Prologue: Trick Candle

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Nightmare Moon was cackling with laughter as a second particularly annoying thorn in her side was removed. First Celestia, who had gone soft over the years – in more ways than one – and now, those traitorous little trinkets that had locked her away within her own glorious moon!

The foal who thought she could somehow beat her, the rightful ruler of Equestria, shrank in on herself, no doubt over what she must have assumed to be a guaranteed victory, being snatched away at the last moment. Given she’d just removed the only artifacts powerful enough to stop her, she felt like celebrating. Her triumph was wholly assured, after all.

But before Nightmare moon could really relish in the moment, a spark ignited in the lavender mares soul.

"You think you can destroy The Elements of Harmony just like that?" Nightmare looked down at the unicorn, who's eyes were once more filled with that irritating fire she thought to have extinguished. "Well, you're wrong, because the spirits of The Elements of Harmony are right here."

Five mares filed in behind her, each one of them wearing similar looks of determination, apparently thinking themselves ready to fight the Alicorn head-on, despite their only chance having been reduced to rubble.

Even the timid one!

Nightmare was almost impressed by the sight, almost.

It was laughable really, since not one among their rank could hold a candle to herself, she was sure she would be resting upon her rightful throne in a few hours, wherever that was now. She would have to find out where her dear sister had deigned to move the capital after leaving their home to rot.

Nightmare's confidence in that prediction fell drastically, when the shards of those stones glowed faintly with harmonic power, revealing themselves to not be as dead as she thought.

< ◇ >

Twilight let out a silent sigh of relief as the fragments of crystal began to twitch on the stone floor, faintly glowing with power. 'Please let this work, please let this work, please let this work!' "Applejack, who reassured me when I was in doubt, represents the spirit of... Honesty!" Shards of broken stone suddenly lit up a faint orange, the cloudiness within the gems giving way to fine polish as they came to surround the farm mare, glowing brighter.

'Oh, thank Celestia, I was right!' Now assured of her rapidly assembled hypothesis, she continued, a newfound confidence in her words. "Fluttershy, who tamed the manticore with her compassion, represents the spirit of... Kindness!" Pink crystal shards drew closer to the pegasus, the thrum of magic in the atmosphere doubling.

"Pinkie Pie, who banished fear by giggling in the face of danger, represents the spirit of... Laughter!" Blue stones swirled around the pink pony, who struck a pose that… well, Twilight wasn't sure what it was, but the party planner seemed equal parts happy and ready for whatever came next, so she let it slip her immediate focus and continued, her speech still formulating in her mind moments before she spoke the words.

< ◇ >

'Oh you have got to be kidding me.' Nightmare thought.

"Rarity, who calmed a sorrowful serpent with a meaningful gift, represents the spirit of... Generosity!" The white mare was surrounded by the deep purple remains of the shattered element, though she had a slightly sad look in her eyes. Nightmare took little comfort in that fact.

"And Rainbow Dash, who could not abandon her friends for her own heart's desire represents the spirit of... Loyalty!" Red shards encircled the pegasus, bringing the magical pressure of the room to a level even Nightmare was beginning to worry about.

It wasn’t yet enough to banish her, no not yet, but it would take a considerable amount of her power to counter what was to be thrown at her, and nearly all of her concentration.

She might not be able to keep Celestia contained if things came to pass.

'You can't be serious!' Nightmare screamed internally, but the purple pony pressed on, undeterred by the half strength glare being directed at her.

"The spirits of these five ponies got us through every challenge you threw at us."

'No no no, NO! this can't be happening, this IS NOT HAPPENING! I had won! I refuse to be bested by half a dozen magical rocks! Wait…' "You still don't have the sixth Element! The spark didn't work!" Perhaps her efforts weren't for nought?

Nightmare's hopes were swiftly dashed. "But it did!" The unicorn's mouth curved into a smile. "A different kind of spark." Apparently, she felt safe turning her back on Nightmare as she continued, "I felt it the very moment I realized how happy I was to hear you, to see you, how much I cared about you. The spark ignited inside me when I realized that you all... are my friends!" Nightmare could feel the harmonic energies increasing, the space above the group glowing with magic long before it became visible.

"You see, Nightmare Moon," the wordy mare continued, but Nightmare was no longer listening. Instead she was reaching out with her magic into the shadows, for something, a quick escape, a hapless creature wicked enough to take the blow for her, anything, but it was too late, the area was too rich with magic, even levitation would be taxing.

The sixth element appeared over the group, alighting down upon the only mare left unadorned, the presence of all six elements seemed to actively shut Nightmare out of the shadows, practically sealing her fate.

'No! no no no no! Nothing on Equis can save me now!' Nightmare thought as she shielded her eyes with a wing. Wait... nothing on Equis... it's worth a shot! Nightmare moon reached further, much further than she had before. The spell was old, and she remembered it poorly, so it took a great deal more magic than it should have, forcing her to drain herself deeply and even tap into her moon's reserve. It would leave her… reduced, by an annoyingly large amount, but it was her last chance!

Reaching into the shadows of the night on another world, she searched with a claw of solid darkness to grasp something to defend herself with. The unlucky creature would probably die, but she didn't care. She would escape in the confusion and make a new plan. Celestia wouldn't be held for long, and with both the full set of the Elements of Harmony and her sister, placing her back on the moon would prove an easy feat, and she would be stuck there, alone...

< ◇ >

Peter flopped down onto his bed, stretching slightly before simply falling limp with a sigh. his red-headed dorm-mate was at his computer watching a show, from what the young adult could tell, it entailed magical horses, fighting some demon-horse. He, Dillon, that is, had tried to get Peter to watch it, but, despite its apparent wild popularity, it simply wasn't his cup of tea. There was also the fact that the animation style was so simple that there wasn't anything to learn from it.

The two shared a minute of small talk, where Dillon again tried to convince Peter to watch the show. "C'mon man, I'm even starting the show over tonight! I swear, you'll love it, might even change your life! It'll at least put a smile on that face of yours."

"Are you implying that I don't smile enough?" Peter said, half joking.

The red-head rolled his eyes at the younger man, and turned back to the screen. "No, no, of course not."

The conversation died after that, and soon Peter felt sleep pulling at the edge of his consciousness. He quickly fought off the feeling, opening his eyes to make one last check of the room. Dillon had a bad habit of not locking the door before he turned in.

The first thing he noticed was that, indeed, the door was unlocked. Peter internally sighed and moved to get out of bed. The second thing he noticed was that his arm didn't listen to him, and so remained snugly under the covers. There was an attempt to force his other arm to move, with no luck.

'Huh, well that's odd,' the teen thought, trying to wiggle his toes, they didn't listen. ’Is this that sleep paralysis thing I read about on the internet? Huh, cool. Never experienced it myself.’ He mentally smiled at the novelty, although his face failed to mirror the expression, but hey, that was to be expected.

Fortunately, his eyes seemed to be in working order, and he could look around the room, the low light of the computer screen providing enough illumination to get a decent look at his surroundings. He could hear the sounds of everything so vividly, the dialogue of the show on the laptop – Something along the lines of someone giving a speech before finishing off the big bad – to the party-going students outside. 'I really thought art school would have less parties than the college stereotype, boy was I wrong.' Peter felt like laughing at his poor naive past self. Other than that, it was peaceful.

'And the article said it was supposed to be some horrifying experience, this is nice!' He chuckled in his head. It was then that Peter saw something move in the corner of the room. A pitch black claw, it's digits twitching along the carpeted floor. It slithered across the room, in a very rigid, but at the same time boneless manner. 'Oh, shit! I just had to… I jinxed it, didn't I?'

Peter was no longer enjoying himself, and was now frantically trying to move, but not a single muscle would listen, except for his eyes, so he could blink, and watch, but that didn't exactly help. The wandering claw was heading for Dillon, still sitting at the computer.

'Good god that's freaky...at least it's not reeaaaa…' That assumption was revealed to be incorrect before the thought even finished forming, as it crawled up onto the desk and the older boy’s laptop screen. The claw then proved that it was not your average brand of sleep paralysis demon. This thing had mass. Its apparent real weight was enough to force the laptop shut. Dillon looked surprised at this, but not nearly as much as one would think he would be at a shadow hand cutting off his video viewing. Dillon simply opened it back up and clicked on the play button, muttering about how it was "weird" and how he will "have to fix the hinges on the thing."

The hand didn't seem pleased with being ignored, and seemed to shake with rage. Peter tried to scream, to warn him, but all he got was the feeling of his lungs burning for no good reason, it's not like his breathing had even changed from the restful rhythm it was in.

Peter watched helplessly as the hand came to rest on Dillon's shoulder, drumming it's clawed fingers. The red-head seemed unaware of the appendage, despite it being in actual contact with him, aside from scratching at the offending shoulder. After a moment it slid off him, shaking in a way that almost seemed to say 'Not this one' to Peter’s immense relief, he did kinda like the guy after all, and he didn't want to watch this … thing, rip his lungs out, or whatever.

Peter’s relief was short-lived, as the claw twirled around to "face" him. It clenched it's twisted digits a couple times, moving like a serpent as it stretched across the floor. His vision started to blur, 'Hey, tear ducts are working, good to know!' some errant part of his mind shouted.

Peter closed his eyes, hoping that this was all just some terrifying dream.

He felt a number of attention-getting taps on his forehead. The teen was sure he felt his heart stop as it scratched its cold claws along his temples.

Peter opened one eye just a crack. Upon realizing it had his attention, the lines of its palm all swirled together before splitting open, into a grainy vertical slit, kinda like what a two year old with issues would draw, just endless scratch marks forming a facsimile that just happens to be recognizable as an eye.

The thing peered into Peter’s own eyes, and shivered with what can only be described as wicked delight, although given that it was a hand, and he didn't spy a mouth on its surface, he wasn't sure if the evil, whisper-quiet cackling was imaginary or not. The monster hand released its grip on his skull, his head hitting the pillow with a light thump as it centered itself above his chest.

The demented thing then dove into Peter's chest as if it was passing through water, somehow painless, but a creeping chill slowly spreading from its entry point made the surreal and terrifying experience uncomfortable as well.

'What the f-?'

It suddenly reared back, a wierd, wispy blueish white thing ensnared in its talons.
'What in the he-!?!-

Suddenly the boy’s vision snapped to black, then white, and then, something else… but it was everywhere, like he could see in literally every direction. It was disorienting, but the majority of Peter’s vision was encompassed in darkness from the now massive looking claw that he was firmly in the grasp of. Said claw was rapidly sinking back to the corner it came from. The corner that had a number of similar claws holding open a black tear in reality, a deep purple fog, roiling out of its depths--

'What's happening! Is that a portal?! Did it just rip out my SOUL!?!?' He screamed soundlessly, struggling with all his ethereal might to break free. The possibly-disembodied-soul cast his focus away from the corner, it hurt to look at anyway, and saw, himself?

Just lying there.

Staring up at the ceiling with expressionless eyes.

That was the last thing Peter saw before the assumed portal closed with a pop.

< ◇ >

Nightmare Moon was pulling with every scrap of magic she had left, hoping that whatever she had managed to grab would keep her from being tossed back into orbit. 'It has to, that was the one requirement I put into the spell!'

As the rainbow beam arced into the air, the claw came into Equis before her. Releasing her prize; a small white, amorphous ball of energy, Nightmare waited for the other horseshoe to drop. Instead, the dark magic construct evaporated, unable to maintain its form in the harmonic environment with its power spent.

Nightmare gave the ghostly ball a scrutinizing look. 'This is it? This is all of it? Will it be enough to save me? He got something much bigger than this measly little blob of--'

Nightmare wasn't left much time to ponder the strange ethereal object's effectiveness as the rainbow had reached the peak of its ark and was now falling down upon her. Grasping the wisp in her magic she held it before her in a warding manor.

< ◇ >

'... Where am I?' the ball wondered. Standing in front of it was a pitch black horse-thing, the window into the cosmos which seemed to rest over its head, akin to hair, taking most of its attention. 'That... that can't be right, that sounds insane.' the soul thought, and judging by how slowly the vampire horse-thing, 'Oh, it's got a horn? Vampire unicorn-thing then?'

Regardless, judging by how slowly it was moving, whatever that claw thing did to Peter must have had some interesting side effects on how he perceived the world, since everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, on top of his odd new ability to see in 360°. But because the human mind was never meant to see in all directions at the same time, it felt more like he was able to turn his "head" in any and all directions, effortlessly. Peter could sense light at what was currently the rear of his perception, so focusing on it he beheld something that was both humorous and slightly terrifying.

A rainbow was slowly descending upon him. The rainbow was coming from, and possibly being generated by, a group of six more, smaller, brightly coloured horse-things. Upon closer inspection, facilitated by the beam inching closer, Peter was able to see that it was, fortunately, not actually heading for him, but the giant vampire unicorn-thing behind. Said dark demon horse's horn suddenly glowed weakly, tinting his vision and giving him the feeling of being squeezed like a stress ball from all sides. The cat-eyed horse tilted its head towards the rainbow, dragging Peter’s gently glowing form between it and the descending prismatic light beam.

The light passed right by the ball, removing the feeling of pressure as it went, so Peter certainly wasn't complaining.

The beam touched down at the horse-things feet, hooves? And began swirling around the thing. But much to his chagrin, upon its third spiral upward, the would-be tornado changed paths, and began funneling into Peter’s ghostly form, much to the surprise of all present in the room.

'Why do I keep getting targeted by all the weird things today!?' the ball mentally bemoaned its fate as the light in the room faded. The floating equines on the far side of the room stared in horror in its direction, while the larger one gave a relieved sigh.

'What the hell was that rainbow!?' the ball wondered "aloud," annoyed at being denied the cathartic experience of shouting. The larger entity began laughing softly, but was slowly ramping up towards more insane volume.

Its laughter trailed off when the light started to fade back into the room. Peter turned his perception back to the group of floating equines to see if they had fired off a second blast, only to find them standing around awkwardly, the purple one staring at him in disbelief and despair.

The light grew brighter, and Peter looked around to find the source. The brighter the light got, the more, all encompassing it became. As in, not only could he see it glowing from somewhere, but he could feel it, featherlight touches that left a pervasive, mildly pleasant warmth radiating out. A steady thrum of something, distant but growing closer and louder as the light pulsed unsteadily. Hell, he could even taste… something. 'Why does everything taste li-' his thoughts ended there, because apparently his incorporeal form was unable to contain the entirety of the rainbow-death-laser-thing for very long.

The ethereal ball swelled, both in size slightly, and with colour, before it exploded in a rainbow nova.

The last thing they remember before succumbing to the darkness, was the feeling of cold stone on their stomach.

< ◇ >

The group of mares slowly came back to their senses, none of them having expected something called the 'Elements of Harmony' to be so exhausting.

"Ugh, my head" Rainbow was the first to speak, followed by Applejack.

"Everypony okay?" she asked her friends, rapidly finding and placing her beloved stetson back in its proper place.

"Oh, thank goodness!" Rarity exclaimed, drawing everyponies attention.

"Why Rarity, it's lovely." Fluttershy complimented in a half-whisper.

"I know! And I'll never part with it again!" Rarity said, jubilant as she hugged her fully regrown tail to her side carefully, so as to not undo it's beautiful curls.

"No, your necklace, it looks just like your cutie mark." Fluttershy clarified.

"What?" Rarity looked down at the gilded accessory that she was certain she had not taken into the forest with her. The purple diamond centerpiece complimented her mane rather splendidly. And it was part of a set it seemed! "Ooh. So does yours." Fluttershy gasped, looking down at her complimentary pink butterfly charm.

Pinkie Pie pronked into view, chanting "Look at mine! Look at mine!" Clearly proud of her own balloon shaped gem, before her eyes settled on something else and she bounced off toward the far wall.

"Aw yeah." Rainbow Dash exclaimed, with her ruby-esque lightning bolt on display.

Applejack, sporting her own, ironically orange, apple shaped jewelry, looked to the final member of the group of friends, who was looking up at the crown on her brow. "Gee, Twilight! I thought you were just spoutin' a lot of hooey, but I reckon we really do represent the elements of friendship."

Before anypony could respond, a voice came into the room, followed by the light of dawn. "Indeed you do." The words were warm and comforting, and for one among them, very familiar. The sun rose quickly, and then, in a flash of light, appeared Princess Celestia.

Everyone bowed before her, save for Twilight, who trotted over to her teacher to give her a nuzzling hug, which the alicorn happily returned. "Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student. I knew you could do it."

Twilight looked up at Celestia with mild confusion. "But... you told me it was all an old pony tale."

The Solar Princess tittered at her student's lack of faith. "I told you that you needed to make some friends, nothing more." Celestia countered, omitting most of the details of her actual reply to Twilight's perfectly timed letter. "I saw the signs of Nightmare Moon's return, and I knew it was you who had the magic inside to defeat her, but you could not unleash it until you let true friendship into your heart. Now if only another will as well... Princess Luna."

All eyes turned to the blue alicorn mare, lying surrounded by shattered armor before the dais. The now named mare – that nopony had noticed before now, somehow – gasped, not meeting the princess's eyes. "It has been a thousand years since I have seen you like this. It is time to put our differences behind us." Princess Celestia lay down beside Luna, who still couldn't find the strength to meet her gaze. "We were meant to rule together, little sister."

"Sister?" Rainbow Dash and Twilight said in unison, the latter finally connecting the dots from the book that had started her entire adventure.

Celestia stood back up. "Will you accept my friendship?" She asked, her voice filled with trepidation and hope.

The Bearers of the Elements of Harmony all leaned forward as far as they could in anticipation, causing Pinkie and her new procurement to tip over.

Luna gave only a moment's pause before jumping up to embrace her sister. "I'm so sorry! I missed you so much, big sister!"

The royals embraced with happy tears in their eyes.

"I've missed you, too." Celestia said, a quaver in her usually perfectly measured voice.

Pinkie blew her nose, followed by an impossible volume of tears cascading from her closed eyes. A split second later and you could no longer tell she had even been crying. As if a switch had been flipped, she was back to her usual chipper self. "Hey, you know what this calls for?" Pinkie asked with a bounce in her step, garnering everypony's focus. "A Party!!" she cheered, jumping up into the air, "for our two new arrivals! Let's go!" She said before landing and heading out the door.

Everyone's attention was drawn to the bundle on her back. Twilight was the first to ask. "Uhh, Pinkie?" She called to the party pony who just stepped out the door and around the corner.

"Yes Twilight?" Pinkie replied, craning her head back into the room from the opposite side of the doorframe.

Twilight managed to contain her confusion, for the moment. "Wh-what do you have there?" She asked, pointing a hoof to the blanket on her back, a lock of pale blue hair poking out of it.

"Oh! Well they're sleeping, but I figured we should take them back to Ponyville!" Pinkie said, as if that explained everything and continued.

"Uh, who?" Rainbow asked Pinkie with a raised eyebrow and a pointed hoof.

"Oh you guys haven't met them yet, right!" Pinkie Pie put the bundle down in front of Twilight, whisking away the blanket dramatically to reveal a light purple coloured foal.

They had a pale blue mane, striped with red, yellow, and pink, while their tail was accented by two seperate stripes of purple, and a darker blue. Their cutie mark appeared to be six gray bit-sized circles, spaced evenly around their flank. The oddest part of their appearance were the patches of colour on their coat.

Not too odd when compared to a vibrantly coloured pony like Rainbow Dash, but coat colour was usually more uniform, the foal before them looked like she had planted all four hooves in four different paint pans.

"Allow me to introduce you to Ar-! Oh wait, I should let them introduce themself, hehe~" Pinkie rubbed the back of her head.

"How did a foal even get out here?" Fluttershy asked in normal volume, slightly surprising those who knew her.

Rarity scooped up the strange foal in her magic, clicking her tongue. "This mane is atrocious! It's like it has never even been brushed! and their tail!" She ably demonstrated that even a pony with so fair a coat could somehow manage to pale. "I-I-I simply must correct this!" With that she nestled the foal down on her back and led the way back towards Ponyville.

< ◇ >

The Elements of Harmony, sans one pronking pink party planner, were accompanying the princesses back to town, Twilight was busy inspecting their unknown tag-along, an "R"-something, according to Pinkie.

The vibrant splashes on their hooves had dulled to a degree, along with their stripes. Save for two shades of purple, both in their tail, and coat, which were as bright as ever. It quickly became apparent that the odd colours weren’t natural. That alone was worrying, but what was truly concerning was the slowly growing crystal embedded in their forehead.

Twilight was unsure as to how they could have gained such an anomaly, but it was growing by the minute. At first, it had seemed to be nothing more than another odd splash of colour, but it had now progressed to a few quarter inch crystals that were fusing together and growing in thickness. No spell she used seemed to dampen their growth, if anything it expedited the process further.

Once the group made it back to Ponyville, they were greeted by Pinkie Pie, bouncing up in the air and shouting in a manner identical to the way she had back at the castle.

Apparently, she had organized and converted the entire summer sun celebration into a "Welcome Back Long Lost Princess" party in the time it took them to get back. While Princess Luna and Twilight gaped like landed fish, Fluttershy picked the foal up off Rarity and informed the group that she was going to take the child to Ponyville General.

Fluttershy handed the foal over to Nurse Redheart, and, after a brief explanation of where they found them, and how their condition had progressed, she left the foal in her care and returned to her friends.

