Chapter 1 - Bees
Dreams. What is a dream?
I’ve always thought of a dream as that one minute of nonsense you remember in place of eight hours of sleep. After waking up, I’d rack my brain trying to remember exactly what happened, whether to make my friends laugh when I tell them later, or to decipher it: to discover if it had any special meaning or relevance in my life.
The events within a dream cannot be monitored, audited, or replicated. With modern technology, we can only detect the stage of sleep at which dreams occur. Beyond that, retellings of dreams are only as reputable as the one doing the retelling. And, retellings are the only way dreams last beyond the dreamer’s memory.
We’ve all had that one dream that lasted longer than we thought it would. It kept going, and, at some point, you wondered when it would end. Maybe it was a happy dream and you willed it to continue, or maybe it was frightening and you begged it to cease. Or, maybe, it was so strange and surreal you were lost in confusion and let it take you with it until it decided to end.
The following story concerns a dream unlike any of these. Please bear with me for the next… however long this takes to explain.
~ ~ ~
I woke up as I did most days. Slowly, I peeked out behind my eyelids, noted the dark surrounding, and tried going back to sleep. Sometimes, I have trouble sleeping. It’s not insomnia; I just wake up several times during the night. It isn’t annoying anymore… Oh, never mind. I’m starting to run off on a tangent here. Anyways…
My bed was soft, but I didn’t remember it being this soft. It was almost… squishy. Yes, it was squishy. I squirmed in it and found the other side to be slightly more comfortable. I took a lazy breath in, and smelt a strange scent. It was like… carrots, and… urine. I tried to remember if I had drunk too much water last night. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Okay, something was off. Something was definitely off. A sound like crickets was echoing around the room, but my bed was indoors. I froze, and my wild, grog-induced imagination pictured the window broken in and crickets swarming everywhere. There was also a faint buzzing. I dearly hoped that their bee buddies hadn’t joined them. I really hate bees.
Gingerly, I rolled to the left side of my bed and dangled a foot over the edge, praying it wouldn’t find a cricket underneath. My foot, however, was having no luck finding solid ground. I waved it around; I swear there was carpet around there somewhere. I looked over the edge of…
…edge of…
Oh, shoot.
What I saw made me jump back and hug the wall behind me in terror! I wasn’t in my bed. No, no no no no no. This wasn’t my bed. I felt around and sensed I was in a small pocket, overlooking a big, dark empty. A really big, dark empty. I was trapped; walls in all directions but out and down. Man, was that a long down. Dowwwn down down.
I touched a hand to my be- the place where I had been sleeping. It was definitely squishy. It was also… oozy. A million questions swarmed into my head. Where was I? How did I get here? What was this stuff? Where was the light switch? Why…
…Where were my fingers?
I put my hand back down. I tried to reach my fingers out and touch the ground, but it was as if they went past my palm and into the… squish… but I couldn’t feel them. Were they numb? Oh, no, I hated numbness. I had surgery, once, where I watched a doctor work on my toe. I couldn’t feel a thing, but oh, was it a weird and awful feeling! Sometimes, when my arm falls asleep, I get scared that it’ll fall right off my elbow. I had to find my fingers.
I put my hands together and wiggled my fingers around, but… nothing. All I could feel were my palms pressing on one another. Boy, would things be clearer if I could se-
Spoke too soon. A bright light above pierced through the roof, straight into my eyes. I winced, trying to protect my sight with my arm, to no avail. It dimmed, though, as if the sun suddenly realized its potential to blind people and backed off apologetically. No worries, I thought to the sun.
At last I had enough light to see my… stumps? Where did my hands go? And why were my arms full of holes? I looked down at my feet, but they were gone too! Instead, there was a pair of hole-filled stumps to go with my arms! What was going on?
The heightening noise soon stole my attention. Distracted from my new arms, I wanted to get a good look around at this place. I was in a large spherical room which resembled the inside of a bee hive. Childish fear rushed through me, and I fought to breathe as I strained my eyes to see the pockets opposite me. Black creatures were moving about in their cells. I looked around to score a closer look at one of these creatures, but was startled by a freakish head popping out from around the wall beside me.
