Chapter 3: Star
Hayden’s search for a mirror paid dividends in very short order. The tower had a bathroom, though like everything else it was built to a medieval standard. That meant it was part of the same room as the bedroom, with a woven screen to separate it and nothing else. The rest of the facilities were… similarly primitive, betraying an underlying ignorance of sanitation and hygiene.
What I could do with a handful of general contractors and a trip to the Home Depot… but there were no general contractors here. There was no sign at all of anything human.
At least they still had mirrors. Unfortunately for Hayden, being in front of a mirror confirmed everything he had feared. To some extent he had been able to feel much of what he was seeing, but the body was so alien he hadn’t been able to reconcile what he was feeling with his suspicions. Now, though… Hayden’s imagination was satisfied in painful detail.
As if she had needed more reasons to curse Luna for this magic, and to wish for speedy return to her home. Denver wasn’t a perfect place to live, but it was better than the damn horse middle ages. Even the unexplained things she’d seen—the ability to change bodies completely, or float objects through the air, or transport between worlds. All those things were interesting, and would’ve changed her view of the universe forever.
If she had still been herself. If she’d still been herself, this might be an opportunity. Hayden hadn’t worked for a prestigious firm, she’d done grunt work designing civil buildings for the city and barely making enough to live on. What she knew about design might be able to make a real difference in a world where royalty didn’t even have running water.
But instead I’m this. Hopefully Luna can send me home like she promised.
She didn’t send Hayden home that day.
Luna did return in later afternoon, accompanied by another alien. This one was shorter than she was, though also more thickly built, and with a distinctly masculine smell to him. As though Hayden needed any more convincing that these creatures did use the standard mammalian model, and she was in fact now completely misplaced within that model.
The alien had pale fur and a mane that seemed white more as a matter of age than color. His body was a little shriveled in ways the others hadn’t been, suggesting far greater age. He had a horn like Luna did, but no wings. He walked with a slight limp with his right foreleg, though despite the many steps outside the door he had apparently made it up without issue.
“Ah, Hayden,” Luna said, hurrying across the room. “I hope you’ve been well in my absence. Haven’t tried to escape into the castle, that’s good. This will be better for both of us if you remain cooperative.”
Hayden was still in the bathroom, but she walked away from the tile to meet Luna in the center of the room, on the carpet. “Is this guy going to send me home?” she asked, nodding towards the stallion. “I’ll cooperate with anything you like if that’s what he’s here to do. I have work tomorrow, and I can’t miss it. Skyrise is really strict with their vacation days.”
“Return you home…” the male said, walking up beside Hayden and looking her over. “I see she speaks our language. And appears much like any other mare.” Hayden felt something tickle the edge of one of her wings, like a pair of invisible fingers gently pulling it open. She resisted the desire to jerk away, afraid that doing so might snap her weak bones.
The stranger extended the wing all the way, looking at her wings through the light streaming in from the window. “Well, almost like any other mare. Some of these mutations are entirely unique. Are you certain you weren’t trying to create them, Princess?”
“Entirely certain,” Luna said, her voice glum. “I was trying to summon a goetic demon, Star Swirl. Hayden here is clearly not that. She has her own identity, her own possessions, and apparently a culture and history—”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so confident of that.” Whatever was holding Hayden’s wing finally let go, and she folded it quickly to her side.
“Excuse me—I’m right here. Please don’t talk about me like this is some laboratory experiment.” That silenced Star Swirl, who stared at her with an expression of mild surprise. “I have a home I want to go back to, whoever you are. A fam— a life, anyway. It wasn’t awesome, but it was mine, and I worked hard to have it. The sooner you can send me back where I belong, the better.”
“Hmm.” Star Swirl stared at her again. A faint glow emanated from the horn on his head, though this time Hayden didn’t feel anything but a general, diffuse warmth throughout her entire body. “I will admit, the mental faculties seem somewhat more advanced than other attempts I have studied. But… Hayden, you said? Other than her behavior and mental abilities, everything suggests the spell worked.”
“Excuse me?” Luna said, pointing at Hayden with one exaggerated hoof. “This isn’t what you described at all!”
The stallion bowed. “Forgive me princess, but this is exactly what I described. Tell me… aside from questioning this creature, have you examined her pattern?”
