1 - Awakening
Emerald Edge felt as though somepony had been banging a drum next to her head for the past hour. Her body was sore with muscle cramps and she couldn’t see. The air felt cold and clammy, sticking to what parts of her that she could feel.
Am... am I dead?
After an undetermined amount of time, the pegasus finally screwed up her courage. She stretched out a foreleg, regretting the decision instantly as the simple motion made stars explode behind her eyelids. Not dead then.
As her faculties returned one by one, Emerald cracked open one eye. There wasn’t much to see, just a small patch of damp earth and thick grey fog all around. Well, that didn’t seem too bad; she cracked open the other eye, only to be met with a flaky, sticky resistance. Puzzled, she moved a hoof to scratch at her face.
Something hard and sharp poked her in the cheek. The pegasus froze, only daring to move her one open eye to look right. Instead of the spearhead she had expected, there was a fleshy, segmented thing there, twitching beside her head. With a shriek, Emerald Edge scrambled to her hooves and leapt away, her better sense of reason smothered by shock and fear. Whatever that creature was, she had no desire to be near it.
She had only run about three meters when she realized something was terribly wrong. Why weren’t her wings flapping? It was an instinctual response to fear; unicorns teleported, earth ponies sprinted, and pegasi flew. She vaguely recalled that Sombra had blasted her left wing off with some kind of spell, but her right wing had been unscathed. She looked over her shoulder, tentatively pushing aside the now tattered black cloak she still wore using her chin.
No wings.
This alone would have been cause enough to faint then and there, but while she was busy determining whether to scream or pass out, the pegasus noticed something even more upsetting.
Not only were her wings gone, but so was her tail. And she prayed it was just that her eyesight was addled that her body was appearing so twisted and lanky through her cloak...
This was the final straw; running for her life from Sombra, watching her friends die, being set on fire, and now maimed of everything that made her a pony; it was all too much for her exhausted mind to bear.
Eyes rolling back in her head, Emerald Edge fainted dead away with a pathetic whimper, rolling down the sloped ground. She didn’t even feel herself slip off a ledge and into the water.
Apple Bean, Golden Nugget and their daughter, Honeygold, traveled down the same dirt road they had taken every four months, heading towards the majestic kingdom of Canterlot. Being simple apple merchants from Avalon, they would always marvel at the magnificent architecture of the kingdom, wishing their home would one day look like that too. The caravan containing their wares rumbled underneath them as their horses pulled the heavy cart along the bumpy road.
"Ya think we can make enough bits for that new tarp?" Golden Nugget asked his wife as he held on to the reins.
"How should Ah know that?" Apple Bean glared. "Ah'm happy as long as we earn our livin'."
"Well... Ah guess."
Suddenly, a sharp cry rose in the air, followed by a splash, startling the two merchants atop the caravan. Nugget pulled on the reins, stopping their horses. Honeygold poked her head out from the caravan to look around.
“What was that?” she asked her parents. She panned her head across the terrain, looking out for any irregularities. She spotted one. Something floating by the waters of the nearby lake. As the fog thinned a little, she gasped. It was a person. “Ma! Pa! There’s someone out there in the lake!”
“There!” Apple Bean pointed, directing Nugget’s attention to the body in the lake.
“Stay here!” Nugget ordered as he hopped off the caravan.
He headed to the water’s edge before assessing the situation. Someone had fallen into the water and was probably drowning as he stood there. He quickly kicked off his boots and leapt into the lake, his powerful arms slicing through the water to the sinking body.
It started to sink more as he swam towards it, forcing him to pick up his speed. Golden Nugget swung his arms harder, propelling himself further with each push. He arrived at the body as it sank under the water completely, forcing Nugget to thrust a hand underwater to find it. He soon grabbed hold of an armor strap, yanking the body back up. It was a young woman with turquoise hair that glimmered in different shades and a huge gash just under her hairline, with dried blood pasted all over that side of her face.
She must have fallen. Hit her head… but what was she doin' out on this little island...?
The only thing worth noting on the island was a large glassy rock formation, but she wouldn’t have come all the way out here just to see it, would she?
