Upon waking up one day, I found that something unforgettable had happened. Little did I know at the time, though, it was just the beginning.
I was a 20 year-old, on-again-off-again college student working retail to pay the bills and save enough for my next quarter of junior college. To make matters worse, it wasn't even a commissioned or incentivized position. It was simply “used book store lackey.” The money wasn't great, but in a way it was a good fit for me. I didn't like confrontations much, and in a used book store there's not much that customers demand from you. It mostly consisted of going in, moving some books around, tending the register, and going home on time. There was even time to do homework on the slow days.
Oh, what I would've given for a slow day. My name is Sam, and this is the story of my trip to Equestria.
I woke up freezing. I was lying on the floor of a bathroom. Funny thing was, I had no memory of how I got there or where it was. It definitely wasn't my house, work, or any of my friends' places. Where was I? How did I get here? These were the questions that troubled me. A vivid recollection of going to sleep in my own bed the night before served as an anchor point as I traced out the events in my head. I had come home from work, watched some TV, made and ate dinner, visited my usual web haunts, and then turned in early for the night. Having never been much of a sleep walker or drinker, the most obvious solution presenting itself was foul play. My anger began rising, but was soon one-upped as I took better stock of my surroundings.
I was stark naked. Whoever had kidnapped me didn't even leave my socks on, and my glasses seemed to be missing to boot.
Convinced I couldn't get much angrier, I was proven wrong for a second time in as many minutes. Squashed under the small of my back was something soft and football sized, judging from the impression. Rolling over and picking myself up to my knees, I got my first glimpse of the object.
A Twilight Sparkle plushy. So in addition to abducting me and stripping me naked, my "benefactors" also had a sense of humor. Great.
As I kept running through possibilities in my head, trying to come up with some plausible explanation for the situation other than the obvious “I'm screwed”, it occurred to me that the plushy would at least give me something to maintain a shred of dignity. As I considered this angle further, I noted with dismay that the bathroom did not contain any towels big enough to wrap around my waist.
Thinking further on the question of body covering, would it have hurt for them to turn the heater up? It was downright frigid in that room, and the tile wasn't helping much either. I was shivering, and my teeth followed suit shortly with some light chattering. Making a move to stand up, I did not observe how low the ceiling was. My head impacted it plenty hard to correct my negligence, however.
What happens, one might ask, when one's head collides with a ceiling? Well, if one hits a joist, one is likely to jam one's neck in a bad way. If one does not, one likely smashes a dent in the sheet rock. In my case, I avoided severe cervical compression and escaped with damaging the ceiling. Which still hurts.
By the by, the stuff they make wall sub-straights out of is crumbly, dusty stuff. Unfortunately for my sinuses, the dust cloud came down straight on my head, where it was promptly inhaled as I drew breath to express my pain and displeasure at my mild cranial trauma.
Try as I might, the resulting involuntary nasal reaction could be described as... howitzer-like. In the small, hard surfaced bathroom my ears were left ringing slightly.
“Did you hear that?” a female voice asked in the next room. That made one of my fears a little less likely, but raised new ones, and new questions. I wasn't bound, which meant my captors had little fear of me trying to escape. I had assumed this was because my abductor was male and physically strong enough to restrain me if I tried to bolt. Moving stacks of books had left me fit enough to be stronger than an average woman. Thus a female voice, barring her being a body builder, insinuated she would be relying on locks or weapons. The door knob showed no sign of a locking device.
“It sounded like a sneeze,” replied a young male voice.
“Maybe. If cannons could sneeze.” This time her voice was closer to the door. At this point, new information started coming in a little faster than I could process it and in patterns I wasn't expecting. Item the first: the people in the next room did not seem to be acting as if they knew I was in here. Item the second: her footsteps sounded like tap shoes, but there was something off about the cadence. Item the third: the doorknob was glowing with a purple aura.
Several things occurred to me later as possible alternate explanations for my predicament. What if I had been delivered by a friend of hers as part of some sort of fantasy fulfillment? If I truly had been delivered to some pretty girl that was going to appreciate my presence, I probably would have played it cool until I could find the abductors and level charges. But what if my presence was a prank? Then the two of us were about to have a very awkward time in a moment. This is all considered in hindsight, as I had run out of time to think things through to this degree at the time.
As it turned out, the second scenario was the closest to reality.
I moved the plushy hurriedly to cover what I could as the door swung open and I was left kneeling, staring straight into the face of a dumbfounded... purple thing.
