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// 1 - Shifting Shadow 
// Story: Pony Persona 
// by Everace 
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	She awoke to the stinging discomfort of a bed of rocks, her face cold and half submerged in water.  Hunger ached throughout her body, lending urgency to her need to rise despite her weariness.  With a soft moan, half blown over the surface of the water she was lying in, she struggled to a sitting position on her haunches.  The very first thing she saw from this new vantage was a monster.
With a startled yelp and a burst of adrenaline she leapt to her feet!  The monster did the same, leaping back in retreat.  Feeling silly, she realized that what she was looking at was just a reflection.  Her own reflection, she noted with some misgivings, shown to her in a puddle of water.  Was it not odd that she had failed to recognize herself?
She studied the image, quirking a smile as it did the same to her.  Four legs looked sturdy and strong, despite oddly shaped but apparently natural holes poking through them here and there.  She had a sleek black frame and a slip of a tail.  Spreading them from her back, she discovered beautiful and delicate insect wings.  Perhaps they were functional as well?  She wasn't quite up to trying them out just yet.  Her head was crowned with an aggressive looking horn, and featureless blue eyes lit with an eerie white glow.  It was this that had startled her initially.
“That's... me?”  Her voice croaked roughly, sounding alien in her own ears.  Tired of the image, she planted her hoof into the water, dispelling it.  Shaking her head, her mind was once again drawn back to the insistent hunger pounding within her.  Was there anything to eat around here?
She found herself in a forest.  The night sky was visible through the canopy, a bright full moon spreading silver light over the wilderness.  The puddle she had been lying in was small and somewhat muddy... perhaps she had crawled to it out of thirst at some point?  A nearby tree caught her attention with bright fruits, some hanging off low branches, clearly visible even in the shadows of its leaves.  She remembered  ponies eating such things when they were hungry.  What good luck!
Stepping forward, she raised herself on her hind legs and used both front hooves to pluck a fruit.  She took a great big bite out of it, only to find that it tasted like ashes in her mouth.  She grimaced, very nearly spitting it out, but her appetite drove her to swallow.  Consuming the fruit was but a matter of moments, and after she took another.  Still feeling hungry, she took another, and another.
After her sixth fruit she felt a little sick, and noted that her stomach was most certainly full.  Why then, WHY did her hunger still pain her so?!  Crying out in frustration, she smashed another of the fruits into the tree.  The juices running down the trunk looked very much like tears, which she felt like crying herself.  Unhappy and unsated, she tried to think of what to do next.
She could not remember any home that she had to go to.  She could not remember any friends, or family.  She could not remember... anything.  Not even her own name.  What was she doing here in this forest?  Why alone?  It suddenly seemed very wrong to her that she should be alone, and the chill of it passed through her being.  She needed... somepony.  Somepony to help her and to feed her.  With this thought in mind, she set off through the forest to find that somepony.
It would have been a pleasant walk, under different circumstances.  The air was crisp and cool, the leafy greenery lush and welcoming.  The chitter of the woodland animals going about their business made for rather soothing background sounds.  She wondered if she had always enjoyed the forest?  Perhaps walks like these had been commonplace for her, back when she knew who she was.  Or had  there ever been a before?  What if she had simply come into being lying atop that puddle?  A strange thought, but she felt it couldn't be true.  She had... fragments.  She knew about some things, like the fruits being food.  Even if that didn't exactly work out for her.
The woodland peace was broken suddenly by a distant crash and a cry of agony.  Alarmed, she raced forward as quickly as her tired body would allow.  She tripped on a root, one of many littering the forest floor, and fell forward into a bush with a loud crash.
“Who's there?  Help... help me... please!”  Came a strained call from somewhere in front of her.  Extricating herself from the leafy trap, grumbling a bit at the scrapes picked up during her fall, she moved forward at a more cautious pace.
“I'm coming, just hold on!”  Again her own rough voice grated on her ears.  She emerged from behind a tree to find a shear cliff face jutting up into the sky.  At the bottom just in front of her was a unicorn trapped under a large boulder.  He was a sizable stallion, colored beautiful forest green with a black mane and tail.  His cutie mark was a silver kite shield with a red heart on the center.  His deep grey eyes were clouded with hurt, and a pair of battered saddlebags lay nearby half under a scattering of rocks.  “Skies!  Did you fall from...?”  Her gaze swept up the stony cliff face, noting the terrible height of it.
