The first thing that she woke up to was the cool but wet tongue of a dog that urged her to be awake.
“Stop it Toto,” she moaned. Dorothy Gale wasn’t quite ready to wake up yet. She could sense the rays of the sun beaming down on her that she shut her eyes tighter. As she moved her body away from the light, she could feel the sheets and blackest being pulled with-
“Hold on,” she said to herself, “That’s not right.” It was then that Dorothy opened her eyes, and saw that she was not only in a bed, but in a room with a dog sniffing at her face.
“What?” sitting up, she whipped the sleep from her eyes and got a good look around. Not to say that she was startled for the fact that she didn’t remember being put in a bedroom with red apples on the walls and even the bed frame as well. Through the window, she saw rows upon rows of trees that were as bright and lush as they were in Oz. For her, all of this was for a moment quiet frightening.
But at the same time… it wasn’t. Dorothy couldn’t explain it to herself, but somehow, in some way, all of this was familiar. Although she had never seen this room in her life, it was almost as if she has been in here many times before.
There was a bark that drew her attention to the dog on the bed, whose black eyes were just as excited to see her as her little black dog. Around its neck was a red collar with a golden coin linked to it that as Dorothy leaned forward, saw that it had a name.
“Winona? Is that your name?” the dog didn’t replay as it panted with her tongue hanging out. “Well, aren’t you the…” She was about to pet it to stroke its fur, but she trailed off when she saw her hand, wasn’t a hand anymore. There she saw entire right arm was not only orange, but she saw a flat hoof at the other end. Her widen eyes followed the hoof down to her body in which she became frighten again.
She frantically felt this alien form with what used to be her hands. Touching her chest, neck and even face to find that somehow, during the night, she was no longer a human – pulling the covers off of her quickly confirmed that she even had a tail as yellow as wheat.
Dorothy screamed from sheer shock as she stumbled out of bed. This was quickly followed by a thundering of hooves that stampede towards her until one of the doors was flung open.
“AJ, you alright!” Dorothy’s jaw dropped when she not only saw ponies where one was yellow with a red mane while the other, larger one was red with mane as golden as her new found tail.
When she didn’t respond, the smaller yellow pony trotted up to her, “Applejack, are you okay?” The orange pony blinked, when she didn’t respond, the smaller one came up to her. “You’re not hurt, aren’t ya?”
“Um… no,” Dorothy answered. As confused as she was, she was again feeling something familiar about this pony that was touching her forehead.
“Ah don’t feel that you’re too warm, that’s good. Not only that, but you’re up too.”
As she looked into this yellow pony’s face, in which she found amazing that it was talking to her, Dorothy found a name that came to her like a long forgotten memory, “Applebloom?”
She nodded, “Yes sis?”
Dorothy looked over to the bed and back again, “How did I get in here?”
“Y’all mean you don’t remember?” the other red pony asked as he walked into the room. “You came home last night when ya suddenly fainted out of the blue.” As he spoke in that deep voice, another name came to Dorothy’s mind, Big Macintosh, except she couldn’t put her finger on why she knew that.
“Yeah,” Applebloom nodded, “You kinda scared us last night. So you’re not sick, are you?”
She looked at her orange hooves, “I… I don’t think so.”
“Ya sure?” Bic Mac asked, “We couldn’t wake you up after you fainted. So do ya need some air or somethin’?”
Dorothy said that she would like that, and tried to stand on all four of her legs. Admittingly, she hadn’t done anything like this since she was a baby because she was so used to walking on only two legs. As she walked out of the room, the other ponies couldn’t help but see how stiffly her movement was, especially when she took a long time going down the stairs, taking one hoof at a time.
“Applejack, there you are dearie,” she turned her head to see another pony who was as green as spring, but as old as time flipping flapjacks. “Good to see you up. Come, have some breakfast.”
“Actually,” Dorothy said, “I think I need some air.”
“You sure?” the mare asked as she laid the pancake on a plate, “Aren’t you a little hungry?”
“Maybe later,” she said as she headed towards the front door. “I think I might be sick.”
Before the elder mare could respond, Dorothy opened the door and walked right outside. “What is going on here?” she asked herself as she walked away from the farmhouse. “Why am I a pony? And orange? And why can I talk?” Another question popped into her head as she paused to look down at all four hooves. “Where’re the silver shoes? Did someone take them off while I was asleep?” However, she shook her head, “But I thought he Witch of the North said that they were enchanted, and that they’ll protect me.”
Dorothy took in some deep breaths, “I wonder where I am. Is this still Oz, or am I dreaming?
“Oh come now, listen to yourself! This must be a dream. After all, ponies are talking, and are in different colors too. Besides,” she looked down at her withers, “I don’t have my dress on. So yes, maybe this is a dream… but… when did I go to sleep?”