His head was black and crusty, with big, shiny blue eyes and protrusions on his scalp. He opened his fang-filled mouth and blurted in a scratchy yet slimy voice, “Morning, chump.”
My response matched my thoughts; I screamed.
This was a dream. This was definitely a dream. I clenched my eyes shut and tried to pinch my arm, but it only amounted to pathetically thumping one arm against the other. “Wake up wake up wake up wake up,” I muttered and curled up on the ground. I took a breath in, let it deliberately out, and slowly opened my eyes.
He was still there, with a suspecting look on his face. “Sleep well, chump?” he asked dryly.
~ ~ ~
“Don’t know what’s gotten into you, chump,” my new, talking ‘friend’ said as he led me through the tunnels of this… hive… place. He had helped me down from my little nest, rolling his eyes when I told him I couldn’t fly. That is, I think he rolled his eyes; they were all one color anyway. I was too busy to keep track of where we were going with inspecting my new body.
My skin was charcoal black, my forearms and forelegs were full of holes, I wore weird blue wings and a chewed up tail, and - strangely enough - I resembled a horse. A horse in a beehive. I hate bees. I hate bees. I hate bees.
This had to be the strangest dream yet. Though, there was that one with the floating swimming pool hotel in the jungle…
Walking on my hands, although awkward at first, felt strangely natural. It was like crawling on my hands and knees, but my legs were shorter than what I was used to. I would have to put a little more effort into coordination; walking is hard without knowing which foot out of four goes first…
I heard my cynical clone grumble and say, “You know, chump, you’re starting to look real paranoid.” He could talk, by the way.
It’s because I am. “Oh, am I?” I was scrupulously extending my wings. It was like another pair of arms on my back!
He sneered and turned his attention back to leading. “I’d knock it off if I were you. If Sergeant sees you out of line again today, you’ll be heading straight to the Jug.”
“Oh?” Not only did the Jug sound like a place I didn’t want to be, but he had mentioned a sergeant. This didn’t sound like a nice place.
I looked ahead at my acquaintance and the mob around us, all moving down the gooey passage with the low ceiling. If I was going to get out of here, I might as well play along. Although trying not to sound stupid, I asked (in a scratchy voice of my own, which I was still getting used to), “What are we training for, again?”
He rolled his eyes and snarled, “Training? Don’t you mean eating? By the queen, did you fall and hit your head last night?”
“I, uh, I don’t remember, but I had a killer headache this morning,” I did my best to sound convincing. Lying had never been my forte.
“Figures,” he snorted. “Just don’t fall behind in the field, chump.”
“What’s, uh, what’s your name again?”
He leered at me. “Is it really that hard to remember? It’s one more than yours.”
One more… than… wait, what? “Um, forty-three?”
He swung his head forward in irritation. “You really are the stupidest of the hive, chump. It’s 6 F 26. One more than yours.”
Names had numbers in them? Ok… so I’m 6 F 25, or 5 F 26… This place was starting to sound like a military camp. Communal sleeping quarters, sergeants, Jugs, names classified by number… Yep. I definitely needed to leave.
The passage led into an enormous green atrium, very similar in shape to the sleeping area. The ceiling was glowing softly, probably from the sun outside. Tunnel entryways adorned the walls, some too high to reach without flying. One opening, noticeably larger than the others, seemed to lead outside. I subconsciously began walking towards this when 6 F 26 yanked me to the right, as the mob began to form orderly rows. He took his place and shoved me into mine on his left.
All these creatures, when lined up all nice and neat, looked the same. It was like one creature had been copied and pasted hundreds of times. The fellow to my left looked exactly the same as 6 F 26. On that note, I asked him for his name. He rasped something that sounded close to 6 F 24.
One creature hovered in front, impatiently awaiting all of us to fall in. After the last straggler silently stepped in, he walked through the perfectly still rows, inspecting his army.
I tensed when he started through our row, hoping ‘Sergeant’ wouldn’t find me ‘out of line.’ He stopped just past me, slowly walked back, and whipped his head to millimeters in front of my face. The terrifying thing was that he said nothing. He just stared right into my eyes, and I did my best to forbid my body of any movement.
