Marie did not have good dreams. Her entire world was a raining, stormy mess, flashing white as she bumped and rolled down an endless hill. The impact at the end was always the same, violent enough that she could hear it through her bones instead of her ears.
But then there were others. She was still asleep, that was undeniable—but somehow she wasn’t alone anymore? Like a crowd of ghostly spectators were crowding around her. Not to mock—this wasn’t school—they were here to help her.
Maybe the unicorn would help her. She knew one now, and a dragon too. Maybe they were already helping her.
Then she heard a voice, and color returned to life. There was something bright and warm out there in the waking world, where she wanted to be.
“It’s time to wake up now,” said the voice, and at once Marie recognized it. It was the unicorn, she knew it even though she’d never heard another being’s thoughts before in her life.
“Where am I?”
“Asleep,” answered the voice. “Your friends are very worried about you, and the sun is rising. You need to wake up. Come towards me.”
She tried. It was like so many of her running dreams, where something terrible would be chasing her and yet the world underneath somehow held her fast. She pushed, and was pushed back in return.
“Good. Keep going. I can’t do it for you.”
“It hurts!” she protested. “Something is holding me! How do I get out?”
She kicked out again, and this time felt her legs clearly for a second. That gave her a point of focus, a reminder that she was alive.
Marie pushed again, and something tore. She felt moisture against her legs, and the chill burned her skin. She winced, curled back up.
“You can’t stay,” said the voice, firm. “If you stay, you’ll die. You have to come out now.”
Die. Marie was not ready for that, not after discovering that everything she’d been told was wrong, that magic was real and the world was beautiful. She couldn’t leave it now.
She kicked again, and this time she actually heard something tear. There was a splash, and the comfortably warm bubble of moisture around her suddenly felt more like a tent with all the supports pulled out.
Marie struggled out of the opening and onto a stone floor. Her eyes wouldn’t open, yet somehow she could feel the others all around her. Eight of them in all, though some were further away and asleep. They lit up the space around them like the glow of little candles, somehow illuminating the stone floor and ceiling above her.
I’m in the cave with the magical creatures. My friends are with me.
“That was… disgusting,” David muttered, his voice barely a whisper.
“Like to see you do better,” Helen spat. “Now get out while we clean her up. I’ll tell you when it’s safe.”
“What happened?” Marie asked, using the simplest method she had. It took her a few seconds to realize her voice hadn’t actually made any noise, even though it had felt the same.
“They can’t hear you like that,” the unicorn said. “Can you open your eyes? Try opening your eyes first.”
Marie stirred, trying and failing to push herself into a sitting position. Her head ached, like it sometimes did on the days when there weren’t enough cans at home and they didn’t eat much. It felt strange, but it wasn’t the only part of her that did. Her skin still burned where it touched the air, though that sensation was dying down everywhere but her back.
Then she opened her eyes, and was washed in a world of grays. The cave floor below her, her own hand, the distant fire…
But then she looked up, and saw the towel in Helen’s offered hand. Slate gray, except where her hand touched it. Helen herself looked unchanged, bright orange hair and green eyes and brownish freckles on her face. “Here.” She put the towel in Marie’s hand, and the bright from where she’d touched turned gray like everything else. “If you can move, you can get that slime off. We got your clothes dry by the fire, they’re right there.” She pointed “Boys are gone, you can get dressed.”
“Not that it makes any sense,” said the dragon, emerging from the cave. Bright orange, her scales almost as bright as Helen’s hair. When she stepped near the fire, it got its color back too. “There were more important things to save from the Solidarity than our clothes, we didn’t even bring any. Dunno why you wanted Gallus and Sandbar to leave.”
“Same reason David had to leave,” Helen answered, defiant. “Look at what’cha bloody did to ‘er, Ocellus! Have ‘ya ever met her mum? She’s gonna burn down half of Brighton when she sees, see if she doesn’t.” The colors around Helen changed as she spoke, from warm and inviting reds to sickly, disgusted greens. And was that a smell too? Like week old fish or the garage whenever the council let her mum get out of hand.
What she did to me, Marie thought, holding out the towel in one hand. It looked the same. She sat up, and had to resist the lightheadedness as blood rushed momentarily down. And into… what? Why did her back feel so cold?
“I’m sorry,” said Ocellus’s voice from beside her. But when she turned, there wasn’t a unicorn sitting there. Ocellus’s voice came from the body of a creature that had shrunk considerably, with a pastel blue shell and red frills down its back. Its eyes were blue and lacked a pupil, as insect-like as the rest of her. “I didn’t know what else to do. You would’ve died.”