Nurse Redheart had the foal admitted, and had the protrusion on their head magically scanned, but the results were inconclusive. From what the other tests showed, they were just an earth-pony with a severely underdeveloped Gaean duct. "Where did you come from?" she asked the unconscious pony.

Redheart sighed and walked out of the room. "I hope she's gonna be ok." With a final glance at the new patient, she closed the door, rushing down to pediatrics, and after that, to Arcane maladies to consult with somepony hopefully more knowledgeable on whatever was currently ailing the filly.

Chapter 1: Rekindled Fuse.

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Peter awoke with a snort. They stared blankly for a moment, devoid of focus. The body was awake, but the mind was still a step behind, it seemed. Sucking in a breath, he- 'wait hold on,' I forced my way back into consciousness, as one learns to do when sleep is limited to a college schedule. He- ' No... fffffffeck I must be tired, but what's up with the third person stuff?'

I shook my head and forcefully blinked my eyes a few times, working moisture back into them. The colours were so vivid that it made it hard to focus.

I felt the weight of something fall off my forehead, along with a kind of crumbling noise. Something about pebble sized bounced off my forearms, while another something light and flakey collected in the same general area. It felt kinda like fresh snow sticking to your arm hair. This sensation could also be likened to something else I've experienced…

Opening my now perfectly functional eyes all but confirmed my suspicions, as little light blue flakes slowly rained down from above the center of my vision. My face fell into a deadpan, carefully developed as a result of dealing with one particular classmate as I sighed wearily. 'He crushed more candy on my forehead, didn't he? Friggin Alex… honestly, how did he even convince me to go to another party after last time?'

My shifting expressions only seemed to dislodge more of the desecrated sugary treat-come forehead adornment. 'and so step one on the list of morning activities will be a shower.'

My face scrunched up in a yawn as I stretched. The faint but distinct sound of something twinkling made my ears twitch, but I more or less ignored the odd noise in favor of the fact that… Well, I couldn't feel my fingers.

I looked down at my arms, paused mid stretch. Where I should have had my hands balled up into fists, I didn't see anything but some fuzzy, thistle purple tube– 'oh, that's just a blanket.' Alright, so a fuzzy purple blanket wrapped around my arm and nothing else as I could see the cream white sheets of the bed… 'uhh, sleeve or cast, maybe?'

I squinted at the covering, trying to discern its… make up? What it was. I wanted to know what it was made of. I experimentally tried to turn my arm over, expecting some kind of discomfort if it turned out to be a fuzzy cast for whatever reason. Instead the limb turned over easily, bending at the visible wrist and upturning what should have been a palm for me to look at.

Now why this was a problem was I could feel the fuzz spreading over the blankets. I could feel the muscle groups working and they were basically, entirely foreign. I could feel the glittering substance sticking to the hairs.

I could feel this, and that was definitely not my arm. It felt deceptively like an arm, for about a third of its total length. The middle of the limb? That felt like my wrist. My palm felt stiff, and long, and my fingers felt fused. It ended in a semi stiff rounded tip that was not covered in fur, and some weird flexi group that was entirely foreign.

It was as I was staring down in morbid fascination at my transformed limb, that I realized that I was both laying on my stomach and was still able to do so.

Several swear words battled in my mind to be the first uttered. In the meantime I just squeaked in alarm and jolted at my impossible – or at the very least inhuman posture.

I looked over my shoulder, disturbed that said shoulder was nowhere near my point of view, and saw that the changes were not contained to just my arms, my entire body had changed.

My breathing became the ragged gasps of hyperventilation. My once-hands-but-now-something-different curled up to my face reflexively, hitting painfully into my new muzzle. I felt my eyes sting with tears as my panic stricken mind made me try to worm under the covers to hide.

It took me several minutes to focus enough to force myself to calm down. Carefully, slowly sucking in each breath before letting it hiss out through my teeth. The weight of the sheet over my head was grounding as I mentally beat my panic into a corner with the biggest stick I could find. 'M'kay Peter, Calm the hell down, nice and calm. Let's think about this for a minute. Evidence suggests that you're no longer human, which is pretty bad. But! But you're in a bed, not your bed but still a bed. Maybe someone around here knows what happened to you?'

'Something that… happened to me.' I rubbed a… forelimb against my chest, as a phantom chill crept out of my heart. I shivered involuntarily as remembered the events of last night. Half a dozen horse-things–

'Two, wait three including the big one had horns, so those must have been unicorns. But two of them had little wings, so what, baby pa… P… "P" something. Pegasus! Two pegasuses… that doesn't sound right. Pegasi? Pegasi, two pegasi and two… normal ones?'

I had calmed down considerably while trying to remember a more popular piece of Greek mythos, so with a clearer head and only a little bit of a shake in my limbs, I slid out of the covers, propping myself up to sit kinda like a dog.

Something on top of my head was pressed down by the sheets, and once free of the covers, sprung back to attention. They felt suspiciously like my ears, but… not.

They were just way too big and all kinds of mobile. I didn't get to think too hard about those, because a curtain of something bright and silky and voluminous robbed me of sight. I reached up to the… really light blue – Alice blue? – mass with a… forelimb, and, no other word really fits but pawed, it back out of the way. It felt exactly like every other time I'd brushed my hair back with a hand. Mostly. What with the lack of fingers or actual hands, plus my hair being way longer than normal.

I paused mid-motion – 'This is going to be a thing today, huh?' – to stare at the patch of colour on my once-arm. 'How did I miss a bright blue splash? Do both of them have that?' I looked down at my right and, no. There was no blue, but there was a kinda faded, creamy orange. Curiosity forced me to look down at my legs. The left was coated in a rosey red, and the right was purple… a different, darker purple.

With nothing else to really do, y'know, besides crumble into a hysterical wreck, I decided to get my feet – paws, nubs? – under me and distract myself from myself. 'That sounded better before I put it into words.'

With a certain level of resignation, I attempted to swing my legs out over the edge of the bed, bringing myself to a regular sitting position. 'So far so good.' Next step was to push off with my not hands and, well, do what I did every morning, more or less.

As my rear legs impacted the brown tiled floor with a resounding clack and clip, I felt a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach. And my chest. Long-ish neck, arms, and possibly even my head. 'Wait no, that's just falling, just the pit of my stomach then.' Were my thoughts as I waved my arms in front of me to ward off the rapidly advancing floor.

Alas, the well trained floor broke my sloppy guard and struck me repeatedly in a single fluid motion. I felt the hit on my chest, the rolling strike on my neck, the painful vibrations up the hard outer layer of my arm-thing endings- and the dazing blow to my chin.

'...dazing is correct, because I totally remember being beaten by the ground, all martial arts style, and that cannot be correct.'

All this, and my rear legs stayed basically exactly where I planted them, stubbornly locked up and leaving me in what would have been a compromising position, under normal circumstances.

Shaking my head to banish the pretty, vibrant stars, I placed my arm-things hard-bit down and pushed myself up. I was expecting that uncomfortable sensation all up your legs and lower back, like a normal person gets when trying to stand like a quadruped. Instead it was… pretty damn comfortable actually.

'I kinda get how horses can sleep on their feet now, huh.'

…
…
…

'Wait.' I lifted my right not-hand – wobbling unsteadily for a moment on three legs before I shifted my balance properly – and turned it up, down, and spun it around. 'Now that I think about it, these look exactly like hooves… fffff… I'm a horse thing like the ones before, aren't I?'

Looking away from my upturned probably-hoof, I looked around the room, spotting two doors.

One was closed, but the other had been left ajar, allowing me to see an odd looking toilet, and a shower. 'Bathrooms have mirrors, let's get a solid idea of what I look like.'

Shakily scooting across the floor, water skimmer style, I inched my way over. Something around my rear end seemed to flare whenever my balance got too shaky, and I wanted to avoid thinking about that for the moment.

Not fully trusting my ability to stand on just three limbs at the right then, I hooked my chin around the edge and swung my neck outward, tottering around as the excess momentum unbalanced me. The door slamming into the wall startling me didn't help.

I scooted into the bathroom, finding the lightswitch to the left of the door at eye level. I booped on the seesaw-ish button style switch with my nose, and was rewarded with a gentle yellow glow quickly filling the room from the three bulbs overhead.

Able to see into the now lit room more easily, I was able to see the full length mirror sitting between the sink and the shower.

'Somewhat odd choice, But I won't complain about not having to clamber up onto the sink to get a look at myself.'

Carefully settling onto my haunches before the looking glass – that's the fancy name for a mirror, right? – I attempted to mentally prepare myself before looking up.

Slate blue eyes stared back at me, which was nice! Because that was my normal eye colour, and that would be the first thing familiar about this whole thing. Mostly. Little blue and purple highlights had wormed their way into my peepers, left and right respectively.

Looking up from my face – which was longer than a human, but nowhere near as long as a regular horse's and was frankly, unfortunately, adorable, with the button of a muzzle and the anime-esque giant expressive eyes – 'I might be a guy, but I'm an art student, and I can admit when something is cute to look at... when/if I get back to my normal body, I'm going to make a killing selling plushies of myself.'

My, mane? Yeah, mane, was fluffy, mussed with bedhead, and had body that shampoo commercials wished they could put on camera. It also wasn't just blue. Faded streaks of orange, pink, and red lazily wandered down from my scalp, between my fuzzy radar dishes masquerading as ears to make things pop.

Anyway, looking down, splattered proudly over my chest was a somewhat dull splatter pattern, like on my legs. This one being half pink, half yet another shade of purple. Further down and behind me something pale blue sat limply, but now that I was aware of it, I could somewhat feel it, and after a bit of frustrating twitching, I got it to flick around my legs.

'I have a tail. Y'know what? Sure, why not. Makes sense.' Thwipping the extra limb – kinda? I think that's the proper term?– around between my ar- forehooves? – I got a good look at the two shades of purple, and the solitary streak of darker blue from the very ends of the hair all the way back up to the… 'I have no idea what the base of a horse's tail is called, let's just stick with base, can't go wrong with base.'

Speaking of the tail's base, following it back had brought my attention to my… outer thigh, on a person, not sure what it is on a horse, and the six gray dots emblazoned upon it, spaced around my outer leg in a circle. I pawed at the dots, but only succeeded in mussing up my fur.

I looked back to the mirror, giving my reflection another quick once over before my head – tail, and ears – drooped as I heaved out a sigh. A very put upon, weary, strangely but not all that unexpected at this point high pitched sigh.

"I look like a friggin tye-dye shirt." Those were… actually the first words I had said today, huh? And just like the sigh, they were dripping with tiredness, croaking, slightly awkward and way too damn high pitched. I winced at the sound of my own voice.

'Okay, so that's… sight and touch, fully functional, might as well run through all of them. Hearing is either shot or… it might be pretty damn good, what with the movable ears, I'm going to have to get used to that.' First item on the list; smell. I stood up and, slowly, stumbling, walked back into the main room, and sat down at its center, eyes closed to focus solely on my nose. I blew out a quick breath from my lips, then sniffed, and was nearly floored by how intense everything was. The smells just wafting through the air all around me, somehow unnoticed until I went looking for them.

I gagged a bit, the smell of disinfectant, medication, strong soap, the smell of unwashed animal and more were all just far too intense. I coughed hard, gagging again as the next breath brought in more overwhelming smells, blood from somewhere distant, foul medical paste, ground keratin – like what you get when you trim a dog's nails, but different – along with something… vaguely appetizing? I gagged more. 'Nope, nooo, don't think about food right now.' I mentally pleaded to… myself, clamping a foreleg over my muzzle as I let my body settle into how strong smells were going to be from then on.

'M'kay, so, I'm a bloodhound, at least in comparison to before.' I noted, finally releasing my nose and taking only the lightest sniffs of the air. Things were still way too strong, but I was more or less ready for it now, and only had to grimace through it. I decided that taste should be next, since I had caught a whiff of something good to eat earlier. Granted I'd never smelled anything like it before, but that didn't necessarily mean anything, what with my nigh-purely american diet.

I slowly homed in on the smell, following it around the bed and to the night table beside it. 'Where in the frick am I? This place feels like a weird cross between a hotel and a hospital.' I hooked my hooves over the lip of the table one at a time, before hoisting myself up, looking for whatever smelled so good.

The nightstand was empty, save for the pair of flowers sitting in a vase, one blue, with five large, swirling petals, and one white, with lots of little thin petals.

I'm not a flower guy.

'But then… Why do I smell food?' A few cautious sniffs confirmed that the smell wasn't coming from the woefully empty drawer, but atop the table. Infact, it seemed to be coming from the general direction of the vase… 'why do the flowers smell so good? Wait no, not specific enough, why do the flowers smell appetizing?'

I shakily reach forward, pawing futilely at the flowers with a blue splashed forelimb. On the fourth or fifth pass, I finally managed to get a grip on the thing, and tugged. It was only after the petal had come loose, imparting enough momentum to knock me on my back when it detached, that I wondered how in the hell I grabbed anything with a hoof?

With that thought the thin white petal came unstuck from my hoof, and I had to scramble to keep it from falling, because if I was going to try eating a freaking petal, like an idiot, I at least wanted it to not be floor food.

'I'm actually going to try eating a flower, aren't I?' I withheld a groan, narrowed my eyes at the piece of plant, and gingerly dropped it onto my tongue.

I had been expecting something like that time I ate turf… or grass, after being beaned in the back of the head during some sport or another. Not an experience I remember fondly or well, due to the ball, but I remembered spitting out the grass, and how awful it tasted.

What I got instead was, actually quite pleasant. It was... kind of hard to describe. The texture was well… a flower petal, but also kinda like a chip. Little flavourful somethings flaked off on my tongue as I chewed, like the artificial cheese on a cracker. Overall, it was pleasant, but it could have done with some spices, maybe some dip, maybe cooking it?

"I'm talking about a flower here…" I squeaked, grumbling, trying to clear my throat and find a familiar register to speak in. None seemed to exist.

After evaluating my senses, I decided that I was tired of fumbling around like a newborn. I saw two solutions. Do that as little as possible, jump back in the bed and go to sleep, or start practicing.

I grumbled mentally at each stumble, rolled wrist, and bump into the furniture. On the bright side, I had graduated from 'toddler with long legs' to 'canine with back problems' in terms of mobility. "At least this is going quickly." I muttered, ducking under the bed to add a bit of variation to the routine, and work on my balance.

It was somewhere around the tenth lap after speaking, thinking really hard about how horses are supposed to walk, that I heard a few steps outside the room. I had been so absorbed in walking that I hadn't heard the figure approaching until the door was already opening. I paused and turned to the door midstep, lost my balance and over-corrected to keep from landing on my face, essentially throwing myself into a sitting position.

Pink was the first thing I noticed. Nestled atop the pink was a little white nurse's cap, decorated with a pink outline of a cross and four hearts in each of its corners and one in its center. Wearing the hat was a nearly white furred equinoid, kinda like what I had become. The being's large eyes scanned the room in what appeared to be long practice, gliding over the bed and nearly slipping back out the door before they noticed that it was empty.

The horse-ish entity stepped into the room fully, eyes casting about looking for something. Probably me, considering how they locked onto me a moment later, and they breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh, young one, you're awake! This is wonderful!" She – and it had to be a she, if the voice was anything to go off of – exclaimed, coming to stand in front of me and… nose my side?

'Young!? Wait… she's three times my size, so I'm either a dwarf or… lets just go with she's correct, I guess,' I thought, before ordering my thoughts to reply. "I, Uhhm, yeah?"

It turns out that I was still a little caught up in the face of talking to a horse. Horse-like individual?

She nodded, before continuing to prod me with her muzzle, now with enough gentle pressure to force me up into standing. "It's great to see you up and full of energy, but why don't you go back to bed? I know it must be boring, but you've been asleep for almost a week straight, so you shouldn't push yourself." An expression easily recognized as a smile – apparently these horse people emoted the same way humans did, and it wasn't all that strange to see – graced her features.

"A week!?" I squeaked, too stunned to notice exactly how I had gotten back on the bed until the covers were being tucked in over me. 'How in the actual fuck has it been a week? I don't feel like there is a gap in my memory… which I probably wouldn't notice. At the same time, if I've been unconscious for a week, I would have expected some kinda dream to happen, even if it was just the kind barely remembered, where you really only notice that time is passing, but it's dream time, so you don't know how much is passing.'

My internal monolog went unnoticed, and the nurse mare pulled back, offering me a reassuring smile. "I've got an idea, how about I go get you something yummy from the cafeteria, that sounds good, doesn't it?"

My stomach grumbled loudly, as is practically required to happen by the universe when that question is asked. I sheepishly nodded. "That would be, good. Th-thank you… uhh."

The mare looked at me for a moment, before her eyes widened a bit in realization. "Oh, I'm Nurse Redheart, sweetie."

"Nurse Redheart." I nodded gratefully. She smiled again, and turned to leave. "Uhm." I called out to her before she opened the door.

The- Nurse Redheart turned to look over her shoulder, an action horse like individuals seemed far more capable of, compared to humans, as the motion was only neck up. "What is it, my little filly?"

I… blanked for a minute, my brain trying to process what she said before deciding 'screw it' and threw that train of thought into a dumpster and lit it on fire. I shook my head and went on with my initial question. "You, uhh, wouldn't know how I got here, would you?"

The nurse's smile lessened by an amount, her ears drooping a fraction of an inch. "That's, a little difficult to answer, young one." I withheld a pout, as that wouldn't be helping with the whole 'seen as a child' thing, even if the way she treated me like one was a bit bothersome. "I can tell you that a nice group of mares brought you to our hospital here, but that's about it."

I hummed in acknowledgment, my brow furrowing in thought. "Would they know? How I got here?"

"They might know a little more than me, but probably not much. They found you deep in the woods of the Everfree, do you know how you got there?" She asked in turn, fully facing me now, sat in front of the door.

I shook my head "...the last thing I remember is going to sleep in my bed." 'Omitting the whole, "I'm supposed to be a different species" thing, and all, that's true.'

"My, that must've been scary then, waking up in the hospital, all alone." She said, her tone conveying deep sympathy.

I nodded absently, staring down at the bed in thought.

"Well, I'm going to go get you that food." She smiled at me, standing to leave once more. "Oh!" She looked back at me again, one hoof on the door. "One of the mare's who brought you here is actually in the hospital right now, would you like to meet her?"

I "hmm"-ed in thought for a moment. 'Can't be a bad thing, besides, she said that they might know more of how I got here.' "That sounds like a good idea! I… need to say thank you. For getting me out of the woods. N' stuff." I finished lamely, but my thoughts had turned inward, and she had started to inch out the door. I looked back down at the blankets, specifically at the lump signifying my obscured body beneath them, a single question bubbling up over my other thoughts and worries.

'What did the word "filly" mean again?'

Chapter 2: Awake Again, Meeting and Greeting

View Online

Colour

trees

The steps circling themselves, leading further up-

Dialogue from his computer-

A river winding between hills-

–corner of the room. A pitch black claw, it's digits twitching–

A black coated mare was pulling with every scrap--

The night sky bloomed into existence, pushing the other images away.

< ◇ >

Peter awoke with a snort, rambling mumbles spilling from their lips as the experiences of their dream flitted away…

'When did I even fall asleep?' I wondered, rolling from my back forward onto my belly, wincing as… something got pinned between me and the mattress. 'oh yeah, I have a tail now.' A quick flick of that group of muscles and the appendage was free to flop over the pillow. 'You would think I'd have had enough sleep lately, but, here we are.'

I reached to rub my eyes, quickly remembered that the gentle instruments known as fingers had been replaced with hooves, and very carefully scrubbed my face against my wrists/ wrist-like-joints. 'If I'm stuck like this, I'm gonna need to learn horse anatomy.'

Pushing that somewhat terrifying thought aside for now, I blinked a few times, chasing away the tired sluggishness and clearing my vision to something acceptable.

Going by the light streaming in through the window, it wasn't that much later, maybe an hour or two, but I wasn't exactly experienced in reading the time via the sun. I could basically tell you if it was early, late, or night, and that's it.

But things looked about the same, so it couldn't be that much later. I stifled a yawn, and looked around a bit. On the bedside table, sat a tray of food. 'Food!'

I pounced – literally pounced – the thing, somehow dragging it several inches up and back onto the bed without spilling anything. There was a sandwich, of some kind. I didn't recognize the stuff between the bread, but it looked cooked and smelled absolutely divine!

A small apple had been cut into slices and arranged in a spiral, with some pink-fades-into-white flower sitting in its center, possibly as garnish, but it smelled good too. Obligatory emerald green hospital jello sat in a sealed little – glass, whats wrong with plastic!? – container with a spoon, and I honestly had no idea how to go about opening that up. It all looked, actually really good, for hospital food.

The only thing that didn't get dragged onto the bed was the glass of water with a curly green straw sticking out of it, but that was because A; I wasn't stupid, B, I doubted I could get it up here, and C, knew that needed a stable surface to sit on, not the spongey bed, that was just asking for a mess.

Through a combination of batting at it with my forelimbs, and nosing it into position carefully, I got the sandwich standing at an angle against the lip of the tray, and took a bite. The bread was better than just about anything I'd ever had alone! It was wholegrain, and the flavor was rich and fresh and just plain amazing!