Seemingly satisfied, he flew back to the front of the room and hovered there. His voice, although strained, bellowed across the chamber.
“Morning, maggots!” he roared. “You know the drill. You have exactly two hours. We spread out and harvest individually. Get only what you need, and report back here not a second late. Failure to follow regulations results in two days minimum in the Detention Chamber. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Sergeant 6!” the crowd resounded.
“Good. Assume formation!”
The entire floor seemed to lift as every pair of wings in the room lifted off the ground in an ear-splitting buzz. I flailed my wings, but I could not seem to move them fast enough for flight. 6 F 26 rolled his eyes and hooked his forearms under my armpits.
“Everyling, move out!”
The entire brigade began flowing out of the narrow hole that led to the outside. It was slow going, but we eventually zoomed through the door.
The air was fresh. So, so very fresh. I hadn’t realized how stuffy the air was inside the
catacombs of that hive until I had tasted the crisp morning air. Tasting… I’m hungry, I thought. And thirsty. Maybe we’ll drop by a bubbler…
As we soared higher above the grass, the landscape stretched out before us. We were above a pine forest, with grand mountains splashed with white beyond. Clouds peeked over the crest of the mountains, but, besides that, it was a gorgeous day. To our left, a mountain rose up, retaining snowy lands behind it. A wide waterfall cascaded down the mountainside, tumbling down the rocks and right into a clear river that ran through the forest. To our right, a vast blue ocean was contoured by a graceful coastline.
The scenery was not only beautiful, but clean. It was uniform, smooth, almost… cartoony. It was like someone had painted it, but, as we were flying above it, it moved with us and felt… real. Even the waterfall, which should break up near the bottom, fell as one continuous (yet majestic) stream. Something was familiar, too, and I rummaged through my brain, trying to put a finger on why…
Fingers, heh. I raised my arm and was amused by the way the wind whistled through it.
We were steadily approaching a large city along a coast. Unlike big city buildings as I remember them, these were no more than ten stories tall. Additionally, they were relatively more sparse, with parks, marketplaces, houses, and cafes filling in between. Most of the city’s size came from the activity happening at the street level. Many people were walking about the streets, playing in parks, or swimming in the ocean. I couldn’t see them too well from our altitude, but they seemed to dress very colorfully.
Our team had split up by now, and was flying much lower. My foot kept grazing the tips of the evergreens, and a little branch got stuck in my leg. We swerved around the edge of the city and dove into the woods below. 6 F 26 set me on the ground and motioned for me to follow him. I obeyed after shaking out the twig.
We approached a bridge, and 6 F 26 pushed me behind a fallen tree. He whispered hoarsely, “Here’s where we split, chump. Wait about a minute – a whole minute – after I’ve crossed the stream, and then you can leave. And I’m not flying you back this time, so good luck making curfew.” He peeked his head over the log.
“But, what am I…” I trailed off as he leaped over the log and sprinted silently to the bridge. He seemed to put much effort into moving stealthily. Quietly, he waded through the water and ran along the main road, using adjacent houses for cover.
I probably waited there much more than a minute. Sure, I was nervous, but I was also confused. The way he was moving bothered me. It was as if we were sneaking into the city rather than just walking in normally.
“Training? Don’t you mean eating?” Were we stealing… stealing food? Was this our mission? Why didn’t we just pay for it? Granted, no grocery store I know would service customers as ugly as us. A military camp of creatures that steal food to survive… it sounded so evil.
I’m not evil. I’m not a thief, 6 F 26; not like you, I thought at him. I’m a law-abiding citizen. Get a respectable job. And a name, while you’re at it.
This was my chance to escape. Who said I was going back to that hive? I wasn’t going back at all.
My stomach rumbled. Maybe that should be task number one: food. I could look for a quarter on the ground and get a grape or something. Hopefully, there was at least one merchant in the city who would take pity on a talking bug horse. Or, one who wouldn’t freak out at one…
I didn’t want to scare anyone, so I mimicked 6 F 26 (they definitely needed names. Name names, not number names.) and dashed for the bridge when no one was about. Okay, it might’ve been less of a dash and more of a quick walk – running was hard without tripping over myself. Wading through the water, however, did not go as discreetly; I tried wading in on two legs, but lost my balance and fell in face first. The water was actually a good temperature. It was running across my face, so I opened my mouth and took some in to satisfy my thirst.