“That’s what’ya keep sayin’,” Helen snapped. “But we didn’t try to get ‘er to a hospital, did we? Might be we could’a… got there in time.”
“Maybe,” Ocellus agreed, and this time Marie could watch her speak. She was the same being, though she looked nothing alike. “Now we don’t get to find out.”
Marie started getting dressed, her body moving sluggish and strange. Mostly she was going through the motions, getting the slime off as best she could. “What happened to the color?” Marie asked, and this time she said the words out loud. Moving was helping her, reminding her of the way her body ought to work. “Almost everything is…”
“It’s yer eyes,” Helen answered, stopping Ocellus with a glare. “They’re, uh… they ain’t good. And there’s…” She reached up, touching her own forehead with her hand. “Yeah. Not lyin’ to ya,’ Marie. Might not need a Halloween costume next year.”
Marie finished with her clothes, and as the top went on she could feel the fabric against her back in a way that didn’t seem natural. Something moved back there, lifting the cloth up and away from her skin for a moment.
“Could you…” She nodded back towards Helen. “I can’t see behind me. Unless you have a mirror.”
Helen nodded, expression softening. “Course, Marie.” She circled around, then lifted the cloth away with one hand. Marie could feel it shake, and in it somehow taste Helen’s disgust. It mixed with the sympathy and kindness, turning what should’ve been delicious into a disgusting mess.
“Christ almighty, those ‘er wings. Why in god’s name does she have wings now?”
“I told you!” Ocellus was on her hooves again, and when she did she was taller than either of them. “She was going to be different! If I knew another way to help her I would have!”
“Where’s my phone?” Marie asked, searching around in vain. “I, uh… I need to see.”
“You can come back in, David! She’s decent. Might need some scissors to fix that top, though. Don’t look comfortable like that.”
“Isn’t,” she responded. David emerged through the opening in the cave a moment later, along with… two creatures she hadn’t seen before. Well, not in person anyway. She’d seen these blurry outlines from pier security cameras. One of them looked like a horse, except that his colors and proportions were wrong. The other… she’d seen an animal like that on the crests of some mainland countries. But they’d always seemed more regal than that, not chicks that had flown from the nest a little too early.
David stopped dead in the cave entrance, staring openly.
“I don’t understand…” Marie squeaked, finding that at least her voice still seemed the same. She had so many questions, but this one came first. “We were… here to bring food to the magical creatures. Going to meet them all… how did I…” She reached up, to run her hand through her hair as she always did when she was nervous.
Except it bumped into something in the way, something sharp and…
She froze, eyes widening. There was a horn poking free of her forehead, crooked and misshapen but still unmistakable.
“What happened to me?”
“Let her tell,” Helen said, sitting down on one of the large stones beside the fire and pulling out her phone. “She did it.”
“She helped,” the dragon said. “I don’t appreciate you talking to my friend like that.”
“I don’t understand what everyone is so upset about,” said another of the strangers—like the horse one and the bird one had a baby together, and the result was something somewhere in-between. At least she didn’t seem angry, or disgusted. “She’s fine. Ocellus’s magic worked, look! She’s up and walking and even has a nice new set of wings. Ponies go crazy to get a set of wings, you should see. Unless you prefer swimming… changeling wings don’t do well when they’re wet.”
“Not now, Silverstream,” the dragon said. “Changelings and hippogriffs are the exception—most creatures don’t even transform. I’d be confused too.”
Despite how excited Marie had been to meet all of these strange and interesting animals, she found their words seemed hollow now. She couldn’t bring herself to want to learn about them when she didn’t even know what had happened to herself. Mum is going to strangle me.
“You were hurt,” Ocellus said. Her voice cut through all the others, seeming somehow more… real. She wasn’t just speaking out loud, but her voice came with thoughts at the same time. “You fell trying to make it to us. Hit your head.”
“Hey, uh… horse things… there’s a… some stuff outside…” David’s voice seemed so distant to Marie, like an out of tune radio station. What was he talking about again?
She remembered—or remembered something about hitting her head. There had been lots of falling in her dream.
“I fell.” Marie sat down on the cave floor, glancing briefly out the entrance. “Where’s my phone, Helen?” I want to see.”
“Your phone… didn’t make it,” she said, tossing something onto the cave in front of her. It had snapped almost cleanly in two, with only a little bending in the middle and a web of cracks along either side of the screen. “It fell too. You can use mine. Maybe use your reflection or something.”
Marie took it, though she was still listening to the one called Ocellus. “And you—why are you different? You were a unicorn, I remember.”
