Drop Anchor
Have you ever felt like you knew something was wrong, even though nothing presented itself as such? That no matter how hard you try to ignore it, it keeps creeping up on you? Like it wants you to acknowledge it?
That it is what I'm feeling at this moment, the hairs on the back of my neck rise and tickle, I can feel goosebumps all over my body. The place that I once laid at not even 8 hours ago was now something unalike anything I felt before. The soft, silk blankets that cover me from head to toe, the fleece comforter that laid over me, warm and snugly. The bed itself sank me in comfort, it was bliss. But that's just it, I don't have these types of bedding items. I have cheap linen, a shitty wool blanket, and thin sheets. The feeling something being amiss went from its original creeping to an overwhelming feeling of distress.
I woke up, my brain trying to follow suit as I sat up swiftly. My eyes rapidly scanned the darkness of my room. No, wait. This wasn't my room, I was somewhere completely and utterly different. The room was larger, the bed I rested in was twice the size of my actual bed. My eyes adjusted to the slight darkness, trickles of light seeping through the rich curtains provided me sight into my new occupancy. Where am I...?
My thoughts scrambled to remember the last thing that happened to me. It was like trying to remember what happened before an unsuspecting nap, trying to remember what time it was, what day it was. Nothing showed itself to me, my memory of yesterday was but a blur to my mind.
What in the hell happened? Where am I? My thoughts were foggy, my mind groggy. Was I drugged? Kidnapped?. The room, from what I can see, had many expensive looking furniture, as well as giant paintings. A chandelier hung from the tall ceiling. Hm. Maybe not...
I closed my eyes and put my fingers on the temples of my head, rubbing them as a slight headache found its way into my skull. But instead of feeling fingers touch my head, I felt a flat surface of something hard. I opened my eyes in surprise, not expecting anything but my digits. I quickly brought my hands in front of my face. I wish I didn't.
I could only stare, white furry appendages in full view. The grey keratin hooves moved as I moved. These were my hooves. My eyes followed the appendages to my body, looking down at myself, I saw more of the white fur on my chest. Nonononononononononononono, I tore off the blankets, freeing the rest of my body, my mind shocked at the sight before me. No longer did I have legs of a human, but of something else. My feet were replaced by thick grey hooves just like my arms. I moved my legs over to the side of the bed, slightly jumping back as I moved them. For the first time since waking up I spoke.
"What in the actual fu-", my voice died in my throat as I heard it. My once rugged and rough voice was now... Well, it sounded deep, royal.
"Test", It sounds completely different from my actual voice. "La la la, lalala, lo la lo", I sang to myself, interested now more than afraid of this new voice. "I don't sound too bad..."
My fear and shock from before was slowly cascading, I've seen some crazy shit before, but this blows everything out of the water. I got up from the bed, almost falling down as I tried to stand on my back legs.
You're no longer human...
The thought was pretty frightening, but I did my best to keep my fear in check, using my past experiences to ground myself. I put my forelegs down on the soft carpet on the floor, trying to keep my balance.
I need a mirror, I think to myself.
Looking around, I spotted a giant mirror on the other side of the enormous bedroom. I looked down toward my fee- hooves, and took a step forward. Moving my left hoof first, I began my new walking experience. It was a bit difficult, not going to lie, but I figured it would be like how a dog walks. I stumbled, but made it to the mirror on the wall.
I took a long, deep look at myself. What I saw was a large muscled white horse with a golden blond mane. Not only that though, on the top of my head was a large white horn protruding out of my skull. I also had a golden tail to follow. My eyes widened.
This is what I am now? Holy sh-, my thoughts got interrupted by a loud knocking on the large door at the front of the room. Huh, how'd I miss that?
The individual knocking made itself known when it opened the door slightly. A colorful, bright pink horse peeked its head in before fully opening the big door. "Prince Blueblood, sir, I'm so incredibly sorry for waking you, but you must get ready for toda-", the voice of the new comer halted in its tracks. Not an it, sounds like a woman. Not only was she female, but she wore the 'classic maid' outfit. "Oh! You are already awake my Prince, please forgive me for intruding!", the woman pink horse sounded a bit flustered.
Prince? I'm a prince? That explains all the expensive shit. I turned my body fully towards her, taking a better look at her. She had a bright baby blue mane, bright pink fur, and the maid outfit I mentioned. Her blue eyes were wide and her body was rigid at the sight of me turning to her. She looked scared. Is she scared of me?
"Uh, It's okay... Maid. What was it that you were, uh, saying?"
Her face went from scared to surprised, like she wasn't expecting that as a response. "...What I was saying...OH! My apologies, sir! Yes, the new princess' Coronation is today! I was coming to wake you so you can get ready, sir."
New princess? Coronation?, I voiced my question, "Coronation?"
