Myou've Gotta be Kidding Me

by DataPacRat

Relations

-Ap... proximately how much time had passed, when I woke up, I couldn't tell - it could have been seconds, or days, or years. Celestia's sun was hidden behind the tree canopy - and I couldn't even tell if it was in the same place, since at some point between when I finished turning to stone (for lack of a better word) and when I returned to flesh-and-blood, I had been tipped over - I found myself lying on my left side.

I rolled onto my belly, and gave myself a once-over, whereupon I discovered that my tan walking-about outfit had a rather large blood-stain on the left flank. I wasn't feeling any pain, so I didn't quite start freaking out - and relaxed even more when I saw that I had been lying on top of what was now a very flat, so dead that "pining for the fjords" wouldn't begin to cover it, ex-cockatrice. I ran through what had just happened, and as best I could figure, I hadn't had all four legs solidly on the ground, so when I'd been statue-fied, I was unbalanced, and just... fell right on top of the thing.

My guess about the timing was confirmed when Zecora galloped in, loaded for Ursa. Screeching to a four-point stop, she looked at me, at the pathkill, and snorted. She started muttering to herself in a language that sounded vaguely like Swahili, or at least what cartoon imitations of Swahili sounded like, and trotted over much more calmly. "You, wait - look straight." She pushed my head with a hoof to look forwards, and not having any reason to disagree, let her. She stepped over to the critter, whereupon I heard some rather disgusting noises - I supposed it wasn't every day a herbalist had the chance to collect ingredients from such a source.

She appeared in front of me, holding a small vial in one hoof (I really wished I knew how all the ponies could pull off that trick), and declared, "Don't think: drink." She practically shoved it in my mouth, and I swallowed the thick, coppery-tasting liquid almost without thinking.

I coughed a bit, and glared at her as I figured out the taste. "Wait, was that-?"

"There is an old tale, which I don't give short shrift:
Slay dragon, drink blood, receive a strange gift."

I started to turn back to look at the cockatrice, but Zecora was blocking my view. "Does that even count as a 'dragon'? It had a chicken's head!" Even if taking the time to rhyme was a sign of respect - I was still trying to avoid freaking out over the fact that I had just been turned into something like solid stone, and except for some absolute dumb luck, I might have ended up that way permanently. Well, maybe not - Zecora had heard me shouting, and she seemed to know about cockatrices, but my imagination was coming up with all sorts of possibilities I had just barely escaped from. Either way, I was a bit too stressed to try to figure out how to speak in couplets.

"All wyverns and drakes and other such creatures
are descended from dragons - you can tell by their features.
Their power is strength, just like griffons' is speed,
and hooved ones, like us, in magic do lead."

I figured it was probably around time I pulled myself to my hooves, so I did. "You and the ponies, maybe - but not one cow I've met seems to have a magical bone in our body."

"I will admit, of your kind, I am a bit puzzled.
Earth ponies do things for which they're not muscled;
perhaps bovine magic is of a similar kind,
subtle in use, not easy to find."

"Or, maybe, it's simpler - and we just don't have any?"

"I find such an answer very hard to believe.
All alicorns' children, their gifts did receive."

"What do alicorns have to do with anything?"

She gave me a funny look - and then she expressed a series of clever rhymes I can't quite fully remember, and it would do her a disservice to falsely reconstruct. The overall gist was a sort of origin story I'd never heard a hint of on the show, or even from those production crew who'd posted online. According to this legend, there was a sort of ancient ancestral species, which had split into three less-ancient ones who each took a third of the power. Dragons and strength; alicorns and magic; cynogriffons and speed. They all had less-powerful descendant species, the cynogriffons had died out during a climactic battle, Celestia and Luna were the only known true alicorns left, and all-in-all, it was a fairly typical myth pattern about there having been a golden age in the past form which things had only gotten worse.

"And now that I have your education improved
it is time to return to my home that I moved.
Please try not to get in trouble again
for I'll likely not hear if you're dragged to a den."

I nodded, and turned to the path heading back to Ponyville - and, fairly suddenly, really really didn't want to be by myself. "Er - maybe I should go back to your place..."

"Shoo, and be off, and do not worry as such.
You've slain your first dragon, and few claim as much.
Just let me know if you find magic within you,
and whether it's blood-strength, or all cows have it too."

And that was the end of that. She went her way, and I reluctantly turned to go mine. My trip out of the forest went a lot slower than the trip in - I paused at practically every step, and jumped at every shadow. While I was passing through the safe trail through the middle of the poison joke patch, I heard and smelt a set of carnivores coming near, and only through sheer force of will kept myself from bolting and running straight away through the blue flowers, which would have added some unknown level of interestingness to my life. Instead, I simply laid right down, keeping my head, and the horns I kept forgetting I had, aimed in the direction of the meat-eaters; and either they didn't see me, or they didn't like poison joke any more than I did, because they just kept on moving. I couldn't even tell you what they were, they never came into actual view.

