So most of the memories of the ponies world were soon forgotten. Samantha could never conclude if the place had truly been the imagination of a silly girl or a real place. She would never give up hope that the place had been part of reality, despite not keeping any evidence. The bag of coins long forgotten. The poster though… the poster would tease her dreams and push her to near insanity on occasion. She tried asking her mother before where their old house was.
”Oh sweetie, that place is long gone.”
She never got a clear answer as to what that meant. Had it been demolished? Was just a figure of speech and her mother couldn’t be bothered to explain? She didn’t know and despite being much older than the silly little girl from before, had no way of finding out (as far as she knew). Her father was not much help either.
”Samantha, did you finish your chores?”
She loved her father (though could never explain to herself why), however that was the extent of an answer she usually got. She drummed her fingers over a school textbook over and over; the book was essentially useless at this point. She looked down and frowned.
‘College Algebra’
“I’ll just put you away.” She shoved it under her bed and sighed. She looked up to her computer and resisted the urge to sigh. “College classes…” She had been staring at the same screen for minutes. It displayed a list of classes, class types, teachers and many many other boring and occasionally interesting facts and links.
“Psychology major? No thanks.” She clicked away from the web tab she had opened and randomly opened a few more. “Computer science?” She thought about that one and eventually decided to leave it open, for now. “I’m pretty good with computers…” Of course, she noted, the actual field of Computer science was pretty vast, which meant even more research. “Ugh. High School was so much simpler.” She grunted and stood up from her desk, she knew it was the fifth time she had done that in the past hour, but she was feeling restless.
Her room was vastly different from the one of the silly little girl she once was. A basic bed it blue sheets and blue pillows, along with a lavender blanket. There was also a teddy bear laid perfectly in the center of her bed which was also lavender in color. The rest of her room consisted of nothing overly complex or colorful looking. A small bookshelf where she kept actual books, a desk for her laptop, a closet with a sliding wooden door and a small window to look outside. It was neat, but also rather boring but that meant less time had to be spent cleaning it. Exploring the outside world was much more exciting after all. She looked up to her ceiling and sighed, a longing feeling overcame her for a moment.
“Briiiiiiiiing. Briiiiiiiiing.” Her phone rang from the confines of her pocket. She fumbled around for it, then finally got a grip on the fifth round of rings.
‘Jessica Calling’
She looked back to her ceiling and rolled her eyes. “Moments over with.” Her thumb flicked to her phones touch screen and swiped to the left. “Yeeeees?”
“Wanna hang? I’m pretty bored and freakin’ Link here isn’t getting any more interesting.”
“Link?” Samantha asked. She knows a guy named Link?
“Zelda, it’s a game. You know, those things I asked you to try.” In the phones background she could hear a familiar tune playing from a certain video game console.
“Oh. Yeah, I guess so. Where to?”
“The movies I guess, it’s too hot to walk around anyway.” Samantha heard the music shift and then was bombarded with noise after noise that to her seemed indescribable. “Not sure what’s playing though.”
“Are you playing the game while we talk?” She asked incredulously.
“Sure. You driving? I have to finish this area here.”
“Oh, thank you for nominating me. Cause we all know gas prices are oh so cheap.”
“Sarcasm does not become you. I’ll pay for the gas, I got work this week finally. Freakin’ game store, the manager is cheap as heck, I swear.”
“Pay for gas, you?”
“I know, right? Crazy day.”
“Alright, see you in a little while.”
Samantha smiled, even though her friend could be quite the character sometimes. She could be very nice in her own right. Yay, I don’t have to pay for gas! To her that was as nice as it got!
She set her laptop to hibernate, grabbed her keys and her wallet. Walking down her hallway, she called out to her mom. “Mom! I’m headin’ out!” She stretched her back and leaned her head back to her door to listen impatiently.
Several seconds later (too long in Samantha’s opinion), her mother called back. “Alright. Hanging out with Jessica?”
“Yep!” She knew her mother wished she would make more friends.