Whatever made the filling for the sandwich snapped like fresh lettuce, but the flavour was so far beyond that. It was comparable to the quality burgers you could get at a little mom and pop joint, complete with a hefty swab of mayo that complimented it perfectly, but as this wasn't meat, it was an entirely new brand of awesome, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Sadly, the sandwich was gone before I knew it. I moved onto the flower over the apple slices, it snapped like fresh greens as well, and the short stem attached to it was chewy, and filled with a natural sweetness that was amazing. The apple slices themselves were crisp, a perfect balance of tart and sweet.

I took a brief break to take a sip of water, and found that even that somehow tasted better? 'That one doesn't even make sense!' I thought, but continued to drink anyway.

I went back for more apples, and began trying to figure out how to manipulate the spoon into stabbing open the jelo when my ears flicked at the sound of approaching noise. What sounded like eight sets of steps, and therefore likely just two horse-ish people, were coming my way.

I broke out of my food frenzy long enough to wonder what was happening now.

"So, yer sayin she's finally up then? Well that's a relief. We were all gettin' a mite worried about the little lady, with how long she was sleepin'." Someone drawled in a distinctly southern accent. I felt like I had heard it before, strangely.

"Oh I know what you mean. I still don't know much about her, but I didn't want to overload her with questions. She already seemed to be freaking out when I found her this morning, I hope she's doing better now." That one sounded like Redheart.

'Huh, I wonder who they're talking about. This is a hospital after all, it must have a few patients… I wonder if they call themselves doctors or vets?' I mused idly, giving up on the jello to chomp down on another apple slice.

"So, how's your brother doing?" Redheart asked the stranger, just outside the door to my room. "I haven't gotten to check on him today, pediatrics has been swamped with a recent batch of flurry flu."

'Whatever the hell that is, patients confirmed.'

"Ah, he's doin' better. Buncha you fine medical ponies lookin' after him right good. They say he'll be up 'n kickin' in abouts two weeks or so… gonna have to do the whole harvest without him, seems." The second voice sighed.

"Well, that's good to hear, and I'm sure you can manage without him, is Apple Bloom well enough to help out yet?" Redheart asked.

'Wait, is that a name?'

The country voice made a noise of discomfort. "Nah, she's doin' much better, an'll be goin' back to school soon, but she's still shiverin' all the time. She don't need to over work herself and get herself sick all over again."

"Oh, that's a shame." Red Heart said sympathetically. Their conversation seemed to stall for a moment, or drop to a volume I couldn't hear. "Are you positive you have the time to meet her? Seems like you've got a lot on your plate."

"Aww, that's sweet of ya to worry about, but the harvest ain't gonna start for a few more days now, so it's no trouble, sides, Ah'm here already, seems a bit silly to turn tail now."

"Alright, wait here a moment, I'll check on her." And with that, the door clicked open, admitting Redheart's head into the room once more. She cast her gaze about quickly, before checking the bed. "Oh good, you're still resting." She smiled.

I narrowed my eyes in suspicion for a moment, my head automatically cocking to the side in question. "Yeah?" I looked down at the tray and nudged it to the side a little. "Oh, and the food was very good, thank you."

The nurse nodded. "I'm glad you enjoyed it." She stepped into the room, closing the door behind her but leaving a hoof on the handle. "Now, I told you earlier that one of the mares who brought you in was here, are you up to meeting her right now?"

I nodded emphatically. "Of course!" 'She might know how the hell I got here, and by extension, how to get me home!'

"Well okay then." Redheart turned and pulled the door open, admitting entry to… the brightest orange creature I had ever seen. Her coat was Brilliant gamboge, and if it were any brighter I'd seriously wonder if she glowed in the dark. Her hair was the color of wheat – or close enough to it to evoke the comparison – and kept in a loose ponytail via a red scrunchy, her actual tail was thick and held in a similar fashion. Atop her head sat a worn, but clearly cared for, cowboy style hat, not sure which kind though.

We locked eyes – hers were a bright and cheery shade of green – for a moment, before she blinked, and went from deer in the headlights to warm and welcoming. "Well howdy! Glad to see you're up 'n about. Mah name's Applejack, what's yours sugarcube?"

The amount of country twang in her voice was only matched by her hospitality. She took a few steps closer and… shook my… hoof? 'Wait, why would that be the greeting developed by quadrupeds?' "Uuhhhh… Hi?" I managed to get out, trying to shake off the tingly feeling in my right foreleg from her shaking it with such… restrained strength and vigor.

The nurse put a hoof over the country mare's back, pulling her back slightly. "Now now, let's not scare the filly, take your time, dear."

Applejack's eyes widened in shock as she shrank back a pace, an apologetic smile framed by lowered ears as she dipped her head. "Sorry 'bout that, ah'm just happy to see you up, 'Bloom's been excited to meet you, we all have really." The nurse shot her a hooded look, and the orange mare jerked back further.

'So… a lot of people want to meet me, for some reason… Are extended periods of unconsciousness that interesting?' I wondered, before asking just that.

"Well, that would be part of it, there is more to it than that." The pinkette began.

"What's real interestin' is how we found you in an abandoned castle in the heart of the Everfree Forest. Jus' what were you doin' out there?" Applejack cut back in, taking one step forward with reproach and concern in her tone.

"... A castle? I have no idea how I got into a ruin in the middle of some... everfry forest?" I shook my head, ignoring their looks of surprise in favour of finishing my answer. "Anyway, I have no idea how I got out there. All I know is that one moment I'm going to sleep in my own bed, then I wake up in the hospital, and that I've been unconscious for a week." I paused for a moment to eat another apple slice. "Honestly, I was hoping you could tell me how I got here, since Nurse Redheart said you brought me in. Thank you for that, by the way."

The country mare nodded In acknowledgment of my appreciation, then she "hmm"ed for a moment, rubbing her chin. "Nah, can't rightly say ah do. It was Pinkie who found ya first, and I was only just wakin' up mahself."

"Would she know how I got here then? Please, I just want to… I want things to go back to normal." I felt my ears droop on either side of my head. Coupling that with the crack in my voice, I must have looked pretty pathetic, because I was immediately pulled into a hug by Applejack, my front legs dangling off the bed as she held me close. '...Well I wasn't expecting this… apparently these horse people are very touchy feely?'

The orange equine must have heard something in the way I spoke, and read me as far more upset than I was. "Now don't you fret none, I'm sure we can get you back home real quick, before you kin say 'Granny Smith's apple pie.' So you jus' wait here, get yourself some more food in that belly, and I'll be back with everypony 'fore the sun goes down." She gave me a quick squeeze before putting me back on the bed.

Once I was sitting on the bed again, and no longer had a being three times my size in my personal space, I noticed how a knot in my chest that I hadn't even known was there came undone, leaving me with a warm, content-ish feeling. 'Somehow, I feel like she's serious. She's at the very least extremely convincing.'

While I was busy sorting out how I felt now that the tension had left me, the two taller equinoids hashed out some quick conversation before leaving the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

After a minute or two, I turned back to my unfinished meal, and went about cleaning the tray of sustenance.

< ◇ >

I very carefully stacked my dishes together, empty glass in the middle of the tray, spoon set inside it, and the now empty container of jello next to the glass.

Stomach filled and free of distractions, I had nothing to do, well, aside from think. Think about how I got here. Think about what I woke up as.

Think about the word filly, as I still haven't remembered what that meant.

I decided to think on none of these things, and hopped off the bed. It is to my satisfaction that I only stumbled for a total of three of my own body lengths, which is pretty good for someone who has had their usual mode of locomotion replaced with a different system entirely, I think.

On the ground level, I went about trying to push a chair in front of the window. 'Y'know. Because I'm small, And I wanna see what's going on. And I say 'trying' because, one, small, two, no hands, and three quadruped.' The main issue with my plan involved the fact that the only chair in the room was on the other side of the room.

It's immensely difficult to walk on three legs when your body Is meant for four. It's even more difficult when you're trying to do it backwards. And even more difficult when trying to pull a chair at the same time.

Going at it from another angle, I tried butting my shoulder up against one of the legs, and pushing it that way, which was difficult, but manageable.

After agonizingly slow minutes, in which the chair toppled twice, and nearly toppled three times, I finally had a seat by the open window, and hopped up into it.

Standing on my back legs, I propped myself up against the sill, arms folded, which I attempted to rest my chin on. It worked, kind of. I just had to sit down first, and I rested my head less on my arms, more on just the hooves of them, the rest of my arms having been pulled down with the rest of me.

I wiggled a bit on the cushion, finding how my new body liked to sit, before wrapping my tail around my legs like a small blanket. 'Comfort established.' I smirked at the robotic monotone of my thoughts, before finally turning my focus to what was beyond the window.

The view was a picturesque rendition of medieval – or perhaps fantastical would be more accurate – town. Buildings constructed out of tastefully exposed timber frames, walls ranging the entire expanded white family, windows marking each floor when visible. The roofs were thatch, or at least covered in thatch in an attempt to conform with the traditional aesthetic, at this distance I couldn't be sure. Roads consisting of flagstone and ordinary dirt criss crossing and linking every building together.

A vibrant little train done all up in hearts – way too many hearts, the front window was a heart, there was a heart on the giant lightbulb on the front, the plow thing for removing snow and parked vehicles from the tracks was littered with little yellow hearts – pottered down the track into station. The sun sat nestled atop a bed of clouds, of which there were just enough to make the weather Ideal.

And everywhere, absolutely everywhere, were horses. And I do mean everywhere. Walking the paths, sitting in the grass, what looked like singing out the window of a house, flying through the air.

Every colour you could think of, on display in both coat and mane, in every style imaginable. On top of that, we had, well, obviously, wings on all the ones in the sky, but also a few on the ground. We also had horns on a number of the populus, but the vast majority seemed to lack any addorning features.

Aside from the tramp stamps. It seemed that on every horse that I could get a good look at, they all had some picture displayed on their… their… flank! 'That's the word! Feck, why did it take me so long to remember that?'

Despite the oddly pastel/psychedelic colors on display, nothing seemed to… clash for lack of a better word. 'How a prey species got so damn vibrant, I have no idea. I mean look at that one!' I stared in disbelief at a light blue pegasus that had an actual rainbow for hair, flying at high speeds, with clear division between the colors. 'Actually, I can see how the airborne variety would develop bright colours, if I equate them to birds. Although that doesn't explain my hair…' I thought, rolling my eyes heavenward to blink at my own colourfully streaked hair.

Still, despite evolutionary likelihood or lack thereof, it was actually really fun to just sit and people watch like I was, and so I did.

< ◇ >

I yawned, my eyes falling half closed as I zoned back in. I hadn't fallen asleep, I had kinda just glazed over, not paying any real attention, but not thinking about anything either.

The sky was slowly transitioning from blue to orange as the sun trekked towards the horizon. Most of the equines below had moved on since I had been paying attention. The rainbow haired one was still flitting this way and that, pulling off aerial maneuvers I was fairly sure broke some universal law, or would at the very least have some aeronautics people pulling their hair out.

A very pink pony was sitting on a bench a good clip from my window, bouncing to some tune and apparently enjoying herself. Himself? I couldn't actually tell at this distance.

I sucked in a breath as I pushed off from the window sill, letting it out in a groan of satisfaction as I leaned back and stretched my ar- forlegs. 'Dang, I've been sitting here a while.' I thought, turning around to hop down from the chair and back into bed. 'Looks like the orange one got busy, or forgot. Either way, I guess I'll worry about it tomorrow.'

Craning my neck out over the edge of the seat, I carefully judged the distance to the floor, aimed up where I was going to land, tipped off the chair and stuck my front hooves out over the edge, preparing to catch myself and bleed off my momentum in a brief walk. 'Err, Trot. Or was it Gallop? Screw it, a brief stretch of horse locomotion.'

I hadn't even got halfway to the ground when a breeze picked up from the window, curtains billowing out around me. The blanket blew off the bed, the sheet rippled, air whistled beneath the door as it passed though the small space.

Oh, and the chair rocked.

I somehow snapped back to a seated position, my hooves sticking to the cushion for some inexplicable reason. With my added weight, I managed to keep the chair steady and upright, though it did squeak rather loudly as it slid three inches away from the wall.

And then an almighty snap filled the air, driving the wind up ever higher. The chair left the ground. I didn't leave the chair. I screamed. I went screaming across the room.

I bounced off the bed, the chair deciding that the wind was stronger than my grip, it left, clattering off the wall and coming to rest in front of the door.

Two more snaps, which were lighter than before and sounded suspiciously like flaps, and something clacked onto the window sill.

"And she sticks the landing!" Came a scratchy, brash voice from the direction of my very own personal wind tunnel.

I gingerly poked my head up over the edge of the bed, my entire body shaking as I beheld… the rainbow haired pegasus from before, posed confidently...? I think i'm reading that right. The horse person was perched confidently upon the window frame, chest puffed out, eyes closed, with a small smirk on her face.

Magenta eyes cracked open, and her confidence immediately gave way to surprise and worry. Our gazes locked, and the light blue winged equine shrank back sheepishly. "Hehe… I… I'm sorry about that."

"Two things." I rasped between paniced breaths, while she crawled into the room and found a comfortable spot. I clawed my way onto the mattress, lack of digits be damned. Lying flat and still shaking, I leveled my best glare at her. "One, how in the name of… name of… whichever thing you hold dear, did you think it would be a good idea to loose a small hurricane in a hospital, and two, how did you stop like that? Speed like that should have had you going through that floor," i swing a leg to point at the ground I had gotten all to familiar with at fractions of fractions of her speed. "Not alighting on the ledge of a window like you weighed as much as a sparrow!"

I may not have been taking things like casual disregard for physics well, coupled with my new body. My voice in particular right now, it's really starting to annoy me, and being hurled across the room didn't help.

"Hey! I didn't mean to do that! I just wanted to give you a sneak peek at some of my awesome moves, since you'd been staring at me for a while, I thought a grand entrance would be cool! And I… didn't mean to throw you around like that, Earth ponies are supposed to be heavier than that… my bad."

I went to berate the winged natural disaster as best I could, but the doorknob jiggled as someone tried to open the door. Someone knocked with a decent amount of urgency as the wood refused to move more than a half inch. "Helloo? I heard a loud crash, are you alright in there?" Came a distinctly accented voice, posh, prim, and properness wound tightly around each syllable, and yet I could easily hear the concern.

With no prompting, the pegasus took to the air once more, though thankfully without inviting more inclement weather, hovering just a few feet off the floor as she went to the blocked entry. She picked the poor chair up in both forelegs and stood it up beside the door, at which point the entire thing began to glow blue, and swung open forcefully.

The pegasus dodged with a yelp, doing several flips as she attempted to stabilize. Meanwhile a snow white unicorn clipped into the room, her curled purple mane and tail bouncing gracefully with each step. Her eyes landed on me, and she cringed visibly before composing herself. "A-ah, there you are darling. Are you quite alright, from the looks of things you've had quite the day."

I looked up, realized I couldn't see anything on my left, and looked through the bathroom door and at the mirror instead. Turns out that standing in a DIY wind tunnel is bad for a plushie's appearance, as I had gone from mild bedhead to looking like a plane crash survivor.

I brushed the wayward locks out of my face and turned back to her. "You have no idea."

The mare frowned lightly at my reply, but it looked more sympathetic than anything, before walking – trotting? – over, producing a hairbrush from… I'm just gonna assume thin air, since it sparkled with the same blue light the door did. It was also floating.

'What?'

"Allow me to just-"

"What in tarnation happened in here?" Applejack asked, appearing in the doorway and picking up the blanket. I pointed at the still airborne occupant of the room as I… melted into the bed a bit. Apparently having your mane brushed feels amazing, which is not something my life had prepared me for.

Peeking around the doorframe, a yellow coated, pink haired equine blinked, one eye obscured by their long mane. She looked back out the door, for reassurance or to leave, I wasn't sure, but after a moment of indecision she came into the room and sat at a comfortable distance from the mild bickering match that had erupted between the technicolor one and the white one, ruffling her wings a bit.

I blinked, and a section of her mane appeared to have pulled away and become its own being. The pinkest of pink individuals now sat on the chair behind the yellow one. 'When did that one even get in here?'

Over the steady din of conversation now filling the room, I could just make out the approach of more horses. Rounding the corner together was Nurse Redheart, accompanied by a purple coated unicorn, her dark blue hair divided by streaks of rasberry and a dark purple.

The new equine's face passed through confusion, to surprise, exasperation and resignation, with a foreleg clasped over her muzzle in a fashion that looked vaguely similar to pinching the bridge of one's nose.

Redheart, on the other hand, skipped straight to incensed. "Why are you ponies crowding my patient!?"

I fell ever deeper into the trance that the gentle brush strokes caused.

Chapter 3: Introductions and Discharge

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I idly pawed at the cushion under my hooves, much like a contented kitten, as I slowly came back to reality.

After the nurse had chewed out the half dozen ponies, she had them ushered out into the hall, towards some room that would serve as a proper place to meet them all. Which is where I found myself now, toying with the weird grip ability my new limbs really shouldn't have been capable of.

Applejack sat on a rather plush looking couch on one side of a low coffee table, flanked by the purple coated mare and the rainbow haired pegasus. Across from them sat the literally vibrating pink one in a folding chair, the butter yellow mare on some long backless lay down chair – not quite a bed, not quite a chair, and it somewhat resembled an ottoman –, and the stereotypically white unicorn was sat in a comfy armchair.

Rainbows-for-hair sat on the receiving end of a glare, courtesy of the fair coated mare across from her – 'looks like those two were fighting for some reason' – , while the pinkette pegasus sat nearest to the door, and by extension me.

I was sitting on a smaller chair, armless but with a very plush seat and back that I'm pretty sure I could sink into if I tried.

I looked up from my hooves, and suppressed a groan of annoyance as I brushed my new, annoyingly long mane out of my face. My hair was still a little messy, apparently it was rather adamant about not laying flat, much to the unicorn's initial disappointment.

I cleared my throat, and threw together something to say. "Uhh… Hi there, I heard that you're the ones who… uhm, know how I got here?" 'Let's just leave it vague for now, and see how specific they get.'

"Yupperoonie!" Bounced the pink one. "When a mommy and a daddy--"

"Pinkie, darling, I think she was asking about more recent events." The purple maned unicorn attempted, one hoof resting on the energetic pony's shoulder.

'She!? Crap, is that what filly means?!'

The thusly named Pinkie continued on, as if she hadn't heard. "-- got sent to a little school while the mommy went back to big school, isn't that funny? Anyway, meanwhile in an alternate--"

"So, while Pinkie is being Pinkie, why don't we try moving things along. Hey, I'm Rainbow Dash, the most awesome pegasus in all of Equestria."

I belatedly nodded in acknowledgement, trying to not let my thoughts show on my expression. 'Your parents must have gotten number one on creativity there, the fast pony with the visible spectrum for hair? But seriously… I'm',' I shook my head, throwing those thoughts onto the pile labeled 'shit to worry about later' and turned to look at the next pony, going counter clockwise.

"-- the moon! It's all sandy and quiety--"

"I'm Rarity, dear, and it's lovely to see you out of that mucky castle. And might I add, the feathered style suits your mane, it really emphasizes your highlights."

I looked at the hair framing my field of vision, and gave a mental shrug. "Thank you?"

"-- eenie meanie cults had weakened the barrier over the years, so she had to change what all the books said--"

"Th' names Applejack," the orange mare reintroduced herself, this time mercifully without the hoof shake, and a tip of the hat. "But you knew that already. I work over at Sweet Apple Acres, largest farm this side o' Canterlot."

"Impressive." I nodded. 'I'd laugh so hard if Applejack and her farm specialized in potatoes.'

"--went away, and they didn't smile much after that, but they made friends again around high--"

I turned to look at the purple coated unicorn, but she seemed to be double taking whatever Pinkie was saying. Seeing as she was busy, I turned an expectant look on the remaining pegasus.

"--about ponies who traveled through time, and ones who looked a little buggy, and had stars in their hair--"

The mare blinked at me, her one visible eye widening for a moment in understanding. She looked down at the cushion underneath her, playing with a lock of her hair between her hooves. "I-I'm Fluttershy, it's lovely to see you up and about." She gave a shy smile. "I take care of a lot of the animals around the town." Her voice was quiet as a church mouse, but with her being so close by I was able to just hear her when my ears were pointed at her.

'Which is very weird to experience after having largely stationary ears for all my life. Also, is she just quiet all the time, or do I somehow make the being over twice as big as me nervous?'

"-- and then everypony was getting ready for the celebration, and I had to hunt down some macaroons, you wouldn't believe how good baked goods are at hiding--" the embodiment of pink exclaimed with her hooves thrown wide.

The apple farmer gave the last pony a nudge, breaking her out of staring at Pinkie. She quickly glanced around, as if she had forgotten where she was. She had the decency to blush when she gathered her bearings, one hoof rubbing the opposite sheepishly as her ears fell back. "Ah, yes. Well, My name is Twilight Sparkle, personal student of Princess Celestia. I just moved into town and I'm studying friendship."

'That… okay, so monarchy, wonder who the king and or queen are, this one is obviously important since she studies under royalty… but also…' "How exactly does one study friendship of all things? Is that a thing you can get a degree in, or is it more of an elective?" I wondered at her, aloud.