Hold on a sec.
This was a dream, wasn’t it? Then, why was I thirsty? Why could I taste the water so well? Why did the water on my face feel so real? Why was everything so… so… clear?
This…
This wasn’t a dream. This was real. I lifted my head out of the water and stared at the blue-eyed freak staring back. I was a cheese-legged, black-coated, bug-like horse from a green, squishy hive about to steal food from citizens of a cartoony city. And this was real. This was really happening. So, why, and… how?
No, it was impossible. Where could I possibly be? This wasn’t real. This was me going crazy. A dream would have ended already. I was hallucinating. Everything was smooth because I was seeing everything without detail. So, what happened?
I’d never smoked in my life, nor even taken one puff of a cigarette. Was I drugged? Who would drug me, and why? Felicia? No… Carlos? No, he wouldn’t… Larry? Eh, possibly…
Voices echoed from behind me. I scrambled to the underside of the bridge and listened. Boy, was my heart beating fast – that is, I think I still had a heart! There wasn’t a hole there; I checked.
“…So, have you talked to Celery Stalks yet?” a female voice inquired. Celery stalks? Who talks to vegetables?
“No, no, I haven’t,” another female replied. “I’ve just been so busy with tapping that I hadn’t had the chance.” What sounded like wheels and horses rumbled over the bridge.
“Well, she’s getting married soon, and she wanted to invite you to the wedding!” She?
“It’s about time, hey? He’s been dragging his hooves for years. Must be exciting for Celery, though.” Dragging his… hooves?
Curiosity overtook me, and I peeked around the corner. Two horses were walking along, one pulling a cart with brown jugs in the back. The cart-puller was brown, with darker brown hair and a picture of a maple leaf on its hip. The other was green and light blue, with a watering can tattoo. The odd color scheme was not the only peculiarity; they were talking. They weren’t pulling a carriage with two humans talking in the cabin; they were talking.
Then, it hit me.
Why I didn’t see this before, I don’t know. I knew what this was. I knew what they were. I already knew that they could talk, and why the world around me was so clean. This was the world of that “My Little Pony” cartoon. My cousins watched that show from time to time.
How could I imagine this up if I’d barely ever seen the show? This must’ve been some real powerful drug. But, I felt fine. I felt like me, I felt normal… My thoughts were clear, my hands weren’t shaking; I didn’t feel any adverse effects.
But, of course, this could be a government conspiracy… No, that kind of stuff is fiction. What kind of convoluted government project would involve forcibly running simulations of children’s cartoons? I had to dismiss that idea before I really started going crazy.
Could this…? No, no, there’s no way. But, was there any other…
I sat down hard. This was real. I was stuck in a kids’ cartoon show.
Where could I go from here? Was there a television screen out in the distance that I could jump through? A portal, a wormhole, a magic door, what? Was I stuck here forever? Would I just live here like this?
What was I, for that matter? I didn’t look anything like those ponies. If anything, I was the opposite. Was I… an anti-pony? If that was the case, then… what would they think of me? How could I walk around like this?
Too many questions… I lowered my head back down into the water and let out a sigh, which sounded more like a bubbling hiss. I had little hope. What a mess I was in…
But, it was a start. I’d figured some things out, in a way. I still felt stupid for being that oblivious for the entire time, but I could plan from that moment on. I needed to get back to my world, but I would have to get help. To get help, I’d need to fit in. To fit in…
Oh, this is going to be tricky.
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My first fanfic! Please leave a comment or critique. Any and all feedback is much appreciated!
If you hadn't of said this is your first fanfic, I would have not believed you. This is good.
That passage wins the thumb. (Right up there with "one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater," if you ask me.) And I am definitely liking this setup.
So... A human who doesn't lie very well is now a Changeling...
Count me interested.
*Reads*
*scrolls down*
Where's the chapter 2 button? WHERE IS IT?!
imageshack.us/a/img33/5764/likethischapter.jpg
Human in a pony body fic? Not normally my taste because of the constant "holy crap I'm a pony" aspect they tend to drag along but I think this will go well. Especially for a first fic.