“You really oughta make more friends, not that Jessica is bad or anything!” her mother added the last part quickly. “Have fun, and drive safely!”
“K!”
Not spotting her father anywhere (and figuring he was at his friend’s BIll’s house) she grabbed two twinkies for the movies and quickly shut the front door. She spotted her car parked on the curb and stared at it for a long moment. Lavender colored (something she had requested as a custom paint job), it wasn’t anything special. “C’mon, Rust Bucket. Let’s get going.” A two seater with a small trunk in the back, it was everything a college (or soon to be) student needed. I’d rather have a Porsche.
Her engine stuttered for but a moment and soon she was driving down street after street. Her eyes would occasionally glance down to her gas gauge, making her feel nervous about not filling up before she picked up her friend. Thinking to the current prices, she shuddered and hoped her friend was feeling more generous than usual. “Stupid gas prices.”
Her friend had on rather short jean shorts. She had black hair that wasn’t particularly long, but it was well kept and Samantha always thought it provided her with a unique style. Well that and her white boots. It was a fashion trend that hadn’t been seen in ages (possibly literally). She waved to her friend who looked around for her.
“Hey, over here, Jessica!”
Her friend snapped to attention and spotted her car parked across the street. Jessica jumped in, snapped her seatbelt on and they whizzed off. “Sorry about the mess back there, I swear my dad owns too many cars. Just stop at any gas station, I got it covered.”
“Still weird to hear you say that,” Samantha said smugly.
“Shut up. I’ve paid for gas before. Did you look up any movies?”
“No, was I supposed to?” Samantha started to bring out her phone, but Jessica waved her down.
“You’re driving, I’ll find something.”
Samantha rolled her eyes but focused on the road, mentally counting the gas stations she usually picked out. “I’ll just get gas near the movies.”
“Fine… how about The Wailing House?”
Samantha took a second longer than she needed in order to stare in disbelief at her friend. She then quickly corrected her vehicles course before any police found her driving on the wrong side of the road. “Seriously?”
“Fine, Mario Bros. 2?”
Samantha didn’t respond for several moments. Something about that being the title of the next movie didn’t sit right with her; like something was wrong. It was just a movie though, what’s so wrong with that? However the tingling feeling in the back of her head wouldn’t leave, wouldn't stop telling her that something was very wrong.
“Oh nevermind, that was an ad for a game… this is a weird app.” Samantha sighed in relief as the foreboding feeling quickly faded. “Only one that plays in the next hour is Scorcher Six: Global Meltdown.”
Samantha took a deep breath and then laughed slightly. “Why not? At least if it’s bad we’ll get some laughs.”
Her friends eyes widened for a second before she smirked. “Excuse me, but his films are awesome. He’s kind of hot too…”
Rolling her eyes was not enough for that moment, as far as Samantha was concerned. She spotted the gas station directly across from the theatres and instantly groaned. “Great… freakin’ people acting like they’re giving it away.” Every station was full, so the two had to pull in and wait for a stall to be emptied.
“Eh, the movies doesn’t start for another thirty minutes. Chill.”
“I just hate waiting.” Her car wasn’t the most comfortable thing to sit in, both because the seats were worn out and because it was stuffy inside. “Jessica, did you pick any of your classes out yet?”
Her friend smiled. “Nope!” She scratched her head and shrugged. “I might try childcare.”
“You hate kids,” Samantha pointed out.
“Yeah, I really do. The pay can pretty good though. Most of those jobs are easy enough; take care of some brats and make sure they don’t hurt themselves.” She tapped her fingers a few times. “Eh, I could do worse.”
“I guess…” Samantha finally got to pull up after five minutes of waiting and her friend leapt out to pay. She waited a few moments and then hopped out herself, and started fumbling with the pump once her friend returned. While filling up Samantha couldn’t help but notice a tattoo on the back of Jessica's shoulder. It was white and for a second she thought she saw a bunny, but after squinting she noticed it was infact a pony. The feeling crept in as if a million things had gone wrong with the world, but she had no way of proving any of them. An echoing laughter seemed to creep into her ears, though, when she listened clearly there was none.