"-- funny being all floaty, and then it was all Bewm! woosh! Schloooorp~!" She popped the 'P' on that word. "Vv. Vvv. Vvvveeerrrwwuuhm! And then we all passed out and I dreamt about cake and moons and streamers and my friends and then we woke up and I bounced out of frame and the princesses had a touching reunion and we brought you back to Ponyville and eventually you woke up and we all introduced ourselves and then you looked at me funny as I finished my story before saying your name was--" Pinkie clapped her hooves over her mouth as if to stop herself from spilling some big secret. "Which was what exactly?" She finished, rolling a hoof at me in a "go on" kind of gesture.

I stared at her for a moment. "...did you do that all in one breath?" I finally asked.

"Yep!" She beamed, apparently still not winded, somehow.

"How?" I pleaded for an answer.

"I'm a baker silly~ oh wait! I missed my turn! I'm Pinkie Pie, and I'm a baker, I live at sugar cube corner, which is where I work and it's also where Mr Cake lives and Mrs Cake and Gummy, he's my pet alligator, we all make yummy pastries and candy and other things there! Well, not Gummy, he's an alligator, but sometimes he helps me out, anyway. Thats me, how about you, what's your name?" Again, she had yet to take any major intake of air compared to the volume of words she spewed.

'How is that even physically… nevermind. A name huh? Well, given the ones I've heard and the whole she thing going on, I don't think Peter would sound right… hmm. Most names here seem to be made of a pair of 'regular' words, but then there is 'Celestia' with something that sounds halfway proper, so maybe I could get away with something like that?' I thought over several potential aliases ranging from 'Patricia' to something along the lines of 'Morning Glory,' or 'Aurora.' None of them felt right, or like something I could remember to answer to.

I rubbed my right hoof irritably, trying and failing to banish the distracting itch that had rooted itself in the limb while I came up with a worthy pseudonym. "Something to match how I look? Rainbow is a little on the nose, not to mention taken, but on the nose names seem to be the norm, what with Pinkie and Twilight. Hmm... something… bright… Bright?' I grumbled, grinding my hoof into the cushion, but it was too plush to offer any kind of relief.

While I seriously considered chewing on the offending appendage, everyone else in the room had started giving me odd looks. 'Oops, must have been quiet too long! Synonyms go! Light, Incandescent… too long, Shimmer, Twinkle! Ew, no.'

"Argent." I muttered, not even really aware as everyone stopped whispering amongst themselves. "I'm Argent Accord."

'Now where did that come from?' I wondered, but the question was quickly swept away by the itch in my forelomb dying away and the smiles I got from everyone.

"Its a pleasure to meet you, darling."

< ◇ >

I was back in my room, just laying on the bed staring at the ceiling, my tail curled up over my belly to my chin. "Argent huh?" I mused, running a blue hoof over my tail idly.

'It feels strangely right, and I don't think I'll forget it easily. Plus it isn't overtly girly like… I dunno, Morning Glory was, so, good?'

"Argent Accord." I repeated. I hadn't thought about what my last name would be, I had planned on introducing myself only by first name, like Applejack did… 'at least I think that was a single word…' again, It felt right, but while I had been actively searching for a first name, the second one came out of nowhere, Kinda just naturally flowing after 'Argent.'

"This is my name now, for now… It'll do, until I get home." I nodded to myself, rolling up onto my haunches to look out the window. The sky was very orange now, the sun half hidden behind a mountain that looked placed rather than the result of plate tectonics.

I was waiting on Nurse Redheart, or someone – 'somepony apparently, eugh, what a weird word, but I suppose it makes sense if the intelligent species on this world are ponies…' – to come collect me.

Because I was a child.

Apparently, since I hit it off so well with the six mares, the hospital staff and a cream furred unicorn whose wardrobe screamed social worker were talking to them about me staying at one of their places, which I was grateful for, and had agreed to.

Now it was just a matter of waiting.

Oh, and thinking to pass the time.

'Pinkie lives with another family in a work/home combo place, so I doubt they have room for me, and since the Cakes own it, they would have to talk to them about me staying, not Pinkie.'

In the same vein, Rarity was also probably a non-option, as she also lived where she worked – a boutique, apparently – and sounded like she was incredibly busy at most hours, and didn't need the added challenge of looking after a child. None of these were her arguments, she seemed more than happy to host me, it was everyone else in her group of friends pointing things out.

So while details of where I would be staying – until they could 'find my family,' good luck with that – I had been taken back here and had a few things explained to me.

Apparently, I was something called an 'Earth-Pony' which only made me sputter for a few minutes. Turns out, no relation, just means essentially I'm one of a "hearty tribe", commonly finding their talents in farming and the most physically strong of the three types making up the population.

Only I wasn't.

I had a whole laundry list of medical problems. Fortunately they all seemed easy enough to fix.

Apparently, I had a severely underdeveloped "Gaean duct" which is the special organ only Earth ponies have in their hooves. I also had "under developed mana conductive pathways" which connected poorly to the earth pony thing. I was also underweight, more in line with what they would expect from a Unicorn or a Pegasus my age.

So yeah, there's all that.

I kinda latched onto the word "Mana" and lost focus for a bit of the explanation. Because potential magic?

So I was being given a prescription to encourage development and connectivity, as well as mana production. On top of that, I was assigned a workout routine to help me get "more intune with nature" to aid in my development and a specialized diet to help with the weight thing.

'Everything is complicated, but I doubt being sickly would help me in… well anything while I'm here. To think, I traded in glasses for all this bs, I'll gladly take my astigmatism back, please, I want a refund!'

Oh! Speaking of money, I wasn't being stuck with the bill for my hospital stay, so that was one less reason to panic.

I turned back to the mirror, frowning lightly at the thistle purple pony staring back. "Still, Argent, huh?"

< ◇ >

I stared out the doors of the hospital, one hoof resting on the glass.

I was a little hesitant to leave. The hospital had been basically the only place I knew since waking up, and out these doors, an entire alien world waited.

It was a little intimidating.

I backed up a few steps glancing behind me at the open lobby. No one was there. Oh sure, the receptionist was there, but she had stopped paying attention after seeing me head for the doors.

I knew I couldn't stay here, it wasn't like I needed the bed more than the next potential patient anymore, so trying to stay here would be wrong. I knew I was going to be staying with one of the mares, and they all seemed genuinely nice and friendly, but still…

I scowled at myself. 'Alright Peter, that's enough. You're acting like a child! You're not some easily frightened eight year old, you're a grown ass man! Chin up, shoulders back, and go… do… the thing. Damnit, I ran out of steam. And that second one doesn't really apply…'

Shaking my head, I took a deep breath to settle my nerves, picked up the brown paper bag the hospital had given me in my teeth, and pushed my way through the doors into the greater world.

I hopped down the stairs towards the mare who would be putting me up.

Chapter 4: High Definition Nonsense and a Dream House

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As I descended the stairs leading from the hospital, the lavender adjacent unicorn's ears twitched back at me. Twilight turned to look my way, hopping up off the bench to meet me as I reached the bottom of the steps. "Hey Argent! Got everything ready?"

My instant knee jerk reaction of a sarcastic reply was cut off my the taste of paper. As was my second, as I couldn't stand on just my hind legs long enough to pat down some non-existant pockets.'im not sure if that would even make sense here havent seen any pants around after all.' I settled for dropping the bag on the ground and circling it, kinda like a dog that had lost their toy.

It wasnt long before I got a reaction out of the mare, unfortunetly it was just mild confusion and not any kind of laughter. 'Eh, oh well.' "Yep, everything accounted for." I smirked. "In all seriousness, yeah, I said goodbye, and thank you to every-pony," I corrected at the last second, "--for taking care of me." 'Alright, didn't even slip up that much, just a little stilted!'

The unicorn nodded, her horn lighting up with a purple-pink sparkliness, an instant later, a similar shimmering blob of color surrounded my dropped paper sack o' medicine. The glowing aura proceeded to lift said bag off the ground and place it within her saddlebags.

I gapped like a fish for a minute at the… whatever that was that I had just witnessed. "Whoa…" I breathed softly in amazement.

Twilight giggled. "What, never seen a unicorn use magic before?" She asked, her tone joking.

"No, I haven't." I answered honestly, which seemed to bewilder her for a time.

The purple unicorn gave me a funny look, one ear folded and her head cocked to one side like a dog. "Never?"

"There weren't exactly very many unicorns back home… Shouldn't we get going? It's getting pretty late." I pointed out, gesturing toward the setting sun.

"Ah, I suppose you're right, they should be… follow me, I'll show you the way to Golden Oaks, it's where you'll be staying for the time being, with me and Spike. He's my assistant, you'll get along great!"

"I look forward to meeting him." I nodded politely, trotting after her. "So, where did everypony else go? I kinda thought I would at least see 'em on the way out, even if we didn't all walk to uh, Gilded Oaks, together?"

"Golden Oaks." Twilight corrected absently as she turned to look back at me as we continued down the road. "Oh, well, Applejack had to stop by her brother's room in the hospital, before heading back to the farm to prepare for the harvest."

"Ah, I think I remember hearing something about that… she said he was going to be laid up for… two weeks? What exactly happened?" I wondered, trying to remember if I caught any more details from beyond the door.

"Apparently he got caught up in the stampede for gala tickets last week coming back from a delivery… he's okay now, but I feel kinda bad about being the cause of it." Her ears drooped and she looked like a kicked puppy.

I didn't know what this gala was, or how exactly she was the cause, but seeing a sad pony is kinda like watching all the happiness in the world be snuffed out. Yes, they are that adorable. I quickly changed the subject to avoid seeing such a thing for a second longer. "W-what about Rainbow?"

Twilight looked up, scanning the sky for a moment as the sadness drained from her features. "She had to go and divert a wild storm from the Everfree to keep our water table on schedule, so we won't see her for a little while." The unicorn explained, gesturing vaguely to the south east where some nasty black clouds could be seen rumbling in the distance.

I shivered involuntarily, imagining being caught up in that storm after a week of unconsciousness. 'Would I have even lived through my mini coma if I hadn't been found? Now I'm extra glad they found me.'

"Fluttershy had to go back home to oversee a late clutch of tortoise eggs hatching, she seemed pretty excited about that." Twilight smiled.

"Yeah, baby animals are adorable, do you think she'd let me see them at some point?" My voice had more pleading in it than I was happy with, but I did really wanna see the baby land-turtles.

"I'm sure she would be delighted to have you over to see them in a day or two, animals are kinda the best way to get to know her."

We slowed down as we neared an intersection, Twilight sat at the curb for a moment to let a couple pony drawn wagons go by, while also pointing out a giant circus tent style building. It was all done up in complementary shades of blues, yellows, pinks and purples, with a red triangle flag flapping at the top. A pair of slightly stylized ponies stood either side of the second or third story, depending on how space efficient the structure was.

"Rarity had to rush home to complete an order for a client before the pre-fall rush could come in." The unicorn was actually only just getting back herself, so we were able to wave at her in greeting. She returned it with a smile before we got going again.

"Pinkie seems capable of dissapearing at the drop of a hat, but I have a feeling we will be seeing her soon." I turned to look at her, but before I could ask for more details she turned towards a large tree.

A quite impressive specimen, its trunk was easily on par, or even slightly larger than the trunks of ancient redwoods, about the same as any house nearby. This type of tree seemed to favour girth over stature, as its height didn't match. It was only two or three stories high. 'A stub of a tree, healthy, roots probably go down for-- is that a door?'

I looked closer, and, indeed, Twilight was opening a little red door on the tree's side. It was the kind that split in two, top and bottom. 'Can't remember the name of that type… wait, she lives in a tree?!' It was only at this point that I noticed the balconies, windows, and the sign out front with a depiction of a book on it.

"You live in a tree?" I asked, scampering back up beside her. "A literal tree house?"

That earned a laugh from the purple mare. "Indeed, but it's more of a live-in tree library actually." Twilight smiled fondly, gesturing into the open door and the blackness that lay beyond.

I walked in cautiously. "Shouldn't it be brighter in here? I saw a bunch of windows out-" was as far as I got before the lights flicked on.

Black out paper was removed from the windows as ponies numbering in the dozens all shouted at the top of their lungs. "Surprise!"

My legs locked up as my ears shot back. I winced at the volume before falling over with a pathetic, goat-esque noise. My heart beat a mile a minute as Pinkie bounced into view, blowing a party favor with a huge smile on her face.

"Hiya Argent! Welcome to your Congratulations-Getting-All-Better-and-on-Waking-Up-Slash-Welcome-to-Ponyville-Party!" This promted all present gave either a "yeah!" "Congrats!" "Happy to see you!" Or something similar. The ball of sugar, happiness and pink grinned down at me. "So, were you surprised? Did we get ya? Huh? Huh? Huh?" With each word she got a little bit closer before snapping back to her prior stance.

After a minute of desperately trying to keep the phrase "Scared the piss out of me" from graduating from metaphorical to litteral, I nodded. "Y-yep, you got me r-real good."

"Awesome!" The pink pony cheered, blowing her party favor again while the room cheered once more. Things went from ordinary to raging-but-child-friendly in a matter of minutes. There was cake to be had, and punch, and caramel apples and candy. Many a-game that made very little sense were spread out over the floor and on the walls.

I mostly tried to stick to the free walls, sampling a few of each of the goodies before they could go away, but I was never much of a sweets person.

As I sat on the stairs with a small plate of food and a cup of something grape and strawberry flavored I sighed, the sound easily lost in the music of the party.

'And to think, I was this close to saying "this might not be so bad." Murphy gets you before the thought is even fully formed, apparently.'

< ◇ >

The party ran for a few hours, ponies generally having a good time while I tried to not get involved in anything I could be made to look like a fool in. After the sun had set and the moon had risen, Twilight went about politely disbanding the event and kicking ponies out of her home.

Politely, again.

The excuse? I was a child that needed her rest. I'm glad I was nowhere near the mare as she was doing this as I was having trouble suppressing my annoyance at being misgendered. Or rather, what plumbing came with the new body… 'yeah, that's gonna take a minute to get used to. Let's just add it to the pile for now.'

After the only two ponies left in the building were me and Twilight, I was introduced to the library's third resident, who was, incidentally, not a pony!

I looked at the little bipedal purple reptile, unblinking as my eyes went from the short tail, to the green spines, to his slitted eyes and to his claws. I must say, Spike didn't look anything like what I expected when Twilight said she had an assistant.

She failed to mention that said assistant was a dragon. A dragon.

"D-dragon?!" I squawked in surprise, nearly toppling over again.

"Yep! Spike here is a baby dragon." The unicorn giggled, apparently finding my gawking hilarious.

'Talking ponies, unicorns, magic, and now, dragons. I'm totally in a fantasy world, aren't I?' I sighed mentally, while redirecting my thoughts to a more helpful track. "How does… but he… what… how?" I squeaked, unable to do more than jibber questioningly. 'Hmm, yes, helpful… indeed…'

Apparently Spike decided to answer my question. "Oh, well, Twilight is actually the one who hatched me, so I've known her my whole life!" He smiled. "Also, because I was hatched by really strong magic, I turned out to have some cool latent magic of my own! It lets me send things with my breath to ponies, so Princess Celestia decided that I should live with Twilight. As I got older, Twilight started training me as a scribe, which is basically just writing things down for her and sending them to the princess, but eventually she also let me help her out with other things too!"

Twilight pulled the purple reptilian into a hug with one hoof, Nuzzling the top of his head "And I couldn't ask for a better assistant!" Spike blushed brilliantly, half heartedly squirming in an attempt to break free.

I laughed at their antics. 'They seem close, like family.' "Sounds like you're quite a bit of help then!" I was starting to get a bit tired, and I felt a yawn coming on, so it felt like it was about time to wrap up the day. "So where exactly am I going to be sleeping? Got a comfy couch?"

"We're not gonna make you sleep on the couch!" Spike said, seemingly shocked by my willingness to not be a bother.

Twilight nodded at the little dragon. "Quite right Spike. I've got a spare bed up in the loft. ``The mare layed a hoof over my shoulders looking me in the eyes to add sincerity to her words, I guess. "It's yours for as long as you need it."

As a group, we headed up the stairs. Walking up stairs as a quadruped is actually incredibly easy, it's going down that's hard. The only reason I didn't have trouble leaving the hospital is because the steps were both long and shallow. These steps were both steep and short, like the kind a human would use, and I could just tell how much of a pain in the ass it was going to be getting down them in the morning.

'Problem for tomorrow, I suppose.' Twilight hauled the large four post wood frame bed out of storage with nothing but her horn, applying fresh sheets and pillows almost as an afterthought. 'Holy crap! Magic is freaking awesome! Why couldn't I show up as a unicorn?'

As I stared stupidly at the show of power and dexterity, teeth clamped around the scruff of my neck, which I apparently had now, and deposited me in the center of the bed.

As I touched down, I found out just how exhausted I actually was. To tired to be filled with wonder for certain, I couldn't even dredge up the curiosity to wonder what the sparkly noise that accompanied my yawning.

I nosed my way under the covers, laying on my side, I turned back to a confused looking unicorn. She shook it off quickly enough and stepped closer. "Well, it looks like you're comfortable enough. If you need anything, don't hesitate to wake me up, okay?"

I nodded sleepily, and she leaned in to give me a nuzzle, fixing the covers over me in a flash of magic. 'Woah, kay then, uhh, ponies are a lot more touchy feely than I'm used to. I guess… it's not that bad, but…'

"Goodnight my little pony." She said, in an almost sing-song manner.

'Ah, right, I'm a child now… how exactly do I keep forgetting that? Everyone is three times my size!'

"Goo'nigh'." I yawned back, something making that sparkly sound again. 'There's tha' noise again.' my head hit the pillow a moment later.

I wiggled for a few minutes, trying to find a comfortable position. I rubbed at my forehead for a bit sleepily before finally drifting off.

< ◇ >

A cool summer breeze blew by, the grass swaying gently in waves of green. I stared up at the beautiful blue sky.

Flattened grass tickled my back and arms, while the taller specimens swayed into view every now and then, seeming to switch between green, gold, and blue every now and then. A tree stood just a bit away from me, its leaves cast in shadow as it added to the harmony of a pleasant day.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, a smile tugging at my lips as I relished in the smell of a nice summer day. Somewhere nearby, I could hear a river, and the leaves of the tree rustling in the wind. Everything was so nice, so peaceful…

My ears folded back in alarm as water dripped into them. I bolted upright and shook my head violently to dislodge the invading liquid.

As I ground a hoof ineffectively into my ear, I looked around in annoyance for the source. 'Was I too close to the river?' I wondered, but no, it was a fair distance away. More drops landed on my back, so I jumped like a cat, whirling midair to glare at the offender. The wood would have quivered in fear if trees knew to be afraid.

"Wait, the tree?" I stepped back to observe the odd plant. The bark was strange. A dark, rich brown for the most part, but with white new growth, like young branches, or where old bark had flaked off to be replaced. The leaves were a pale gray and… fluffy? It was almost like a cloud and a tree had been mixed into one thing… which was supported by the fact that the tree was giving off rain. Oh sure, it was in light amounts, but just past this one, I could see more that were really pouring down.

I turned around, and beheld… nonsense.

To start with, there were the rivers. Three, I could see from here. One of them flowed uphill, which isn't that bad, it's against physics as far as I'm aware, but not that bad.

The one that decided to flow around a tiny hill through itself, made no goddamn sense. Seriously, the currents looked to be tied in a freaking knot!

But! At least it wasn't flying through freaking the air!

Along with that, bushes grew jars of peanut butter. Shrubs rolled away from butterflies in terror. Shadows seemed to have absolutely no appreciation for where light said they should be, and lay in a myriad of shapes, lengths and depths, regardless of the object casting them.

My eye twitched as I folded my hooves over my face. "Why does nothing make sense…" I groaned.

The trees seemed to rain harder in response to my complaints, the pixelated sun zipped to midday and a perfectly circular sourceless shadow slowly bloomed over me. The wind picked up, and the loopy river started doing gravity defying loops ala-rollercoaster style.

I tried and failed to pinch the bridge of my nose. "Okay, I know this is a world of magic, but, but some things have gotta follow some rules, right?"

The blue splash over my hoof seemed to gain saturation, before an oddly familiar feeling left me. A wave of colors seemed to possess the landscape. Random things that didn't make sense started glowing a bright pink, or orange, or so on, before becoming something more normal. Most things became normal anyway, the odd peanut butter bush, raining tree, and backward river were still around, but most of the place was acceptable.

I looked between my once more pale blue splash, and the landscape. "Ah, I'm dreaming, aren't I? That would… make a lot of sense actually! Okay, if I'm dreaming, theeen, hmm… a baseball bat could be useful?" I waved vaguely to my right, and the desired sport stick appeared, falling into a normal, if bright, bush.

I nodded, a satisfied smile on my face. "Right, so I'm still able to do the neat, dream bending, lucid, whatever you want to call it! Kay then! I'm incapable of being bored if that's the case!" I clapped my forehooves together, rubbing them together as I thought about what I was going to spend my dream time doing.

"Hmmm… let's try that first?" I looked down at my hooves, disappointed that I seemed to remain a pony, even in my dreams. I closed my eyes, and focused hard on what I used to look like. The feeling of fingers, toes, two legs and two arms. Being tall.

