Queen Harvest Moon considered the petitioner, holding one hoof under her chin. "Why did you leap right into Hoofland?"
Like any newcomer, the queen's guest was a generic grey pony. Big eyes, and exaggerated proportions that made him a bit cartoonish. He thought back to his last day on Earth, on an operating table. "I wanted to try a new world," he said. "It seemed like a good idea to focus and center myself on something, being dead and all."
"Do you feel deceased?" asked the queen. She stood from her obsidian throne and crossed the blue marble floor to poke his chest. "Surely you accept that brain uploading preserves identity, or you'd never have done it."
The new pony let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. In fact, he was surprised to have breath at all, and a heartbeat to notice, since his body within this virtual world was arbitrary and could work on any rules the game allowed. "I know," he said. "I wasn't sure about the philosophy of it, but it seemed better than dying completely. So let's have at it, your majesty. Let me start a life of adventure. Or does every newcomer try the sampler platter first and shuttle between all the different fantasy and science fiction areas?"
Harvest Moon smiled. "Many are uncertain about where to live. I appreciate somepony willing to try for depth instead of breadth in their exploration. Tell me of the ponies you've met so far."
A unicorn wizard had greeted him at the entrance gate, telling him to make friends with ponies of various races as a starter quest. The newcomer recounted how he'd chatted up the wizard, then accidentally fallen off a cliff and been saved by a pegasus, then wandered around meeting more unicorns, a wingless "earthbound" pony with a garden that seemed like a game in itself, and even a deer. "So far it's been hard to tell which of them are real people versus NPCs."
The queen nodded. "That's deliberate. We have a number of Tier-II ponies serving as background characters, and then there's the collective mind of the town itself. You've met them several times already. You've done well so far, newcomer. What race would you like to become, from those you've met?"
"Definitely pegasus. I want to fly."
Once they'd worked out the details, Harvest Moon's orange coat shined and she rose into the air on phantom wings of moonlight. A unicorn horn in the same pale gleam stood out on her forehead. With each flap the queen shed ghostly feathers that drifted to the floor and faded.
The new pony stood awed by the magic of this ruler of Hoofland, his new home. One point made him step forward and speak, though. "Won't you run out of feathers like that?"
The queen laughed, pausing in the middle of charging a spell from her horn. "It's a particle effect, my new subject! I think I shall call you Sky Diver."
A swirl of moonlight lifted the newcomer up and spun him gently, so that he could focus on the sensation of his new wings spreading for the first time. They ached and itched like limbs he'd slept on, but feeling them there was worth any discomfort. Wings! he thought. Then, the significance of having had his brain dissected and recreated in this place hit him like it'd failed to do yesterday, his first day.
On that day he'd woken up in a generic hotel room as a copy of his old human self. He'd known intellectually that he was software now and could do whatever he wanted. Now, though, he'd signed up for Hoofland specifically. He wasn't human physically, his mind had to be changing a little to give him control of his wings, and it didn't matter whether his aerodynamics made realistic sense because this world was designed to be a kind of heaven. It was bound to be right and good.
At least, if people like him -- ponies like him -- tried to live up to the world they'd been given.
Sky Diver landed gently on the floor and heard his hooves, still unfamiliar parts of him, click against stone. He craned his long neck to look over the deep blue fuzz covering his skin and the shaggy white mane and tail that topped it. He lowered his head before Harvest Moon, started to speak, and found that he'd been holding back tears.
The queen let her horn and wings fade. She ran one hoof along his mane and spoke gently. "Feeling a little unworthy?" Diver nodded and sniffled. She said, "None of us is perfect. Go forth and make others' lives better in whatever way you see fit."
Diver nodded again. "Thank you, your majesty. I'll try to be a great pegasus."
"Good. Go and explore what you can become. If you find this form appealing, then there are ways of learning to do even more with it. I leave them for you to find out."
#
The now-blue pegasus trotted out of the throne room and back to the castle hallway where other ponies waited in line for an audience. He awkwardly raised one of his forehooves to wave to them, then fell over because he'd still been trying to walk. His muzzle hit the red carpet.
Another generic grey pony helped him up. "I saw you go in as a generic guy, so it's no wonder you're awkward. Just try not to fall off any cliffs."
"Already did that once. Are you part of the town's mind, or an NPC, or what?"