“Hey, you okay?”
Samantha blinked a few times and nodded quickly. Upon closer inspection the ‘pony’ from before turned out to be a bird. She then remembered that her friend had gotten a tattoo the year before. Maybe I need some water. “Yeah, I’ll be right back.”
She stood up and walked inside the place to see if they sold bottles of water. Of course they did have some in the back, though only one brand. She shrugged and grabbed it then paid. Only a dollar anyway. After walking outside she took some big gulps then sighed. “Better.”
“We ready to go?” Her friend asked impatiently.
“Sorry I was dehydrated I guess.” She squinted at her bottle and noticed that most of it was gone.
“You guess?” Her friend laughed and buckled herself in. “We should hurry, movie starts soon.”
The theatre was thankfully close by; surrounding the massive structure were countless parking spaces. Three movie theatres that each held twenty one theatres could easily fit in the area that was simply designated for parking and most of it was full.
“Guess were walking,” Jessica commented.
“Yeah… freakin’ crowds. Oh well.” A part of her knew it was going to be crowded anyway, with the heat and the multitude of movies that were out (that didn’t look boring). It was christmas time for the movie companies, but Tartarus for the rest. “How long do we have?”
“Uh, we better hurry in.” Her friend literally started shoving her away from her car while simultaneously checking her cell phone for the time. “Not long and I am not gonna miss a second of this...”
“Did you just moan? Gross.”
“Shut up.”
After what felt like twenty minutes of walking in the heat, though, it was only around two they made it to the ticket counters. A large crowd consisting of mostly kids had gathered around a few windows, but they were quickly called over to an open one. After reciting out the ridiculous movie name, they were soon entering the very cool building that was their movie theatres. Almost instantly all thoughts and feelings started to speed up for Samantha and she felt more clear with the world. No longer did she have to squint her eyes to block out light or force unnatural amounts of water down her throat in order to feel hydrated. The snack counter was wide and long, the lobby was large enough to hold its own theatre if it needed to and it even featured its own arcade.
“Air conditioning… yes.”
“Mhm.” Samantha hummed pleasantly. The theatre had always been a mysterious place to her. Not that it was creepy or even overly interesting to most, though, the way the windows that lined the front of the place let just enough sunlight in to see in the lobby, but then the hallways that led to the theatres were dark and almost foreboding. She knew it was mainly her imagination, but the place always seemed more interesting than it actually was.
“I’m shocked it wasn’t sold out,” Jessica said while lazily glancing from hung up poster to poster.
Samantha looked back at the dozens of kids who littered the lobby and rolled her eyes. “I think a kids movie just came out. We should be fine. I mean the theatres shouldn’t be too noisy.”
The false foreboding nature of the place quickly left the front of her mind, the back where their theatre was located was very well lit. It also didn’t help that there were countless screaming children who were laughing, playing, crying and generally being loud all around them. Plenty were waiting in line for one of the theatres to re open. She was about to sigh in relief when they spotted their theatres, until she realized that most of the children were in fact waiting for it.
“It’s, uh, not rated ‘R’ is it?” Samantha asked, already knowing that it wasn’t.
“Nope. Oh I hate kids.”
“Noted. Least were inside though.” They found a quietish spot a bit aways from the doorway and waited. “What do you want to do after this?”
Jessica tried to think of something, her eyes casting upwards for a bit until she shrugged. “I don’t know. Get an early dinner or something. Eh, been a bland week.”
She shrugged in response and waited. It had been a rather uneventful week so she couldn’t argue. They quickly found seats once the place had been cleaned and were soon surrounded by the same noisy adolescents from before with one exception: they seemed to lack their parents now. Both young adults tried to ignore them and focused on their phones. Samantha saw they had started to play random commercials as the theatre darkened and knew the previews would start soon. “I’ll be right back,” she whispered to Jessica and ran out to find the restroom.