I opened my eyes, rolling my- "aww…" pony shoulders, on my pony body. I sighed dejectedly, before shrugging and moving on. "Never was overly good at changing what I looked like in these things. Ah well, nothing for it but doing something else."

I stood up, stretching for no reason for a minute before trotting towards one of the rivers. It was the largest of the bodies of water in the current landscape, and thankfully flowing in the right direction. I stared down at my distorted reflection for a moment, before thrusting a hoof into the current, breaking the image. After a minute of swirling my forehoof in the water, I noticed how the current seemed to be dyed orange as it flowed past. Experimentally, I thrust my other hoof in with a splash, and a second band of color joined the first, a noticeably lighter blue this time.

Humming a song from the little mermaid, I jumped into the river, sinking several meters in the span of seconds to the bottom, my hooves digging into the clay. I sat on the riverbed, I breathed out a sigh of contentment facing down stream. As I watched, the entire thing slowly became dyed in my personal rainbow of highlights.

Looking upstream behind me I saw that the river appeared to have looped in on itself, becoming completely rainbowfied. Before boredom could set in, I stood up and trotted downstream, a smile playing over my features as river weeds gave way to coral and tropical fish, octopodes and sea pan- I mean, rays.

'What fun! But I think I'm done down here for now.'

With a thought, I lept off the riverbed, carried upward by the currents bent to my whim towards the shore. As I thought, I now had a lovely little technicolor stream weaving through the dreamscape. 'Eh, it makes for a good landmark!'

After wringing out my mane like a damp T-shirt, followed by my tail, I shook like a dog, and set about finding a nice place to set up.

I found one with a copse of trees. With a wave of my hoof, the trees left the earth with an explosion of dirt. I gave each a mental command to work themselves into usable cuts of wood. Then I reared up on my hind legs and slammed down on my forehooves. The hilltop flattened at my command, excess material filling in the holes left by my extreme lumberjacking.

Looking back at my resources I saw the last of the trees twist apart into two by fours. I nodded. "Great then. Now, you lot over there." I pointed at a few trees farther down the hill. "I need the frame of a house, studs, roof, the works. Oh! And a nice thick door." The trees crawled out of the ground in a far less destructive manner than the last group. One of them took charge of the rest, and directed them through the process of becoming a homestead.

'Let’s not think too hard on this.' "Right, while you're doing that, I'm gonna collect stone, n' bricks n' other stuff for the foundation and-slash-or decoration." The lead tree nodded at me, before it resumed overseeing the debarking of its charges. I took that as my cue to get moving.

As I trotted over to a outcropping of decently sized boulders, I realized just how quickly I had been able to do so. I looked down at my legs in wonderment. 'Now is this an example of dream logic, or am I actually getting somewhere with the whole walking thing?... oh god, that was terrible…'

I shook my head violently at the accidental pun, before getting back on task. With a shaky grasp of how to grasp things, coupled with dream manipulation, I was easily able to free the boulders from the earth. After a minute of considering exactly how to turn them into something I could use, I decided to just jump on it. With a cry of "Paaaaaaancake!" It kinda… melted, becoming a usable block with a squelchy grinding noise. "Gonna need a few more though."

I hopped around from rock to rock, flattening them into a bunch of nigh-identical slabs, perfect for building a house on. 'I think. I don't actually know all that much about building houses, aside from like, minecraft… buuuut, because I think that's how it works, then it totally does! Dream stuff!'

I smiled, flipping all the large squares on top of each other. With a mighty kick, the stack went flying in the general direction of my hill. With a nod of satisfaction, I left behind the pockmarked area, not really feeling up to filling the holes at the moment.

I made my way back to the rainbow river, intent on digging some of the bank up for raw materials. Sitting down by the purple bank I plonked a hoof into the water and pushed… out? It felt kinda like extending something inside my arm. I pushed down and a ripple went out over the surface in response to my poking. Balls of slightly rainbow tinted clay bobbed up from the depths.

I picked up a blob and shaped it into a rough brick. It didn't… look very good, or functional. With a disappointed sigh, I simply thought the clay blorbs into bricks, then touched them each gently with my orange hoof. Each one burst into flame. "Association for the win!" The fired bricks came out blue, for some reason, but I personally was quite fond of the result.

The rectangular building materials all slotted together like a giant, really simple puzzle. The resulting massive cube – I made a lot of bricks – floated along beside me as I made my way back to the hill.

Sitting on my haunches, I placed my forehooves together and flexed them out, like one does when cracking their knuckles. The series of satisfying pops was absent, but the gesture made me feel better anyway. "Okay~ time to build a house!"

The trees were doing a lovely job. If I was reading the prebuilt sections floating about correctly, things were shaping up to be around three stories, with a balcony on the higher floors. Trotting up to my stack of heavy stone squares, I ran a hoof over them appraisingly, stopping at the second to last one from the bottom. I sucked in a breath and swung, knocking the slab out of the stack and some distance away, where it fell perfectly in the corner of a shape outlined by sticks and white rope that sprouted from the ground.

The rest of the stack fell one space with a loud thud, and I swung again, sending another block next to the first. I repeated this until I ran out of foundation, and the first step of my project was complete.

I turned and nodded to the wooden frames, prompting them to slot into place and snap together. Nails and screws seemed to either appear between blinks or sprout out the side before driving themselves in, locking everything together. The huge block of Bricks split off a smaller version of itself, slamming into the frame with nary a shake. The lesser cube then unrolled itself along the wall, shrinking with each rotation and leaving a mortared together lower third of the outer wall in its wake. Three more such cubes broke off from the mass and treated the other walls in much the same fashion, while the rest floated up over the house, and began disassembling itself brick by brick. The fallen blue rectangular prisms began stacking into a chimney, a satisfying, rapid ceramic drumming noise filling the air.

While that was happening I directed my original lumber cuts to begin phase three. Boards formed window frames, stairs, each individual floor and several basic furnishings, like tables, wooden chairs, and bookshelves.

The roof snapped into place, and I threw a glob of rainbow clay at it. The goopy ball splattered over thin air, before being sucked back into shape as a rough fifteen or so shingles. They sat in a circle, floating over thin air. Another pitch, and another smattering of roofing was added. By the end, my arm was a little sore, but the roof was done! Mostly. It was still raw clay, just in the shape of shingles.

So naturally, the first thing one does when they have an unfired roof is to grab a ball of wood, from origins unknown, and poke it with anything flamey on hand. Or hoof. I poked it with the orange limb, and the ball turned from wood to fire. I gave the ball of pyromancy a good overhead toss and the roof was set ablaze.

I sat and watched the tongues of fire thrash for a time. When the flames abruptly cut off, they left behind perfect, dull dark purple ceramic in their place.

Pulling a cloth rag from my mane – because I lacked any kind of pocket – I blew a breath over empty window frames and wiped away the moisture, leaving sparkly clean glass behind.

As the chimney finished stacking, the lead tree came up to me, offering me a clipboard which I promptly signed. The tree nodded before lumbering over to the empty door frame, slowly morphing into an elegantly simple heavy door, complete with a brass knocker and knob. After struggling with the round door knob for all too long, I decided that this just wasn't going to work, and pulled on it. The metal stretched like taffy before snapping into a much more hoof-friendly leverish shape.

The new door swung inward, revealing the space within to have been furnished quite nicely. Since I had no way of making a fridge, the plush couch and armchair, or a vast majority of what I found within, I was happy. "Glad I signed for this stuff to be moved in for me."

As I went from room to room, the walls went from empty to filling up with paint, an effect similar to filling a glass with water. The color was different for each room, and I quite like the blue in the living room, it brought things together.

I sat in front of the fresh fireplace and once more, utilized my orange hoof. "I'm gonna have to figure out if I can shoot fireballs from this thing or not, because that would be cool." Striking it like a match, I set a few flames in the empty brick enclosure.

Happy with my house, I flopped over onto the rug before the fire, stretching like a cat with a yawn and several pops. I curled up into a ball seconds later, shading my eyes with my tail as I basked in my accomplishment. And the warmth of a roaring fire.

< ◇ >

An unknowable amount of time passed, before I zoned back in. With a yawn, I stood up, my ears twitching as the flames crackled louder. I pulled my gaze away from the now-blue-for-some-reason fire, and set about coming up with a plan on how to spend the rest of my dream time. "Lessee… don't know how much time I have left, so starting a big project probably isn't the best of ideas, so… how about a bunch of little ones until I wake up?"

I ambled my way over to the door, punching the wood at around eye level, as for some reason the door knob had vanished. A green glow radiated out from the point of impact through the veins of the wood, and the sound of locks turning could be heard before it popped open a bit. I pushed it the rest of the way and scampered off in search of something.

Eventually I came across my prize, one of the remaining rain trees. I threw a rock at the canopy, deleting a chunk of the leaves and getting a lightning shaped pine cone-acorn thing for my troubles.

After a brisk gallop back I planted the seed outside the kitchen window, where it immediately burst into a sapling about on level with my shoulders. While waiting for the thing to grow into a full fledged tree, I drew a bunch of circles in the dirt around it. A bunch of pipes burst up from my doodles, ready to collect the water when the tree matured.

"But how do I do power…" I shrugged, deciding to do that particular undertaking at a later date I returned to my house, stepping out onto the balcony to do some planning, the proper way. I even brought blue paper and white pens!

I looked up at the sky, trying to judge the time. The pixelated celestial body indicated it was on the descent, and judging by how tired I felt, I would likely be waking up soon. I sighed, dumping my half finished blueprints of power generators in a large square chest as an unfamiliar moon crept into the sky. I leapt up onto the sofa, settling into the cushion as I prepared to wake up.

< ☾ >

Luna, Guardian of the Night, Dream Warden, Steward of the Moon, Night Mother, Mistress of The Dark Hours, Lady of Twilight, First of Dusk, Fear Hunter, Lady Dreamshield, and Princess of Equestria, was so unbelievably bored!

One would think that being deposited several hundred years in the future would be endless excitement, but in actuality, it more often left her overwhelmed and numb.

So many things had changed. At times, it was as if too many things had changed. The traditions, the vernacular, even the bloody holidays! So many new ones had risen up to take the places of the old.

Monday! Ooh, monday! Why had they felt the need to change her day? Why did everypony seem to hate it?!

The court had become complex in new and infuriating ways as well. No longer were the nobles noble in any way! The lot were full of self entitled prats who thought themselves above the ponies their ancestors were sworn to aid. These fools knew nothing of their history, knew nothing of history in general! And they were so, so, so, irksome. With their thinly veiled insults, their hollow words, their double meanings they thought her too naive, too simple to be able to recognize. Just because she preferred the old ways of speaking, didn't mean she couldn't understand the vast majority of what they said!

No longer was she able to defenestrate those who tried to deceive her or manipulate the crown. Or those whom bothered her in general.

She was glad she got one final showing of that, before being informed of the new rules.

And what a grand sum of information that was. Every day – Tia was keeping her on the schedule until she was well versed in modern culture – she studied; law reforms, taxes, bloody taxes! New traditions, things that were no longer acceptable – brought on by her throwing ponies out the window – and ugh, modern equish.

Simply put, her days were packed, and she was stuck sleeping at night rather than through the warm hours of the day.

Fortunately, in the sea of change, there was one thing that would always be the same. Dream walking. It was therapeutic to aid others with their troubles in their dreams for her as much as them. The first night of her stay in the new capitol, this sacred duty was out of reach. She had spent far too much magic as Nightmare Moon, robbing her of even base telekinesis, and much of her stature.

When the second eve had come, she was able to raise the moon under her own power once more, and what's more, she was able to dream walk.

It may not have been as much as she used to do, but on that night, all of Canterlot was able to sleep peacefully.

With each passing day, she could reach farther, help more ponies. On the third, not a pony in Equestria had to endure a restless night. It had cost her, horrible migraines followed in the morning, and she had stunted her growth for the time being even further, but it was worth it to be able to help her ponies once more.

Upon the fourth setting of the sun since her return, Luna noticed a new dream. But it was all but empty. No dreamer to comfort, no real dreams even, good or bad. It was as if they were asleep, but their mind was elsewhere.

The dream was not a void, however, occasional bursts of noise in response to stimuli or the mind nearly grasping a memory, only to slip back into the state of deep unconsciousness not long after. Based on the few details she was able to gather from the dream, it belonged to a foal, but that was it.

Her efforts to reinforce the dream to allow the foal a proper rest were in vain, no matter how much magic she used. At best, she witnessed a fleeting glimpse of nonsense.

Her concern pushed Luna to mark this dreamer for repeated visits, and so she checked on the young pony every night.

On Luna's seventh day in the new Equestria, the empty dream popped like a soap bubble. This signaled a rather sudden awakening, and the return to unconsciousness naught but a half hour later worried her greatly. When the alicorn of the night entered the dream this time, it was chaotic. Scenes flew by, crashed together. They bled into one another, before fading away, only for it to happen all over again.

Dreams were not meant to happen so quickly, and so Luna, Dream Warden, took hold of the frantic dreamscape and commanded it to hold.

Midnight blue magic spread over the chaos, stilling the landscape and leaving what was supposed to be a pleasant dream in its wake, but once more, the dreamer awoke before she could calm them.

After raising the moon and sitting through a now woefully empty night court for a few hours – the nobles were not nearly brave enough to try "pulling one over on the younger princess again" – Princess Luna was alerted to the reappearance of the marked dream. A few basic probing spells told her that everything was going smoothly this time, much to her relief.

However, as she would not be needed in the empty courtroom for the rest of the night – she was only allowed to hold it for a meager two hours before being forced to bed – she saw no reason not to retreat to her chambers and contact this young dreamer.

As Princess Luna passed through the empty halls, it once more became apparent that she would need to bump up reinstating the night guard, the castle was far too vulnerable with the skeleton crew of sleepy guards it had.

Princess Luna settled atop the mattress, closing her eyes while her horn shone with dark blue magic. The aura vanished as white light traveled up the fluting of her horn instead. Two white strings flew off the tip of her horn, tracing mesmerizing patterns in the air for a moment before splitting off.

One came to rest against the alicorn's temple, ready to drag her into unconsciousness, while the other traveled for another meter before it simply vanished with a ripple of the air, slipping into the dream realm to bridge the distance faster.

When Luna next opened her eyes, she stood in the realm of dreams. Thousands of twinkling lights – dreams, fantasies, and other things that passed through the immaterial plane – swirled, sparkled, and danced before her. Even after all this time, Luna couldn't get her stars to match a fraction of the beauty she saw here. Sadly it was a rare few she could share this sight with.

A ribbon of gentle white light, not unlike the light of her moon, carved a gentle path through the realm, guiding her on towards the marked dreamer without disturbing any others.

Lady Dream Shield, Luna calmed any nightmares she passed along the way, but eventually came upon her destination. As light poured forth from the dream to grant her access, the alicorn wondered what form the doorway would take, as she could tell a bit about the dreamer by what form the aperture appeared as.

The light solidified into a large rectangle. The door was simple, brown painted metal with a little window too small to use effectively. The handle held a decorative knob, but above it sat a peculiarity. Soft white squishy circles sat over a deadbolt, each bearing some character of a rigid script.

Luna poked at the buttons for a moment, marveling at what their purpose could be, before remembering why she was here and opening the door with a flash of magic.

The Alicorn of Dreams came into a slightly dulled landscape. A few trees gave off water, ranging in amounts from trickle to downpour. The shrubbery was similarly warped, growing odd fruits with the appearance of glass, a red hard cap, and a brown substance filling the inside.

Other than a few oddities, it was a fairly simple dream. Pleasant breezes in an open stretch of land. The… blocky sun made the air pleasantly warm, and the babbling rivers set a serene ambiance.

Despite the calmness of the dream, the filly was roused from relaxation rudly by her proximity to one of the raining trees. The brightly coloured foal took in her surroundings for seemingly the first time and slumped "Why does nothing make sense…"

We art not sure wherefore this dream upsets thee so, but we shalt arrange for thee a peaceful slumber.' Resolved to give the foal a good night's rest, Luna called upon her magic, the moon rising to stand beside the sun as she prepared to change the dream to one the foals usually enjoyed.

The dream changed in response to the filly's distress, the rain coming harsher, the air colder and wind whipped up to uncomfortable levels. But before the alicorn could alter things to the child's liking, something interesting happened.

The foal seemed to glow from within, a pale blue light within their eyes as their various highlights went from faded to bright and luminous. The surprising amount of energy the filly had summoned left her in a nova, quickly lost to visibility itself, but still touching the various objects that displeased her. Each irregularity was summarily returned to a state of normality.

Even the image of her moon was pushed back beyond the horizon, much to the surprise of Luna. Quickly letting the half formed spell fade, Luna looked down on this foal in a new light, especially when they began to summon items at will. 'A dream conductor, certes? They seem quite skilled for their age, especially since our sister claims nopony practices the art nowadays.'

Luna quickly rendered herself invisible, intent to observe the filly's exploits. And also perhaps gauge the depth of her talent. 'Mayhap we couldst take her on as an apprentice? T'would beest a joy to teach the art of dreams to the young once more… we very much wilt need to see about reinstating the night guard, our ponies has't hadst their dreams wend unguarded for far too long.'

The Lunar Diarch was pulled from her lamentation as the filly jumped headfirst into the largest of the rivers.

She became particularly worried when the waters downstream began to turn red!

Chapter 5: Post-dream Discoveries.

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It was kinda weird waking up from a lucid dream. Don't get me wrong, there was a big difference between real life and dreams, but I'd honestly never had one quite that real. So to go from sitting comfortably on a leather sofa, to being face down on the bed, a pillow atop my head, with three of my four limbs curled beneath me like a cat, was... disorienting, just a little bit. The fourth limb was my back left, and it was stuck straight out to the side. It was also the only thing that wasn't under the covers. Although, my tail was wrapped around it, so I guess that's not quite true?

I threw my head back with a yawn, removing the pillow from my vision as I stretched my forelegs as far forwards as I could. After a minute or two of shaking out the kinks in my body, I hopped off the bed. I wobbled unsteadily, as my hard won balance seemed to have fled. My failing sense of balance did war with one of the natural laws of the universe, it was a loosing conflict. I flopped onto the floor. 'Dammit! After all that practice at the hospital, and the dream… ugh.'

With a sigh, I got back to my feet. Hooves. Whatever. Seeing as the other beds in the room were empty, I figured that Twilight and Spike weren't up here. The smell of pancakes coming from the stairs lent further evidence to that theory.

Once again resorting to water skimmer style locomotion, I scooted over to the stairs. 'And now, the problem. I knew this was coming, and now I have to deal with it. Question is, how to get down stairs without breaking something of mine?'

The answer ended up being me laying on my side, parallel to the steps. My front left and back left hooves would carefully reach out as far as I could on the step, and then I would shimmy my butt down to the next step. Rinse, swear at nearly toppling, repeat.

I was only shaking like a freezing kitten for four minutes when I got to the bottom of the stairs, as opposed to lying in a broken heap, so I counted that as a win!

After catching my breath, I walked into the kitchen, trying to act like nothing was wrong. There I found a purple unicorn sitting at the table, while a purple dragon stood on a stool in front of the stove."M-morning Twilight, Spike."

"Good morning Argent!" Twilight greeted back with the cheer of the caffeinated. She didn't turn to look at me, busying herself by staring hungrily at one of the plates of finished pancakes. One looked normal, and the other seemed to have rock candy in it. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah, had a really lucid dream, built a house, it was a good way to spend a few hours." I replied, placing my hooves on the seat of a wooden chair next to her and mounting it with a hop.

"Sounds neat! Anything cool in your dream house?" Spike asked, leaning on a lit burner to access one of the farther pans, adding that finished cake to the rock candy stack. He then blew gently on his claws as if nothing was wrong.

I stared dumbly at the display of heat resistance, before I remembered. 'Dragon, duh.' I shook my head before making an affirmative noise. "Yeah, well, aside from some very comfortable furniture and books, not really. Not yet anyway. I'm planning on building some form of power generator, and that'll let me get into the really interesting stuff, but I haven't decided what method would work best." I tapped a hoof against my chin, winced slightly, and tried again, gentler as I mumbled on, more to my self than my hosts "Solar? Wind? Maybe I should just make a big hole and do geothermal... or something else entirely. I wonder if magic generators are a thing?"

Spike turned around at that point, two plates of pancakes balanced in his claws, he paused for a moment when he looked at me, snickering quietly, but he did manage to get the plates to the table. "Wow, that's the worst case of bed head I've ever seen!"

Twilight followed his eyes to me, and giggled behind a hoof as well.

I looked up, and just barely visible beyond my fluffy, tangled mane – which was covering one of my eyes. 'No wonder my balance sucks, I have no depth perception right now! Why didn't I notice this earlier?' – I could see the pillow I woke up under, resting over the back of my head and flopping to about midway down my forehead. The two things were nearly identical in colour, but it still felt like I should have noticed the addition to my weight. '...which I did, but everything is still so alien that I didn't know the pillow was to blame for its aid in ruining my coordination… I hate how stupid I can be at times.'

With a weary sigh, the kind people give when they know the day is going to suck right from the get go, I reached up to bat the clingy cranium cushion off my head. There was an odd tugging sensation, and the thing fought me the whole way. 'Did my freaking hair get tangled in the pillow somehow?! That doesn't even make sense!'