Luna blinked, looked back at Star Swirl, and then her horn began to glow as well. This time Hayden could feel it, like a low-level electric charge passing through her whole body. It was what she imagined airport x-ray scanners to be like, except of course there was no way to feel those. This, though…
Star Swirl must be her teacher. Her… magic teacher? If he’s better at this than she is.
“Oh.” Luna’s horn stopped glowing. “It did work? But… but her possessions! Her manner of speech… how is this possible?”
“Excuse me,” Hayden said again, a little louder this time. She spread her wings as she spoke, making herself look bigger. “Can someone please tell me what the hell you’re talking about? Is this ‘goetic demon’ a technique to send me home? Maybe a machine you’re hiding somewhere?”
They both stared at her. Luna seemed annoyed, but Star Swirl… he seemed to be seeing her for the first time. Or maybe this was just the first time he’d met her eyes. “You aren’t a person on your own, pony Hayden. Princess Luna wanted to create something… a piece of herself she could use to improve her own nature. It appears one of two things has taken place. Either she brought a being from another world and transformed you into her demon, or else the spell worked as intended and we do not know the internal worlds as well as we thought we did.”
“Is that possible, Star Swirl?” Luna asked, staring at Hayden again. “She’s so lifelike. So intelligent… and the objects she brought didn’t fade as you suggested they would.”
He shrugged. “It defies the rules of the Orinos as I understood them. But we have no record of this magic from the Alicorns. It is possible this effect is natural for you. Maybe Alicorn souls are more… real… than the rest of ours. Who can say?”
“I can,” Hayden said, stomping one hoof. “I am from a planet called Earth. My people are called humans—we walk on two legs, and we’re a damn sight more advanced than this.” She gestured at the building all around them. “You’ve kidnapped me. My world will not be happy about it when they discover I’m gone.” Of course, Hayden mostly meant that his boss would be pissed when he didn’t come into work tomorrow, then probably fire him when he failed to answer his phone. The police would be called, and eventually someone would find his car parked at the trailhead. Maybe they’d find the mountainside ripped right off the cliff. But even if they did, what would they do about it?
“Remember everything I told you about a demon, Princess. Like it or not, this being has become exactly what I described. She represents those aspects you wished to excise from within yourself. If she dies, they will be destroyed. If she is changed, you will change.”
Luna began to pace back and forth in front of her, expression getting darker by the moment. “Don’t her threats worry you, Star Swirl? How many creatures could stand before an Alicorn and say such things? Maybe she is telling the truth—maybe these ‘humans’ are terrible enemies. We should return her.”
“Perhaps.” Star Swirl shrugged one shoulder. “But remember, she is made of your power. Why should an Alicorn be afraid of her reflection? She is you, Princess. Your power, your soul, and whatever else you were dredging up.”
“Loneliness,” Luna whispered. “Alienation, social ineptitude, cowardice.”
“Hey!” Hayden strode right up to Star Swirl, so that she was looking up into his face. Male or not, taller or not, she wasn’t afraid. She’d fight her way out if that was the only option left to her. “I’m not asking whether you want to send me home. I’m telling you, send me home. Or I swear, you’ll live to regret it.”
Star Swirl laughed. “Social ineptitude, princess? Perhaps. But hardly cowardice. Clearly you weren’t as afraid as you thought.”
Luna sat down on her haunches, watching Hayden again. Her eyes had gone cold and calculating. Not the least bit intimidated by Hayden’s anger, or moved by her threats. “Suppose she is correct, Star Swirl. Can she be returned to her world? I must have done the spell wrong in that case… she could be from anywhere. How would we find it if her only sympathetic connections are to me?”
Star Swirl nodded towards the pile of junk. “She might be a part of you, Princess, but these objects are not. Their survival in this world means they come from a strong realm. If even one of them has a connection to another person, it could be followed back. Otherwise… a search of the multiverse would be doomed to fail. You might wander for a thousand years and never find her home. Even if you found it, time might not move at the same speed. Without a tether to another soul, you’ll never find your way there.”
“And if we don’t send her back,” Luna continued. “The purpose of the spell would still function as you discussed. Even though she’s… like this?”
Star Swirl nodded again. “It could, Princess.”