Golden Nugget pushed the thought aside for now. He had to get her to safety and he didn’t want to be in the cold waters for too long. He began paddling his way back, holding on to the woman as he made his way for the shore. Apple Bean and Honeygold were already waiting for him, carrying two big blankets for him and the stranger. He pushed the unconscious woman up onto the shore before standing up himself. He checked her for a pulse, finding a slow, faint one.
“Pa!” Honeygold shouted as she ran towards them. “Is she alright?”
Golden Nugget didn’t answer, instead, started pumping the water out of the woman’s system, pushing down on her chest. Soon, she started coughing and gagging, spitting out the water in her lungs, though she remained comatose.
“Now she is, Ah’m hopin’,” Golden Nugget told his daughter, still heaving with the exertion. “Honeygold. Watch the lady. We’ll have to set up camp for the night. Can’t be goin’ to Canterlot with my soggy duds. Ah’ll catch a cold.”
So while her parents unpacked their camping gear from the back of the caravan, young Honeygold knelt down next to the stranger, anxiously keeping watch.
The smell of burning wood and roasting apples was rich in the air when Emerald Edge finally awoke. She was lying in some kind of enclosure on a thin layer of straw. She felt awful; the inside of her mouth tasted like a sewer and her forehead stung. The pegasus unconsciously raised a hoof to rub her head, inhaling sharply when the same fleshy, spidery thing came back into view. Emerald jerked away but was restrained by a blanket that had been wrapped round her entire body.
She tried moving her hoof again. The meat-spider moved too, tiny caps on the end of its legs catching the moonlight that shone into the enclosure and making her pause. Tiny caps that looked like stubby talons. An incredible, horrible idea surfaced in her head. She moved her hoof. The creature did the same.
“No. No, no, no...”
Another scream clawed to the top of her lungs but she held it back. Steeling herself, Emerald took hold of the blanket with her teeth and pulled it off in one motion. Somepony, or something had taken her armor and cloak, leaving her completely bare.
The body that lay there on the straw barely resembled that of a pony. It was hairless, but the same color as her coat had been, only the legs were too skinny and again, the lack of wings made her flinch. Where her hind hooves had been were instead two… feet, like what dragons and griffons had. Though what these hideous things were that had taken the place of her front hooves, of that she had no idea. They looked a little like feet, but the toes were almost as long as the base itself. She wriggled them, fascinated and disturbed by how fluidly they bent and flexed. They seemed to be suited for gripping onto things… maybe climbing or catching prey, but looked as though they’d be hard to walk on, a suspicion that was confirmed as she got off the straw mattress.
She paced around the space on all fours, testing out the mobility of her new limbs. These new limbs were a lot more sensitive than hooves; she could feel every bit of straw poking into her skin and it quickly got annoying.
She noticed some light against her face and turned, seeing an exit from the tent she was under. She trotted up to it and poked her head out, realizing she wasn’t too far from where she had come to. Her brain tried to process what she was seeing. She had gone through the mirror expecting something like a broom closet, a place where a wizard might just stash all those unwanted bits and bobs that he no longer needed, not a completely new world.
She silently exited the structure, which she now determined was some kind of caravan, and dropped down onto the grass. The moon hung in the sky overhead, giving her a crumb of comfort. No matter what she might look like now, she still remembered how to move around in the dark.
Emerald kept low, flattening her body against the grass. It tickled her underside too, but she ignored that and crept around a wagon wheel, ever watchful. She spied a campfire in the near distance with three silhouetted figures seated around it. Calling back to her spymaster training, she opted to avoid them. The fewer traces you left of yourself behind, the better. She shimmied around to the other side of the caravan, deciding to head away from the fire.
The first thing to do, she decided, was to find her armor. She had been wearing it when she had come through the mirror and desperately wanted it back. As she pondered where it might have gone, her ears pricked up. She had heard something, something familiar and comforting. The voice of a pony.
She poked her head out of the long grass and looked about.
There!