“I looked like one, because… changelings scare some creatures. They remember the way we used to be, not the way we are. You’re… more the former, but I can help you get through that.”
She had no idea what that meant, and just now Marie didn’t really care. She needed to see. So she turned, until the sunlight just peeking through the cave entrance was behind her, and she could use an off screen as a mirror.
It wasn’t as bad as she’d expected from their reactions. Her eyes were the worst, a solid gray lacking a pupil or iris. Her teeth looked a little different, canines maybe a little longer than they’d been the night before. And she had a horn, about as long as her thumb. She could probably hide it in her hair if she really tried, but… the eyes would be tougher.
And the wings, can’t forget about the wings.
Some quiet part of her mind far in the background almost laughed. You asked to go to Hogwarts, didn’t you? You wanted to be magic. You get your wish.
Except now she wanted nothing more than to go home and forget this had ever happened.
Marie passed the phone back, nearly dropping it. “H-how long…” She found the buglike Ocellus, the “changeling.” “How long does this last?”
“Forever.”
“Guys, you really need to see this!” He held out his phone, then pulled out the earplugs he was wearing. Its speakers filled the cave, a bit washed out but still impossible to miss.
The voice sounded as gray as most things looked—like an object. “Tsunami warnings include mandatory evacuations for the following North Sea villages. Scarborough, Bridlington, Hornsea, Filey…” The list went on, but that was when Marie finally noticed what was on the screen.
It was a satellite image of the Earth, aimed straight down at the North Sea. Except that a good third of the “sea” was no longer there.
She wasn’t the only one to notice, either. “I dunno how we got so lost. Equestria was right there the whole time.”
Well, ain't this suddenly turn into a wee bit more than just a small adventure with a few school kids.
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Just a tiny bit. Hardly noticeable
Huh. So now Marie is a partial changeling and can sense emotions. I kinda expected that.
And apparently, Celestia somehow managed to drop the entire continent of Equestria through the spacetime continuum and into the North Sea. I did NOT expect that, AT ALL. Can you say "interdimensional incident"?
This is gonna be exciting. But seriously tho, poor Marie...
This story is exceeding all of my expectations. Go black changeling humans!
Now Marie is essentially a fairy! Yay! (I am looking on a bright side of the things).
While I still like this story and will still follow it, I really came here for "advantures bunch of teens in the foreign land" kind of story, not "worlds collide" type of story.
Also, considering that ponies larger that humans in this story, and it takes a day on train to go from Ponyville to Canterlot, I don't think Equestria will fit into Northern Sea, it is not too late change its location to open Atlantic Ocean, west of Ireland.
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A third of the north sea is almost the size of england. Add to that that equestrian trains arent as powerfull as modern human trains and have to climb a mountain to reach centerlot and a day traveltime makes sense.
9328220
It still it fast enough that even pegasi use it, I am not claiming that Equestria is superhuge, but it is likely as big as Western Europe.
Well, at least Marie is alive...
A third of the North Sea waves bye bye when Equestria drops in?
Holland is stuffed.
Twilight Sparkle: I didn't know how to take you back to Equestria, so instead I took Equestria to you.
I am trying to fit this into this in my mind.
But it looks like Mount Aris would have landed near the Netherlands at least when all of the map got transported.
9328356
This is what I was talking about, there is plenty of space at west, why author need to squeeze in North Sea. At this point this still can be fixed, though it seem it has some plot relevance.
What a twist!
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That last bit was certainly unexpected...
9328313
Lets hope the water displacement is kept at a minimum because yhea if i tidal wave were to hit, half the Netherlands would drown.
Can't come to Equestria? That's okay, Equestria can come to you!
Oh yeah, this is going to be a total PR nightmare for everyone, I can already tell. But hey...it's making for an interesting story, so...there's that.
9328356
Actually, if you assume the Equestria map IS at least close to scale, then it would fit nicely into the North Sea. And even if you were to round that up a bit, I'd think roughly similar size to the British Isles isn't too unfair an estimate for the world of Equestria--those isles are bigger than they might look in a satellite image--and that'd still fit in the North Sea, though maybe not as nicely. I suppose, though, that if Equestria only takes up about a third of that sea, then I reckon that makes it fairly equivalent to that of just England in size in this instance...