As she thought of this, Dorothy Gale started to walk forward, into the grove of trees. Trying to recall her journey in the Land of Oz. “Let’s see… the munchkins told me to just follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City… then I met the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and a… Lion, yes that’s right. We’ve crossed through dark forests, escaped wild beasts, and got over to the other side of the river… But what else? What am I forgetting…?” As she walked further, she tried to think very hard, “The last thing I remember… we were in a field of red poppies-”
She came to a sudden stop as she ran into something alive. After her and whatever she bumped into fell, she heard: “Oh! I beg your pardon!”
Scrambling to her hooves, Dorothy’s eyes widen when she saw what she had ran into. It was another pony, about as big as she was, with a butter yellow coat and a pink mane. But what really caught her attention was the pair of wings on her side.
As the yellow mare got to her hooves, she said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t really see where I was going.”
“You… you have wings.”
The mare looked at her, “Well, yes indeed. And I didn’t know ponies have orange coats.”
“Me neither,” she sat on her hunches to dust off the dirt off as best as she could. “I wasn’t exactly like this yesterday.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s… I’m not sure. It’s hard to explain, but… yesterday I was a person. But I woke up looking like this.”
The yellow Pegasus tilted her head, “I’m sorry, but have we met before?”
Dorothy looked at her again, in the back of her mind, she did look oddly familiar. Just like the family that she woke up to. “Does the word… Flutter shy means anything to you?”
“That’s what those animals back in the cottage over there,” she pointed with a wing, “were calling me. And looking at you… does the word Applejack have anything significant?”
“Actually, when I woke up this morning, that’s what those ponies in that house have been calling me. Somehow, I don’t know why, but it’s like I’ve known them for all of my life, only that I’ve never seen them before. It’s as if that I have new memories that are not my own.”
“You too? And I’m guessing that you don’t think you’re Applejack, but someone else?”
“How do you know?”
“Here,” the Pegasus sat down in front of her, straighten up, and lifting a hoof to her, “Good morning, my name is Alice Liddell, how do you do?”
The orange mare lifted her hoof and wrapped it around hers to shake it. “Hello, my name is Dorothy Gale, and I’m from Kansas.”
Alice tilted her head, “Where’s that?”
“America.”
“You’re American? I’ve never met one before.”
“Where are you from?”
“Oxford, England.”
Dorothy let go of Alice’s hoof, “I never met anyone from England before either.”
“How old are you?”
“Me? I’m going to be turning six soon. You?”
“I’m seven-and-a-half exactly.”
Dorothy smiled, “Well, I’m glad to find someone almost my age that’s sure they don’t exactly belong here.”
“Like wise. Where were you going?”
“Oh… I don’t know. I was just wondering about this place and why I was turned into this.”
“I understand that,” Alice nodded, “although, I do admit that from all the queerness that I’ve endured, this is by far the strangest I’ve ever experienced.”
“Do you think that we’re asleep? And that this might be a dream?”
The yellow mare put a hoof to her chin, “I’ve once heard that if you pinch yourself in a dream, you should be able to wake up.”
“But how do we pinch?” Dorothy pointed out, “We don’t have hands to pinch with.”
“True… Wait, I have an idea. Give me your hoof,” she did, in which Alice leaned down and bit it.
“Ow!” Dorothy quickly withdrew her foreleg, “That really hurt.”
“But you didn’t wake up,” then she looked at her own hoof and offered it to her, “Do that to me. I want to be sure as well.”
Although raising an eyebrow, Dorothy obeyed as she bit down on the other’s hoof.
“Ow!” Alice drew back, rubbing her hoof.
“Well, I guess this isn’t a dream then.”
“I’ll say,” the Pegasus said, “So if this isn’t a dream, then what is this place?”
“For one thing, we’re not in Oz or Kansas,” the orange mare explained. “I’ve spend some time in both places, and I’ve never heard, nor seen ponies that talk.”
“But I have been to places where animals talked, both down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass.”
Dorothy gave her a puzzled look, “Rabbit hole? Looking glass?”
“It does sound rather peculiar,” Alice admitted, “but it is the truth. I have been to places where white rabbits talk, along with birds, a caterpillar, a Cheshire Cat, and much more that I had a conversation with.”
Still, the orange mare with the golden mane looked as confused as ever, “Maybe you should explain that to me later. For now, maybe we need to find what this place is, and if there’s any way to get back to Oz with my friends.”
“Is Oz a country?” Alice wondered.
“I think so. My home was picked up by a cyclone and was dropped in the Munchkin Land of Oz. I was told that if I were to go back to Kansas, I had to the Emerald City to speak with the wonderful Wizard that might help me and my friends.”
“Maybe you should tell me the full story sometime, I would be interested to hear all about it.”
“Same with me, but for now, we need to find a way to get back. But where do we start?”
Alice looked around and spotted something among the trees, “What about there?”
Dorothy looked towards where the Pegasus was staring at, and saw that from the tops of the trees was a crystal structure that seemed to have grown like a tree, and carried a castle along with it.
“I guess that’s a good place to start.”
“Maybe on the way,” Alice suggested as they headed towards the crystal structure, “would you tell me about Oz?”