to see how objective YOU were at that age. Ya, that’s what I thought.
Anyway a possibly even bigger problem I had was that I wasn’t really sure where I was running to. The only real direction I could think of was away from the scary unicorn, which was a good start, but I really needed a bit more than that if I wanted to live to be a day old. Unfortunately I really lacked the knowledge to chart a destination. So for the time being ‘away’ would have to do.
After a while I started to notice less and less houses to jump to as well as fewer ponies below. Thankfully very few of those ponies looked up and the few that did seemed to just shrug and continue along with their business as if my actions could be considered normal, or if not normal at least common. Eventually I found myself at the last house at the end of town with nowhere left to go but the way I came.
The house was quite unlike the ones I had been hopping from before. For one thing it had a much older, gothic feel to its architecture, as if it was built before almost every other building still standing or its designer wanted to fly in the face of modern architectural standards. The building was also in deep disrepair. It had a hole big enough to fit tom the rock in its roof and all its windows and doors were boarded up. Of course most of these observations were made by me long after this point in the story, as my attention was occupied by something else at the time.
I heard a loud WHOOOSHHH (or perhaps it was more of a FFFHHHEEEEEEWWWW, hmm, memory’s a bit foggy on that one) as I turned to see Rainbow Dash, or as I called her at the time: Cheaty McCheaterpants, streak up from the center of town. I stared at the marvelous display of speed and agility before I realized she was about to bank and fly straight over me. Understandably I panicked and hid in the only pace I could at the time: the chimney.
I heard her pass overhead and I sighed in relief; it didn’t sound like she had seen me and slowed down, so I was pretty confident I was in the clear. It was when I attempted to get out that I encountered even more problems, I suppose Pinkie must have gone on an eating binge before copying herself because I was well and truly stuck halfway down the chimney. Ya I’ll admit it, I started to cry. Don’t judge me, it’d been a long first day of existence and I needed some release. It was then, as those VERY FEW AND INCREDIBLY RARE teardrops ran down my face, that I became acquainted with a feeling I now know to call sleepiness. After about an hour I was deep in my first dream.
***
“I’m tellin ya Pinkie, I jus’ don’t see a point to this.” My ears twitched as I was so very rudely awakened from my first, if quite uncomfortable, slumber by voices coming from the floor below me.
“Well that’s easy silly! I need to start planning my Nightmare Night party and I thought this spooky abandoned house on the outskirts of town near the Everfree Forest would be the PERFECT location!” I said, except wait, it wasn’t me, it just sounded like me. I was starting to get intimately acquainted with the idea of early morning grogginess. My limbs ached from the awkward position they had been forced into all night.
“But Pinkie, Nightmare Night isn’t for another 8 months! Why do you need to start planning now?” I didn’t know, nor did I really care who said that. I just really wanted to go back to sleep. I tried closing my eyes even more shut as a thick scowl appeared on my face and my tail started to twitch in annoyance.
“Only 8 MONTHS!! Oh I thought I had 9! Now I’m behin-”
“Will you all SHUT UP!!!” I yelled out before I could stop myself. I then quickly realized my mistake and shoved both of my hooves in my mouth. This turned out to be yet another error as the sudden movement was just enough to dislodge me from my perch and I came crashing down into the fireplace, causing a wave of soot and dust to momentarily cloud the room, obscuring everything around me. Not that I was really in any condition to be observing anything but the mysterious stars spinning around my head.
I looked up and as the dust settled I could see three mares standing over me with their jaws hanging halfway down to the floor. The first had a freckled orange coat and an utterly ridiculous giant hat, the next looked exactly like me when I still had excitement-powered gravity defying hair, and the last…
“Yaaaaaahhhhhh!!” I jumped back into the fireplace and started to climb up the chimney in an attempt to get away from the murderous purple unicorn who was looking at me like a predator about to rip apart her prey (well that’s how I remember it anyway, though I’ll admit at the time my perception might have been a teensy-bit colored by my biases)! Unfortunately hooves are notoriously difficult to climb with and I found myself not making much progress.
“Hold it sugarcube!” Applejack was the first of the three to snap out of the shock of seeing such an attractive pony seemingly appear out of thin air and quickly grabbed my tail to keep me from fleeing. Realizing I now had next to no chance of escaping, so I took a deep breath, turned around, looked Twilight Sparkle straight in the eye,…
“Please please please please PLEASE don’t kill me! I’ll do anything just let me live!!” …got down on my knees, and begged like a foal. Not one of my finer moments, I’ll admit.
“Uh, what? I’m not going to kill you!” Twilight snapped out of the shock of seeing me appear, “I don’t even know who you are!”
