Poor Laura was absolutely, completely disoriented, her head was pounding and her music player had gone skidding across the ground. Her vision still had not returned, and she was enveloped by a temporary world of darkness. Her hand blindly searched across the ground, seeking out her beloved music player. Clearly she'd misjudged the distance between herself and the statue, though she could have sworn she'd been leaning up against it.
Her vision swam into focus again as she lay on her back. Her ear buds weren't in her ears, but she could hear the ipod blaring out the songs somewhere nearby. Everything felt off and wrong, her hands felt as if they were stuffed into tight mittens. Her right arm… or was it hand, lay across something soft. Her back was against something hard.
As her hand searched around she heard a lot of hard clacks. Her hand felt long and weird and her fingers were stuffed into a weird casing. Was this the hospital? Was she in a cast?
Her vision began focusing a bit again and she saw columns stretching up to a ceiling. The gymnasium? Was this the after party? Had she gotten drunk and passed out?
Laura struggled to stand, but she felt drunk. Uncomfortable. Her vision was slowly returning, but not quickly enough.
"Hello?" She called. "Mom?" How long had she been out? Had she been attacked? "Mom, are you there?" She tried to stand again, and this time somewhat managed to remain upright, though her legs felt like concrete.
Her surroundings started to make sense as well, and at the same time make no sense. She wasn't in the gymnasium, this was a marble floor, there was a red carpet, a big throne. She was in some sort of throne room.
Everything felt impossibly awkward.
Since when had her feet become stilts? Why were her hands so long, and why had her shoulders slipped down from her back and onto her sides. Nothing cooperated and she fell onto her side, this time with a crash. She spotted her ipod nearby. Instinctively reaching out she saw a light teal… something… push it out of the way. She felt a mild thud against her 'fingers'. Or where her fingers should have been.
She was starting to become infuriated, her fingers were numb and wouldn't respond. She focused intently on it, willing all powers of concentration for the thing to JUST cooperate and stay in her hand. She hauled herself up onto the large chair, using it as a support.
"Hello?" She called again. Nobody was answering, and the room appeared deserted. The ipod clattered again to the floor. In the middle of her frustration it glowed yellow, stopped playing and flew directly into her face with a slap, knocking her backwards.
Things were turning stranger by the moment. Standing up she got a look at herself, her winter jacket hung tight on her, making motion even more difficult, feeling a size too small. Looking down her chest was teal. Yet it wasn't a costume, she could feel the air against her… fur? She stood on her hooves… horse legs? What in the hell was all this?
Finally a door opened. And a creature came charging in on all fours, wearing golden, roman like armour. A light beam went out from his horn, illuminating her.
"Ma'am? What are you doing in here? Who are you?" The horse thing said, he sounded surprised, yet authoritive and firm. If this was a joke, it was the joke of the year.
Naturally, Laura screamed. She was sitting upright on the the large decorated chair, a look of absolute terror on her face. She pointed a blunt hoof at him accusingly, the color quite literally draining from her face, turning it black and white.
"Horse..." She said in a dull squeak of a voice. "You're...horse..."
"Ma'am are you alright?" He asked with some concern. To add to the insanity, another guard came down from above.
"Night Light? Need help?" He was flapping a set of wings, descending next to the other. Each flap, brought a small gust of wind across Laura's face. He folded the wings as he landed.
"She seems confused-" Night Light said, but the other approached her, as if reassuring her.
"Are you alright there? You don't look too good." There was no angry reproach, he seemed authoritarian, he had a shining gleam to his armor, but he was surprisingly helpful. "You're shaking," he noticed. "Here, come support yourself against my back."
"No, don't touch me!" She insisted, backing up against the hard throne. She wasn't trying to run anywhere, in fact she seemed to be having a difficult time getting her forelegs to work properly in the first place. They just seemed to be flailing about half-hazardly.