But that's also not that too unfair an assessment, I figure. Most assume Equestria to be roughly equivalent in size to that of the North American continent, given its clear North American parallels in design, but given some of the scales between locations that the show seems to portray (keep in mind that we aren't always given a good sense of how far away most locations in Equestria are in relation to everything else--most of the time, the travel time is just cut out entirely, transporting the cast from point A to point B in a brief scene transition, so some working on just estimates of where they all might be in relation to each other is required and the apparent scale those exact locations appear to be when visited directly in the show compared with the map), rounded up a little for safety, and that actually, probably would be not too far off from what the fic describes...or at least close enough that I for one am willing to roll with it. I mean, it's not like we've got exact canon dimensions for the whole MLP world, let alone the one country of Equestria, and that'd still leave plenty of room to fit all of the needed landmarks.
I also assume that it's JUST Equestria--locations such as the Dragon Lands, Griffonstone, maybe even Yakyakistan, were not included in the jump. Though I guess only time will tell.
Ah yes. Huge continental size tsunami. Please evacuate the costal villages. Even though a thing like that will not reach the coast.
Oh no.
It will surpass it.
I will point on... umh... surpass England... completly... no... make it all of Britain... maybe... half of France and Germany... everyone in Belgium and especially on the Netherlands dies... Norway gets badly hit... Sweden a little bit less... well... with some luck, the sacriface of all of the inhabitants of England will save Ireland...
So in the end... I point on deaths in the milions... hundreds of milions...
For starters. I'm not willing to calculate what a thing like that will cause to climate but I assume that something will go estinct somewhere... probably not mankind, but who knows...
Umh wasn't there a movie with The Rock about this...? Oh no it was "2012" with John Cusack... the one with Dwane "The Rock" Johnson was "San Andreas" (it was on a very minimal scale, in comparison...).
I do so love chatastrophic movies! "The day after tomorrow" holds a special place in my heart!
So yes. Kudos to Celestia for the dislocation of the continent on Earth. I'm shure that the milions of humans wich lives where ruined will be forgiving. Well that untill America finds about the complety untouched oil fields in Equestria (they have dinousaurs, so oil, that they do not use). Goodbye colorfull ponies of love and friendship. Ya'll gonna get peacekeeped for the glory of the capitalistric black gold.
So, how many creatures we needed to save? 6? Well that will shurely explain the relocation of a continent.
Still trying to stop fire with gasoline, Celestia, aren't we?
Ah yes, the girl is half bug now... probably a tidy bit more important for the story... but considering that they will all drown in the next... hour or so, I will point it as secondary.
Well this was deadly enough. If you excuse me, I'll be on my roof with a canoe, in case I misjudged and it actually reaches Italy, I do soffer of rheumatism. I would like to remain dry.
9328716
Oh, how fool of me... I've lost my occasion to make a: "In soviet Equestria Humans don't go in Equestria. Equestria goes to the Humans" meme...
You beated me on the time, now my meme empire has taken a hit...
I will not forget this...
9328107
I really hope there isn't a tsunami from this or millions... many millions are going to die soon. You'd only need to look back at the relatively "tiny" underwater upheaval a few years ago that managed to kill almost 300,000 people.
9328791
You assume this was done deliberately by somepony--as the story hasn't explicitly stated as such yet, I hesitate to assume it was. For all we know, it could have been the same thing that first brought the Young Six to England in the first place, deciding it might as well go all the way. No one in Equestria might have had a say in the matter, just like the Young Six didn't.
9328795
Oh dear. I will tread lightly, then.
9328812
Yeah, true.
But considering how sun pony handled (hoofeded?) the last big situation she find herself into ("Ah yes. Discord will stop Tirek"-"Your magesty, that will be like trying to stop a bar fight by insulting the two that are fighting"-"NONSENSE! I control the Sun") I'm pretty confident in ponting my pointy accusatory finger of mass destruction at her.
Oh do not fear me. I'm not so dangerous... for now. Italin dominance will happen. If not now, soon.
Hey, maybe they can teach her to shape-shift and then she can pretend she's still human for the rest of her life.
On the other hand, hiding that something is going on may have just gotten a lot more difficult.
So the Young 6 left Equestria from somewhere off the West coast (I forget where), and landed in London, England.
Now Equestria has suddenly appeared in the North Sea which (thanks to the previous commenters for confirming this) is located to the East of the Super Isle.
My inner compass is thrown completely out of whack.
I doubt Equestria arriving caused any tidal waves... more likely the water that would've been displaced ended up in Equestria's old location.
Of course, if it was ONLY Equestria, there's now a massive amount of water where the most powerful country used to be... trade is probably all but wrecked for the other groups.
9329014
EXTREME rescue mission!