Finally arriving at ponyville, my first stop was to get my clothes laundered - Rarity would likely swoon if she saw them in their current state - and my second to get a message written to Micro Scope back in Canterlot, to have her ship Zecora's requested shopping on tomorrow's train. But after that was all done, I was out of busywork, and had nothing to distract me from my thoughts. I tried settling onto a bench in a park, to see if I could mindlessly chew some cud, but just couldn't get comfortable. So I got back to my hooves and started wandering aimlessly around town... and eventually noticed a pattern to my aimlessness: wherever the largest collection of ponies happened to be, that's where I seemed to be wandering towards. I didn't feel any particular need to chat with them, or join with what they were doing, or act in any way extroverted - I was just finding it most... comfortable to be in the middle of a crowd.

As I circled around town hall, I tried to think about this as rationally as I could. It was a change in behavior for me - at the least, a change from my behavior as a human. I'd once gone a couple of weeks without saying a single word to another living person, and hadn't even noticed. Previously, I'd been able to predict, at least roughly, my feelings and actions. But now... it was more than just not being able to sleep without hearing other cattle or ponies. Maybe it was some magical effect from the cockatrice blood. Maybe that jolt of adrenaline as I came close to being dead had kicked my body's instincts into full gear. Maybe I was finally experiencing the full emotional reaction of getting torn from the only world I'd believed existed; shoved into a body which couldn't even pick up a quill; punted into a society in which I was, in a way, a second-class citizen, not to mention a functional illiterate; and generally made confused about pretty much everything I experienced, large and small. But the upshot was... all the plans I'd been scheming and plotting and preparing had one teensy little assumption that was coming into question: that I knew myself, at least to a certain extent. Now... now, I could no longer avoid facing the idea that more of me might have changed than just my physical body. I was afraid of things I hadn't been before. I wanted to be around others in a way I never had. I was... well, the simplest way to look at it was that I was Missy, a cow, not just a human stuck in a cow's body. I didn't know if I was ever going to meet the being who'd punted me into Equestria; or, if they did, what might happen to me... so I had to not just face, but truly acknowledge, that it was not just possible, but likely, that this was the me I'd be spending the rest of my life as, and the world I'd be spending it in. Never to see anything of Earth again: My family, the people I knew on the Internet, every human who was a complete stranger, the cafe I liked reading in at three in the morning, the university, Canada, Toronto, dollars, science-fiction movies... the only way I'd ever taste a hamburger again was if I became a cannibal.

There was only one thing I could think to do. To heck with the timeline.

I cleared my throat, and tried to remember how the melody went. "It's true some days are dark and lonely... and maybe you feel sad..."

A familiar pink blur hopped down from a rooftop and finished the line. "But Pinkie will be there to show you that it isn't that bad!"

What ensued was a completely scrambled-up version of the song I remembered - probably had to do with starting in the middle. But with dozens of ponies joining in the impromptu parade and sing-a-long, I felt part of something larger than myself, and that seemed to be exactly what I needed right at that moment. Everything went quite well...

... right up to the moment I discovered just how bad an idea it is for a cow to play parkour on straw rooftops.

Comments

[Cry Havoc]

Lolz.

Admittedly, I would miss TDot as well...

[NovaSethyr]

Ooooh, I love me some internal conflicts and introspection.

[AppleTank]

A TARDIS materializes, grows a leg, then kicks you for screwing up the timeline.

[AliCentaur Br0ny]

dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Cheerilee.png Now fillies and colts, what sound does a cockatrice make?
dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Applebloom_lolface.png dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/sillyfilly_Sweetie_Belle.png Squish!

Cows doing parkour...

[Blank!]

Cause I love to see you beam beam beam...

Doing great. I had a problem with the previous chapters being a bit too dry for my taste, but you're beginning to show some sense of humor. I'd like a little more mirth and cheer, though; put your clown suit on!

[DataPacRat]

1348975
The earlier chapters aren't my best work - if I ever bring this to a neat finish and do some editing, they're the ones that would get the most facelifting. But I'm glad that you've gotten this far, and as far as I can tell, things only get better from here on in.

[coandco]

I didn't know if I was ever going to meet the being who'd punted me into Equestria; or, if they did, what might happen to me...

This doesn't quite parse. "Didn't know if I was going to meet... or if they did...". Who is the "they" referring to here? It would make more sense as "or, if I did...".

[Organized Chaos]

;_;