Ch:01 - Arrival in Canterlot
The first thing I notice, as I come round into the waking world, is how cold I am. I just want to snuggle back into my blankets, but am too tired to do so. The cold isn’t that bad. Mostly. My belly is cold and wet, and I’m laying on something hard. Maybe I fell out of bed? But that doesn’t explain the wetness. And I don’t remember my carpeted floor being this hard, it feels more like concrete. The rest of my body feels only slightly uncomfortably cold, yet I can still feel the sun from above soaking into my skin and a gentle breeze blowing by.
My eyes shoot open as I begin to panic. They dart around as I take in my surroundings. This is not good! I’m in an alleyway somewhere, although I really have no idea how I got here. My first priority is to get up off the ground, laying down is quite a vulnerable position for me to be in. I force myself to take in a deep breath… and slowly let it out. Deep breath. Let it out. Deep Breath. Let it out. Alright, don’t panic. Panicking is the worst thing I can do right now. I need to get up.
I gently unfold my arms from under me, putting them down into a pushup position. Then I push myself upwards. Surprisingly, I’m met with little resistance as I jolt up into a ‘sitting position?’ It feels weird, yet natural at the same time. At least my head is facing forwards comfortably at this angle. Alright, now to get up onto my feet, I didn’t feel any dizziness before so I should be good.
I try to push myself upwards higher, but my arms are already fully extended. So I try pushing up with my legs. Just as before, my legs unfold and straighten with ease, lifting up my back and causing me to lurch forwards onto my face. Ow. Okay, it didn’t really hurt, but it’s still uncomfortable and it feels really weird. Alright, let’s try this again. I repeat the motion of positioning my front legs and pushing myself into a sitting position with ease, now for the hard part. Carefully, I make sure that my feet feel solid against the ground and gently bring myself up. Once more, I feel myself being pushed forwards as my arms and legs are too close together; so I carefully step forwards with my forearms until I’m comfortably on all fours.
Something’s wrong. Humans aren’t supposed to be comfortable on all fours. I can feel my breathing begin to quicken, but I quickly catch myself. No use panicking, remain calm and continue sensory assessment. I keep my eyes locked onto the wall ahead of me as I allow myself to calm. Wait just a second… shouldn’t my head be facing downwards. Alright, deep breaths… What else is different? Despite how cold, hard and wet the floor was, I can’t really feel it anymore under-foot… or under-hand?
I experimentally pick up a foreleg and bring it down. I don’t feel much from it. But I do hear a muffled ‘clomp’ sound. I try to move my fingers, but I get no response; same goes for my toes.
Alright, don’t jump to conclusions and most importantly, don’t panic. Slowly, I pick up my left foreleg and bring it up in front of my face. I am met with a hairy pale-blue leg, although the very tip is missing hair and of a mildly darker colour. It looks almost like a hoof? Of course, I panic. My limbs flail out from under me as I claw randomly at the ground. This in turn, causes me to fall onto my side. I freeze in pain. Carefully, I roll back onto my belly and focus on my breathing exercises. Okay, so I’m now some sort of horse-thing, a horse-thing that is blue. Where have I seen that before? Don’t tell me… I’m one of those ponies. Ugh! Still, I’m here now, so I need to focus and not panic. I guess I should find out which type I am. Turning my head, I glance down at the spot where I had fallen over before. There are a couple blue feathers on the ground. Turning my head further, I look across my back. Wings… yay… I’m so excited… No. Just no. I decide instead to ignore them.
I redirect my attention to the alleyway. The walls here appear to be made out of normal bricks, and the floor is hard pavement. There’s a few puddles here and there, but I don’t think the lighting is good enough for reflections. Not that I want to see my reflection either way. I look down the alley and can see the sun just peeking over the building at the end. It feels darker in here than it did before and judging by the sun’s position, although I can’t see the horizon for proper reference, I assume that it’s probably early-evening.
I carefully turn round, focusing on my hooves, until I am facing the other way. I have to keep my head down to avoid the discomfort against my eyes, but they soon adjust. It appears that the end of the alleyway is in that direction. I slowly make my way in that direction, coming up behind some boxes right up at the entrance. I don’t particularly want to be seen like this, in the case that I’m still on Earth. I can see a slight gap between the boxes which leads to a nice hidey-hole where I can observe without being seen. I carefully duck into the gap, but I can’t seem to fit. Instead, I am met with a pressure against my forehead. It’s a shame I can’t fit in there, it was such a nice looking place. But why not? I carefully bring my ar-hoof up to my head. I can feel my mane. It seems soft, but I can’t properly feel it through my hoof. It’s also quite long, reaching down my thin neck. I can’t quite tell how far it goes, since my foreleg can’t bend back that far, at least not without throwing me off-balance. The coldness is also keeping my skin numb, so I can’t feel it through my fur.