"Yes, sir. Princess Twilight Sparkle's Coronation. Princess Celestia asked for the nobility to view the ceremony." She fidgeted her hooves as she spoke to me. "Ah, well, thank you for reminding me... Maid. When is the ceremony?" I asked, putting more confidence in my voice. Again she looked surprised at what I said. What did I say?
"Um, its at noon, so in three hours, sir." She seemed to also gain some confidence in her voice. Not as frightened as she was before, just cautious. It seems this 'Prince Blueblood' is someone people fear. Shit, who was this guy?
"Hm, alright thank you. You, uh... You can take your leave now miss." She smiled, relieved about something and left the room.
Her expressions are almost human. I need to find out where I am.
Taking a look around, I spotted a bathroom. I made my way over, albeit very wobbly, and opened the door to enter inside. Upon doing so, I let out a silent gasp at how large the bathroom was. There was a bathtub, shower, a Jacuzzi of some sort, and a bunch of different soaps and shampoos on the shelves of the wall. The sink was also very pretty and traced at what looked like gold. I spotted a cabinet and opened it to see if I can find some toothpaste and a toothbrush. Spotting both, I used my snout to pick them up and placed them on the sink counter.
So. How do I do this? You'd think they would have made it in a way to pick it up.
I reached hoof over to the toothpaste to see if I could pick it it up. Surprisingly, for a brief second, I had a grasp on the tube. I tried again, the tube of toothpaste hung on my hoof as I grasped it. "Freaky...", I voiced. I used my teeth to open up the tube of toothpaste and gripped the toothbrush, and I carefully squeezed the tube. By carefully, I mean, I crushed it, causing a lot more than what I wanted to plop onto the toothbrush and the sink counter. "Shit", I cursed. Although I made a mess, I still accomplished getting toothpaste on the toothbrush. I then proceeded to brush my teeth.
I looked up to the mirror, getting a closer look at my new face. Light blue orbs stared back at me, my long blond mane covering a part of my face.
Ugh, I hate having long hair, gets in the way and its annoying. I'm definitely getting a haircut.
I glanced at my horn. I stopped brushing and placed the toothbrush down and rinsed my mouth with sink water. Looking back into the mirror to look at the horn again. "You're not human anymore, bud. Why aren't you freaking out? Screaming 'no' over again?" I asked the reflection. "How did this happen? Did you take over this body somehow? Is the real prince in my body? Am I really a little horse? Does this mean I'm a unicorn...?"
I let out a deep sigh. I had so many questions and had no answers. Sure, maybe I wasn't as scared as I should be, in my line of work, that could get someone killed. But it was a struggle to keep myself grounded, to keep my sanity under control.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. "I can't let anyone know. They think I'm still their prince. They'd think I was loony if I said something or maybe a malevolent imposter. So for now, you're going to go along with this."
Was it the right thing to do? Who knows, but its what I'm sticking with.
For the next hour, I cleaned myself up using the shower, after fifteen minutes of figuring out how to turn the damn thing on, and made myself smell presentable. I did my hair as well, making it look nice and professional. I made my way out of the bathroom and came to see the same maid from earlier standing by a cart of food. She looked lost in thought. "Ahem", I gave a throaty cough to get her attention. She snapped her head over and let out a 'meep'. "I'm sorry, sir! I was lost in thought..." she said, embarrassed. She took a look at me and made a face of realization. "Oh my stars! You just got out of the shower!" She turned her head away from me covering her face with her hoof, her cheeks red.
"I'msosorrysirIwasjustbringingupyourfoodbecauseyouweregettingreadyI'msosorryfornotrealizingyouwerecomingoutoftheshowerpleasedon'tfireme!"
Her voice was quick, I almost didn't catch what she said. Realization hit me, I was technically naked. I mean, I'm a horse now so I didn't really think about it, and she also didn't say anything this morning. I don't know, but it does makes sense, she's wearing clothes right now, so obviously, I need to as well. "...Its fine, thank you for bringing my food up to me, now if you will please." I gestured to the door. She took the hint and bailed out of the room quickly.
I can't say I was too embarrassed about being naked in front of someone, as I have done so plenty of times before coming here. But I can say it was a little weird for not making that realization earlier. Oh well. Deciding that I needed clothes, I went over to what I assumed was a walk in closet to find something to wear. When I walked in, the room was FULL of clothes. So many different styles, so many different colors, and they all looked ugly as hell. "Geez, got anything simple and not 'burn-my-eyes-colorful'?" I grunted to myself. I spent the next few minutes sorting through the rows upon rows of clothes. There were even these pieces of clothing that only seemed to have a collar. It was kinda weird. I looked until I found something that looked decent. It was a normal suit, charcoal grey in color with a nice looking blue bow-tie. But there weren't any pants no where to be seen. Not at all in this entire closet. So I set in to see if I could find some in the drawers out in the bedroom, but I failed to find any. Maybe they don't wear pants around here? I guess I'll just have to find out the hard way. Its kinda weird though, no clothes means you're naked, but put a shirt on and now your decent... Doesn't make much sense to me after all.