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*sits in chair, wind blowing red mane, muzzle left open*
Dat escalated quickly
Okie, lets see if this ramps up like the Message in a bottle, and be done in not the conversion bureau style as been done before *have a contract to sign of soul, again*
Well this though solves the issue being looked for right away with the sheer level of chaos on the human side, then we have the chaos on the poor equestrian side, i mean when Celestia and Luna tries to reach out and do their daily royal task to find
A.) Have no power over these celestial bodies at all
B.) Can reach them, feel them, and the sheer size and ferocity ( in case of the sun ) is a buck to the barrel and hold up the sign "nope nope nope, that aint right"
C.) They can control them at full like the ones before but can feel all well these are not theirs
Last option would obliterate the known solar system, bye mars missions and the like, i wager B be the most sensible, but A too works.
Now once the tsunami alert subsides ( i reckon there won't be any, due nature of the magical transportation as it happened, because if so, and we know our own nature, there be more mushroom clouds over equestria then Kkat original FoE story, pain and sheer fear combo and nukes ) Every spy satellite, geographical satellite, low earth orbit or geostationary that can be moved to observe, will do so, fleets mobilised as well scout aircrafts. And landing parties. A continent don't appear without gain the attention of an entire planet of tech savvy civilisation for a long time ( 24 hours and all will know about it, believe it? maybe not, but by a week it be like, yep, this is happening ) And our young six + smaller three be instrumental in achieving peace for good.
Starscribe
what else do you have in your arsenal there, i fear al.... ohhh... *shivers then laughs *
videos.metro.co.uk/pix/met/2016/10/13/13/395A249900000578-0-image-a-11_1476360729619.jpg
9329232
Can confirm that is not where this story is going. Been there, done that with Friendly Fire and Unwilling Recruit.
*waves hoof in fancy manner as bows*
My soul~
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Though, could we get a rough draw about Equestria on the map, to better picture it? ( Did looked up the actual locations on google map for reference thus far ) its a small, yet a nice spice if it's added at a point.
As for celestia doing this? She is more about moving the sun and being Equestrias mom, this is Discord or, heh, Harmony level magic. And before i get shot, torped, or nuked, think about it. Harmony, yanked back all magic to equestria when was about to be drained away. Harmony powered up the main six to give it to Tirek, and at such high level it looked like Tirek be an equivalent of 2 years old unicorn foal trying to wage a tantrum battle vs an alicorn super nani. Bad Tirek, in the corner with you
If the students won't come to Equestria, Equestria will come to the students. And shove a good portion of the Atlantic out of the way in the process. I don't see this ending well. Hopefully Ocellus can coach Marie through her pastel metamorphosis before they all get distracted with not drowning.
Well, things certainly escalated quickly. Even if there was an hour or two of warning, a tsunami hitting the British isles or Western Europe would kill millions. By the way, the story only has a Drama tag. Not Dark/Grimdark or gore. Is that correct or do the tags need updating now?
On the bright side, at least Marie only got wings, a horn and new eyes. Full pony-conversion has been averted, yay!
I’m not so sure this is the best direction to have taken this in, but then again I’ve no idea myself of what else it could be at this point.
9330996
Be that as it may, it still is a permanent change as stated by Ocellus.
Marie may not have the flight magic that lets all the equestrian creatures fly when they shouldnt or she might not have the protection magic that saves them when they fall.
I kind of want them to find out that Ocellus made Marie sterile.
Yup, I can confirm that.
Is it just me or are the cliffhangers getting bigger and bigger each time?
Holy *buck* WHAT
Well, it wouldn't be a Starscribe story if it didn't have human-equestrian assimilation.
Let's see how badly it derails this story.
Oh, if you think that's the extent of the fun that's begun, just wait until it's time for "sundown" and "moonrise"
But wait! There's more:
Luna: "Celie! I haz whole planetz to playz with! Taka look at THIS one! " *yanks Jupiter over next to the moon*
Celestia: "Wow! That's a big one, Luna! "
Luna: "That's not all! There's another almost as big, and IT'S GOT RINGS!! "
The rest of humanity: ""
BTW, did Equestria take the place of Dogger's Bank in the North Sea?
Oil comes from the massive first forest, not from dinosaurs.
When the first tree cells appeared, there were no bacteria that could attack it. So the carbon in them was removed from the world's biomass, and just buried and formed pools of oil over time.
I don't know the exact sequence of chemistry that removes the oxygen/nitrogen/others, but leaves the hydrogen. Just that the result after too many centuries is hydrogen-carbon chains.
But no, oil is not "Dino-corp", no matter what a Disney/Pixar movie might indicate.