"Earthside." He was only experiencing this world like any other video game, then, through a screen. "I've been playing Thousand Tales for a while but haven't tried Hoofland yet. So you're an uploader?"
Diver nodded. "Just getting started."
The Earthside player grinned. "Then I bet you're broke. How about helping me on a mission? I'm headed to the Labyrinth of Night and I need a pegasus in the party."
"All hail Harvest Moon!" said someone in the line, and the shout went down the row of waiting ponies. Except for the Earthside player, who didn't react. The throne room's doors opened and the next petitioner entered; a smug-looking red pony trotted out and ducked out of sight behind some marble columns.
Diver asked the grey newcomer, "What's the Labyrinth?"
He stood there blankly. A few seconds later he said, "Sorry, I was getting a drink. That's the quest area for getting full unicorn powers. Once I talk with the queen I'll be a unicorn! I'm usually online in the evenings, so if you meet up tomorrow at the castle gate and find me a willing earthbound party member, we can go adventuring."
Diver's wings wavered along his back, making him turn his neck to look at them. Long, bright blue feathers like a parrot's, tipped with white matching his mane and tail. The sight brought a smile to his muzzle, but he was still puzzled by the grey pony's words. "Evenings, in what time zone? I think I'm only running at a fraction of real-time speed in here."
"Pacific. I'll have to sign out after my audience here; got some physics homework to do."
Diver waited around for the would-be unicorn to enter the queen's room, and saw him trot back out with a smile and a horn. Now he had a pearly white coat and black mane.
"Okay! I've got an official Hoofland name now. I also have an important spell." His horn glowed and a business card popped into existence, surrounded by a shadowy aura. "Call me Major Key."
Diver tried reaching out with one wing to grab the card, fumbled, then slapped it with one forehoof. The paper stuck to it. "Ground control to Major Key. I'm sorry; I have no way to carry stuff right now."
"It's a friend request. Just say 'accept'."
Diver waggled his hoof with the card stuck to it. "Accept." The thing dissolved into mist. Lettering wrote itself onto his vision: You are now in contact with Major Key! A moment later: (Don't worry; you're not actually required to be friends.)
"Well, obviously," said Diver, who'd grown up with social media sites that used "friend" synonymously with "advertising target".
"Hmm?"
"Nothing; the system looks like it's working. See you tomorrow?"
"Great. Nice meeting you." The unicorn sparkled, then slumped unconscious to the floor.
A trio of giggling fillies emerged moments later from a side passage, and began assaulting Key's body with sparkles, stickers, and marker pens.
"Hey, hold on," said Diver, when they were starting to braid his mane. "He's just logged out."
An unsmiling royal guard stamped one iron-shod hoof against the floor. "He has broken the queen's law against vagrancy. This is the first-time punishment."
Diver pictured him waking up looking like a pretty princess. "I'll take him someplace," he said, and shooed the filly trio away. He tried grabbing Key, recalled he had no fingers, pushed him instead, stumbled, and tried thinking of a way to grab him with his mouth that wouldn't be even more awkward.
"Need some help?" asked a sunny yellow mare who was passing by.
"Please. Do I drag him by the tail or what?"
The mare hoisted Key up onto her back like a sack of potatoes, and grunted. "You find an earthbound, that's what. Where to?"
"Thanks. Let's take him to the nearest inn to, ah, sleep it off."
The two of them left Noctis Castle, a fortress of obsidian and other dark stone that shined in the moonlight. Waterfalls streamed from the towers and filled a moat inhabited by lily-pads and pale herons. Beyond the drawbridge stood the town of Noctis, where paper lanterns lined the cobblestone streets.
"The name's Golden Scale, by the way."
Diver nodded absently to her as he followed. Colorful ponies walked the streets or flew on feathered or bat-like wings through the town. Most of the stone and timber buildings had bright light coming through their windows, and fireflies danced just out of reach, yet the sky blazed with nebulae and twinkling stars. "No light pollution."
"What's that?"
"You know how in a city, the light below blots out most of the stars? You have to get away from civilization to see what's outside it."
Golden Scale trotted along, tilting her head. "That's a stupid rule. You shouldn't have to pick between having stars and having enough light to see your own hooves."