With that I decided to finally sit down and eat the food the maid brought me earlier. Looking over the food, I saw something I didn't expect to see. Flowers. I may be a horse but I refuse to eat flowers. Shaking my head, I spotted the pancakes with a syrup cup and some fruit. "Can't go wrong with some pancakes," I laughed a bit to myself.
After eating the pancakes, I decided to leave the bedroom. Why? Well, the Coronation isn't for like another hour and a half and I want to explore this place. Taking my time, I roamed around the humongous house... Mansion. Most of it was just wasted space though, rooms that had nothing in them and empty hallways. The only people I've seen so far were the maid from earlier, two servants walking around doing their thing (they gave a bow as I passed them), and a cook and his assistant when I visited the kitchens. Yeah, kitchens. There's two of them.
As I wandered around the first floor, I found the maid cleaning up some random stuff in the living room, she seemed very stressed about something. She was scrubbing the grandfather clock and picture frames on the shelves like her life depended on it. Curious, I came up behind her. "Do you need any help miss?" My sudden appearance caught her off guard, her hoof slipped from the shelf sending one of the picture frames down to the ground. She looked between me and the now broken piece on the ground, her face in a silent terror.
"... Well that's unfortunate, sorry for scaring you. My fault it broke." I said sheepishly.
She made a funny face, almost as if she couldn't decide that she was relieved or terrified. That or she had to take a dump in the john.
"Um, are you alright?" I asked, amused by her expression.
"U-uh, yes sir, I'm okay... Y-you aren't mad at me?" Mad at her? It's just a picture frame. No doubt it could be replaced easily.
"Mad at you? Of course not, it was just an accident. Why would you think I was mad at you?" She didn't know how to reply, probably thinking of a way to answer.
"W-well, the last time somepony messed up, s-she was fired... I'm her replacement." Oh. That was good to know.
"Well, be rest assured that you aren't getting fired. Anyway, need any help with cleaning? Seem to be very stressed out." I asked with real concern. Bewildered, she stuttered to get an answer out. "N-no! I-its my j-job to clean today, sir. I was trying to finish before the ceremony, b-but there's still a lot to do. Not that I'm complaining! You don't need to bring anypony else t-today, its their off day." Doesn't want me to call in anyone else? What does she... Oh, I wasn't going to do that. Also that does explains why its empty in here, most of everyone is off today.
"I meant if I could help at all. I wasn't going to bring anyone else in." I gave her a soft smile.
"NO!" She instantly covered her mouth, gulping. "I m-mean, no t-thank you, sir. I can handle it." She gave a false smile. This made me curious.
Why is she acting like this? After a moment, I gave her shrug, "Alright, I'll let you attend your duties miss." I was about to walk away, but I then thought of something. "Wait, before I go, for the ceremony, do you know how I get there?" My question left her confused.
"Its at the Castle, sir, in the Ceremonial Room. Two Royal Guards will be arriving soon to escort you, sir."
"Hm, alright, thank you." With that, I left her to do what she need to get done. Though I was still curious to why she didn't want me to help. Did she think I was testing her? Is this something the real Prince Blueblood does? Maybe she didn't want to be around me.
With nothing to do, I found my way outside the front door of the massive mansion. "Guess I'll wait for the escort to arrive", I sat down on the steps that were out the front door. Finally taking a nice, long look at the environment around me. The estate was large, beautiful gardens and statues littered the front lawn. White gates surrounded the place, the front gate itself was gold in color.
Speaking of the gate, it opened up, letting in two horses covered in gold armor. Most noticeable thing I spotted were the wings on their sides.
Winged horses too? This place keeps getting weirder and weirder... Behind them, they pulled a white and gold chariot. "They must be my escorts." I confirmed to myself.
As they pulled up, I walked down towards them. "Hello, you too must be my escorts for the Coronation Ceremony. It is a pleasure to meet you." They looked at one another in confusion. One of the guards nodded his head, "Er, yes sir, we are your escort, we apologize for arriving late." Late? They aren't late... I simply nodded, not wanting to argue back. I got into the chariot and sat down in the pillow provided.
Welp, looks like this will be a bit of a ride. Boy, I had no idea. The two escorts pulled the chariot and began running at a pace that seemed to escalate periodically. It was when we exited the gate that I realize what was happening. They spread their wings wide and began flapping.
The chariot left the ground.
"Oh Fuck!"