“Very well.” Luna rose again. There was something regal in her motion, something stern in her eyes. For a second, Hayden thought she might sense some of the power Luna had described. She didn’t just have a horn, she was unlike every other pony here. Star Swirl’s “magic” might be better, but they had nothing on this. “Human creature called Hayden, I have made my decision. You wish to be returned to your world. I wish for something else. You will help me, and in exchange, I will try to send you back. Assuming you are not merely a figment of my spirit, destined to be destroyed and absorbed when your independence is removed.”
Hayden opened her mouth to argue, then she saw Luna’s face. Alien or not, there was clearly no arguing with her. So, she nodded. “That is fair, Luna.”
“Princess Luna,” she corrected. “While you are here, you will demonstrate proper respect to me in my own house. The others will not exempt you from our laws, so I must not.” She gestured to the wings. “Star Swirl, she looks like a monster. Do you have a spell for that?”
He laughed again, as jovial as he had before. “Forgive me Princess, but I have never encountered anyone quite like this.” Hayden felt a brief surge of intense pain from her head, and a few hairs from her mane came loose, drifting through the air towards Star Swirl. “There, now I have samples. It may take some time, however. Perhaps you should bring the master clothier. Or… perhaps a costumier. Were it not for her wings, she might pass for a pegasus. So long as she doesn’t smile.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.022 seconds
Total duration
1,009 users online
23,138 hits today, 2,244,100 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I'm surprised he doesn't mention that he was also male. Anyways I can't wait for him to start talking about technology that's beyond their imagination and the knowledge to back it up. That'll show that Princess Luna screwed up.
Oh, I am seething here. You've perfectly captured the frustration of dealing with a know-it-all who actually knows nothing.
8355818
I suppose he–or she, now– simply chose not to. If they don't believe that she was a person of her own before being summoned, it's likely that they wouldn't believe she used to be male.
You may want to change that from intense to slight. Otherwise it sounds more like the amount of pain one could expect if Starswirl scalped her.
Well, at least they aren't completely dismissing out of hand the possibility that Hayden really is from another world. It could be worse.
They have a deal. This make things more interesting
For a moment I tought that they had realized that s/he is her/his own person/pony. But no, they didn't.
I'm asking myself what can show them that they are wrong and had kidnapped someone from their world. 
8356059
I'm with you
I'll be here the next week to see what happens next
Ah, there is the cowardice. Accepting such a vague request without any details.
Granted, it's not like Hayden has a lot of choice here, but there are so many questions, so many things to consider. After all, did not Luna's steward assume Hayden was Luna's concubine? Is Hayden not in mortal peril from Luna's sister and other ponies? What could Hayden do with an unfamiliar body that Luna couldn't get somepony else to do? How long will this arrangement last? Hayden risks permanent consequences every moment in Equestria for no benefit save appeasing the unrepentant kidnapper, Luna, and her teacher who has little to no regard for Hayden's existence.
Fuck these ponies, they've massively screwed him over and show no compassion about it. Hayden needs to cast "science" and show Luna and Star Swirl why humans are an apex predator on their planet.
What respect, Luna, is a kidnapper particularly owed? :P
8355818
A change in species is a bit more jarring than a change in gender, no matter how some stories might say otherwise. Sure, it's important, but bigger things are on her mind than a slight change in plumbing. She'll most likely tell Luna once things settle down, or be too embarrassed to. Either or.
8356335
Depends Hayden's level of education. Remember: humans are nothing special beyond being sapient. Ponies are sapient too, so the only reasons humans are more advanced is luck that Hayden didn't pop into existance a few thousand years into the futute. Sure, pony culture holds back things a bit, bit that's just a cultural thing, not a species thing.
8356534
But Hayden is familiar with certain bits of human technology beyond Equestrian culture. Demonstrating knowledge that Luna doesn't have should help to demonstrate his actual independence from her.
Although, given Hayden is the first ever batpony and the general style of Starscribe's humans-in-pony-bodies stories, I expect Hayden will make a life for herself in Equestria, permanently.
8356534
Sorry, but that's not true. Humans are humongously resilient when compared to mammals of similar mass. Bigger and smaller too.
We are built for endurance and adaptability, being able to digest an enormous range of animals and plants, even nearly rotten ones. We can exert effort for longer than most if not any other mammal because of how our muscles are composed, and our resistance to trauma is legendary. Most animals would be incapacitated by a broken member, and straight out die from shock at losing one. Humans, comparatively, pretty much shrug those and keep on living, even way before modern medicine. Our wound recovery is also quite fast, if a little ugly from the mass of scar tissue. And our immune systems are only surpassed by extremes like sharks and comodo dragons. Not to mention our unparalleled capacity for fine manipulation.