Both of us stared at the other for a moment, mouths agape. What I was looking at shouldn't be possible. Purple. Quadruped. Horned. Equine. Bangs with stripes. It was Twilight Sparkle, in the flesh. I was the first to break the silence, as I wanted to get a head start on explaining what an alien creature was doing uninvited in her bathroom, naked.
“Look, I thi--” I began. I didn't get the chance to finish my defusal line as Twilight sprang into motion. And screaming.
“Ahhhhh!” My ears were subjected to another battering assault by the acoustics of the small bathroom as the Unicorn turned tail in panic and raised her rear legs to buck. Luckily, she didn't have Applejack's reflexes or speed. Unluckily, I was on my knees with my feet splayed behind me. I dodged the only way I could, leaning back under the strike.
Hooves connecting with nothing but air, Twilight lost her balance. Unfortunately, a pony at full extension that loses its balance tends to fall straight down. Onto whatever is below it. Namely my lap, in this instance. My entirely nude lap covered only by a small plushy of the pony crashing down on me. At the time, though, I did not have time to contemplate how awkward this should have been for me.
Seeing an open window on the now-inverted opposite wall, I rolled to all fours as quickly as I could. Which was not terribly fast when entangled by a prodigiously panicked prodigal pony, perhaps, but it was fast enough. Nonathletic quadrupeds have trouble getting up when their hind legs are trying to get purchase on a hurried hapless human who hates having horses hate him.
Scrambling out the open window, I found myself on the streets of Ponyville. Hearing the pony inside regaining her hooves, I knew my time was short. A calm Twilight Sparkle would simply grab me with magic before I had a chance to adequately explain myself, something I did not relish the thought of even to a calm Twilight, so I needed to get out of sight quickly. Not to mention the citizenry would probably have a similar reaction, given how poorly they responded to something as simple as a zebra.
I sprinted for the nearest building and ducked behind it, I might be able to deal with passerby for now but Twilight probably less so. I needed time to construct a plan of action. Seeing the river nearby, I came up with my next step. Peeking slightly around the corner to look back at the library, I saw Twilight rush out the front door. She looked to her left, then to her right, but not seeing me in plain view hesitated a moment. She proceeded to ignite her horn and disappear in a flash. Normally, I would have been excited to have witnessed teleportation firsthand, but when it's being done to search for you it's... it's a little unsettling.
My immediate pursuit gone, I bolted for the better cover of the nearby bridge. I stuffed myself up underneath the supports on the close side, and began planning. The best course of action, I figured, was to find one of her friends to tell my story to so they could calm Twilight down for me. I had little hope for talking to her directly; showing up unannounced in someone's home does not a good first impression make. I would have to move fast, though, as Twilight was probably off recruiting help for her search right now. Who would she get to join her first? I put my bets on Rainbow Dash, given that she theoretically was the best suited to search for a land-bound quarry.
If Twilight was going for Rainbow Dash, that gave me a bit of time. The Pegasus was notoriously lazy when disturbed, and often not to be found in a predictable location. Her state was fairly predictable, though: napping. I considered my choices of who to contact. Applejack and Fluttershy lived on the outskirts of town or beyond, ruling them out as good candidates for a first pick. Possibly as fallbacks if Twilight or Rainbow made it to Rarity or Pinkie Pie before I did. The cover was better outside of town, and would discourage searching for me there to begin with. So my choice was Rarity or Pinkie Pie. I was in the odd position, however, of knowing what their residences looked like but not where they were. I supposed I would just have to take whichever I came across first, and possibly swing by Rarity's shop anyway for clothing. The ponies might not care about nudity, but the sun was setting fast and it was already getting chilly.
I peeked out from under the bridge cautiously and looked around. Nopony in sight, I was clear to start my way back into town. Slinking from my hiding place, I immediately noticed Carousel Boutique directly ahead of me a block or two down the street. What luck!
I cautiously moved from cover to cover, building to building, trying to stay away from the road proper as much as possible. There was only one close call involving a yellow coated Pegasus, but she apparently either didn't see me or didn't care. I was too busy hiding behind an almost-too-small shrub to observe closely. Some tense minutes later I had arrived in Rarity's hedge in front of the Boutique. Well, nothing for it.
I got out of the shrub and squared my shoulders, facing the door. Well, shoulder. The right one was still holding the doll in place for decency's sake. I gathered my courage and knocked.