With a final grunt of effort, which had Spike rolling on the floor and Twilight trying to supress her mirth behind a pair of hooves and a cup of coffee, the pillow finally shot off my forehead with a tearing noise. I shuddered as I felt the thread's popping conduct down something into my skull.

Twilight's eyes bugged out and she started pounding a hoof to her chest as coffee took a detour down the wrong pipe, and Spike abruptly stopped laughing as the cushion sailed away, trailing feathers from the new hole in its corner. My ears fell in shame as my face burned. "S-sorry about the pillow." I stammered, but they didn't seem to hear me. They just kept staring at me, the dragon frozen in place and the mare taking deep, vaugh wracked breaths. I squirmed in my seat.

"I-I can fix it, if you want, or…" still no reaction. My embarrassment got shoved out of the driver's seat by curiosity, while confusion sat shotgun and shouted at the driver. I stopped shrinking in on myself long enough to wave a leg back and forth in front of them. This also garnered no reaction. "Hello?" Nothing.

Annoyance started swearing from the back seat. "It's rude to stare, what's up with you two?" I asked, crossing my forelegs and tilting my head at them. They continued to just look at me, but their gazes had shifted, ever so slightly in the direction I had tilted my head. I turned it the other way, and their gazes followed. Looking up to see what was so interesting myself, I began to gape at the picton blue crystal jutting out of my forehead along with them.

"Wha…?"

< ◇ >

"To the lab!" Twilight finally cried, knocking everyone out of their stupor. The unicorn then shot out of her seat, breakfast forgotten as she ran at full gallop out of the room.

A magenta tint settled over my vision as every inch of my body tingled with energy. Before I could make a peep, I was suddenly dragged through the air like a rubber band had finally decided it had enough.

As I was sucked down a dark hole in the side of the tree – I did not scream, I did not scream! – which just turned out to be the basement stairs, Twilight came back into view, horn glowing as she stuck various metal parts into a larger housing. The machine she was assembling resembled a large mixer, but instead of a bowl, it had a big glass box attached.

I was deposited on a cushion within the thing. I blinked in confusion, watching as Twilight got out a large roll of paper. It thunked heavily into its mounting. Twilight pressed a few buttons, little arms inside the box zipping up and down and a few inches of paper being spat out a slot as whatever she did... 'I dunno, calibrating? Probably calibrating the… whatever this thing is.'

I crossed my eyes staring at the angular protrusion affixed to my forehead. A small patch of cloth still sat suspended within it. I tugged on one particularly long string, and shuddered and the revolting feeling it sent straight to the base of my skull. I still got rid of it though. "Eugh…"

"Hold that thought." Twilight interrupted my disgust by shoving her hoof in my mouth. It did a pretty good job of shutting me up, but did nothing to actually help get rid of the feeling.

'Ew, dirt and paper taste…'

"So, this machine is just a simple arcano-empathic analyser, designed for scanning magic levels in items and reading their effects, if any. It's on loan from Celestia's School for Gifted unicorns, and I may have made a few upgrades to make it more accurate. So, I need you to sit in there, while this gets us an accurate breakdown on your… anomalous crystalline structure."

I blinked at the unicorn, trying to disect all the information that had been sent my way. I failed, and just latched onto "Analyser," "magic," and "upgrades." "Sounds great. Once you have that, you'll be able to fix it, right?" I asked, tapping the thing twice and giving myself ine of the weirdest, very unplesant sensations. "Gyeigh, I regret that."

The unicorn scowled at me and my stupid decisions, but it looked more like concern than anger. "I would recommend against 'fixing' it or touching it before we know what 'it' is." She ducked back behind the control panel again and began randomly pressing buttons. At least, it looked random to me.

After hitting the big obvious turquoise button, the whole machine vibrated for a second, then little beams of light shot out of the arms inside the box. They swept around for a moment before settling on the crystal. The lights flashed a cycling blue as it began trying to figure things out.

Something bleeped, paper was spat out with the cry of a fax machine on speed, and the lights turned a deep purple. "Magical saturation at seventy two times what would be expected from natural gemstones!? That's over twelve times the saturation of magically grown specimens!" Twilight shouted.

"It's not gonna blow up, is it?" I suddenly felt quite anxious about the apparently energy rich, potentially volatile rock fused with my skull.

"No no, its structure is entirely stable. Strangely conductive. Very flexible, magically speaking." The unicorn rambled on as the thing continued to screech out paper with data for her to pour over. "Magical gems normally don't have such complex-- hold on, are these pathways?"

It was several minutes after the scanner stopped spitting out technical data for the librarian to look through that Spike chose to make his way down the stairs. He motioned me over, and a glance to Twilight got him to give me a thumbs up. "Don't worry," he said quietly, once I was close enough. "She'll be going at that for a while. Here, I brought you something to eat!"

I looked from him to the plate of syrup drenched deliciousness on the floor, before smiling at him in appreciation. "Thank you. So, she does this often then?" I nodded back at the mare.

"--doesn't seem to be an enchantment, the non-crystalized mana is too raw." She muttered.

"Oh yeah. Twilight is one smart cookie, but when something new and interesting presents itself, she tends to get lost in the research. Just you wait, pretty soon, Twilight will have everything figured out." Spike assured me with a pat on the head.

"What does this mean!?" The unicorn seethed quietly.

I swiped at the provided fork, acidentally knocking it from the drake's calw and into stabbing the pancakes when I failed to grab it. With a nervous laugh I attempted to distact him from my lack of coordination. "Does anything she's saying make sense to you?" I asked, as I poked at the fork in an attempt to get it to stick. 'Frick, how was I doing it before again? I think I forgot over the course of the dream.'

Spike peered curiously at the unicorn, rubbing a claw to his chin. "Hmm… it sounds like… "

"How does this have such a flexible dispersal matrix? Even the most advanced casting focus-- hold on." Twilight crawled into the machine, while a mirror flew downstairs to sit at an angle nearby. Her horn glowed as she used the reflection to operate the controls.

"...it's complicated, but she's got this." Spike nodded. "Welp, I gotta go run the library while Twilight is occupied, if she's not having you do something fifteen minutes from now, you should just come up stairs. Enjoy the pancakes!" The door shut swiftly behind him, but not so quickly that he slammed it.

As the fax screech started up once more, I sighed, and turned back to my breakfast. "At Least these are still warm."

< ◇ >

I finished my pancakes at about the time three different scrolls started orbiting Twilight's head and the "hmmmmmm"ing had reached a resonant level I could practically feel in my teeth. I placed the fork on the plate, then nudged it into the exact center.

The humming cut off, scrolls fell to the ground as. Twilight tilted her head back and she absently snapped a book closed between her hooves, I hadn't even seen that thing come down here. "Huh." She uttered.

I waited for a moment to see if she would continue that thought. When it became obvious she wouldn't, I decided to jumpstart a conversation. "Is that a 'you've got three days to live' Huh, an 'I suppose that makes sense,' Huh, or an 'I can't believe this, this breaks science!' Huh?"

Twilight flinched violently at my listed options. She blinked a few times before scampering closer to me, laying on her belly to be on eye level. "W-what?! No! This is just… not what I was expecting. Of all the possible answers, I hadn't even thought this was on the list, not even remotely. "

"Well that's not reassuring." I muttered, curling my tail around my limbs as my ears pinned back nervously.

She took a deep breath, and layed a hoof on my shoulder, locking gazes with me, totally serious. "Argent, listen to me, what I'm about to tell you will be… shocking to say the least. It will change the way the world works for you." She stared at me for several seconds, letting the weight of her words sink in. "Argent, you are now a unicorn."

I looked from her to the crystal jutting out of my head. I looked back at her, and took note of her utterly serious expression. She didn't really seem the type to joke like this, so I guessed she was telling the truth? "Okay." I shrugged. 'What's one kind of pony over another, really?'

Twilight twitched, froze, and just stared at me. This time less out of seriousness, and more out of just… shutting down. A blink, and she was back online. "H-W-What do you mean, okay!? I've just told you that your whole life will be radically different from what you're used to!"

I gaver her a shrug in response. 'Im already doing that anyway.' "Eh, doesn't sound too bad honestly. Actually... hey, you're a unicorn, does that mean I'll get to do magic like you? Because that sounds awesome!" I poked the-- my horn, apparently, more gently this time. A frown crossed my features. "The cloth won't be a problem will it? Or… can you get rid of it?"

"I… But, you…" the unicorn frothed, my nonchalance apparently more surprising to her than my race change. "I mean, yes, I can remove it." She rubbed the bridge of her muzzle. "You're seriously telling me you don't mind? This is, while unprecedented, almost like being crippled. Your innate earth pony magic has been stripped away, leaving you with something entirely new."

'Mmm, from your perspective sure, from mine, its more like being told Im right handed now. Not all that major when compaired to the soul snatching and hor- pony being. Living? Having become a pony in the first place.' Again I gave her a shrug. "Yeah? I mean, it's not like I knew what I was doing as an earth pony anyway. Seriously I didn't even know they had any kind of magic, and I certainly never used it myself."

Twilight stood up and her eyes kinda just, widened for a second, or maybe unfocused? She walked with a sigh to sit beneath the stairs. "Well that would explain the underdeveloped tribal traits, but still…" A quill and roll of parchment floated over of their own accord. Or maybe the magenta glow convinced them. I looked at the simple display as she scribbled something down.
I watched as a chalkboard was dragged over, but lost interest when all she did was squiggle lines on it and mutter. 'She seems to be busy, so I'm outta here.' I turned and slowly hopped up the steeper stairs. A book sailed over me as I made it into the library proper.

Spike sat at one of the many tables, flipping through a comic book. The dragon glanced up at me and waved, closing his comic and setting it on the table. "Hey, so how did it go?" He asked.

I hopped onto the stool across from him, shaking slightly when one of my legs slipped off. Elbows resting on the table, I rested my head on my "bridged" hooves. "Good, I guess. Apparently, I turned into a unicorn... somehow." I suspect that the drake may have performed a spit take, had he been drinking anything. 'I wonder if fire would be involved in a draconic spit take. Hmm.'

Spike hacked for a moment, pounding a fust into his chest. "W-wait, really? How in the world did that happen?"

I shrugged, staring up at my slightly transparent horn. "I dunno, I just woke up like this. I think Twilight is trying to figure it out at the moment, actually."

"Well, she is pretty smart, so she will probably figure it out. Still though, I've never even heard of a pony's tribe just changing on them like that." He drummed a claw in the opposite arm. "Does it happen where you're from?"

I was too surprised to keep myself from giving a snort of laughter, which progressed into actual laughter. "N-noo~ I can't say I've ever heard of that either." I snickered some more before composing myself. "Twilight did say it was unprecedented, so I can't say I'm too surprised you haven't heard of it either."

Spike nodded. "So, what's it like?"

I felt my ears flop into the questioning position I'd seen on countless dogs on the internet. "Hmm? Whatcha mean?"

"You know, being a different kind of pony! You're the only one I know of that's ever had the opportunity to experience this. So, what's it like?" He leaned across the table towards me.

I leaned back. "Uhh… I dunno...? I haven't done anything unicorn-y yet, so I can't really tell the difference." Spike slumped back in his seat in disappointment. I glanced up at the crystal decoration again. "The only thing I can really think of is, this thing is like, really sensitive." I shuddered. "Getting rid of a single string was beyond uncomfortable, I have no idea how I'm going to get the rest of this stuff out." Just thinking about trying to grab the corner of the cloth almost made me gag.

I shook my head to dispel the phantom sensations. "Putting aside spontaneous transformations and horn issues for now, what is there to do for fun around here?"

< ◇ >

We spent a few hours playing various board and card games. Apparently, Pinkie brought one over every now and then and just didn't take them back with her, so we had quite the selection.

Twilight galloped up the stairs halfway through a game of war, a rolled up scroll tied with a red ribbon in hoof. "Spike!" She cried upon creating the steps. "Where are you? I need you to send this to Princess Celestia!"

Spike shot up out of his seat and was at her side in a moment. "Okay!" He cheered, one claw outstretched to receive the missive.

I watched with confusion as Twilight handed him the roll of paper, and he didn't make any move toward the door. 'How does he plan on sending that if the postal service isn't involve-- wait, didn't he mention something about this?'

Sure enough, the purple drake took a deep breath, and blew it out as a gout of green flames! The scroll burned up in an instant, reduced to a strangely cohesive ball of smoke and glittering embers. The immolated message sped out the nearest open window before disappearing out of sight.

I tried and failed to whistle in astonishment. Thankfully, I failed just hard enough that the distance kept them from noticing. "Well that was cool."

Twilight turned to look at me, blinked confusedly, and looked back down the stairs into the basement. "Argent? When did you get up here?"

Spike snickered at her obliviousness, while I waved her question off with some casual sarcasm. And an actual wave. "What do you mean? I teleported, it's easy."

The way her eyes widened and she pointed a hoof at me, she believed me. For about three seconds. Because that's when the purple drake decided to clarify things. "She came up hours ago, Twilight, what have you been doing down there?"

A ten minute rant that could be summarized as "research, studies, and magical variations thereof," went straight over my head, with various magical mumbo jumbo attached to words that rendered the whole thing Greek to me.

I nodded and made the appropriate affirmative noises at the right time, although judging by how Spike left halfway through to put his comics and the games away, I needn't have bothered.

I turned from looking at the retreating dragon's tail back to Twilight, who had somehow moved the chalkboard upstairs to aid in her rant. Or maybe she had one on each floor? "--so in conclusion, your horn lends itself more toward raw output than control, but since you have such underdeveloped mana channels, you won't be able to take advantage of this facet of your magic very well when you start casting--"

My ears twitched, and I dialed back into the word spew all the way. "Hold up, when I start casting, you mean I really can use magic?"

The purple mare turned from the board to look at me in confusion. "Of course you can? Why wouldn't you be able to utilize magic? You are a unicorn now."

"Well, I mean." I gestured from the faceted, vaguely curved, blue eye poker on my forehead to the rounded, spiraled, coat matching apparent arcane focus on hers.

"Oh! Well that's not something to worry about. While the makeup of your horn is… entirely unique, it's perfectly functional. With practice, I'm certain you will be an exceptional spell caster!" She cheered.

"Well, that's… awesome! Where do we start?" I asked, finally getting up off the floor. 'Because who wouldn't be ecstatic about learning magic?'

Twilight froze, a piece of chalked fell to the ground as her magic winked out. Her jaw metaphorically hit the floor and it looked like someone had just told her the secrets of the universe. "Y-you want me to teach you?"

"Uhhhhhhhhhh, I mean yeah? At least, that's what I thought you were implying." I awkwardly shifted to the side, kicking/punching the floor.

She stared at me in shock for what felt like an eternity, before The Squee began. Yes, it did deserve the capitalization. In a flash of magenta, I was hoisted off the ground and into a… not really bone crushing, but definitely uncomfortable hug by the taller mare. "EEEEEEEeeeeee! I-I hadn't even thought about taking on an apprentice! I was going to sign you up for Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, but, EEEeeee!"

"Twilight, can't breathe here." I exaggerated, since the purple pony didn't have enough strength in her forelegs to actually do anything that severe. Nevertheless, it got the desired result, and I was plunked back on the floor. I winced, stood up, and removed my pinched tail from beneath me. "Thank y-ow-ou~ now, I'm just as excited for this as you are, so… where do we start?" I tried again.

The mare literally vibrated in place for a few seconds before vanishing, and then reappearing with some mild singeing around the edges of her mane and tail, with a feather floating next to her. "Follow me!"

She didn't go very far, she just ran very fast, into the center of the room. A couple cushions, sized appropriately for the soon to be occupants, leapt into position just in time for Twilight to practically tackle hers.

She stared up at the giant sun symbol thingy on the ceiling with this huge grin on her face, while I made my way over in a much more controlled manner. I settled into my spot after battling the urge to circle it like a dog, and watched her expectantly.

She sucked in a breath before letting her eyes fall back down to me. "Okay! So, we're going into this a little blind, since up to this point you've never even accidentally cast magic, so you don't have any instinctual control over your magic, which means you will probably use too much and run out very quickly, but that's something you're going to learn, so don't worry."

She brought the feather over between us, setting it on the ground so that the points went out either side of us. "We're going to start with a simple levitation exercise, all you have to do is get this quill to move, even if it's just a little. This will give me a baseline on where you're at right now, and how to progress."

"Sounds… doable?" My head tilted and an ear flopped as doubt flooded my system, but I shook it off. 'It's time to learn magic, which I've already seen done, I've got no time to consider the fact that I have no idea where to begin!'

'...Aw nuts.'

I glared at the plumage, willing it to move as desired, but the quill ignored me. 'M'kay, I kinda expected that. If magic was all will power, then it would be too easy… and I would have also just sabotaged that attempt by not thinking it would work. I'm going to just assume I was right with the first half of that, and try something else.' I set my chin atop my forehooves, looking between the task and my teacher. More specifically, her horn. 'Every unicorn I've seen cast magic – granted I've only seen two, which isn't many but still – has had their horn light up during said casting, which logically says that horn light is a requirement… how do I do that?'

I looked up at my-- "hold on." Twilight looked extremely disappointed at me stopping the lesson, but I ignored that for the moment and pointed at my horn. "This isn't going to.. cause any problems is it?"

The purple coated unicorn's eyes were drawn to my hoof, then to the horn, and then the cloth inside of it that still hadn't been removed. "Oh, right." She said after a beat, sheepishly.

"It's okay, I forgot too."

< ◇ >

I had joked about it before, but good lord! Teleporting was not fun. Like, not even a little bit. Even with the little safety rune necklace thing she had me wear and twenty minutes of careful preparation, it was far from a gentle experience. I only moved two feet, but it felt like I had been stretched across time and space the long way to get there. So as a blue tinted scrap of cloth fluttered to the floor, I spent a considerable amount of time dry heaving and shivering.

It was within the next few minutes that we discovered that my horn growing spontaneously wasn't a one time thing, as the section that had been occupied by cloth filled back in within seconds. The sound was… similar to a reversed glass break.

"Well, now that that… wildly uncomfortable experience is over, feather?" I asked as we left the basement.

Twilight nodded. "Yes, let's continue. Remember, it doesn't have to be much, this is just to tell us where to start." She briefly patted me on the shoulder before settling into the cushion across from me. "Just take your time, we're not in any rush here."

I steepled my hooves and narrowed my eyes at the writing implement once more. 'Okay… how do I go about this? Horn light is still necessary, but it's not like it's a clapper. So what do…' I tapped one hoof absently as I tried a few things. Imagining ghostly hands yielded no results, and neither did mental hooves or mouths. 'I had to check, what with horse land.'

I let out a snort of exasperation. The quill still refused to obey my simple commands. 'Let's try something different then, obviously I'm going to need to figure out how to get the light, and therefore magic, working before I can try any spells, so... What's that look… no, what does that feel like?'

My eyes drifted closed as I pushed my focus squarely onto my horn. I gave it a gentle tap even, just to make sure I was looking in the right place. 'Just look for anything… magical, I guess.'

I ground a hoof into my barrel as an itch started up, but tried to give it as little attention as possible. I started with the cushion directly beneath me; its texture, colour, smell, everything I could sense about it, and then expanded from there. The floor slowly bloomed into existence in my mind's eye. Then a nearby table. Next was the bottom shelves to my right, followed by Twilight's larger cushion and finally, the quill. Why the quill was so slow to appear I had no idea, but there it was.

While half of my mind was focused on refining the detail of my mental map, the rest was trying to reach out and poke the feather again, now that I had a clearer mental picture of it. I thought I almost felt something, like a loose string connected to something else in the center of my chest, but I couldn't find any way to push it around. 'If that even is magic, anyway.'

'I need an example.' I grumbled to myself, focusing on the currently empty space above the bigger floor pillow in my mind's eye. Slowly, something vaguely pony shaped emerged, and then little details wove themselves together over the base. Hooves led to legs, led to the main body, and so on. Eventually I had what I really hoped was a perfect copy of Twilight, doing what she was doing without me being able to see her. 'That would have to be some kind of magic right? A wierd, spatial awareness power kinda deal. This has to mean I'm on the right track.'

If it was accurate, then Twilight's expression was slowly shifting from eager patience to confusion. "Argent? You're not falling asleep, are you?"

I shook my head at her. "No, just trying to figure this out." I 'looked' deeper into Twilight, or maybe shifted which lense I was using. Regardless, the result was a web of magenta lines pulsing throughout her, with a few thicker ones connected to the beacon of light residing within her horn. 'So if that is what it's supposed to look like, where am I?'

The picture flipped around, and I felt a part of my mind that was distinctly human and not okay with this – the part I'd been trying to ignore for my own sanity – had a conniption at being able to look at myself without the aid of a mirror. A very faint, Light blue glow suffused my mental self, similar to Twilight, but with a few major differences.

Twilight's magic seemed to flow through her body in bright channels, affecting a similar appearance to a nervous system, or maybe vascular, but not quite close enough to either.

My 'system' didn't really exist in the traditional sense. I had no channels, just a dull blob of colour, like mildly dyed water in a pony shaped novelty cup. The glow got a little brighter at my chest, horn, and would occasionally flicker a few extra lumens higher down my limbs. The longer I stared at it, the more disappointed I got. It also started to feel like staring at one of those magic eyeball posters, but if the dots were always moving. Like if I kept looking, eventually I would grasp some deeper image, something obvious to some but I hadn't figured it out yet.