“You don’t?” I said. I wondered if she was merely tricking me into a false sense of security before she zapped me with her magic head growth. Then I looked down and noticed my hooves were no longer pink, but instead a splotchy grey. I did a quick turn to examine myself and found that my whole body was absolutely coated with dark grey dust and soot. My mane and tail were also clumped together by dirt and grime, further hiding my appearance. “My name is uh… uh… uhhh… Dusty! Ya my name is Dusty!” I said, breaking into a huge (totally fake) smile.
“Well then Dusty, what exactly were you doing in the chimney of an abandoned house?” Twilight asked with a positively befuddled look on her face.
I turned away from her and looked at the fireplace to contemplate my answer, after a couple seconds I thought perhaps telling the truth would be an interesting shake-up. “Sleeping,” I said curtly.
“Why would you be sleeping in ther-”
“Hold on a minute Twi, I think something’s wrong with Pinkie!” Applejack said as she waved her hoof in front of Pinkie’s face, which still remained frozen in a state of shock since I had tumbled down the chimney, “Hellllooooo! Equestria to Pinkie Pie!”
“OHMIGOSH! For a second there I thought you were my sister Inky and I was SOOOOO happy but then I saw how splotchy your coat is and how your hair is too long and I was like: ‘Pinkie there’s no way that can be your sister! I mean Inky is back on the farm and she doesn’t sleep in chimneys anymore!’ No offense.” Pinkie suddenly sprung to life and began bouncing around me like she had springs in her horseshoes. She then seemed to take an interest in a bunch of randomly assorted blobs of soot on my flank, right where there had been pictures of balloons before, “What’s your cutie mark supposed to be anyway? It looks kind of like a face!”
“I think it looks like a tree,” Applejack said.
“You’re both wrong, it’s obviously supposed to be the constellation Gemini!” Twilight said looking quite proud of herself while her two friends looked at her like she had grown a second head.
“Um, what’s a cutie mark?” I gave them a confused expression as they all looked at me like I was the one who grew the second head.
“Now how can you be as old as you obviously are, have a cutie mark, an’ NOT know what one is?” Applejack asked while rubbing her chin as if trying to figure out the answer herself before I could reply, “That’s just downright peculiar.”
“Hmmm,” Twilight seemed to be studying me. At that point I thought I was well and truly doomed. She was about to figure out why I was acting so strangely and then I’d be on the end of one of those magical blasts from that horn, or worse! She’d lock me up in a strange dungeon where she’d slowly torture me to death! While I was silently contemplating my inevitable demise Twilight had apparently come to a conclusion, “I’ve got a good idea about what the problem here is!”
Before I could react Twilight reached out and put me in… a giant back-breaking hug. This elicited a confused “huh?” out of me as I couldn’t really compute why my greatest enemy was giving me more love and affection than anyone else in my entire life. Well at least it was better than getting the explodey treatment, but only just.
“Oh you poor thing! You must be suffering from amnesia and wandered into Ponyville by mistake! But don’t you worry, I’m sure there’s a book in my library that has a spell that can fix this sort of thing!” Twilight let go and puffed out her chest as if she thought of herself as some sort of hero that was coming to my rescue. Suddenly her confidence seemed to fall right off. Her eyes started to dart around the room and she began to pace back and forth furiously. “Oh but a healing spell of that magnitude must take some time to prepare and practice. I’d be a lot simpler if your memories had been tampered with by magic, but I don’t FEEL any evil magic on you, so it must be a physical problem. The longer it takes me though, the more her brain will adapt to its new structure and the harder it will be for me to correct the damage. Also where would I even start looking for a spell like that? My Psychology books? No, no maybe just in one of my basic healing magic spellbooks? But this sort of thing is FAR beyond basic… ” Twilight began to ramble before being cut off.
“Well why don’t YOU go work on that while WE show our new friend here around Ponyville!” Pinkie said. I silently thanked her as my head was starting to hurt from all the big words Twilight brought up that I didn’t understand, damn was I dumb back then.
“Ya Twi, you get goin, me an’ Pinkie can handle showin Dusty ‘round town.” Applejack added. I nodded my head enthusiastically, anything to get the armed and dangerous purple pony to leave.
“Really? That would be great actually.” Twilight said before turning around and walking towards the door. Just before she left she turned around and told us, “Make sure to swing by the library later so I can update you on my progress. Have fun!”
“Sure thing Twilight!” Applejack said before remembering something and turning back to me, “Oh right, we forgot to introduce ourselves didn’t we? I’m Applejack, my pink friend here is Pinkie Pie, an’ that mare who just left was Twilight Sparkle, personal student of Princess Celestia herself!”
“Ok, I just have one itsy-bitsy question,” I said sheepishly, “Who is Princess Celestia?”