Tied up at an oak tree, nickering and chewing on hay were two tall, muscular stallions. They were talking to each other in low voices, but just then, they could have been insulting her to her face and it still wouldn’t have made a difference. With a squee of joy, Emerald cantered over to the tree, grinning all over her face.
“Thank Celestia for you!” Emerald gushed. “I never thought I’d see another friendly face again!” Neither stallion paid her the slightest bit of attention. “Umm… hello?”
Both stallions continued to ignore her, busy eating their feed. Frowning, Emerald moved closer and tried to look the closer horse in the eye. He was pretty ordinary, if she had to be honest. Brown coat and mane. Muddy looking eyes. Tall fellow though; he would have towered over even King Sombra.
"Can you hear me? Anyone there?" Emerald waved her forearm in front of the horse's face, receiving no reaction. “I’m talking to you!”
Growing increasingly frustrated, the royal spymaster butted the stallion in the chest, but she may as well have tried to topple a tree with a herring. She rubbed her head and grimaced; she’d forgotten about her head wound. She backed off a few good steps. Maybe these two were deaf, maybe they were just stupid. She looked for their cutie marks, wanting to determine just what their special talents were. Strangely enough, she couldn't find them. Their flanks were as blank as a newborn foals’.
“You have got to be kidding me...” Emerald couldn't believe it. These grown stallions were blank flanks? She refused to entertain the idea. Stubbornly, Emerald reared up on her hind legs and began nosing through the short brown fur on the stallion’s flank.
“Cutie marks have got to be here somewhere,” panted Emerald as she breathed in the musky scent of horse sweat. At least she had found a use for these strange new front hooves. Maintaining her balance was a lot easier when she held on to the stallion’s legs with them, though his cutie mark remained elusive. "I don't believe it... an adult without a cutie mark?"
Taking a second to rest, Emerald Edge directed her gaze to the other horse. Maybe she’s have better luck with him…
It was then she sensed a presence behind her. No. Three presences. Emerald Edge turned her head to see the three figures she had seen by the fire earlier, watching her. There was no time to jump back into the grass, so she tensed herself just in case they were hostile. They were standing on their hind legs and looking down at her with various degrees of disgust and dismay.
"Jus' what d'ya think you're doin' to our horses, lady?" the tallest one, a creature with orange skin and a blonde mane cried out, shock written all over his strangely flat face. He was dressed in some kind of tunic and overalls that had been tailored to fit his toned but alien frame.
“Your horses?” Emerald quizzed, feeling indignant. “How the hay are these your horses?”
“Ah, uh, bought them at a market?” he said. At least Emerald assumed he was male from his voice. “Like, y’know, everyone else does.”
“You bought them?!” The pegasus was aghast. “As in slave labor?” She recoiled from the male on her hands and backside, giving them a lovely frontal view of her naked body. The two taller strangers blushed and looked away, the male one pressing his hind legs together.
But the smallest one, a slender young thing with a bright gold mane done up in a simple braid, raised her eyebrows at Emerald’s accusation. “Slaves? No, that ain’t how we treat ‘em at all.” She skipped past Emerald and rubbed the stallion affectionately. “Right, Joey?” The horse nickered and gave the youth a gentle lick in return.
The second horse gave out a neigh. The small creature let out a small chuckle before heading to the other horse. “Of course ah won’t forget about ya, Springer!” She gave him a gentle rub over its muzzle. The horse seemed to enjoy it.
Emerald Edge watched the strange little one, who she assumed was a female; how she moved, the way she stood on her hind legs, and how she behaved towards the horses. They seemed friendly, even if they had just admitted to slave trade; maybe these two stallions were criminals and were serving a sentence.
“What… what are you?” she asked hesitantly.
“Why… we’re jus’ people,” the little thing said, raising an eyebrow.
Emerald gave her a positively neolithic look. “People? What’s a people?”
The ‘people’ looked at Emerald as if she had just declared the sky was green. The middle-sized one scratched her head. “Uhmm… a person. Like you?”
Emerald shook her head, shocked that they would suggest such a thing. “I’m not a… person. I’m a pony.”