He didn't respond, and his eyes did not focus on her.  She rumbled, “I'm going to get this thing off of you.  Try to hang on!”  She turned in place and dug her front hooves into the ground, placing her back legs against the rock, and heaved with all her might!  The rock gave a bit, but it wasn't enough.  In her current condition, there was no way her muscles could move something so large.
Horn.  Her own voice seemed to sound in her head.  Use your magic!  Magic?  Yes... yes, magic!  Green light flared from her horn as she added magical strength to the push.  The combination overcame the weight of the great rock and sent it rolling off to the side, freeing the trapped pony.  No, stupid!  Use your magic for something useful!  She blinked, confused.
A sigh of relief issued forth from the stallion.  “S'better... mmm... m'name's Pivotal Pledge.  Need you to do something...  my bags.”
“What?  Listen, you don't look so good.  Shouldn't I try to...”  She broke off, not actually knowing what to do.  Into the silence he repeated one word, “Bags.”
Moving to the beaten saddlebags, she noted something glimmering underneath one of the flaps. “I've found something!  It's a locket, I think?”
His head twitched in what may have been intended as a nod.  “Take it to Ponyville.  Find... Veiled Vision.”  With a herculean effort, Pledge raised his head and peered into the trees.  Then he grimaced, and let it fall back to the ground with a grunt.  “Can't see, but go east.  Ponyville... east.”  He sighed, content with having delivered his instructions.
“Ponyville, a town?  Then I can bring help!”  Her brief surge of optimism was cut short, however, when she noted that he had not drawn in another breath after his final sigh.  “Oh no...”  She put her ear to his side, but heard nothing.  He was already gone.  “Agh, the first pony I found!”  She backed away, tears in her eyes.  “This isn't fair!”
She sobbed, and turned in agitated circles.  Why was this happening?  Surely she didn't deserve this.  Quit crying... this is great!  She twitched in surprise as something within her spoke again.  Now use your horn for what it was meant to do!  It seemed to know something she didn't.  Tentatively she tried speaking to it inside her head, What do you mean?  What should I do?
Bleh... you seriously can't remember even that much?  Just walk over to Pivotal Pledge and let me take care of it.  Her eyes went back to the fallen pony.  What could the voice want with him now that he'd passed?  Should she trust it?  It seemed to her that hearing voices was a very bad sign.  However, with nothing else to guide her, she reluctantly approached.
Looking down at Pivotal Pledge, she felt an instinct welling up inside her.  Her horn began to glow, and suddenly a massive shudder ran through her body.  Everything shifted.  Everything changed.  Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was done.  She shook her head, and a flash of green caught her eye.  It turned out to be her own hoof.  Her own hoof, which had so recently been black.  Looking herself over, she noted her whole body was now forest green, just like Pledge.  The holes in her legs were gone, now solid all the way through like his.  She had become Pivotal Pledge!
Does this mean I am male now?  She asked of the voice, hoping it would answer.  It did not disappoint, Do you feel male?  She paused and thought on that.  Yes.  I feel different.  Masculine.  I think I'm a male now.  Then you are male.  Be as you feel, always, and don't worry about your physical form.
So just like that, he was male.  He didn't think it was better, necessarily, but this change felt like another piece of the puzzle falling into place.  It brought him closer to understanding himself, and he had Pivotal Pledge to thank for it.  Looking down at the fallen pony he spoke softly and sadly in his new smooth baritone, “I will do what I can to fulfill your last wish.  I'll find Veiled Vision and give her your locket.”  He dug the saddlebags out from under the rocks and shrugged them on, placing the locket back inside.
It didn't feel right to just leave Pledge here, exposed like this.  Looking around for a solution, his eyes went back to the cliff.  Yes, that would do the trick.  He backed up, then concentrated on a flaw in the rock face.  His horn came to life and a faint teal beam shot forth, rather than the green  his old form had employed.  The beam struck the flaw in the rock face lightly, but his aim was true.  It triggered a rock slide that buried the fallen pony.  A cairn, to honor and protect him. Good.
Feeling a little better about things, he glanced up at the sky, wondering what direction was east.  There was supposed to be a way to tell from the stars, but he had no idea what that was.  He'd have to wait for morning, to see where the sun rose.  Sleep would be good.  A pang hit him, and he recalled his still unsatisfied hunger.  There was some food in the saddlebags, but somehow he was certain it would be no more helpful than the fruit had been.  With a groan, he moved off to find a more appropriate place to camp out for the rest of the night.