Discord cried out, his body slowly becoming encased in stone.
Twilight and her friends looked on triumphantly as Discord’s statue fell to the ground, making a loud BOOM and unsettling a cloud of dirt.
Rainbow Dash stuck her tongue at Discord’s now-permanent look of surprise. “Hah! Take that!” She spat.
Twilight trotted up to the stone dragon, smiling broadly. “We did it, girls!! Nothing to it!”
There was a hubbub of cheers, congratulations and thanking as they chatted amongst themselves. Pinkie Pie was especially excited.
“That was so cool!! You were like, ‘We’ll stop you,’ and we were, like, TOTALLY backing you up and all of a sudden the rainbow laser zapped that crazy dragon and turned him into stone and restored all of Equestria to normal, and now its time to PAR-TAY!!”
“I’m afraid that will have to wait for a bit, Pinkie.” A deep voice advised.
A beautiful white Alicorn appeared next to the group.
“Princess Celestia!!” They cried out in unison.
The Alicorn smiled. “Thank you all for taking down Discord! I knew I couldn’t really do anything, since I no longer had control over the elements. Helping you, Twilight, was the least I could do.”
Twilight bowed. “Thank you; without your help, I don’t think we’d be here celebrating!”
Pinkie Pie looked disappointed. “Why no party, Princess?”
Princess Celestia turned to them, a serious look on her face. “While you were sealing Discord away, I noticed that the clouds dimmed in the Western Foothills, and were accompanied by a foreign flash of light. I’m positive that nothing caught on fire there, as it could’ve been a thunderbolt, but something about it seemed… otherwordly.” She finished.
Applejack got the gist of it. “So we just gotta head on over and see what’s up?” She asked, somewhat knowing what the answer was going to be.
Celestia nodded. “Correct. Plus, it gives us time to prepare for the party.”
Fluttershy sidled up next to Twilight. “Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt.” She suggested.
Rainbow Dash was still pumped up from their last conflict. “I think we can take up a simple job like this. It’s probably nothing compared to Discord!”
Twilight nodded, then turned to the Princess. “Sure! We can go take a peek. It shouldn’t be too long, anyways.”
The Princess sighed, bowing a little to Twilight. “Thank you! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to round up the citizens for the celebration.” Her horn glowed a brilliant white, and she disappeared, leaving the six ponies to begin their journey to the foothills.
~~~
Rainbow Dash sat down, severely disappointed in what they had found. “Nothing’s here. Not even a sign of lightning striking anything.” She complained.
Twilight looked back at the disappointed Pegasus. “There has to be something here! If there’s no sign of lightning striking, it could’ve been something else!”
Applejack shivered a little. “Maybe that’s what the Princess meant by ‘otherworldly’…”
Rarity trotted back, setting down a strange hat next to the group. “I don’t know what you four have been doing, but I found this near the pond over that way.” She nodded towards a small clearing nearby.
They inspected the hat, their eyes taking in the strange tree-like designs printed on the front and brim of the hat. On the back, a single embroidered word read “Element.”
Rarity shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hat like that before. It’s so atrocious!”
Applejack scowled. “Hope that’s not what you mean for all hats, now.” She warned.
Pinkie Pie returned with Fluttershy, humming a new song that she had thought up. “Hey, guys! Fluttershy found something you might wanna hear!” She said excitedly.
Fluttershy flew forward, landing and walking up to Twilight. “I talked to some of the animals around here, and they said that they saw somepony here earlier. He had an orange coat and silver mane, according to them. And he was wearing that same hat.”
Twilight started to turn away, thinking to herself. “Maybe he’s from another area of Equestria…?”
“That’s not all.” Fluttershy said. “They also said he was freaking out, as if he didn’t really know who—or what—he was.”
Applejack looked completely confused. “Didn’t know what he was?”
Fluttershy looked down sadly. “Sorry, I don’t know how else to explain it.”
Twilight smiled. “Don’t worry. We can deal with this later. For now, let’s just report back to Princess Celestia, and show her the hat that Rarity found.”
Pinkie Pie jumped for joy. “Party time!!” She squealed.
Rainbow Dash lingered on the spot, looking at the small clearing. “I don’t get it.” She began. “What pony would be confused about what he is?”
Twilight urged her on towards Ponyville. “We can talk later. I’m itching to find the answer to that myself, but let’s make sure we head to the party first, and take our much-needed break.”
Rainbow Dash grinned. “Way ahead of ya.”
~~~
“Keith? Keith!!”
“W-what?” I stammered, snapping out of my thought process.
“Pay attention! This is very important!” My English teacher bellowed. He quickly returned to his comparison between Twilight and Gothic writing.
I sat up straight, trying to pay attention to Dr. Bell. However, I fell into my deep pondering after listening to a ten-minute tangent about whiskey and its importance to the Americans during attempted prohibition.
Was that really just a dream? I thought.
It seemed so real, so tangible, I felt like I wasn’t dreaming. I felt wide awake.
And what about that creature that pulled me into the screen? Was that all just a dream, too? I swear I was wide awake when I was going to press the power button.
These thoughts continued to be pondered into lunch, through Anatomy, and even through the drive home.
I plopped down on my bed, throwing my unfinished calculus homework on my chair. Staring at the ceiling, I continued to go over the possibilities of why it happened. Maybe there was a reason why it was happening. I mean, it did seem kind of ridiculous, but maybe there was some kind of greater force out there controlling my fate, or trying to, anyways.