Now it was the people’s turn to be shocked.
“Pony?” the female one asked. She scanned Emerald Edge from head to toe, although embarrassed at the lack of clothing. “You’re not a pony.”
“This woman is crazy,” the male whispered to his companion fearfully. “Ah mean, she runs on all fours, she feels up our horses, and she thinks she's one herself!”
“Well what do ya 'spect me to do?” the female asked back. “Give her education?”
“Do I not look like a pony to you, even the slightest bit?” Emerald asked, remembering that her body had changed. “Am I not…?”
“Whatever you think you are…” the male spoke, doing his best not to look at her. “You’re just a human to us.”
“Human…” Emerald copied. She looked at herself, seeing how different she was now. She had lost her wings, her tail, her fur, her muzzle, her hooves. Maybe she was a ‘human’ now. She looked at the three humans again, noticing how they had the same spidery hooves and feet that her new body had.
“That’s right, miss!” Honeygold spoke up beside the two stallions. “We’re all humans!”
Emerald Edge just couldn’t believe it. First, Star Swirl had removed the real magic mirror and placed a prototype instead, then that dangerous mirror almost burned her to death, and now here she was, not even a pony anymore, but a human.
She felt her head getting lighter again. Her vision blurred and her balanced shifted until she finally tipped over and felt herself hit the soft grass before passing out.
The rich smell of apples once again filled Emerald Edge's nostrils as her eyes fluttered open. This time, she found herself next to the campfire, the blanket wrapped around her once more.
“Howdy, lass,” she heard the voice of the male human say. “Good to see that you’re awake.”
She turned to see the three humans from before, sitting on square crates and eating what looked like burnt apples on sticks by the fire.
"Well, don't jus' sit there," the female one said, taking a bite out of her apple. "Come on over an' join us. One thing, though. Do keep that blanket on this time?"
Emerald scooted herself over, using what used to be her front hooves to push herself forward. The young one grabbed an extra apple and moved to sit beside Emerald, offering her the fruit.
The spymaster watched how the creatures used their spidery appendages to grab ahold of the sticks, one leg at the bottom, and four more above. She tried to do the same, successfully grabbing on to the stick, but in a slightly different manner.
"What's your name?" the little human asked as she watched Emerald inspecting the stick. "Ah'm Honeygold! And this here's my pa, Golden Nugget, and my ma, Apple Bean! We're apple merchants from Avalon!"
"I'm Emerald Edge," the spymaster replied, taking a bite into the apple. A fantastic taste she couldn't describe filled her mouth, bringing her to take another two bites before running out of space. These human mouths were a lot smaller than she had thought. "Royal spymaster to Princess Amore of the Crystal Empire. Or at least I used to be..."
"Crystal... Empire?" the one called Golden Nugget sat back. "Don't believe Ah've heard o' this place... But then again, ya claim to be a pony."
"So what happened?" Honeygold beamed, interested in the story. "How'd ya get here from your... ummmpire, and why were you on that little island?" The smaller human pointed to the lake.
"Sombra..." Emerald muttered with total disgust and hate. "A false king. He took over our empire and the only weapons that could stop here are in your world. I have to find them."
"Woah, woah, hold your horses," Golden Nugget stopped for a second as Emerald shot him a look. "Right. Uhhh... Anyway... You claim to be from a different world now?"
"Well, yes. This is definitely not the same world. That mirror's led me to a whole different place, where ponies don't speak, and you have these..." Emerald wiggled her digits.
"Fingers!" Honeygold wiggled them at a faster speed for Emerald to see. "Ah guess as a pony, ya won't have these... They're really useful an' all! Ya can pick stuff up, hold things-"
"So you're sayin' you've never had fingers your whole life now?" Apple Bean raised a doubtful eyebrow, which went higher after Emerald nodded. "She really thinks she's from another world?"
"All my life, Ah've never come across anythin' like this!" Golden Nugget drew back. "She must've ingested somethin' that made her mind all wonky."
"I'm telling the truth!" Emerald raised her voice. "Why won't you believe me...? Is it so hard to take in?"