Dreams can’t be proven, monitored, audited, or replicated. With modern technology, we can only detect the stage of sleep at which dreams occur. Beyond that, retellings of dreams are only as reputable as the one doing the retelling. And, retellings are the only way dreams last beyond the dreamer’s memory.
Ummm, dude?
You might want to look that up.
It's been scientifically proven to exist.
Actually, REM is actually vital for the development of the brain.
But that aside, interesting story so far...
Thanks so far for the feedback, guys! :D
ForlanceAbice > You're right. I meant that what the dreamer sees in a dream couldn't be proven, etc. I'll think about how to word that better. Thanks for pointing that out!
1568261
If you don't have an idea yet, perhaps something along the lines of, "What is dreamed cannot be proven, ..."
this Like First Pony View,Why this that
yay, you have become an author!!!!1 i shall read this soon
1568618 Thanks! It'll be something along those lines, yeah.
1568955 Why first person narrative? It seemed to work best for this story. We see everything from his perspective, as opposed to a narrator who knows and notices everything already, and already understands the pony world. We, as the reader, follow his thoughts and his perspective on things as he discovers this new world.
1570209 :DDD
No I WAS TALK ABOUT FANFIC NAMED THAT
THE FANFIC CALLED First Pony View,
I WASN"T TALK ABOUT Point of VIEW
1570676 Oh, sorry! I was confused.
I didn't even know that fic existed. I'd imagine there are many out there with a similar plot to mine, but I haven't read them. :/
First Pony View is simply another story in the "Human Wakes up as an Equestrian" genre of stories. Except it messed with my head quite a bit more than most... I should probably get around to reading more of it someday, I don't think I have looked at it for MONTHS now. But I digress.
Your story fits into the "Human Wakes up as a Changeling" Sub-genre of stories, specifically those where the main character is from "our" universe and at least knows of the existence of MLP: FiM. So yes, there are many fics out there with a similar plot to yours.
HOWEVER
From what I have read so far yours is among the best of them (or at least I personally found it to be one of the most enjoyable of them), and has some interesting aspects to it that I have not seen in any others like it so far in its sub-genre (though I have occasionally seen them in the wider genre mentioned above). Anyway, I very much enjoyed reading the first chapter of your story, and look forward to future updates.
Moar!!!!!!!!
Great you did good for your first fanfiction
Very nice so far. I do say though, I think it I would have liked it a tiny bit more if you hadn't mentioned the show. Like the character didn't even know about the show at all. (Unless it is a pivotal plot point later, then never mind
)
The world of Equestria in it of itself is fantastic enough to build countless stories on, even without the specific ponies we all love and cherish.
Your story seems to have the merit to make the most of the environment.
1566075 I'm pretty sure that line is talking about the contents of the dream, not dreaming itself.
I'll continue reading and I'll wear this mustache
I was super close to correcting that, until you said with modern tech. Good... Good.
I hope I live long enough for dream recording to be perfected. Yes, perfected, not invented. We have basic ways to see what someone truly sees now, but it is so primitive that it barely deserves mentioning.
1562513 not bad, not bad at all!
You just spent two paragraphs going on about how you can never really know for sure what other people's dreams are like.
Oh my GOODY GOODY!
I like rational people.
Tis quite nice.
Also, I don't know any Larry's, but if I ever come across one, I'll be sure to give 'im the 'Stink-Eye'. (Jk, Larry the Cucumber is great.)
Also, How has this fanfic become so popular all of a sudden?
I mean, according to comment times, the last time people started flooding in and reading this was when it was actually made...
idk im tired, let me read
Just starting this. So far, good job.
If I was to be critical, I think the initial presentation of the short/lonng descriptions need to have something more, to make it stand out.
The writing so far is solid, and way better than my attempts at HiEs (I'm better at pure pony stories, despite my love of the HiE concept in general.)
I'll give more feedback as I read more. (And any criticism I have is never personal - I just want to help.)
well nice intro. idk how I stopped reading this at one chapter in the first time.
8183282
I swear to God, why?
Good start to this story!