Basically, we are quite special even beyond sapience, but since it's the norm to us we don't notice it.
But do consider those are in a human that grows up having to face nature and suffer with it. We city folk are rather weak in those areas, but because our body wasn't put through it's paces.
8356681
I never denied any of this. I was literally only talking about technology and capacity for knowledge, nothing else. And since MLP is a fictional world, the ponies were designed EXACTLY like humans in the mental department. With maybe a few minor instinctual differences, their brains appear near identical to us in the show.
Disclaimer: I know my taxonomy and evolutionary biology, meaning I know full well how unique humans are in a physiological sense. I also love humanity and what we have accomplished. I even think if there was another sapient being IN REAL LIFE that they would think nothing like us, and perhaps there are other sapient beings and they just lack the linguistic and textile capacity to create a society and manipulate their environment (such as dolphins, as they lack hands, and octopus, as they lack a social structure/language capacities to really advance beyond being smart). However, in this context alone, humans and ponies are identical in the brain department BY DESIGN, which is a completely different story than true biology arising from natural processes.
8356676
Let us hope her knowledge of technology is practical and not passive. After all, very few people could give a description of the tech they use that couldn't be dismissed as imaginative, yet still sci-fi, elements to a primitive culture. After all, even though the idea of a helicopter has been around for millennia -- seriously, the earliest references for vertical flight was around 400 BC in China -- no one was able to make one until the logistics were worked out and society as a whole were able to specialize enough for the concept to be feasible, making individual parts cheaper (specialization and mass production are crucial to making a modern society). The average Joe does not know the logistics to much at all. Man power is still a huge factor, as specialization and hundreds of years was needed for our modern society to come about. Anything she tries to start will be slow going if her knowledge is spotty. Ideas are easy, specifics and proof of concepts are hard.
Seriously, the best she could do is claim that certain things are possible. She may be able to influence their society into the industrial revolution, but the tools needed would still have to be invented beforehand, something I doubt she could help with. She would also have had to pay attention in science class and remember all the mathematical equations she was taught, which would be fantastic if unlikely. Even I only remember about half of the basics.
Magic could help, granted, and it could even skip some of the difficult hurdles in starting an industrial revolution. But that would be up to the author in how he wants to do things. I'm open to anything, really. I trust the author very much at this point and can suspend my disbelief to an extent.
Thinking about it, she could have been the trigger for why trains were invented so long ago in Equestria, yet everything else is so primitive. A few ideas could create a few neat inventions, such as trains, but then once her practical knowledge ran dry Equestria stagnated. Maybe. Could be interesting.
8356890
) and why it would be of benefit to Equestria.
I'm not saying "show them how to build a smartphone". I'm saying "show them how to build a sewer". Hayden's internal monologue indicates that she probably has the knowledge of both how to do that (given sufficient... horsepower
8356905
Okay, I concede that the idea of a sewer can be easily communicated (it's more of an infrastructure and effort issue than a technology one, really). And other such 'low-tech' ideas. I guess I just assumed you meant the former human would, somehow, bring Equestria into the modern era in only a few short decades, as has happened in many more fics than it really should have.
8356914
I am far too committed to realism to have one hiker bring Equestria into the 21st century with nothing more than their magical human brain and some elbow grease.
8356933
Oh I have no doubts. After reading so many other of your fics, I now trust whatever you do and that your stories of magical cartoon ponies have at least some logical basis.
8356850
My bad then, I interpreted wrongly when you said
As "we are completely average animals except for that". Although I don't know how much could his previous Homan biology help in his interactions with ponies. Unless he's some kind of pony endurance monster now. It would be awesome
Edit:
8356890 if I'm not mistaken she worked as an architect? That would give the technical knowledge to at least advance their construction techniques a damn lot, to near modern levels even. Not to mention the whole lot of things about sanitation and other possible subjects learned in college. It also brings with it the mathematical knowledge for such advances - although magic research might have created calculus and other advanced mathematical techniques
8357192
The thing about animals is that we are all average in our uniqueness. Every single animal is, by the fact that they even exist, 'good enough' to have had a legacy going back to the dawn of life. This requires them to have been the fittest, in an evolutionary sense, to their specific ecological niche. No matter how broad that may be. And while nothing to scoof at, considering the vast majority of species die off, it's quite literally the same for every species alive today. From the average earthworm, to the black widow spider, and even to us. We are all different; we all have a specific way of life where we excel, while other animals would fail; and in this we are all the same.