"Ah'm sorry, lass, but we're not one for fairy tales."
There was a short moment of silence as Emerald lowered her head, still thinking how unreal everything around her was. The sound of the crackling fire could be heard, along with the insects and critters in the grass along the pathway as no one spoke.
"Ah believe ya, Emerald!" Honeygold broke the silence, trying to make Emerald feel better. "Ah think it's fancy that ya used to work for a princess."
"Thank you, Honeygold,” Emerald smiled and finished up the rest of her apple. Seeing the little filly or whatever they were called here try to cheer her up gave Emerald hope that this world wasn't as brutish as she might have thought. They may be different in shape, but they were almost like ponies in human form. “I need to find these artifacts. I am not sure what they look like, but they contain great power. The power I can use to fight King Sombra back to the dark pit where he spawned.”
Golden Nugget sighed. "Alright. We still don't quite believe ya, but we're willin' to help. These artifacts. The best place to look for 'em right now would be Canterlot. Ah-"
"Canterlot?" Emerald immediately straightened. "Did you say Canterlot?"
Golden Nugget's eyes darted around. "Uhhh... Yes...?"
"It seems our worlds are not so different after all. In my world, we had an ally in Canterlot. Two sisters, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna ruled the lands, raising the sun and moon for us everyday. We expected help from them when Sombra took over, but... I fear they were too late..."
Golden Nugget and Apple Bean just stared at Emerald dumbfounded, while Honeygold looked like she was enjoying a good bedtime story.
"Uhhmmm..." Nugget cleared his throat. "Okay, uhhh... These artifacts ya mentioned. Perhaps King Dawn Saber would know somethin' about them. Yeah, we don't got a Celestia or Luna here. Just King Dawn Saber an' Queen Sunlight Radiance."
"Oh... Well, where can I find this king?"
"Canterlot is still quite a ride from here," Golden Nugget continued. "We're on the way there ourselves, so why not stick with us? Ya might be the strangest person we've met, but as Ah've said, we're not gonna turn away someone jus' cause they're weird."
"Thank you..." Emerald nodded her thanks to the three merchants. "And thank you for the food and shelter too, and I wouldn't be here if not for you."
"Aww, shucks. No need for the thanks, dear," Apple Bean said as she got up. “We’re glad to help a needy soul.”
“Yeah, and Ah love your stories!” Honeygold bounced on the crate she was sitting on. “Can ya tell me more?”
Apple Bean returned from the caravan with four layers of an animal hide of some sort. Emerald cringed at what it might have been, but she controlled herself. The humans of this world were different from ponies. For all she knew, they might even eat meat.
“Well, in that case,” Nugget croaked as he helped Apple Bean give out the hide. “Emerald, would ya mind takin’ first watch? You can tell Honeygold as much as ya like. Ah’ll be up and around for the next watch.”
“Watch?” Emerald raised an eyebrow and looked around the wilderness. “Is it dangerous out here?”
“You could say that,” Nugget grunted and scanned the area. “Ya never know when there might be a bandit or two out there. Or even wolves or trolls. Ya think you can manage watchin’ out for us and little Honeygold there?”
“Sure,” Emerald quickly nodded. She pulled the blanket closer over her form and turned to Honeygold. “I’ll do anything to repay you three. So, Honeygold. What would you like to hear?”
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Ah, so they're from Avalon. I'm guessing these are Applejack's ancestors then? We're going to Arthurian myth here, so I can't wait to see whose ancestor we'll run into next!
This is fun, she doesn't know what fingers are!
but why would she? She's a pony.
7866650 and I agree!! I'm excited to see who their ancestors are! I mean, we've seen them in that video you have, but it will be interesting to see them in action!
7848461 Where is this "video"?
7868604 Here you go
Hmm, this woman appears to be either insane, amnesic or plain delusional.
Welp, let's let her have first watch! Nothing can go wrong with that!
This has got to be one of, if not my favorite pony becoming human portrayals I've ever seen, it's so well done. These folks look interesting as well, very good start.
Mission Complete 100% Memory synchronized