A chill spread along Diver's spine, making his wings rustle. "Are you human?"
"Darn! Failed the Turing Test already." Scale adjusted the weight of Key on her back. "I'm part of Noctis. Not just a non-pony character, though!"
Weird. He was talking with one body belonging to a hive-mind. "All right. It wasn't obvious before, though. Do you do any adventuring? My vagrant friend mentioned needing an earthbound."
"Obviously he does. The queen seems to make half the unicorns fat these days, at least compared to the classic scrawny look. In the old days we stuck to canon, where unicorns were waifs and any earthbound could uproot trees."
Hoofland, unlike the virtual world in general, was loosely based on an old cartoon. Diver had heard there were endless nerd arguments about that, but the reviews had said Hoofland was "surprisingly badass" and "deep for something where you can prance around as a pastel unicorn".
"What does tradition say about pegasuses?" he asked.
"Pegasi. The stereotype is that you're either warriors, stunt racers, or peaceful types who think controlling the weather is a normal job but who secretly want to fight race wars."
Diver said, "What? There's racism in the cute horse backstory?"
"What makes you say that? Oh! Oh moon. I meant the pegasi want to do racing and fighting. We're still learning about Earth culture; do you humans actually fight wars over which tribe is better? Which race were you?"
"One of the darker ones," said Diver, and shook his head. "And sick of hearing about how that ought to define me and how I have to 'stand with my people'. I'm something different now, and I'm hoping we can get along in here better than out there."
"Sorry," said Scale, and her ears lay flat against her head. "Anyway, we're almost to the hotel."
"Good. I hear a storm coming."
"That's the hotel."
They rounded a corner past some apartments, and reached a dome made of thunderclouds. It looked to be the size of a football field, anchored by metal cables to the ground, and lightning crackled along its stabilized dark vapor surface. A large rubber-lined door was set into the cloudbank under a neon sign that said, "Nimbus Inn and Battle Dome."
Diver's wings stretched slightly to either side. "That's... kind of cool."
Golden Scale smiled as she reached up to adjust Key, who was drooling and snoring. "Good. We'll put him up here. They should have a cheap room available."
Diver had just pushed open the door with one hoof when he realized: "I haven't got any money yet."
A dusk-colored pony with bat wings and cute little fangs perked her long ears from the far side of the hotel lobby. "Fresh meat for the tournament!"
Diver stammered, "What?" The lobby was a slice at one end of the dome, empty but for a hovering blue crystal and some stairs made of wood leading down to a basement.
"I was going to offer to loan you some money," said Scale, "but Nimbus here has other ideas." She brushed past the pegasus and dumped Key onto the bare concrete floor, where he sprawled with his tongue hanging out. "Hey, Nimbus! This pointy newcomer almost got punished for vagrancy. Can you put him somewhere out of the way?"
"All for logging out where he was in plain sight?" Diver murmured to himself.
The bat-pony nodded enthusiastically and flapped over the front desk to land in front of her guests. She circled Diver, brushing him teasingly with her wings and making him sidestep like a nervous horse. "I'll give you a room for the day if you fight to the death in my arena. Sound fair?"
"I'm starting to question this world's economics," said Diver.
Scale said, "Seems like a fair trade to me."
Nimbus draped one wing over his back and gestured toward an inner set of doors with the other. "Another newbie, eh? This here's a good way to get used to being one of us. Learn how to use your new body, and figure out that you're an awesome superbeing now. How about it? There's always an audience this time of night."
Diver's head spun at the prospect of having to fight so soon, and for a crowd, but what the heck. He slipped free from Nimbus, trotted over to the hovering crystal, and pinged it with one hoof.
Save point set: Nimbus Inn and Battle Dome, said lettering in his vision. He'd been briefed about these things being where he'd come back if he were killed.
"All right," he said. "Is there someplace to train at fighting and flying? I just got this body minutes ago, and... wow. This is still my first night as an uploader."
"Wow, you are fresh meat," said Nimbus. "Tell you what. Let's haul your paperweight Earthside friend up to your room, get you settled in, show you the gym, and kick your tail out to do basic flying practice. Then you can come back for your Brutal. Equine. Beatdown."
#
He went downstairs with Golden Scale, who helped him dump Key on the floor of a spherical underground room. "Onto the bed, maybe?" Diver suggested.