Now, I actually feel that this makes life all the more beautiful. No singular species is 'more' or 'less' evolved than any other. More or less primitive, yes, but that's it. Some adaptions are newer than others in an evolutionary standpoint, such as our unique brains (even if the uniqueness is debatable depending on how you measure it, being very different than our closest ape relatives by some counts and barely different in others), while others are almost as old as life itself, such as RNA.
In short, my specific views on humanity as a species are too complicated to really explain in an adequate manner. But there is one thing I think we can all agree on: humanity is a facinating fluke billions of years in the making. I'm honoured to belong to a species that is able to play the role of the universe's own curiosity despite how many biological shortcomings we have in terms of primitive neurological leftovers getting in the way.
PS: I hope this doesn't feel like I'm ranting or arguing. I'm just expanding the view I gave to make myself more clear -- nothing more is intented. I'm just passionate about this topic and any excuse to talk about it I kind of latch onto, most lilely more than I really should.
8356336
Legally speaking, kidnappers who are princesses, apparently.
Well, now this is definitely interesting. Luna succeeded in a twisted way, allowing Star Swirl to confirm his presuppositions. He isn't convinced of anything beyond Hayden believing she had a life independent of Luna, and proving that is going to be tricky at minimum.
Meanwhile, the goetic link has been established, which means that Luna's going to need to think carefully about how she treats her new guest. This could backfire quite spectacularly.
8355907
^ This. Sooo much of this.
I generally like the start of your stories Starscribe, but there's always a point at which the ponies do something dickish and then just say 'Deal with it'. It wouldn't matter if these were villainous characters, but they always seem to be ponies that, on some level, we are supposed to empathise with. Yet it never works for me. The ponies start as relatable and then you introduce their bad side yet act like it isn't a big deal. But for me, it completely destroys any respect I have for that character, and taints them so that I can never be unbiased when reading about them in subsequent chapters. It's a story-killer that always causes me to stop reading. I completely respect your right to write whatever you please, but I really wish you would ditch this pattern once in a while. It's OK to have a character lacking major, functionally-malicious personality dysfunctions. Just saying.
Here's an idea Luna: Step one to improving youself? Remove that selfish aspect that relegates a sapient being to being nothing more than a thing you use to make yourself better. You remind me of a person who drugs people to steal their kidneys. ("But I need it, and that other person's life isn't as important as mine is!")
Alright. I'm pissed off.
Fuck Luna and especially fuck Starswirl.
Obviously they fucked up enormously and absolutely nothing turned out as it should have had it gone as expected, but they're still pretending everything went as planned and cheerfully enslaving a sapient alien being.
Fuck them. I had sympathy in the first chapter as it seemed they had both gotten the short end of the stick in life compared to Clover and Celestia, but it turns out there's a very good reason reason for that. They're sanctimonious know-it-all sociopathic assholes with no regard for sapient rights. No wonder no-one likes them.
8649598
Sadly, for all that it's bad writing in this day and age, if this were actually written back in the middle ages, nobody would have batted an eye. It was just normal that Nobles felt they were entitled to act that way.
(That's why the early 17th-century misunderstanding of the scope of the Magna Carta was so significant. It was a rising legal recognition that individuals had rights that not even the king could overrule.)
As for Starswirl's behaviour, studies on humans have proven that human minds (and, therefore, the minds of realistically anthropomorphized non-humans in fiction) have this flaw where, the smarter your are, the less likely you are to abandon a flawed conclusion in the face of new data.
(Because, the smarter you are, the better you are at coming up with ways to rationalize away the inconsistencies without realizing you're doing it. That's part of why science finds the truth by trying its hardest to disprove theories. It's very easy to fool ourselves into finding what we want to see.)
Oneiros
So is Hayden he or she?
Why hasn't he reacted to becoming a different gender, if so?
9200631
I would imagine there is weirder shit than just switching genders going on...
8425001
8356335
8649598
Agree with all of the above statements. You've lost me on this one.