'I suppose this is what she meant by underdeveloped, there is no development. At all, period.' Biting back a sigh, I traced the movement of a wave of light, barely brighter than the rest, as it slowly radiated out from my chest and upward. I could almost feel it, but not, like, feel it. 'Wow that's hard to describe. I think I've stumbled upon an entirely alien sensation. Neat.' I shuddered as the little wave of probably magic cycled through my horn. 'Aaand, now I'm definitely aware of that.'

Screwing up my concentration, I tried to reach out and nudge the quill with the energy flowing through my horn. There was a mild pressure, and a noise so faint I probably imagined it, while in my mind's eye, the tiniest little band of blue formed around the – 'stem? Is that what that part of a feather is called, I really need to read my anatomy books some time… when I find some anyway.' – I put off grinning like an idiot until after I knew this was actually happening, and tried to move the quill with my tentative grip.

The band of light shattered in a wholly disappointing fashion, leaving me back at square one. I groaned loudly, my head thumping to the floor between my forelegs. I cracked open one eye to glare at the ink stained writing apparatus. Indeed, it had not moved. I snorted, burying my face in my legs. Then trying to do so again in a way that didn't bother my horn.

"We can take a break if you want. Like I said earlier, we're in no rush. How about I pull some beginners' training books to help you out?' Twilight offered, coming up beside me and holding out a hoof to help me up. I'm guessing that's what that meant anyway, as it didn't seem like the proper time for a han-hoofshake.

I released my grip on my muzzle and turned to look at her, and she gave me a funny look. It was at this point that I realized my eyes were still closed. My ears had followed her, but I realized that this was only what I saw her doing in my mental map thing.

"Maybe… one more try." I turned back to the feather, but also myself. Kind of an over the shoulder point of view so I could keep both sides of the equation in 'sight'.

'Just a tiny bit, a little bit, a smidgen of magic and--' suddenly the tingly pseudo-sensation flared, the glow spread throughout my body being dragged all in one place, my chest, and then shooting toward my horn in a little bright ball of energy. Countless little bands of magic wrapped all around the quill, before merging into a proper aura like I had seen Twilight use when she set up the exercise.

I opened my eyes and beheld--! Periwinkle. A nice deep periwinkle light shimmering around the feather. "Huh." I wondered aloud. "This is… not quite what I was expecting." I looked between the matching glow around my horn and the ensnared archaic pen. "Still cool though." I tilted my head, and sent out the command for the feather to do the same, but just as I got it nearly standing on end, the magic sputtered, shrunk, dulled, and popped like a balloon.

My horn ached, and my breathing had gotten hard. I wiped away a bead of sweat from my brow, careful of the aching crystal, and grumbled in frustration. "Aw come on! I almost had it!"

Twilight clearly held a different opinion on my failure, as she pulled me sideways into her barrel, one hoof wrapped tightly beneath my forelegs as she tried to squeeze the life out of me. Being as apparently out of breath as I was, it was a lot easier than last time. "No, no! You did amazing! Congratulations!"

I wedged a hoof under hers and bought myself an inch to breathe. "Twilight, that didn't even go on for a second, and I feel like I ran a marathon."

"But the whole point of the exercise was for you to access your magic, and you did that! Honestly you surpassed my expectations, I'm surprised you were able to do more than get a few sparks from your horn, since this was your very first time casting magic." A roll of parchment appeared and she scribbled something on it with the quill I failed to move before it vanished back where it came from. "You should be proud! Especially since, according to you, you had never even used your innate magic as an earth pony."

As I looked at things again, keeping in mind her words, it was pretty amazing that I was able to do this. 'Considering humans have no magic at all, it might even be more impressive than she knows.' "So, how did I measure up to a natural born unicorn then? What was it like the first time you tried to use magic?"

"Oh well, I'm… not the best example." Twilight smiled sheepishly, returning me to my seat and backing up a step before turning to the side. "I was born a unicorn, so I've been unconsciously casting magic since I was a foal, and the first time I consciously cast magic… Well, I had a far easier time of it than most. My special talent is magic, so…" she gestured to the… starburst mark on her flank.

'The hell? Do all these ponies have those and I just haven't noticed?' "Ah, okay then."

"What about you?" She prompted.

I cocked my head at her, one eyebrow climbing in confusion. "Didn't you just sit in on my first attempt?"

"No, I meant your cutie mark." She pointed at my flank this time. "How did you get it, what's your special talent?"

This did not clear anything up for me in the least. "I think you lost me. What's a cutie mark?"

This was apparently a question she never expected to hear. At least, not from someone that looked like a young pony. "The… the mark on your flank, Y-you dont know? How…"

I once again looked upon the six gray circles set upon my thigh, and gave a shrug. "I'm going to be honest with you, I really thought that was just more of my wierd coat patterning." My tail curled around my legs as I poked at the design that apparently meant something emblazoned on my upper leg. "Anyway, can we get back to the absolutely fascinating subject that is magic?"

My attempt at a conversational reboot was successful, and Twilight went into lecture mode. A Lot of the terminology went over my head, and I hoped it was just above my reading level, and not that this stuff was supposed to be common knowledge. Either way it might have been rendered moot, given the amount of assigned readings I found myself saddled with.

After Twilight left to do errands, I cracked open the first book. After several minutes of reading up on alien concepts, I realized that the information just wasn't sticking, and so I started the page over and tried again, much slower this time. Still, no luck was to be had. I decided that maybe I just wasn't up to reading that particular book at the moment, and tried another, but got the same results. It probably had something to do with the completely foreign script, rather than any desire to not read though.

"Hmm… this could be a problem." I slammed my face into the book in annoyance.

'Someone must be laughing their ass off right now. Throwing me into an alien world, an alien body, then a slightly different alien body, and now I find that while we speak the same friggin language, which doesn't make sense anyway, we don't share a written system? Why?! What's the point!?'

"STAMPEDE!" someone shouted outside, loud enough to be heard through closed doors.

"Oh what now!?"

Chapter 6: Practice and Application

View Online

The ground seemed to vibrate beneath my hooves as I ran toward the library door, when my first obstacle appeared before me; the front door. I took twenty seconds to think about how the dang thing was supposed to open. During that time, the vibration in the floorboards had ramped up to a rumbling, and peopl-- ponies, I mean, were screaming about some horrifying, terrible disaster.

"Screw it." I grumbled, turning on my heel equivalent and shooting up the stairs like an excited pomeranian. I cursed loudly as my hooves scrambled for traction at the top of the stairs also like a zippy little dog. I slid several body lengths before thudding into the wall. That provided all the grip I needed to start blitzing away through the loft and towards my goal, a not so little window.

The window was actually just a smaller than average door, and let out onto one of several balconies; the perfect place to get a look at this disaster. 'Actually, this is probably a better idea than the front door, since I won't be in immediate danger.'

I nosed the latch out of the way and shouldered my way through. My hooves clacked noisily on the little steps to the balcony, before I lept at the railing next to a rather expensive looking telescope. My hooves quickly wrapped around the wood while I jumped back and forth a bit from hind leg to hind leg.

"--There." I just barely heard someone say. This brought my line of sight to what seemed to be just about every resident of the town, though there was probably more indoors. Following their eyes I saw just what this calamitous event was supposed to be. It was a stampede. 'Seems I heard correctly earlier then.'

A massive line of cows kicked up an even bigger dust cloud. The thunderous drumming of their hooves caused the tree I was in to creak and shake, ponies to panic, and other random bouts of general pandamonium.

"Holy cow...s, cows. Plural. That's a lotta bovines. Howin… just how many are there if they're able to make a mini earthquake!?"

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I didn't exactly know about stampedes in any kind of depth-- regardless of fortune, the cows were across a canal fed river, and would have to cluster down to one trampling line if they wanted across the bridge into town. 'I wonder just how much damage this is actually gonna do?'

Fortunately -- for real this time, this was actually quite fortuitous -- I would never find out how much destruction a herd of cows was capable of, because someone familiar was pulling up beside the cows. Two someones actually; the second person I had met in this world, Applejack, and a little brown and white dog that stood about half her height.

The orange farm mare must have given some kind of signal to the pooch, as it proceeded to leap across the cows backs before coming down on the other side. The pair thinned the herd down into a manageable line, and Aj, somehow, worked a lasso with nothing but her mouth with enough dexterity to snag the lead cow. The farm mare worked in tandem with her trusty canine to divert dairy based disaster, just before they could set hoof on the bridge, and steared them around the town alongside the river.

"Huh. Well, that was cool to watch." I thought to myself, before dismounting the railing to head back inside. "I wonder if the town was in much danger, or if this happens often? I wonder if there's anything I could do to thank her, would suck to have the town get trashed before I can get attached to it."

< ◇ >

I only thought about just how little I could help for a few minutes, at which point Twilight came through the door. Apparently the spectacle that Applejack put on looked even more impressive to a native born pony, as she and Spike went back and forth recounting her heroism.

I had already settled back down behind my incomprehensible books by the time Twilight went to look for me. "Argent! Did you see Applejack out there?" She asked me excitedly.

"Yep, I sure did. It was quite a thing to see too." I nodded, closing the book that I still couldn't read absently. "That happen often?"

"Applejack or the stampede?"

"I meant the stampede." I clarified.

"Ah, well, every now and then. I still haven't lived here for very long, but according to several scientific journals, that was an uncommon occurrence. Nothing to worry about." Twilight was clearly trying to be both informative and comforting, but didn't have the experience to back up her words.

"Especially with Applejack around!" The baby dragon cheered assuringly, earning a giggle from the librarian.

"Anyway, how is the reading? Do you have any questions? Which of these authors is more understandable to you?" She began rapid fire.

I held up a hoof to forestall her questions. "I had barely opened the first book when the ground started shaking, so I don't know. You said these were all required reading but… for like, the next lesson, or just to build the proper concepts for later on?"

Twilight looked pretty disappointed, but it was more of a general disappointment rather than being disappointed in me. "That's understandable, and it's all the groundwork you will need for advanced spell casting, so you are going to have to read them sometime."

'So cool things like pyromancy are probably out, real shame.' "So then what is next?"

"Next is just more simple levitation practice. Since you're so new to casting, you need to get a firm hold of your magic to prevent accidental surging, but this will also help define your channels and exercise your source. That will make it so you're able to cast more efficiently, and give you access to more raw magic, respectively."

"I like the sound of all three of those things." I smiled, wondering if 'surging' was as terrible as the things my mind was conjuring.

"Every little unicorn does. I'm speaking generally of course, as statistically, there are at least a few that don't. Care that is." She answered in kind as her horn flared and the quill was retrieved.

"How can some-pony not care about learning magic? It's magic! Magic is cool." I stared at the floating plumage, and like a crappy engine, my horn sputtered to life. Of course there were no engine noises involved, more the feel of things. Rusty, despite the newness of it all.

And so the cycle began. I would shakily grasp the thing and move it around until I ran out of magic, then Twilight would give me tips on how to improve while I waited for a recharge. We did this for several hours, and I grew increasingly more irritated, exhausted, and tired.

I was yawning before sunset.

"You've made incredible progress!" Twilight complimented.

I blinked a bit at her, having trouble focusing. I glanced at the unstable blue glow surrounding most of the feather, and a good bubble of air. The longer I stared at the lopsided aura, the more wiggly it got until it burst, raining temporary sparkles down onto the floor before they vanished as their magic dispersed into the air. "Yeah… great progress." I griped.

"No, really! You're able to hold a spell for over two and a half minutes now, and you were barely aware of the casting, meaning it's becoming second nature! This is amazing, considering you started just today!" She flipped around a roll of parchment she had been taking notes on, pulling me next to her to read over her shoulder. Or under it, given the height difference.

I blinked uncomprehendingly at her horse squiggles before sighing dejectedly. My entire body ached, and when I checked my mental imaging thing, I didn't have any burst of development, still a regular old diffuse glow. I sighed. "Doesn't feel like I've improved all that much, but if you say so."

"Let's take a short break, you look pretty tired." She observed.

"Thank you, I am." I grumbled while stretching. My ears drooped as I made to stand up. "M'sorry, M'not trying to be snappy with you."

"It's okay Argent, everypony gets frustrated sometimes." She assured me with a brief touch on the shoulder before she led the way to the kitchen. "Come on, Spike made you something tasty~!"

Now that she had mentioned it, I did notice something smelled good, and the drake had just up and disappeared at some point. "Yeah, sounds like a plan."

For dinner, Spike was whipping up a good looking spread, of some kind of sandwich, weird, thin pretzel fry things, and buttered peas. Once I had it in front of me, I more or less recognized the sandwich as a BLT. It wasn't quite the same thing, since instead of bacon, it had some red, two petaled flowers. It still tasted amazing, and one can never go wrong with buttered peas.

"Aren't you going to eat your hay fries?" Spike asked as I had tried to mask hesitation with getting a sip of water.

I looked at the drake, then at the apparently named hay fires, and finally up at my horn. Twilight gave me an encouraging nod when I caught her eye, and I began the careful process of floating a single fry up to my mouth.

It was delightfully crispy, and whatever spices Spike had used to bake them complemented the hay amazingly. 'Honestly, if potatoes got replaced by hay for some reason, I don't even mind! Not when I have these things as a result!'

As I patiently sipped at my water to prolong the meal, and enjoy the company, the sun slipped past the horizon. Twilight finished up her food and politely wiped her lips with a napkin before fixing me with a look. "Well, it's just about time for you to be in bed." She commented purposefully.

Normally, if I were put in this situation, I would have put up a bit of a fight, as I did enjoy the adult ability of being able to go to sleep at two in the morning. But, with all the magic practice, I was exhausted. I nodded absently, yawning into my now empty glass. "Was looking forward to more magic, but that can wait till tomorrow I guess."

I stumbled out of my chair, ignoring the odd looks I was getting, chalking it up to surprise at not whining about going to sleep. Spike soon joined me in tromping up the stairs, so I guessed that dragons weren't exempt from bed time either.

I hopped up onto my bed, too tired to bother with the blankets, figuring my coat would keep me warm enough. I was just tired enough mentally to not put up a fight to the urge to spin in circles like a dog before flopping down onto the cushy mattress. I curled up so that my muzzle rested on my back leg, my forehooves folded in a comfortable position against my barrel.

Twilight peaked her head up the stairs, a candle held aloft in her magic as every other light in the library winked out. "Good night you two~ for now, I've got some reading to catch up on. we'll pick up your lessons in the morning, sweet dreams!" She quietly cheered, laying a kiss on the dragon's forehead and giving me a reassuring pat before she descended once more.

"Night Twilight." We called back to her.

"Good night Argent." Spike yawned at me, before turning over in his little basket bed.

"G'night Spike." I murmured back, lighting my horn to flop the pillow on top of me. The weight of the down filled pillow was the last thing I needed to drift off to sleep.

< ☾ >

Princess Luna, to spare one her many titles, sat upon the throne of Equestria, finding that she had little to do. Nothing to do, if one were to be truthful.

It seemed that little had changed over her banishment. No, much had changed, but the particular facet of unchanged normalcy that brought about such pessimistic thoughts was that the court ran empty as soon as her night filled the sky. She was still only allowed to hold the night court for a mere two hours, but apparently after her first showing, and the subsequent flinging of ponies out windows, no pony was of a mind to visit their grievances upon royal ears when the sun had set.

Thirty minutes remained before court would be adjourned, and it had become extremely obvious that the deadline would be reached before a petitioner would arrive.

"Fine, if it be true that We are to be ignored, We might as well retire to Our chambers and vanquish the nightmares of Our subjects, at least there Our work is appreciated." The alicorn muttered sourly.

The lunar diarch's bad mood faded quickly, all but vanishing before she had even left the throne room. She had even managed to pick up a bit of pep in her trot when her plans for the evening wandered toward that young dream conductor, and seeing what she had gotten up to this night.

Luna passed through her chambers for a moment, settling onto the balcony to watch her night sky. It brought her comfort to know that there were actually a great number of ponies enjoying it in modern times, whole careers were based around it, even! After a few minutes of star gazing, the Alicorn turned and closed the balcony doors behind her.

As she lay upon the princess sized mattress, Luna reflected upon her shrunken stature once more, and mentally cursed her former self. It had been ages -- before she had been sent to the moon -- that she had been this small, her coat this light. So long it had been in fact, that she had forgotten what her actual hair colour was, for it had been a cloud reflecting the night sky nearly as long as she could remember.

Luna shook away these thoughts, and kneaded the pillows until they were perfect. With her horn aglow with midnight blue magic, she let her head rest upon the pillows and closed her eyes.

< ☾ >

Princess Luna was quick to calm the slumber of her little ponies as she traversed the realm of dreams. Her search was over a rather scenic route, allowing her to do as much good as she was able before indulging in personal curiosity.

As she rounded a bend on the path of starlight, she finally came upon the dream she sought. Light rose up from her road of starlight to open the way into the dream faster, and Luna stepped inside.

The alicorn came upon the filly sitting on the balcony of her house -- she was shocked, the dream seemed to have remained exactly as it was the prior night. The pale purple pony sported a shiny crystal of peculiar cut upon her forehead, and was fiddling with some new construct. It bore a resemblance to the 'modern art' she had been introduced to; six sides of a perfect cube, decorated with hues of brown and green and the occasional gray in little squares. It looked to be a representation of the soil, with short grass on its top.

'What manner of craft is this? What wonders shalt thou create, young filly, with this cube as thy foundation?' Luna wondered, but before she could ponder further, or perhaps even approach the foal to ask, the colourful filly seemed to finish her task. With a manic smile, she tapped the top of the cube twice, and the dream was consumed.

< ☾ >

After dozens of faint clicking noises, Luna finally found the filly once more. Standing on what seemed to be an infinite plane of artistically represented dirt, she proudly set her hoof atop a floating gray panel, covered in blocky text that Luna almost recognized…

A giant black void opened up beneath her hooves like a carpet, or a yawning maw.
The lunar alicorn scrambled back, her mind having brought up the latter first. The filly just looked down and smiled as gray replaced the black out to the edges, followed by a wave of green that ushered in white. When all was done it was a series of concentric squares, with a thin black line surrounding the gray, and a similarly thick line of green around the white.

Once more the dream changed, revealing an entirely new landscape. The terrain was slightly angular, even the sand. Great blocky clouds slowly drifted across the sky, blocking out the large square sun every now and then.

'We sense the beginnings of a pattern,' Luna thought dryly, turning her invisible head to find the dreamer. She was on the shore of a small island, spinning in circles, seemingly taking in her surroundings.

Once she got her bearings, the filly nodded, turned and charged the treeline. The young mare spun on her front hooves as they transitioned from sand to grass, and struck out with her back legs, felling a tall, vine covered tree in a most peculiar way. The trunk seemed to just disintegrate, leaving behind yet more cubes, these ones bearing a design similar to the timber they replaced.

The young pony turned to look at her handiwork with a smile on her face, the crystal protrusion poking out from her mane began to glow with a flickering pale blue and the blocks of log floated over to her.

Luna gaped openly at the display, for a couple reasons. The first of which being the method of lumberjacking, the second being the foal's apparent unicorn status, and the third being that the canopy of the tree hadn't moved despite the supporting structure vanishing into a single cube resting in the filly's hooves.

To be more specific, it was a combination of the furst and third, it was nice to see similar aspects in dreams to those from her era. The residents of a neighboring kingdom often had such disregard for physics in their dreams and cuboid worlds, molded from the tales of another. 'We art pleased to see those stories survived.' the princes thought with a nostalgic smile.

The lunar diarch barely even registered the filly, somehow processing down a log into four equally sized blocks of planks. She settled into the sand as potential implications flitted through her mind.

The filly had placed some kind of wooden construct and was tinkering on the work top.

Luna had only just come out of her reminiscence to notice that the filly was no longer there. She looked around frantically, but eventually her ears were drawn to a splash, and the brightly colored little pony sailing away in a rowboat, the oars wrapped in her magic.

'Wait, where art thou going!?' Luna took to the skies. To chase the filly through the iceberg-filled ocean.

< ◇ >

As I got a good rhythm going on the oars, I pulled out an apple to keep my hunger up. As I munched on the fruit, I thought back on how I was here. Not ponyland, no, I had no idea how that worked. No, I was thinking about minecraft. Honestly the idea of playing the game had been in the back of my mind since the night prior. That pixelated sun had stuck with me despite all the excitement.

Actually, that excitement was part of why I tried at all. I wasn’t normally this good at controlling my dreams, but since I had been so lucid, i figured it was worth trying. I failed for the first few minutes, figuring out how to more specifically shape dream stuff into things I needed was nigh impossible. I just couldn't keep the dream minecraft-y. So, obviously, I had to make the application itself, not just squirm and grunt while thinking about the game.

And so I did. Every rule, bit of trivia, and detail I could remember, distilled down into a single miniature block of grass that now sat back in the normal dream on my balcony table, impressing rules upon the malleable dream. I'm not one hundred percent sure how I pulled it off, but I'm going to chalk it up to dreams and magic, I suppose.

As I rounded the tip of a berg, I finally saw the mainland. 'Finally! Now I can get started on building… my… house.'

< ☾ >

Luna had weightlessly flown off after the filly, and settled in beside the boat with one hoof stuck to the hull so as not to lose sight of her.