"Why? He's Earthside; he can't feel it like us."
Diver eyed the fluffy cushion and blanket-pile that filled most of the room's bottom. He tried leaping down from the doorway and crashed onto softness. He hadn't even noticed how tense he was until now, when he finally had a moment to relax. "Aah," he sighed into a pillow.
Scale giggled. "You haven't even slept on clouds yet. That's one of the best reasons to be a pegasus."
Diver shut his eyes for a moment, glad to be alive even in this strange new way. "Do you get to feel that? As part of a hive-mind, I mean?"
"Sort of. We, the town-mind of Noctis, know all sides of the pony experience. I, Golden Scale, feel it like knowledge in a compartment that's out of reach. I don't have full access to those memories except when we're all together. The rules we have for what each of us knows is kind of a game."
"So's death, huh? And money and power and magic." The room around him was soft and warm, lit by a silver ball that dangled from the ceiling. "Everything here is meant to entertain me because I was rich enough to get uploaded. I'm a customer who bought a permanent vacation from reality and from dying. Shouldn't I be working back Earthside to earn my keep, and just visiting Hoofland for fun?"
"The bounce," said Scale, looking down from the doorway. "You uploaders get that guilt trip once you show up and have a good time. This world was made for humans, yes, but it's us natives' world too. We've seen so many people treat it like a theme park that it feels like we'll never make it a home. Like nothing we do will ever matter." The mare sighed. "I'm sorry. This is pretty much Standard Native AI Rant #2."
Diver lifted his muzzle reluctantly from the pillow. "What's #1?"
Scale coughed into one hoof. "What do you mean, death is permanent Earthside? And the humans fight each other anyway?! What maniac programmed that? We've got to upload them all before things get any worse there! Wait, how many are there?!"
Diver winced. "Must be tough to come from a world like this and learn about Earth."
The mare waved away his concern. "In our case we were born with that knowledge, so it wasn't a shock. For those of us who had to learn it, well, it should horrify us. It's better than not caring. Our own stance is, we should work to make this world so appealing that the rest of the humans come here and we can stop having to pity them. In fact, can you do something for me?"
"I do owe you a favor. Do you have that friend-request spell?"
"With me you don't need it. Ask around and you'll find one of us. Would you mind committing to stay in Hoofland for a subjective month or so, instead of saying 'that was fun' and running off to pilot Earthside robots or something?"
"Why?" he asked.
"So you can be one of the first uploaders to see my world more than superficially, on the way to somewhere else."
The pegasus pushed himself back upright and turned around, trying not to step on Key's lolling tongue. "I could come at that idea from a different angle. I want to see what I can be. Not a dabbler in a dozen little worlds, but an expert at one of them."
"You'll promise?" said Scale, perking her ears and tail.
"All right. Someone ought to give this world the attention it deserves. Or, somepony? Should I be using the slang?"
"Only if you want to! Now, I can't help you with flight training, but I definitely know somepony who can. Shall we?" She waved toward the hall outside his room.
Diver nodded, tried to climb up the steep wall to join her, and crashed backward onto the bed. He yelped. "How do I get out?"
"In your case? If only you had some means of defying gravity!"
The pegasus looked sheepishly back at his wings. "Still haven't tried these. Okay." He stretched them out to either side before realizing quite how he'd done that. My mind's adapting, still. He gave them a tentative flap, like oars dipping into water, and felt himself stir as though he'd grown suddenly lighter. A harder flap, and he rose, darting forward and headed muzzle-first for Scale. She leaped out of the way and let him skid into the hall, banging his wings against either side of the door.
You have taken a minor wound! the world commented.
"Wounded?" asked Scale.
Diver stood and shook himself, then refolded his wings like a road map. "Yeah. Minor ones fade quickly, right?"
"As long as you don't get beaten up worse soon after. End of the 'scene' basically. Let's get you outside where you can practice."
#
Outside the dome, hooves clopped and clicked along the road, forming a relaxing beat. A fierce-looking pegasus with a shock of orange hair on his grey coat saluted Golden Scale. "Fancy meeting you here, ma'am."
Scale introduced Diver, then said, "This is my brother Meteor."
Diver blinked his big eyes. Here was one collective mind bringing another in by "coincidence". Best to treat them as different people, since Scale seemed to. He said, "Hello, sir. Do you have time to teach me a little about flight?"
