//------------------------------//
// Short Prologue 
// Story: Friendship is Darkness 
// by CrossRedstone 
//------------------------------//

I'm pretty sure you've heard it a million times: The world is not divided in black and white. Or not everything is as it seems. Ha! Tell me about it.


XIII


"I. Feel. Like. Shit." I stated flatly as I was lying flatly on my stomach. And when I say shit, I mean shit. My entire body was hurting, outside as well as in the inside. I felt so weak, I could barely move my eyes. Well, they were closed anyway, but you get the gist of things. My brain had trouble getting even one clear thought, aside from: my entire body hurts.

I must have been lying there for at least an hour, which made me wonder why the hell nobody decided to check up on me. My memory was a little jacked, so I had no idea what happened the past twenty-four hours or so.  I found out the why, when I finally overcame my laziness and opened my eyes. It was the middle of the freaking night. No one was around.

What really bothered me however, was something else. I was in a place I had never seen before. Hey, I may have had temporary amnesia, but I was pretty sure I didn't leave my hometown at all. This city however...okay, there's something else I need to mention. I wasn't actually downtown, I was in some kind of...garden? No, that wasn't it either. It looked like a campus with 50% more green than usual. Not to mention the buildings. This was a complete different architecture.

The buildings were completely white and I don't mean the dirty white from the car exhausts. I mean pure white from an empty word document. Scratch that, increase the brightness for....over 200%. I know it's dark, but just do it inside your minds. Another aspect the buildings around me had, they were huge towers with really expensive looking decoration, like gold and freaking jewels. Hello?! JEWELS?!?! Where was I? Definitely not in hell, where I supposed I would always land.

I decided then it was best to get up and look around. But I already failed at the getting up process. How so? Well there's one I overlooked this entire time: my body. Oh sure, I was complaining as to how it hurt so much, but I haven't really taken a look at it. Fur everywhere, legs instead of arms, hooves, tail, new color pattern and of course the butt tattoo. Did I mention the bat wings? No? Now you have it. I should have realized it sooner, but at the moment I was like: "What the fuck, I'm a horse? With wings?"

That's right, without the exclamation mark. Belief me, I've seen a lot of shit in my life, being turned into a horse, ehh pony, is number 6 in my top ten. But more to that later. A lot later. At the moment, I just remembered something. I was supposed to be dead. Yeah, I died, due to sickness. Officially at least...I think. So how come I'm alive in a horse body? Pony damn it!

Figuring that one out would have to wait, since I had no idea how my new body works. Getting up was easier than expected. Of course I fell flat on my snout, when I tried to take my first step. Someone should have recorded me with a camera. This went on like a running for way too long for my taste, literally. I can now tell you ten flavors of dirt.

Back on topic, there was actually something in my memory I could relate to my current predicament and find a solution: My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic. That's when I realized what and most likely where I was. Now I bear in mind, I'm a fan of the show. It got me shocked quite a bit.

Would I meet the mane six?
Would I meet the princesses?
Would I live in Ponyville?

My brain froze up at one point, overwhelmed with all the processing it needed to do. Eventually, my guess another hour minus a few minutes, my brain was back. After smacking my head against a nearby tree. I went back with figuring out how my new body works. I read a good amount of fanfics myself, a junk of them being human turned ponies. It got me curious and I figured out how ponies walked. Why didn't I think of that earlier? Temporary memory loss. Sounds like a Hasbro excuse, now that I think about it.

I still hit the dirt a few times and now I can give you 13 flavors of grass. But I managed, luckily. Would have led to some awkward situations. Anyhow, I started looking around the place, now that I had a gist of my body, with some stumbles every now and then. The place wasn't lit up that good, but I had no problems making out everything. It was night, the moon and the stars were out, yet it was almost like in broad daylight. Almost. It was another thing for me to find out and it got overwhelming pretty quickly, so in conclusion I didn't think too much about anything, but one thing: finding out where exactly I was. The exact location in Equestria.

IF that was the case. I might have also become a complete nutjob. I have been ranting on for quite some time, so why don't we get on with it already?

There was a stone path nearby, so I went over there and followed it in one direction. The one thing that temporarily stopped me was of course the clopping of my own hooves. It was so freaking loud compared to the complete silence of the night. It annoyed me, so I decided to walk beside the road or rather walkway. 