"Horses... you're horses..." She seemed to be stuck on that. "Hallucinating... I'm hallucinating..." She reached for her music player again, and after several attempts of barely being able to lift it off the ground, it flew up towards the ceiling, hovered there for a moment, and flew down like a bullet to smack her in the face. She cried out with pain, a red mark appearing on her cheek. "Back... I have to get back... just ignore them, Laura... just ignore them... they'll go away..."
She fell back on her rump, which sent a jolt of pain up her spine. Some part of her down there wasn't meant to be sat on. Her arms flailed in the air. The ipod no longer supported, clattered to the ground against the hard marble floor.
The nightmare wasn't dispelling. How had she gotten here in the first place, nothing around here seemed out of place, except that she was here. Laura wouldn't notice anything unusual about a nearby horseshoe shaped mirror, except as part of the background.
"Ma'am? Ma'am? Can you calm her down, Night Light, she's panicking." The grey armor wearing winged horse thing told the one with the horn.
The guard closed his eyes, and his horn erupted into a calm color which changed from red, to green and blue, in a slow rhythm. He went in front of Laura and held the kaleidoscopic horn out to her. A calm light show that drew in her eyes. The change in colors seemed so gentle and seamless.
As she watched it she felt her muscles relax. The feeling reminded her of lying in a warm bed and hearing her mother sing her a sweet lullaby, of being gently hugged. It was lulling and safe.
Laura wanted to be afraid, but didn't seem to be able to summon the willpower for it. She didn't understand why, it was as if some sort of barrier had been put up between her emotions and her mind. That frightened her more than anything, and her eyes were fixated on the appendage growing out of his skull. Laura asked a strange question in a shaking voice, a question which was very strange coming from a unicorn. "That thing growing out of your head... it's glowing... what is that?" She asked quietly. But at the very least, she wasn't in hysterics anymore.
There was a moment of hesitation, but he didn't raise his eyes "Its magic, I'm using a spell to calm you down." He explained cheerfully, she was partially aware of her being taken off the throne by the winged one.. she balanced precariously on her legs, until she got to balance off the back of the winged Guard with her…forelegs?
Night Light stopped the spell, and she began to feel her anxiety, and fears come back.
"Ma'am, I'll turn it on again if you start panicking," he warned.. "You're inside the throne room of Canterlot Castle, do you know how you got here?"
She seemed insistent on walking on two legs, even if it meant using the two guards to support herself. Her back legs were shaking, but she managed it. "Answer me honestly," she said, as if she didn't believe him. "Magic doesn't exist, there's no such thing!" As for the rest of his question, that she had to think about. "I was at school, waiting for my mother. She's expecting me, and I don't where this is but I need to get home. I want to speak to your manager!" She tried to stomp her hoof to emphasize this, but this only resulted in her nearly falling over.
Her legs seemed to be stretched when she stood up, as they were bending unnaturally (for a pony) far back. Her response made them look slightly worried.
"Ma'am, first of all we must escort you out, this room is used for official business." Night Light offered.
The other was more sympathetic.
"Night Light and I are guards here, so we have some duties to fulfill. Such as looking into ponies in places they shouldn't be in." He explained. "We heard screaming in here, and we found you. My name is Plume, what is yours?"
Laura stopped in her tracks in the middle of the throne room. Further efforts to remove her were met with resistance. "Now wait just a moment!" She said. "My name is Laura Hastings." She responded. "Did you... say.... ponies? Are there MORE of you?"
They both seemed to smile at this and looked at each other with a smirk, rolling their eyes a bit. Her attempts at resisting weren't exactly helpful, they seemed both stronger, and more able than her to take her along. Night Light gently butted and pushed her from behind, while Plume let her keep her balance. The two stumbling hooves she put to the ground didn't offer much of a leverage.
Plume ears perked up. "Night Light, has an age progression spell been used on her? Maybe she's one of the students from Celestia's school."
"Excuse me one moment ma'am." She felt the tip of his horn touch her back. "Hmmm, this is odd, she's been through a lot of magic recently. Ma'am, did you attempt teleportation without proper authorization or training?"