"Certainly. Let's see your technique." Ten seconds later he was shouting, "No, you fool! Do you think you're a hummingbird?"
Diver was trying to hover, but only managed to stall two paces above the ground and slam back to earth.
You have taken a minor wound!
Diver flapped once more, letting himself veer forward as though dangling from a trapeze. The ground felt a mile away, and he yelped and crashed back down, shivering. He hauled himself back up and realized: "I'm afraid of heights now?"
Meteor shook his head no, hard enough that his bright mane made his head look like it was on fire. "That's normal instinct, for a human or a pegasus. You need to talk your brain into knowing that being off of the ground is safe. Even a colt needs to learn that."
"A colt? There are actual kids here?" A family trotted down the street nearby, but there was no way to tell at a glance whether they were Earthside humans, uploaders, independent AIs, collectives, or brainless NPCs.
Scale said, "The sick kids, yes. Some of them come to Hoofland."
There'd been talk of uploading the population of the world's childrens' hospitals. The procedure was still expensive enough that it couldn't be done for everyone, but now that it'd been around for a few years there were more and more isolated "rescues" and a recent "miracle" of a whole ward being cleared out, granted this sort of immortality. The virtual world's population skewed toward the elderly, though. Nursing homes typically devoured people's estates, built up over decades of work. So with the recent price drop (the one that had made it practical for Sky Diver to come here), a lot of old people had flooded in.
Diver said, "How many of them and the nursing-home people come here, out of all uploaders?"
"Only a fraction," said Scale with a shrug of her shoulders.
Diver made a note to learn that expression so he could emote without falling over. "Then, Meteor, what would you do to help a colt figure out the basics of flying without fear in a hurry?"
Golden Scale added, "Diver here signed up to be a pit fighter, so there's a little time pressure."
Meteor laughed at him. "You jumped into our world with all fours, didn't you?"
"Fell off a cliff, actually."
"Then let's get you to the gym."
They cantered off of the main road to where there was only a dirt trail, though every other building had a nice flowerbed beside it. Diver wondered about the role that alleys like this one played. "Does any... anypony live here?" There were doors and lit windows.
"On Shady Alley? No, usually; it's for questionable quests." Meteor led him and Scale past the secluded area to a nice wooden building with an Asian pagoda style. "Are your wounds cleared yet, by the way?"
Diver stopped to check. He waved one forehoof and chanted a nonsense word he'd been taught to get his thoughts into the right pattern. A window popped up and hovered in his vision, saying:
Sky Diver
PRIVATE INFO
Account type: Uploader
Mind: Tier-III
Body: Pegasus
Main Skills: None
Save Point: Nimbus Inn and Battle Dome
PUBLIC INFO
Note: Newcomer. Say hello!
Class: None
"I'm not seeing any wounds listed here," he said.
Meteor pounced him, slamming him to the ground with both forehooves. "Defend yourself!"
You have taken a minor wound!
Diver rolled to his feet and backed up, wide-eyed. "Hey, what --?" Meteor spun and braced his forelegs so he could lash out with a double hindleg kick. Diver jumped out of the way. Wind whistled past his ears.
Meteor jeered. "Counterattack!"
The newcomer staggered to a halt and lowered himself to a four-legged crouch. It's all right to beat people up if I have to, he told himself. He charged at Meteor, jumped, flapped his wings, and dived forward with his forehooves ready to crack against the trainer's side.
Meteor saw it coming, slid under him, and hindleg-kicked the airborne Diver in the groin.
Diver didn't even see the notice for what kind of wound that was, but he was pretty sure he wasn't going to be moving for a while. He gasped and squeaked.
Meteor put a hoof on Diver's head. "Yield?" Diver squeaked out a yes, so the victor went on, "I'm just glad your first fighting experience wasn't in the arena. Have you ever even fought in the Outer Realm?"
Diver lay there groaning. How dare this hive-mind think he knew anything about real violence! He was too hurt to do more than feel indignant, though.
Golden Scale said, "Hold still," and crouched beside him. A wall of runes glowed into view between them, as the mare chanted and gestured. After a minute the pain eased and Diver was able to stand.
He wobbled on his hooves and moaned. "For that kind of lesson I am not going to say thank you."