Outside and back in the hallway the feeling from before came back with a vengeance. No workers walking around and no one else seemed to be outside of their theatres. She could hear people from the lobby, but just faintly. She past a few posters, including one for the movie that they were about to ‘enjoy’ and quickly used the restroom. Washing her hands her mind lingered to college classes which always turned up empty for answers.
What should I do with my life?
On her way back she past two posters and then finally the one for the pony movie.
...What?
It could have easily been a mistake, in her mind or maybe they quickly had replaced the poster? However, something about it quickly stood out (aside from the fact that movies about ponies never ended up in movie theatres). At least not that she could remember. Focusing on it an odd laugher seemed to echo in the back of her mind, though, if she focused on it everything simply stopped. A distant memory almost long forgotten began to flood her mind.
It’s not the same thing. She told herself. She almost smiled and for a fleeting moment it was as if she was no longer a mature adult. She shook her head and rolled her eyes. It’s just a dumb movie poster.
She moved a few steps away and took in the poster overall, but again a sense of foreboding, of something not belonging where it should be overcame her. Finally she focused on the contents of the poster. There were ponies, but something seemed way more off about them than she initially noticed. For one they weren’t hand drawn or digitally illustrated, but they also didn’’t appear to be rendered in some three dimensional way. They seemed real, but looking real and seeming real were obviously two different concepts. It was then that the biggest issue of the poster presented itself. There wasn’t a title. While it was true that some newer films choose to show ‘teaser posters’ early on with no title and nothing but a tiny movie company symbol, it seemed that this particular poster lacked any writing at all. Just some ponies that seemed awfully familiar.
Every fiber in her being told her to just walk away and enjoy a movie. She started to, but then stopped and closed her eyes and sighed. Samantha turned around and touched the side of the poster, everything was white.
So many things didn’t feel right that she swear she was dreaming. The first thing she noticed was the lack of air conditioning in the air, going from a controlled environment to ‘white’ and warm wasn’t easy to ignore. Then she felt her bodys new weight and things certainly felt off, heavier even. Is that grass?
She opened her eyes and shielded them from the sun almost immediately, using her hooves.
...
She blinked and looked down at her body. Certain things responsible for processing information inside of her brain simply shut down. She still took in her whole body, but failed to make the connection. A small horse laying down in a grass field, it was brown and spotted. Then it hit her, she was the it.
“What?!” She screamed and immediately shot up, not being used to the new body her hooves lost their footing and her head smacked down into the grass. Pain coursed through her and it took Samantha several minutes to come to grips and simply open her eyes again. “Why is this happening…?” She whined and felt some tears push through.
“You okay?”
She took a few moments to nod and breath in deeply over and over. “Uh, yeah I… oh.” Looking up she saw another horse, this one had a color scheme that simply made no sense, on top of the fact that it had spoke in perfect english. The mint green horse tilted its head to the side and it was in that moment that Samantha noticed a horn sticking out. There were, of course, more details, but those didn’t matter as much as the horn. The unicorn appeared to smile, stepped back a bit and held out a hoof to help her up. Samantha reached out and was quickly lifted up and placed on all fours.
How did that even work? She doesn’t have anything to grasp with! Pushing that thought aside Samantha’s legs felt wobbly for a second before she got used to her shift in weight. In under a few moments she felt natural; even though she was freaking out on the inside.
“Uh, it’s Samantha right?”
Samantha blinked in confusion and then finally laughed. “Must be a dream…” She mumbled, causing the mare in front of her to rear back in fear.
“Right… you sure you’re okay?”
She giggled again and nodded. “Sure… uh, later!” Samantha awkwardly waved, and almost fell over from the gesture. She quickly plopped her hooves back on the grass and galloped off. It didn’t take long for her to slow down and realize her delusional thoughts couldn’t be founded. You don’t feel pain in dreams. She had remembered pain while asleep and the idea of it while dreaming, but never the full fledged feeling and sensation. She looked up slightly and couldn’t even gasp at the sight before her.
Her mind quickly felt conflicted. On the one hand the town before her couldn’t be real, but why had she dreamed of it so many times before? Not lately… She reminded herself, knowing full well that the memories of this ‘place’ (she was still debating if it existed or if she was crazy) had gone very hazy over the years.