I needed to cross one bridge though, because of a small stream running through the place. Somebody, or rather somepony had money to burn, if it hadn't been obvious enough before. The flowers and the pond I found emphasized just that a little more. Speaking of the pond, that water was almost as good as any mirror I've stared into. Winning a staring contest against yourself isn't easy, you know?

Bad jokes aside, I noticed something sticking out of my forehead: a horn. At first I thought I was a thestral, but no, I was my badly made OC, which I spent like thirty minutes on making in total. I had a hard time finding the perfect cutie mark and it still ended up not so good in my opinion. I was a bit lazy on creating her, if it wasn't obvious enough.

"Okay....wonder how the locals will react to me. Speaking of local, where the hell am I?"

I continued my way down the path, enjoying my night vision. It was something I thought my OC should definitely have night-vision and dark magic. About the dark magic part, I actually knew a couple of spells myself. Had a hard time covering that up, when I was still in the human world. But I had fun. Too bad I only learned levitation, a small fire spell, a dark blast for self-defense (always leaves me tired afterwards) and in theory I can summon demons. Never did it though, 'cause I was too lazy for the preparations.

I arrived at the end of the campus property, the main entrance. There weren't any doors, just a huge sign hanging on the wall of a building, which looked like a high school. It said: "Celestia's School for gifted Unicorns." Oh and it was written in gold. Go figure, huh? You wouldn't be able to do that in our world without the gold being stolen after a week.

Looking down the street, I found it lighted up by a couple of torches. It took my eyes a few moments to adjust to the light they were giving off. They appeared as bright spots, like you see on a night-vision camera, when you look through it at a candle or similar small light source.

So, after I got used to the light conditions, I set out to look around the city for a little bit. I had to wait until everyone would wake up in order to do anything, like getting a job. Since it wouldn't look good for me to just sleep on the street and I wasn't tired anyway, a stroll sounded like a good idea. Ever explored an unknown city at night? It's awesome, as long as you're avoiding the slums. Unless you're into beating the shit out of people.

My hoofsteps echoed through the streets of Canterlot, as I made my way. Surprisingly it was actually pretty boring. Sure it looked "old school" for a lack of better words, but all I came across were a few apartment buildings.

It wasn't until I reached the end of the street that things got interesting. I obviously entered a district where the nobles lived. I swear the further I went, the more pompous the mansions and on a side-note the gardens, became.

I may not be an expert on good taste, but seriously, with all the money that went into those buildings, you could easily get rid of the debts the States are in. And you probably would have still left enough for a Mac Menu.

Bad jokes aside, I finally met another pony. Two to be precise. Meeting is actually the wrong word, more like I accidentally bumped into a pair of royal guards, letting out an "ow". Let me get something out of my bag, before we go into the resulting conversation. They really look alike. To the last freaking detail!

"Sorry there, wasn't looking."

Oh my gosh, I'm talking to actual ponies! Can't keep the fangiril down! Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

The two looked at me suspiciously, which was a little annoying to say the least. I mean, they look at me like white cops look at black people. No offense, but this is reality. In any event, they started talking and I had a hard time not to laugh. Remember the voices they had during the episode Fluttershy kidnapped Celestia's bird? Yeah, imagine meeting a person in real life having that voice.

"Who are you and what is your business in Canterlot?"

Must. Resist. Laughing. "My name is Sarah, as to what I'm doing here, well...I arrived pretty late, so I can't really ask for a part time job right now." Note to self: improve jokes. Maybe I can ask Discord.

"Is that so?" the second one asked.

"Well, I thought about going to Ponyville, but without money that's gonna be a problem. Hey, is Princess Luna hiring?"

At that comment, the two of them eyed each other in perfect sync. "Princess who?" the left colt asked. Now that was interesting piece of info to have. Looking up to the night sky, I easily spotted the moon and naturally the face on it. "Oh, she's still stuck there. Wait a sec, that means I can actually meet Nightmare Moon. Squeeeeeeeeeee!" I have no words for why I squealed like a little girl. Or why I jumped into the air, clapping my hooves and then getting face to face with the right guard. "Quick, when's the next Summer Sun Celebration?"

I may have looked like a maniac at that time. I mean, have ever met an obsessive fangirl like me? Don't say anything bad about the thing she's a fan about or you'll regret it.

"What's going on here?" a voice asked. I didn't even notice a fourth pony approaching the scene and it was freaking Shining Armor. I think his appearance somehow triggered my new hormones.

"Oh my gosh! Shining Armor!! SQUWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"