Raison d'etre

by Umbral Afro

A new development (revised))

Ch. 2 A new development

A soft light filtered through the tree tops shined in Abner's face causing him to wake up with a groan. "The hell happened?" he said to himself going over what could've lead to him waking up in... Well he didn't know where he was. He was in the middle of the woods somewhere, and the rays of sunlight that woke him up were gently shining on the ground so it wasn't that late in the day yet. Which was weird, seeing as it’s supposed to be winter. He felt fine though, his muscles were stiff, he had a minor head ache and felt a slight tingling sensation but all in all he was okay.

He was lying under a tree on the edge of a small clearing in the woods. It looked like a normal forest would; it had trees, bushes, and a nearby lake. He could hear birds singing in the trees, but one thing caught his eye. There was something lying near the edge of the river. It was curled up in a patch of sunlight so he couldn't see what it was, but he could see that it was a shade of deep blue with two patches of hair, one short the other long, and both were silver with a black streak. “The heck is that?” he asked on one in particular.

His interest peaked Abner decided to go over to the strange object by the lake, but once he stood up he noticed that he felt a bit... different. He tried to stand but found it impossible as he would fall back onto all fours. He just thought that his muscles were a bit weak from whatever had happened so he went with the quadruped gait. While he walked he also noticed that walking on all fours felt more natural than on the two he was use to so he was used to, and that he couldn't feel his hands or feet. Still believing that his muscles were just too worn out he pressed on towards the strange figure he initially was interested in.

---

There it was… whatever it was. Now that he could get a better look at it Abner could get a good look at it he noticed that it looked like kind of like a pegasus from MLP. His mind ran a blank. This can’t be real. What is a pegasus doing here? (disregarding the fact that he didn't even know where "here" is). What happened? Just then his head was going to burst from all the questions he had the pegasus woke up.

He took a step back allowing it to wake up without some stranger standing over it. The Pegasus slowly opened its eyelids revealing its brilliant emerald green eyes, and looked around as if confused. Its eyes eventually drifted over to Abner and gave him a quizzical look, as if to say ‘Who are you?’

"Hello." Abner said in an attempt to introduce himself “My name is Abner”

The pegasus' eyes instantly shot wide “Abner?" it asked rolling over onto its hooves. Its voice sounded like Conor’s

“Conor?” Abner asked back

“How the hell did you turn into a pony!?” the Conor sounding pegasus asked

Abner, being just as confused as the Pegasus walked over to the water's edge and looked for his reflection. What he found wasn't the human face he was expecting, he found that what looked back at him was a grey pony with blood red eyes, a horn, and spiky black hair that was draped down the sides of his face with a red streak going down the left side of his face. Looking at his body he saw why he couldn't feel his hands or feet, he didn't have any! As if some missing piece to a puzzle was just found he turned back to the pegasus who was now standing in the middle of the clearing looking over himself almost frantically.

"Yeah it's me.” Abner said almost unfazed by his new form “And I'm guessing that you don't have any idea where we are either?”

"No. The last thing I remember is us leaving my house then a bright flash of light and now we're here.”

Abner sighed "Same here."

---

After they both calmed down and had time to think about their situation they decided that sitting in the clearing all day wasn't going to solve anything. They had to get moving sooner or later, and would like to find some kind of settlement before night fall.

"So which direction should we choose?" Conor questioned.

Abner smirked "Well" he began sarcastically "You have direction number one, which is a lovely forest route.” he said pointing in a random direction. Then continued while pointing in the opposite direction "Direction number two, which is a delightful forest route. Or direction number three." He said pointing towards the sky "A beautiful skyward route that won't get us more lost."

“I may be a pegasus now, but I’m not sure if I can fly yet.” Conor replied looking up into the clear blue sky.

“Never know till you try.” Abner coaxed

“How can I magically learn to fly after having these wings for all of half an hour?” Conor asked skeptically.

“You won’t.” Abner calmly replied calmly “But, your body will.”

Conor looked at him bewildered “How do you figure?”

“And I thought you were good with this sort of thing.” Abner said in mock disappointment “Your human mind may not know how to control your wings, but your pegasus body will, it’s instinct. You get flapping those wings, and your body will help work out the kinks.”

“What about your horn? What’s stopping you from preforming a magic spell to help us out?”

“Not sure how well that’ll work out.”

“Why?” Conor asked accusingly

“You’ve seen the show. Unicorn magic isn’t instinctual it’s controlled by the mind, and something like teleportation, or anything else like that that could come in handy here is way out of my league. I can probably only do simple manipulation, like levitation, if I really tried.”

Abner then closed his eyes and began concentrating. As a few sparks erupted from his horn a few rocks were lifted off of the ground in a red aura, and began to float around the two.

“You, however, are probably already able to fly like someone who is already out of flight school. ”

He sounded so sure that it’ll work, that Conor could just fly as simply as taking off, which he didn’t think he could get that far. There wasn’t much choice, either try to fly and maybe find out where the nearest city was, or walk aimlessly for god knows how long. In a sigh of defeat Conor agreed and extended his wings.

As he began to flap he stared cautiously back at his own wings while Abner did as well. His wings began to pick up more air as he continued to flap. He could feel his front hooves gently being tugged off the ground, followed by his back hooves. Once he was completely air born he carefully started to flap harder and harder, and before he knew it he was hovering about five feet off the ground. He continued to rise as Abner cheered him on, and after what felt like an hour Conor could see clear over the tree line that previously obscured his view. Off in the distance he couldn't see much; the forest spread out covering as far as the eye could see in most directions, but he could see a small town off in the distance.

“Abner!” he called down “I can see someplace off in the distance.”

“Great!” Abner called back “Now let’s get moving!”