//------------------------------// // Chapter One // Story: Endstone and Harmony // by PrincessOfTheEnd //------------------------------// A yawn, a blink, a realisation. It took Faeron roughly 10 seconds to realise she was lying on a stone floor. This wasn't too different from normal; except she distinctly remembered falling asleep in a tree. And she could feel... Something, wrong with her limbs. She yawned, wincing as she felt sharp teeth when her mouth closed. 'Still need to get used to that...' She thought, sighing. Sitting up, she noticed why her limbs felt different. And shoved a hoof in her mouth to stop herself screaming. A hoof. Breathing heavily, she took it back out of her mouth and examined it, wincing at the sight of the nasty cuts caused by her teeth, which were dripping purple blood. It was... Well, it was definitely a hoof anyway. The way the joints moved as she slowly stood up were more supple than any horses she'd seen, though, and her... Forelegs moved like an arm with an extra joint. She took a few shaky steps experimentally, and, confident she wouldn't just fall over, she started looking around. The room she was in was quite large, with tapestries on some of the walls. It was also rather dilapidated, with the tapestries ripped and faded, and many of the walls cracked with the ceiling mostly obliterated. It reminded her of- 'No. Don't think of that', she told herself. 'It's over, it's in the past.' She spotted something blue in the corner of her eye. Turning towards it, she blinked and shuffled over to her bright blue alchemy bag, which was lying on a small pile of broken bricks. She frowned and nudged her hoof inside it. It hit something cold, hard, and glossy-feeling, which was either her sword or one of the handy gems she'd been saving. She sighed in relief; at least it wasn't empty. She took a few minutes to get it around her neck, and when it was safely there, she tested the flexibility of her foreleg by sticking it out and feeling for all the joints. A thought occurred to her: If she had no fingers, where were her rings? She glanced around, not seeing the black and blue rings that had come in handy several times. As an afterthought, she sent a small pulse of magic through her body to see if whatever had altered her had moved the rings. Two results, somewhere around her... Ear? Shakily, she lifted one of her forelegs up to her head, and felt the two metallic rings attached to her pointed shaped ear. 'Okay, earrings. That's... Fine. It's fine.' She exhaled carefully and placed her hoof back on the ground, wobbling slightly. Now she just needed to make sure they still worked. She glanced around and, deciding it wouldn't be a good idea to find out what mode it was on by throwing a fireball into a dilapidated castle, she lifted one of her forelegs up and pressed it down in the air. It hit an invisible surface. Smiling, she repeated the process with her other three legs, absently noting that her hind legs moved like ankles, until she was standing in the air a foot above the ground. Happy that her first arcane focus still worked, she glanced over to a spot in the room and flicked her ear, and the world distorted for half a second before refocusing to show she was now on the ground, facing a tapestry. 'That's good, they both work.' Faeron didn't particularly need a void ring, since she could teleport without one, but it was handy for if her internal energy was depleted too much to teleport on her own, and all she needed to use it when she was tired was a half-charged Klein Star. She looked around again and blinked. Wasn't it lighter a second ago? "I can't picture anything. It's too dark." Twilight Sparkle said, squinting in the direction of the topsy-turvy Ponyville. Discord promptly dropped her. "Well, give it a few minutes and you'll see it in the beautiful light of day. Or not." He shrugged and flashed away. Twilight shook her head and frowned. "Ponyville, the chaos capital of the world?" She stamped her hoof. "Not if I have anything to say about it!" She said determinedly. "Don't worry, you won't." Fluttershy laughed, skating past. Twilight groaned. This was going to be frustrating. Faeron glanced up. The moon was in the sky. It was a crescent, and it was surrounded by stars. Quite a lovely sight. Only... "Since when was the night sky tinted blue?" She muttered. Normally the night sky was darker black, more like her skin. Maybe it was getting to be early morning? Everything tended to have a bluish tinge before sunrise. Faeron shook her head. 'The time of day doesn't matter.' She thought. 'I need to find out where I am.' She glanced at her hooves, and back at the sky. It was probably stupid, she had never been quadruped before, but she jumped. And kept going, as her ring kicked in. Flying was simple, and it didn't take too much energy, so it was a good way to travel... Especially when there was a good chance she'd trip and sprain something. She focused on the feeling of floating, and guided herself to a stop a little higher than the roof of the castle ruins. Which seemed to be in a forest. She glanced around and saw what looked like a building past the forest's edge, and started towards it... When the sun rose. Faeron skidded to a halt in midair, and looked at the sky, careful not to look at the sun. Sure enough, broad daylight. She shook her head in disbelief. 'That's not possible...' She thought, trailing off in her mind. Possible or not, it just happened... She sighed and kept on going towards the treeline. She needed answers, and civilisation was the best place to find them. 'Let's just hope nobody freaks out about a talking ender horse...'