Laura finally caved and landed on all fours. She found, quite oddly, that this position meant the aches that had been building up were dissipating. She stayed on all fours for the time being, trying very hard to keep the tears that were building up in her eyes from falling down her face.
"What are you two nutcases rambling about? There's absolutely no such thing as magic, of course I've never teleported before!" She was beginning to sound annoyed. "I'm a student at Canterlot High, and I was waiting for my mother. Now I don't know what shenanigans you're trying to pull but I'm not having it!" Oh, poor thing really didn't know. She must not have ever used magic in her life.
"Canterlot High… is that a pegasus school?" Night Light asked Plume. Plume shook his head and gave Laura a look of sympathy. "I can't say I've ever heard of it, but she must be from around here if she knows about Canterlot. A slip of the tongue will tell a keen listener many things."
"We don't know of a school like that, Canterlot's a real place, but Canterlot High… there's nothing like that here, but we will check for you," Night Light said. "Perhaps you should lie down, you don't look so good." he said as the door closed behind them. They had been insistent on getting her out, but not forcefully so and she had walked with quite a stumble.
The hallway was richly decorated, with banners and flowers. The banners proudly declared the 'Summer Sun Celebration'. Sitting down on her flank on a lush red carpet, Laura's ipod hung from her neck, really the only safe place for it at the moment, and somehow she had successfully turned it off.
Night Light and Plume were whispering to each other, and Laura caught only fragments of conversation.
"…barking mad disease? … magical mishap … doctor …zebra remedy?" The name Celestia was mentioned once or twice.
Laura stopped listening in on them and sort of kept to herself. They didn't seem to worry about her running off, after all, she could barely stand. She didn't have anything to stick her music player in so nudged a small decorative bag off the wall with her nose and after much trial and error, got her music in the bag and the bag wrapped around her leg. She then attempted walking on shaking legs, which resulted in falling more than a few times. But determined to not make a fool out of herself she continued her efforts. Her ignorance was only further displayed when she pointed to a large mural of Celestia and asked "Who's that?"
Neither of the guards were shocked, but she got a look of sympathy again and Night Light approached her. "Ma'am, that is our ruler. Celestia." He said of the large mural of a regal looking pony creature, with a flowing rainbow colored mane. Laura noticed that she had both wings and a horn.
"I'm not sure what happened to you." He began. "Or where exactly you're from, but we don't want to hindkick you out of the castle. You look like you've had a rough start, so if you want I can put a sleep spell of on you and me and Plume will get you somewhere safe. We'll make sure to pack your clothes and that… jewelry of yours." He offered.
"Oh." Laura was slowly starting to put things together, and glanced at the horn on the mural. "Does she do magic as well?" The tone was almost a mocking one, as if she still didn't particularly believe it. "I would really rather you not do anything to me, I'm not comfortable with that... and don't you dare touch my music. Though if you have an outlet I can plug it into, that'd be fantastic." Something clicked then, and her eyes widened a few moments too late. "Did you say castle?" She sounded a mix of surprised and horrified. She had heard the word several times already, but it hadn't particularly clicked until now.
"All of the city of Canterlot is part of the castle, technically, but you're inside the royal palace section." Plume explained with glee and no small measure of pride. "This is where her royal highness Princess Celestia rules Equestria. Tall spires, all in hoof crafted marble by earth pony hooves, flown in by the pegasus tribes… and with some finishing touches by unicorns."
Night Light went back into the throne room and came back, with her clothes floating gently behind him in a whispy light. There was a light shimmering sound as they hung suspended behind him.
Earth, unicorn, pegasus... it was all too much. She felt faint, and slowly sank towards the floor. The explanation seemed to have overwhelmed her. "If this Celestia person is in charge, then I want to speak to her. Maybe she can get me home. My family will be extremely worried!" She was beginning to become upset, and her horn was glowing, giving off sparks of all sorts of different colors. A large unidentified blast shot from it, leaving a pattern of scorch marks on the wall.
"What the hell was that!?"
This shocked the guards, and their calm sympathy became worry. They quietly talked among themselves. "Ma'am, did you intend for that to happen or did it happen accidentally?" Night Light asked her quickly.