I remembered the Greek play of Oedipus, the boy fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Despite the countless attempts to prevent that fate from coming to fruition, nothing could really stop it. They ended up playing right into the hands of the Gods, fulfilling their fate without even knowing it.
However, I didn’t think that such a thing was possible, as I was already an atheist. Nothing could control fate, and that was that.
Dismissing the subjected entirely, I went on to start working on my Calculus homework, evaluating logs and graphing exponential functions.
As usual, Calculus proved to be extremely boring, and I started nodding off. My quiet hip-hop music didn’t help with keeping me awake. My eyelids grew heavier and heavier, until I had fallen asleep.
~~~
The gentle humming of a curious wasp woke me up. I shooed it away, rubbing my eyes until I felt awake.
I was surrounded by the same forest I had awoken in last night, except now it was nighttime. Crickets sang their moonlit sonatas, accompanied by the flickering of a firefly every now and then.
I looked down at my body, once again met with the foreign sight of my creamy orange coat and silvery tail. The basketball mark on my flank was still there. I admired it briefly, smiling a little.
The admiration vanished when I saw lights winking out in the distance. The village was closing down, its inhabitants obviously off to dream as I was right now.
However, that feeling of wakefulness was still there. I realized what I had to do to make sure I really was sleeping.
Aiming for a tree a few meters away, I galloped at it, lowering my head.
A loud thud and painful collision told me that I really was awake.
Shaking my head, I became very surprised. “So I’m not sleeping, but I don’t seem to be awake in my other body, either…” I pondered.
My thoughts were broken by the clip-clopping of approaching ponies. “Uh-oh… That doesn’t sound good.” I gulped, not knowing why I was so frightened of being found.
Panicking, I dove into a small copse of bushes, the last tip of my rear hoof disappearing between the leaves as four ponies burst onto the scene.
Twilight burst into the clearing with Spike, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash tailing her. Spike was thrown off of Twilight’s back as she stopped suddenly. He fell flat on his face, grace completely absent in his landing.
Whoa… those are the main characters!! So I really am in Equestria. I thought to myself. I squinted, trying to see them better through the dim moonlight.
Twilight looked around, searching the moonlit clearing for any signs of life. “I swear, I saw that light that Princess Celestia described yesterday!” Twilight sighed, frustrated and disappointed.
Rainbow Dash was equally so. “Aw, man! I really thought we’d see our mystery pony tonight!” She complained, kicking up a small dirtclod.
Mystery pony?? It’d better not be me. I prayed silently.
Spike rubbed his snout gingerly. “Mystery pony??” He asked.
Applejack nodded at the pond nearby. “Rarity found a weird hat around yonder pond over there, and Fluttershy said them critters had seen somepony with an orange coat and silver mane getting flustered over something.” She explained.
I cursed under my breath. Shoot… So I left my hat over there, huh? I shook my head, berating myself for being so careless. I didn’t really have much to blame myself for, though, as I HAD turned into a pony, and that doesn’t happen everyday, right?
Spike looked up to Applejack curiously. “What was he freaking out about??”
Applejack thought hard, trying to come up with a way to describe what Fluttershy had said. “Something about ‘not knowing what he was,’ or something like that.”
No doubt about it, that’s me! I thought. I’d better get out of here somehow, before I end up getting involved with this place too. I backed out of the bushes, away from the clearing. Using the shadows to my advantage, I slowly began maneuvering away from them.
A loud crack popped from underfoot. A dry branch had been unlucky enough to be found by my front hoof. I winced, hoping that none of them had heard that.
“Hey, anyone hear that??”
I froze in my tracks. The offending hoof was lifted off of the branch.
The three ponies froze as well, scanning the bushes for any signs of the possible source of the noise.
Suddenly, Spike spit a small fount of fire, a small note appearing within the small blaze. He opened and read it noisily. “Twilight! The Princess is calling us back to the castle for an emergency announcement!”
Applejack pawed the ground. “Well, I ain’t leaving until I find that pony!”
Twilight was almost torn, but she knew where her loyalties lay. “Sorry, girls. I think I was mistaken. We should head back; we don’t want to keep the Princess waiting.” And with that, she turned on her hoof and started to leave the clearing.
Rainbow Dash took a last look around the forest, somehow hoping that she would miraculously find the pony responsible for all the commotion.
For a second, her eyes rested on my location. I was completely frozen with fear, although I still did not know why.
Sighing with disappointment, she followed Spike and Applejack, her head hanging slightly lower than usual.
I waited for several seconds after they left my line of sight, and then allowed myself to breathe normally. “Holy crap, that was way too close…” I panted. I looked back at the town, noticing a large light that was starting to brighten on a nearby mountain. Situated on its slope was a magnificent castle; the white ramparts lit by torchlight. The lights within the castle appeared to be lit as well. However, the torches weren’t the only thing ablaze. The other was my curiosity.
I sat there for several seconds, wondering what I should do. I couldn’t return to my normal body, as even attempts of waking up had failed. I also didn’t really want to follow the ponies either, as I still didn’t really want to risk being captured.
After a few more seconds of careful thinking, I had my mind made up. “Eh, I’ve got nothing to lose if I get caught; what could be the worst thing they do to me?” I trotted after the galloping ponies, making sure I kept my distance.