Then she saw the massive tree sticking up in the middle of town and smiled. “No way…” Her voice trailed off and in that moment silence was more beautiful than anything she could possibly utter out. She squinted her eyes and noticed two oddly dressed ponies were stationed in front of the tree. Stating them as odd was a huge understatement, they appeared to be wearing some kind of armor. “They look like a jousting horse.” Gold trimmed armor hung around their white pristine coats, though, the coats almost seemed too white. Like they were faked in some way.
She wasn’t sure what brought her forward, but she started walking. Occasionally she tripped a bit, but quickly steadied herself. “Stupid hooves…” Her memories were hazy, but she never remembered having trouble walking when she was here. She slowed down and found that was much more manageable. Upon being spotted, the closest one to her snapped to attention and pointed a hoof at her.
“Are you the one known as Samantha?”
“Uh, yes, but--”
She was rudely interrupted by the other stallion. “You have been missing for approximately fifteen minutes. Please come inside now.”
“Fifteen…” What? I haven’t been here in years! Before she could object to anything Samantha was quickly shoved inside and quickly helped up by one of the guards who bowed for some reason.
“Presenting Samantha, your highness.”
Two ponies presented themselves to her sight. One was immediately recognized and sent a torrent of emotions soaring through her. It can’t be… It was a lavender colored unicorn, looking up in shock and quickly looking back to the other pony. The other pony was definitely new and was certainly the largest one she had ever seen. She also wore a crown and had wings and a very large horn. ...That’s just not fair, they can have both. I get none. Her jealously quickly vanished when she noticed the unicorn standing up and walking towards her. Out of all of the pinies she had met, she could at least remember her. Twilight…
The mare appeared to be doing her best to not jump out at her. “Samantha, I, uh, welcome back!” Twilight’s face quickly went from a controlled stoic expression to happy and perky, as if lightbulb and been shined all around her. “Did you have a nice walk?”
Samantha had to do her best not back up in fear of the crazed look she was getting. “Yeah, it was… nice.”
“Good, so why don’t you, er, take a seat and I’ll be with you in a few moments?”
She could only nod as it was obvious that Twilight wanted to get back to whoever that was. She looked around the place and found a few seats away from where the big pony was. They were all cushions and felt quite comfortable. The other two were quiet enough so Samantha couldn’t understand them, though, she noticed the bigger one giving her odd glances every once in a while.
“Hello there.” Samantha blinked and looked up, a soft and dim shadow had enveloped her pillow. The bigger one was now standing over her. She did a quick glance and noticed Twilight was currently missing.
“Um…” Samantha paused and noticed the large ones mane (which happened to be made of many colors and seemed to be almost constructed out of some kind of heavily material) was wafting in a non existent air. “Hi, are you okay?”
The larger mare blinked in confusion and smiled ever slightly. “Well, how do you mean?”
“It’s just…” Samantha raised her hoof to point at her mane, but quickly thought better of it. “Nevermind.” Samantha instinctively reached out with her right hand, which happened to be a hoof. She looked down at it and frowned, then shrugged and held it out.
The mare giggled and touched her hoof to hers. “A pleasure to meet you, Samantha. I take it you’ve met Twilight?”
“Yeah, she’s nice. Say, I didn’t catch your name.” Samantha debated if she should ask, the guards outside and her physical appearance told her she should know who she was, but she asked anyway.
The mare stood in front of her for an uncomfortably long time, but very quickly broke out of her stare. “It’s Celestia.” Princess Celestia held back a smirk, she was doing her very best to not smile at all. It was painful.
“Nice to meet you, Celestia.” Samantha smiled and Celestia nodded in return.
This is the most curious mare I’ve met since that mailmare… Celestia thought.
“So… what do you do? I mean your occupation?” Samantha clarified at the end.
This time Celestia smiled. “Oh, I’m a politician. The job can be just as boring as it is fun. How… about yourself?”