"...What... exactly... happened?" She asked. "I don't even know what I did! Okay... look...this whole horse thing is weird. I'm just gonna go." She said, and started stumbling towards a large set of doors, which she could only assume led outside. "You guys have fun. Thanks for the help."
She got only so far that she saw the wide double doors swing open to a large marble clearing. And then she got a look at the view, one half was of an emerald city, with strange spires and spiral colored domes, the other side was of water falls with several beautiful rainbows. A yellow pony with wings flew by. It would have been beautiful if it hadn't been absolutely terrifying.
As for Laura, Night Light didn't have to put her to sleep with a spell at all.
Laura fainted.
She woke up. She was in a white cotton bed tugged up around her. For a moment before her eyes had opened, she could have dreamed that she was back home. Yet even lying there she knew it wasn't so. How long had passed? Her mom must be going out of her mind by now. Opening her eyes she saw a small room, with a door nearby. She became aware of an odd feeling from her horn (which is what it was), looking up as best she could she saw something was tugged around it tight. It felt oddly dampening, without being sure how else to describe the feeling it was giving her.
A new voice hissed at her.
"Pssst, hey… Lyra is it? I read the name the nurse wrote on your bed." She heard the voice from the bunk above. "I'm Screwloose, are you okay?"
Seriously? Screwloose? These poor creatures had such weird names.
"I'm Laura." She said, her face still buried in her pillow. "Where are we? Are we prisoners in Celestia's dungeon?" She suddenly sat up, her eyes widening. "My music!" She exclaimed.
A pony head looked down from above, a pale blue colour. Her hair was a mess.
"Music? Oh you have that glowy thingie, wait a moment." Her head disappeared and came back with the ipod in her mouth. "Here mou mo!" She offered. Laura tried to decipher it for only a few moments before giving up entirely.
Laura breathed a sigh of relief. "Alright, that's fine, just set it on the table." She said politely. She could only hope Screwloose hadn't pressed Play by accident, seeing as she had a lot of music on there that her mother didn't exactly approve of. Rebellious teenager, and all. Not exactly pony appropriate.
"Thank you." She said. "Hey, how come you don't have one of those magic things?" She gestured to her forehead. "Everyone I've seen so far has one. Did Celestia banish you and take it away?"
"Oh I'm an earth pony, we don't have wings or magic, we've got good strong hearts and we're close to nature. I didn't do anything to it, it just glowed when I pressed it. I thought maybe you were an enchanter… or maybe you are… since you don't know what a unicorn is. The nurse put a dampener on your horn, so I figured maybe something magical went wrong."
"I totally know what a unicorn is! My books say they live in forests and eat rainbows." She didn't sound like even she believed it. "My horn..." She tasted the words, they felt strange. "I think it works, are sparks and fire supposed to come out of it?"
"Well…" She stroked her chin. "If that's what you wanted to happen then yes, but I guess it happened by itself… and that's a big no no. Magical spells are really dangerous, even when you unicorns know what you're doing. So, do you have amnesia? That's what I've been guessing."
"I do not have amnesia!" She insisted. "My name is Laura Hastings. I'm 14, and a student at Canterlot High. My older brother is a senior and plays for the Wondercolts. I like to draw and horses don't-" She paused. "Uh..." Perhaps that was sensitive information. "My horn has just... been... acting up. That's all. Now what can you tell me?"
"Well, I can tell you that you're in Canterlot hospital. That you arrived maybe an hour ago, and you were asleep when you got here." Screwloose said and jumped down, extending a hoof. What was she waiting for a… a handshake? Did they even know what handshakes were?
"Laura seems like an odd name, the nurse might not like calling you that, I think she misheard and wrote Lyra instead. I'll call you Laura if you want though… friends?" She extended the hoof again.
"Sure. Um..." She stuck out a foreleg, but wasn't entirely sure what to do. Instead she posed there awkwardly for a moment, before bumping her light seagreen hoof against Screwloose's. "If you help me get back home, Lyra it is."