Okay, enough distractions. Bringing my hoof back up to my head, I brush it across. Okay, brushing your hoof over your ears just feels downright weird. Then my hoof bumps against something hard. It’s some kind of long protrusion coming from my head. I can’t feel my hoof against it, but I can feel the pressure applied to my forehead around its base. Okay, so I’m a unicorn now? Oh right, I have wings. What does that make me then? I think it’s called a pegacorn? Although I’m sure there were some in the show. That purple one. What did the show call them… alicorns? That’s not even a real word. What was it about alicorns? Oh yeah, they were… quite rare and they all lived in castles; not that the big blue tree looked anything like a castle. What else? They all called themselves princesses… Oh no… I can’t let them find me like this!
Anyway, I need to find out where I am. Since I can’t fit under the boxes, I decide to peek out from behind the ones piled up against the wall. Ponies… Ponies everywhere. And they’re all dressed up like fancy people. The fronts of the buildings are also a smooth white, which reflect an uncomfortable amount of light around the brightly lit street. The majority of these ponies are unicorns, but I see a couple pegasi gliding just overhead. I shrink back into my boxy hiding place. I’m still exposed from above! I need to find something to hide these wings, I really doubt I can do anything about the head-spike though. It’s just too long, why did it have to be a horn?
My attention is drawn back to the street by a pair of armoured ponies walking past. They are wearing dulled gold armour. I suppose it’s to prevent them from reflecting light right into everyone’s eyes. Both of them look eerily similar to each other, sharing white coats and blue manes. And I think both of them also have wings. They must be some sort of city guard. But which city am I in? Judging by the fancy clothes, fancy armour and fancy buildings; I must be in a major city.
Suddenly, a pair of ponies walk right across my view. I stumble backwards from the uncomfortable closeness, but luckily they don’t seem to notice. I strain my hearing to hear what they were talking about before they pass out of hearing range. I try to ignore the sudden twitching of my ears focusing in on them.
“...excited to visit Canterlot Castle? I heard that the royal gardens are especially…”
I had heard enough. Castle. Royal gardens. If there was a castle here, then there were likely alicorns here too, further reinforced by the mention of royal gardens. They called also the castle Canterlot Castle. Canterlot. I think I’ve heard that name. It was… the capital city… Yep, this is bad. Well, not bad bad I guess. Just I look like an alicorn, in the capital city with alicorns!
Seeing all I need to see, I turn away and head deeper into the comfort of my little alleyway. Okay, the winged ponies… pegasis can fly. Not sure how, with such tiny wings, but let’s just call it magic. Ugh, magic. Of all the places I could be, why did it have to be magical pony land. Anyway, they can fly, and they can see me from above. I don’t want to be seen, doesn’t matter if it’s above, it’s possible that ponies might use this alleyway too; so I need to find cover, or at least something to hide these wings. I also need to find a way to escape this place, I don’t want to be stuck here for any longer than I have to. Maybe I should wait until nightfall so the streets won’t be as crowded. I reach the back end of the alleyway, where it splits in two. To my left, the alleyway continues at a slight diagonal, passing under an archway, before leading to what I assume is a set of stairs, since the path just disappears there.
And on my right. Well it seems that the alleyway doesn’t continue very far in that direction, it just stops. And in that little square sits a bench. I almost panic for a second. What if this is actually a used alleyway, ponies could come in at any time from any direction. But then again, judging by all the boxes in the entrance and the state of this place compared to out on the street… I can’t imagine any of those fancy ponies daring to set foot in here.
I turn my attention back to the bench. It has definitely seen better days, but it looks sturdy enough. There’s a few miscellaneous boxes lying around behind it, and is that a tarp? I hurry forwards, almost tripping over my hooves. Yes, finally, something to hide those feather-things! I hastily stick my face into a crease, only for it to push out of the way. Oh right, horn. How do I get this from the floor, to my back then? I duck my head and gently slide my horn through the gap, then pull my head up. It works! Now I can’t see whatsoever. I bring up a hoof and carefully try to shuffle the tarp backwards over my horn until it settles on my back and after a lot more shuffling, my wings are now sufficiently hidden… yay I suppose. Looking up into the sky, it’s still light, although I can’t see the sun from here. I guess I’ll just lay on this bench and wait for nightfall.