“Hmm, between jobs.” Samantha looked down feeling annoyed. Stupid college.
“That can certainly be frustrating, but keep trying. I’m sure things will work out in the end.” She winked at Samantha who slowly nodded.
There was an awkward silence between the two. Eventually both had decided to pass the time by tapping their hooves on the floor.
“You’re not a politician, are you?”
Celestia looked at her in false shock, before chuckling. “I suppose the crown does give it away.”
“Yeah… I guess not everyday you meet a queen.” Samantha chuckled and it was in this moment that Celestia looked at her in a different light. She couldn’t quite tell, but was it pity?
“Actually I’m a princess, along with my sister. Equestria is a diarchy after all. I- Ah, Twilight. Welcome back. I take it everything went well?” Celestia teased as Twilight blushed ten shades of pink.
“Er, yes, oh… I see you’ve met Samantha. How are… things?”
Celestia paused and looked between the two ponies a couple times before smiling widely. “Wonderful, she is quite the interesting mare. One such as myself doesn’t meet another pony every day who doesn’t bow before me, it was very refreshing.” Samantha quirked a brow to that and then smacked her head.
Bow before royalty… duh. But she said it was refreshing, was she being sarcastic or…? As Samantha debated on this in her head, Celestia had snuck up on her and whispered something.
“I wasn’t being sarcastic either, it really was nice.”
Samantha nearly jumped out of her skin, when she saw the head of the princess mere inches away from her and she quickly nodded. “Uh, good.”
“Yes; and no, I do not read minds.” She turned back to Twilight. “Well, it’s been a nice visit, but I’m afraid I must depart.” Twilight looked disappointed, but nodded. Celestia then turned to Samantha. “Good luck with the job hunt, young Samantha. Farewell.” The mare then opened the door using some of her own magic and gently shut it.
Twilight’s eyes slowly moved to Samantha who was busy trying to figure out if this was a dream or not. Samantha looked up at her surroundings and then formed an idea. “Hey Twilight, do you have any books on dreaming?”
Twilight’s expression shifted from that of curiosity to simple distaste. “Why would you want to learn about a thing like that?”
“It was just a question, you don’t need to get testy.”
Twilight sighed. “Typically the study of dreams are done by professionals at Celestia School for Gifted Unicorns. Or by Princess Luna, it’s very rarely experimented, studied or even talked about (at least the study of it) outside of those… situations. Nightmares can be a powerful thing after all.”
“Uh, so you're saying it’s illegal to study dreams… or?” Samantha shook her head, as if not understanding.
“No.. it’s just frowned upon. Any books on the matter would be in the restricted archives in Canterlot Castle… probably shouldn’t have told you that.” Twilight laughed nervously and then cleared her throat. “Um, why do you ask?”
I should just drop it, dream or not I don’t want tick her off. Still, what’s the big deal? Deciding it wasn’t a good idea to push it, she simply shrugged. “No reason, just had a funny dream last night,” she lied. “So, what do we do now?”
“Now we find you a job and a place to stay eventually. Rarity probably won't hire you back I’m afraid.”
“Rarity…” A tingling feeling formed in the back of her head and it was in this moment that she could remember her last job in Equestria. Man, I was a lazy bum as a kid… I should apologize to her.
“Where are you going?!” Twilight yelled at her, while Samantha fumbled with the door handle.
“To apologize to Rarity. I was acting like.. well, like a child.” Samantha chuckled. I was a child.
Twilight looked on in disbelief, was this the same pony from half an hour ago? “Well, I suppose that is the right thing to do. I’ll escort you.”
Samantha held out a hoof, just as she got the door open. “I think I can do this fine on my own.” It almost felt like an adventure to her, especially because she didn’t exactly remember what Rarity’s place looked like.
If Twilight felt like being on the fence in this situation, she was almost touching the ground in ‘go help Samantha out now’ country. Still, she nodded and watched Samantha leave the library. She seemed more lucid. Twilight reminded herself. Still, this might not end well. Twilight ran out of her place of ‘business’ a moment later and set the sign to closed.