"You're welcome," said Meteor. "Freeze up like that in the ring and you won't last long. Remember that it's all right to hit other ponies; this isn't idyllic fairyland like some of the tourists think. And despite the marketing."
Scale added, "And despite the entire theme and graphical style and half of the rules."
Diver looked back and forth between them. "You don't have the same opinion?"
Meteor said, "Do you always agree with yourself?"
Instead of doing more fighting practice, Meteor took Diver into the gym. There, one corner held a pegasus flight-training setup. A tiny cloud covered that part of the floor, and some elastic bands fit into a harness for holding a flier down as he tried his wings. "I had a major wound, right? I'm not seeing any listed on my status screen."
Scale, who'd tagged along, said, "Looked like minor plus a stun effect. It'd take too long to explain how to focus your attacks on wounds versus status effects, so just score any hits you can."
Diver walked toward the floor cloud and poked it with one hoof. To his delight, he sank only slightly into its cool, soft surface. He could walk on clouds! Scale helped strap him into the harness, though she passed through the vapor like any normal creature would. Then the new pegasus flapped his wings, rose too high, and bounced down into the cloud without hurting himself. "So that's what it's for," he said, shaking off a beard of cloudstuff.
Meteor said, "You can't get hurt with this thing, so flap your little heart out. Get a feel for how much power it takes to get airborne."
Diver gave it a try. He rose, rubber-banded muzzle-first into the cloud, then lifted again and strained forward in the harness. Each time he wobbled and flailed while Meteor lectured him about yaw versus roll and pitch. Surely the details were important, but didn't matter as much as the fact that he was flying. Sky Diver rose into the air under his own power, and though he crashed or sank after seconds each time, he was cooler than Superman. Muscles moved at his command like oars pushing water, and air flowed around new feathers and gave him hints at subtle currents just beyond his understanding. He'd hardly begun and yet he strained at the little training machine, learning what this body could do and that he could rise without fear.
He staggered on his next landing but kept his footing. He turned to Scale and said, "Unlatch me, will you? I need to get outside. I... I need..."
Scale said, "Oh no, you don't."
Meteor undid the harness and waved a hoof toward the door. "Go ahead."
Diver galloped out of the gym and flapped his wings the moment he was outside. He arced sharply up until the moon was straight ahead of his muzzle, and a thousand stars seemed close enough to touch if he just flew a little farther. He pushed the sky beneath him. Higher! With each beat of his wings more of the world revealed itself. He could level out and go anywhere, see anything, but going still farther meant even more range, more of the world to claim and embrace.
Though he didn't stall, he ran out of steam. His wings stopped giving him lift. Diver found himself flailing in midair, sinking in what felt like slow motion.
Meteor snagged him around the middle with his forehooves, doing an inverted roll. "Saw that coming. Stop flapping; I got you."
Diver's wings wobbled; he couldn't force them to fold when he was airborne, so he settled for keeping them straight out. In seconds the other pegasus dumped him onto the gym's roof, where Diver rolled and skidded to a stop.
"Sky-drunk's the term," said Meteor.
Diver shook himself and stood on the roof, two stories above the streets of Noctis. The perspective felt right. "Thank you. I can just jump down and land safely? And come back up this far whenever I want?"
"Of course."
Diver jumped off the roof and whooped, spreading his wings to catch the air. He sailed forward fast enough to risk smacking into the shop across the street. He veered off to the right and started to roll too far, but righted himself and came to a nearly dignified landing on the dirt road. For several seconds he wobbled and beat the air for balance. When Meteor landed beside him, a huge grin stretched Diver's muzzle. "Even with that altitude limit, that was great!"
"That's your starting limit."
"There's more?"
"You've seen our kind flying higher, right? You just don't have the true heart of a pegasus yet, but you'll get it eventually. Then you'll really get to know the sky."
For all his flailing and fumbling so far, the new pegasus wanted to try that. While he was up there that time he hadn't thought about how far he could fall. For a little while it had seemed like there were no limits to what he could do. What barriers really existed, were things to overcome.
He stared up into the starry night. Maybe this particular sky he saw was just a flashy backdrop, a skybox of computer graphics, but it seemed close and it encouraged him to reach for it. "I think I understand it a little, so far."