I clamber awkwardly up onto the bench, almost losing my tarp in the process, but I manage to hold onto it by squashing my head down against my back. I shift and settle onto the bench. The wooden boards feel warm and soft against the cold hard pavement I woke up from. I let out an involuntary yawn. A quick nap couldn’t hurt.
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I'd imagine the first known male alicorn would create a bigger hubbub then another female alicorn. But if the gender isn't going to influence the plot then perhaps coin flip it
a male alicorn is usualy good fun when the world hasent seen one before. Them being not an adult yet but not a baby could make it interesting should others have to take guardienship of him. Alicorns usualy seen to have some sort of wide reaching talent like the night or magic so you could set it up so his (or her) talent is weather but due to equestrias weather systems he doesnt need to do much so while you could write him (or her) to be decently powerfull it would also allow you to show that they are not as powerfull as the others. Maby make the talent they get something they are interested in but just able to pick it up and do things a bit more creativly and not able to destroy a village with a sneaze
Male alicorn
Male. Reason; there's never any evidence of a male Alicorn in Equestria History & Big Mac's dream doesn't count
Female cuz they are basically the mane heroes get it
Guy turn into male Alicorn is what I want to see more of since there are already plenty of female alicorns stories.
Male alicorn would probably be more interesting, as a few other said before. There's so many female alicorns already.
Excellent start by the way, definitely gonna keep an eye on that story.
Ok, it is decided, the main character will be male. I will get back to writing Chapter 2 now. I aim to get it released today.
I am unsure with this: "They are not happy about this fact." Do you mean Canterlot or genderless MC (At this point)
11335650
I am unsure of what you mean. They will not be 'genderless' but I was asking whether people wanted to see Male or Female main character. Also, the location this story will take place in is Canterlot. The "they are not happy about this fact" is definitely part of the story. But the character will not be seriously distraught by their predicament, more like "I'm just going to ignore it and go about pretending it's not there."
11335649
I think male is a good idea as well. Male alicorns don't exist in magic pony land, so can lead to some interesting reactions from anypony who finds them. Especially the other alicorns, who are probably looking for another immortal friend. :)
11335653
Hardly see male alicorns so that would be very interesting.
11335653
Pretty much that means "genderless". Sex and gender are distinct cathegories, the former is biological feature, the latter is personal preference, social role, semantic reflection, etc.
1 : lacking qualities typically associated with either sex. 2 : suitable to or for either sex also : not reflective of the experiences, prejudices, or orientations of one sex more than the other (e.g. genderless language - English is almost genderless).
11335650
Oh, I see what you mean now. The "They" was placeholder in the description for before the character's gender in the story was decided.
Did I miss something?
Why is the first reaction to hide and run away?
11346226
Likely because the appearance of another alicorn is unlikely to garner anything other than intense study and suspicion. Better to gather your strength away from the eyes of the powerful
Don’t tell me… I’m one of those ponies. Ugh! Still, I’m here now, so I need to focus and not panic. I guess I should find out which type I am. Turning my head, I glance down at the spot where I had fallen over before. There are a couple of blue feathers on the ground. Turning my head further, I look across my back. Wings… yay… I’m so excited… No. Just no. I decide instead to ignore them.
I don't understand the significance of having the protagonist know of the show's existence yet only vaguely grasp anything about it. I've seen this done before in other HIE-turned-pony tales and it rarely has its use.
If they knew of the show and knew everything about it then you can have fun with that and thus so can the audience. If they knew nothing then you can also craft an interesting narrative where your main OC gets to explore a new world and thus we get to come along for the ride as readers. With this middle-of-the-road, they still get to explore, but it's far less interesting because your OC is far less shocked by things and thus feels less curious.
Oh yeah, they were… quite rare and they all lived in castles; not that the big blue tree looked anything like a castle. What else? They all called themselves princesses… Oh no… I can’t let them find me like this! Why? Why would it matter if they found him like that?
11408650
I think the half-knowledge of the show is used to make fanon changes more acceptable.
Ooooh OK know I'm invested
I like how fast (her?) thought process is here. I can really feel the panic.
Currently in the process of rereading and indexing the story. That means, creating a dictionary of everything that happens in the story and anything that's established about the lore and characters. As such, some chapters will get edited to clarify or improve on areas that I think could be better. I, especially, will have to rethink the character's knowledge of the show as it is very vague and mostly irrelevant to the story. I think that I can elaborate more on his thought processes and make these things clearer.
See [Cold Spike]'s comment above to know what I mean.