She seemed to be searching for something, but Luna knew not what. And so it came as a surprise that when the young dream conductor finally did perk up, her face was quick to twist into disgust. The filly immediately turned the boat around, while Luna lost her grip and simply swiveled back and forth between the object of the foals displeasure and the retreating vessel.

'We art confused, why doest thou dislike the jungle so, little one?'

After traveling to the east of the original Island for some time, another large landmass was found. This time the grass was dry and yellowed slightly, and the trees possessed a gray bark and wide, flat canopies. The filly looked far happier to settle on this shore, as shown by the joyous canter she broke into upon actually getting on the beach.

The filly had a look of wonder on her face as she explored the continent, using a pick Luna didn't remember them crafting to harvest red stone from the rocky spires to the south, and a white, cloudy stone from an exposed vein to the west, just a little below where she had made landfall.

After traveling far enough for the grass to turn from gilded to a healthy green, and the trees became more recognizable as specimens native across Equestria, she came upon a beautiful arch standing over a shallow cove. The striking landmark overlooked a great sandbank on the east side of the land, the sea all that separated this mountainous desert.

The foal clapped her hooves in excitement, and set about placing various blocky constructs on the shore. Worktable and several chests began populating the space quickly, and the filly brought a few of her raw white stone blocks together between her hooves. The cubes met with a mighty crunch, and somehow came out not as gravel, but finely worked and polished, as if by an expert stone mason.

She soon set about constructing a great horseshoe of the white stones, newly polished to a shine. Her work wound up being five blocks tall, but sunken into the earth by one.

Luna whiled away a few hours just watching the filly build with a huge smile on her face. 'Mayhap this is thy talent?' She wondered, as the pale-maned possibly-a-unicorn cantered to a copse of trees to the north of her cove, and felled them in a familiar fashion. She processed the new resources over her worktable, and assembled blocks of planks, some of which she further refined into stairs, half blocks, and doors. Pale birch planks along with stripped oaken logs made up the inner walls of her home, and the ceiling somewhat patchwork out of the two woods.

Looking at the gaps in her homestead, the filly pondered. "Now…" she spoke, and Luna had only just then realized it was the first time she had heard her do so. "I'm gonna need bricks n' glass. Glass'll be easy, but I haven't found any clay yet… oh and I need to get my boat!"

The filly set off, running anew back toward the south-west in search of materials. When she did return, it was by sea, with clay from a nearby river and sand from the desert floating along next to her as she pulled into the cove.

"This is gonna be… well, not great looking, but eventually it's gonna be so cool!"

Chapter 7: Terror from the Deep.

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Minecraft was one of those rare few games where the grind for resources doesn't make someone want to bash their head into their keyboard. At least, that's how I feel about it.

Having to run back and forth between the diorite vein in the savanna and the north eastern tip of the continent I was wanting to call home was exhilarating, rather than tedious. Two and a half stacks wound up being enough to finish my outer wall, once I cut back into it to leave myself some nice windows.

I made myself a nice archway into the mini garden/lawn thing my house wrapped around out of stripped birch logs, and further bottlenecked it with some bricks. Next I trotted in the front door and banked left. At the end of this part of the U sat my furnaces, all three cooking away at either iron or sand. Retrieving thirty blocks of the freshly baked transparent cubes in my magic, I took it to the crafting table to the right of the entrance. Glass blocks became a great many more panes, which I was quick to install in the holes in my walls. I took a few strides back to examine my build.

It… wasn't the prettiest thing in the world. There was no… pop, to the structure, everything was flush. Even the roof was sheer, a mismatch of birch and oak slabs that met with the walls rather than sit atop them. It looked like a major part of the structure was missing, and it was, I had planned to add on a second story, but the longer I looked at the thing, the more I felt like I could do better.

"Maybe a tower isn't the way to go. Hmm… it's also too dang small. Welp, off to the quarry again!" I shrugged, kicking open the door and rummaging through far to many chests for where I had left my meager supply of cobblestone. It was interesting to watch the blocks of rough stone melt into each other atop the crafting table, while a pair of sticks thickened into a proper tool rod. The shaft grew through a slot in the pick head and a nice, easy grippable handle of... something bubbled up through the wood to surround the handle.

In the end I was left with a slightly oversized, somewhat blockier version of a pickaxe made of solid gray rock. I made two more of the digging tools and set off westward again, following the coast back to the hole in the ground I sourced my materials from.

What once began as a prime example of minecraft physics applied to a slightly less than minecraft world -- with topsoil floating effortlessly and inexplicably over a hole that went to the stone beneath -- I had since expanded with similar care for gravity, dirt blocks stuck to the wall in an awkward staircase that got me in and out of my OSHA nightmare of a quarry.

I got another two broken pickaxes worth of diorite, and a bit of Iron before I decided to call it good and head back.

< ☾ >

As the filly left her somewhat terrifying mine, Luna breathed a sigh of relief. She was beginning to worry for the ground's stability at this point, a sinkhole was imminent in its future appearance if somepony didn't teach her the proper way to retrieve her stone.

Or perhaps it was just another rule of the game? She really didn't know, and she was regretting not getting the instructions when she had the chance.

Before the Princess of the Night could get too lost in regrets, she followed after the young pony, watching as she would periodically zap the tall grass with magical blasts from her unique horn as she lackadaisically meandered back to her buildsite. One of the disintegrated bits of plantlife dropped a hoof-full of seeds, and the filly's ears perked adorably before they were scooped up in a gentle blue glow and deposited in a set of saddlebags.

Once more, the crystal-horned unicorn set about building a wall of polished stone, around her current one. The new boundary measured the same in height, but was seven paces farther out than the original. The wall ate into the hill, and so she spent quite a bit of time dancing atop the grass and dirt before they would break, which made no sense at all.

Finally the filly finished her new outer wall, and set about deforesting the already diminished northern woods. As the floating leaves decayed, some dropped sticks, or apples, a few even dropped whole miniature trees! Which the filly replanted responsibly.

'What a relief, it seems not all of thy practices are unsustainable, we were beginning to worry.' Luna breathed a silent sigh of relief. The sky was beginning to burn orange as the square sun neared the horizon. As the cuboid moon began to rise, Luna put her hoof down. 'Enough of this dilatory behavior! We came to this dream with the intention to meet the dreamer, not to creep about the shadows and spy on them!'

While the filly set about building a roof over her new layer of house, this time utilizing the gray barked logs of the dryer environment to the south as support beams, Luna set her plan into action. She would introduce herself in disguise, because even as she stood in miniature of her true height as it was, she was still taller than the average mare.

Likewise, it would be prudent to not appear as an alicorn, lest that also intimidate the young pony. In a flash of light, Luna appeared hovering over the ocean, standing in a boat. With her horn still glowing she adjusted her avatar's appearance in the dream, shrinking down to equal height with the little dream conductor. With a final flare of her horn, a few elements were added to disguise her cutie mark, and the arcane spiral faded from sight.

Her pegasus disguise in place, Luna took up the oars in her wings and began the slow voyage to the northern shore. As the faux filly beached her vessel, she began thinking about just how she would introduce herself.

With a hop and a jump, and awkwardly clambering up since she failed to account for her shorter legs, Luna crested the hill. "What shallt we call ourselves?" She wondered. Before she could come up with a proper pseudonym, a sloshing splat preceded a deep, wet gurgle behind her as something heaved itself onto the sand.

< ◇ >

I was sitting in a hole. It wasn't a very deep hole, but it was still a little more than I was able to jump out of, thanks to the slabs surrounding it. I had decided to lower the floor half a block at the base of the U-shape, and so I had spent some time clearing the planks and dirt below. This way when I found enough wool or string to make a bed, it wouldn't be hovering or flush with the floor.

'...Or I could just tell the game to let me place blocks on top of slabs.' I facepalmed, which I'm immensely grateful I tried to do while in dreamland, because it probably would have really hurt in the waking world.

As I finished laying my new, carpetable floor, an ear splitting scream of absolute horror rent the air. I jumped in surprise, and my eyes were drawn to the brightly glowing pixelated moon. "When did the sun set!? Wait, more importantly, who was that!?" I had been under the reasonable assumption that I would be more or less alone in my dreams, barring the random creation of characters to fit some dream narrative, but I had also figured that with minecraft running, dictating its own rules over my subconscious, I wouldn't be sucked into any kind of weird plot.

A second, quieter but still cripplingly terrified scream told me that my puzzling over my faulty application wasn't really the thing to be doing right then.

Jumping through the hole next to the window in what used to be the outer wall of my house, I charged toward the furnaces, pulled out the long finished iron, and slammed down a pair of ingots on a fresh crafting table with a stick. The materials were still shifting around into a single item within my magic as I galloped out the door.

I spun on my hooves, skidding through the grass, and nearly slipping into the cove, as I got a bead on the direction I should be headed. The fresh iron sword trailed behind me in a shimmering periwinkle aura as I scrambled north as fast as possible.

As I wove through the trees I ran face first into the source of the shrieks. I was immensely glad I wasn't actually holding the sword as the light blue pegasus filly and I went down in a tangle of limbs. She squealed and struggled away while I tried to get to my own hooves and figure out what had her so freaked out.

It turned out that I really didn't need to bother, as one of the most horrifying things I'd never wanted to see shambled up the hill.

Rotten, bulbous blue-green flesh, covered in a permanently soggy, oily, patchy coat. Its cracked hooves squelched in unnatural ways, like soggy shoes after a rainstorm. Tears in its hide only served to frame the ghostly blue light that crept out of it, pulsing like a heartbeat. Sea life seemed encrusted into it, crab's claws replacing missing chunks of hoof, fish scales stretched thin over larger holes in its skin, some seaweed seemed to be rooted into its scalp to replace the mane, the kind of healthy, vibrant green certain plants only got when they were breaking down corpses. Dead gray coral grew out of the left side of its broken skull. Half of its face was missing entirely, letting out more of that blue light, perfectly illuminating the half rotten eel that sat in its mouth, seemingly melded with its tongue.

The thing blinked it's one eyelid -- the other eye had been replaced by a barnacle that bobbled back and forth -- opened its mouth of mismatched teeth like a boa unhinging its jaw, and screamed. The chilling light the creature gave off brightened to cast the small clearing in an unearthly monochrome hue. Claws clicked, fish squirmed, and the seaweed whipped about as it emptied its sodden lungs for what felt like an eternity. It was a horrible, discordant noise that threatened to haunt me until I could binge some happy show to drown it out.

I screamed right back, though in terror rather than... challenge? Haunting delight? Whatever reason the animated flesh meld had for screaming, it was different to mine, that was for sure. I scuttled backward, right up until I bumped into a tree. "Y-you're so much worse than you should be, thanks for the nightmare fuel brain!"

The shambling, oily dead thing took another step towards me. "Kindly screw off forever!" I screamed, my horn thrummed with magic and I sent the lagging sword zipping forward in a blur. A few good swings and the unholy abomination that is a high definition ponified drowned comically fell over and vanished with a chilling gurgle and poof of pixelated stars and smoke.

The sword zipped back into a sheath on my hip that definitely didn't exist a moment ago, and I bodily dragged the filly out of the hole she cowered in. It wasn't hard to get her running under her own power, and soon enough we were back in the torch lit relative safety of my cove.

But, since assured safety is better than relative, I dragged her into my house, specifically the smaller version that I planned on tearing down to enlarge the garden place once my new layer of house was done. All three doors slammed shut in a flash of blue, and I leaned on the wall, panting.

"Well." I gasped. "That was terrifying."

Small blue and mysterious shivered her agreement from her position sideways on the floor. She was looking frantically around, but the door quickly stopped being of interest to her when the skittering hiss of a giant spider sounded from the window.

In my haste to see what was going on, I had forgotten about how I left some holes next to the windows for myself to squeeze through. The massive arthropods beady red eyes stared unblinkingly at us as it crawled up the window, three of its right legs flailing in a probing manner through the one block wide hole.

The fact that the spider was on the wall in a vertical manner told me that things were a bit more realistic than I wanted, and so a magically propelled sword flew out the window, stabbing the eight legged freak in its center of mass, right between the legs. A block of cobble half patched the gap while the blade arced up into the sky, magical glow trailing in its wake.

One side patched, I ran to the other side and started filling it in also. The sword disconnected from its passenger, leaving the oversized crawly to fall to its death, the flying blade curved around to zip back inside through the one-block hole and clattered across the floor. I finished blocking things up and slumped against the nice solid diorite with a sigh.

"Hooookay, now we're safe." I breathed, turning back to my guest. She was still looking at the windows fearfully. I slowly came up beside her, making sure I wasn't stealthy about it but also wasn't stomping. Regardless, she still didn't seem to notice my approach, so I laid down across from her. "Hey, it's okay now. Nothing can get in here." She glanced down at me for just a moment, before resuming her trembling vigil.

Looking back behind me, I magiced open a chest and retrieved a couple of apples. One of the fruits plonked itself between the stranger's forelegs, the other pulled itself apart into slices in my magic, and I consumed them one at a time. 'Really wish'n I had a bed or two right now…'

I sighed, knowing that my conscience wouldn't let me just cheat in a couple wool for the sake of another, but also not allow me to abandon the filly for the sake of gaming. A swipe of my hoof brought up the options menu, and I logged off.

The world fell away from us in cuboids of varying size, revealing the regular dreamscape. The pegasus girl still hadn't moved, or even touched the apple that apparently came out of the game with us. Slowly, I managed to coax her off the balcony and inside. I set her up on the second floor, in my best recliner, sized so that we could have sat on together and still had plenty of room.

Realizing I was no longer in the game, I felt no compunctions about dreaming up some nice relaxing music, two mugs of cocoa, and a fluffy blanket. With a wave of my hoof, the chimney embedded in the wall shifted, the mouth of the fireplace migrating up from the first floor brick by brick, and a couple of floating fireballs hovered at the appropriate level to add another bit of comfort to the atmosphere.

"Alright, the game's off for the time being, doors are locked, and we are well and truly safe." I assured her, wafting the mug under her muzzle. Finally, she calmed down a smidge, reaching out to take the offered drink in her hooves after a moment of staring at it. 'Well, she didn't fall away with the rest of the minecraft world, so she probably isn't some ponified villager, which means I utterly failed in keeping out dream plots, darn, I'll have to tweak the game settings.'

The dark blue furred filly took a sip from the mug, her ears and entire demeanor perking up. I stifled my giggles at her upending the beverage greedily, and the ill matching mustache that she wore with a smile as she set her empty cup.

I knocked on the table, and the mug refilled, with marshmallows bobbing up from the chocolatey depths. "So, now that you're feeling better, you got a name?" I asked, taking a sip from the peppermint straw in my own drink.

"W-we art Known as L- Night Strider." She stammered.

"Well, I'm Argent Accord. Nice to meet you." I offered her a hoof, which she tentatively met with her own.

Chapter 8: Engaging in Recreational Activities

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Arrrrrrrrrrr-- 'I mean I, why do I keep defaulting to third person?' I woke up in a rather instantaneous fashion, my features still pulled into a mild scowl.

"That… was weird." I mumbled, before shaking off my thoughts about last night's dream. I rolled over into my belly, stretching out like a cat beneath the sheets. 'Wait, when did I get under the covers?' I wondered as my neck popped pleasantly.

Shrugging, I slowly wormed my way out from beneath the sheets, careful not to mess up the bedding too much. I emerged beside the pillow, and bit back a groan of annoyance as light streaming in from the window stabbed at my sensitive morning eyes. I flopped back with an 'eep!' Which sounded far too adorable for me to keep the habit, and blinked repeatedly, staring dumbly at the ceiling.

Once my vision was restored, I was finally able to sit on the bed properly. What I saw confused me. 'Since when am I a restless sleeper?' I wondered. Half of the blanket had been kicked off in the middle of the bed, the sheets were all kinds of rumpled, and peeled off the mattress in the top right corner, only one of two pillows was still on the bed itself, the other was nowhere to be seen.

With another shrug, I lit my horn, willing the sheets to straighten with a glow of blue magic-- my horn dimmed, glittered, and popped three times in quick succession as I was reminded that I really wasn't that good at moving things with my eye poker.

Fighting gravity was difficult enough, fighting elastic banding was apparently even harder. I sighed dejectedly. "Why must the waking world fight me so?" I moaned, my head lowered. I got over it quickly enough, and spent five minutes slowly inching the damn fitted sheet back over the corner of the mattress.

I stood in the middle of the bed, watching each of the four corners warily. When the linens didn't spring up to consume me and trap me in a bag like I half expected, I got to work on dragging the blanket back up the bed. Once more, the forces of friction and gravity prevented me from taking the easy path, and so I grabbed the corner in my teeth and heaved. The blanket sailed up onto the bed, cockeyed but fixable. I tipped off the bed, hitting the ground with a thump and a groan. "Hello again, ground, I thought we agreed not to see each other after the hospital."

I rolled over, massaging my sore shoulder with a hoof for a moment before hopping back onto the bed. "I made it this far, I'm not stopping until I actually have this done." I was committed at this point, nothing would stop me; not my reduced stature, nor lack of functioning magic, even the forces of the universe would not stop me from making this bed.

In the end, the sheets were straight enough, the blanket was slightly off, and I still was missing a pillow, but the bed got made.

"Alright, Argent one, furniture zero!" I cheered, before realizing I must have looked like an absolute moron. I looked around, abashed at my odd behavior, but fortunately the other beds were empty.

With my embarrassment on the retreat and riding high on my victory over inanimate objects, I trotted down the stairs in search of my hosts. I found the library empty, and no one present in the kitchen or loft, so I apparently had the tree to myself. Checking the basement proved fruitless as well.

"Darn, I wanted to do magic…" my ears drooped in disappointment as I returned to the kitchen. Looking up I saw a plate on the counter, and some folded paper sitting atop it. I hopped into the chair and carefully pried the note open with the edges of my hooves. It didn't contain anything I didn't already know. Well, probably, I assumed it mentioned how they were out of the house at the moment, and possibly even what they were doing, but since I still couldn't read anything it was just gibberish and squiggles.

"It's getting really annoying being illiterate. Hmm, I wonder if I can teach myself to read?" Looking at the top and bottom of the pages, I memorized the characters that I hoped represented my pseudonym and Twilight's name. "Maybe with these as a reference point I can just reason out the rest of their alphabet? So long as it's similar to mine anyway… it should be, our spoken language is the same." Between the two of us, I had a decent chunk of the alphabet. Probably.

"Alright, well, I've got options now, at least. I could spend all day trying to teach myself how to read, or I can go outside and wander pony town. What's this place called again? Wait, it was Ponyville right?" Upon realizing that now not only was I talking to myself, but also asking the empty room questions, I decided that fresh air would do me some good. "Although the air inside of a tree has to be pretty fresh, right? I'm doing it again…"

My stomach growled, reminding me that I had just woken up. "Mmm, breakfast first, then I can go wander." I pulled the sandwich they left for me closer and took a bite, pleasantly surprised by the taste of egg!

After breakfast, I left Golden Oaks, mildly annoyed at just how easy it was to open the door. 'that's what I get for assuming… but still…' After doing a quick circle to memorize the buildings, and realizing that I lived in a tree, and that's a pretty good landmark in and of itself, I began my wandering in earnest, choosing to head south, as it was as good a direction as any, and it looked like a fair bit of town sprawled that way.

I passed a small store that had a giant couch and feather for a sign, "probably a general store?" I thought aloud, but wasn't interested enough to actually stop in and check it out. Not having money of any kind was a major factor in the decision.

All in all, lots of ponies were scurrying about, more than I would expect on a weekend. If it was the weekend anyway… 'note to self, find out what day it is-- actually.' I meandered down the path a bit more, looking for someone who wasn't busy hanging decorations or running some errand. "Scuse me!" I called after a goldenrod coated, orange maned mare with a couple carrots displayed on her flank.

The mare slowed down to let me catch up with a smile. "Hey there little one, new in town?"

I nodded. "I'm staying with Twilight at the library. On an unrelated note, could you tell me what day it is?"

The mare informed me that it was the ninth, and a sunday, and that her name was Golden Harvest. She then launched into recommending a bunch of things for me to check out in town. Around the time her nearly identical green haired sister, Carrot Top showed up, I decided to excuse myself as the amount of ponies gushing about how cute I was had exceeded what I could put up with.

I pivoted around a decorative fountain and beheld another strange store. Probably a store, anyway. It appeared to be a massive gingerbread house, decked to the nines with candy cane support beams, frosting in pleasing patterns on the roof, and topped with what appeared to be a giant cupcake with three giant candles. The frosted chimney was purple and trailed off into several branching shoots, each letting out a bit of smoke or steam. I stared at the giant confection. Or… what looked like a giant confection? I blinked, and rubbed my eyes when that didn't work. The building remained unchanged, aside from the customer trotting out the front door with a box of donuts balanced on his back.

My face scrunched up in confusion as I got a closer look. Even just a few steps away, I couldn't tell if the building was made out of Candy or not, but I could see the multitudes of colourful cupcakes, cookies, cakes and other treats in the windows. 'Okay, so it's probably, almost certainly a store, and not some weird mirage, a bakery if I'm not mistaken…' I was a little too weirded out to make any closer observations, and got back on my way, exploring the town.

Venturing eastward past the gingerbread store I came across a rather large, tower-like building, stretching taller with every tier. There was a lot of traffic here, and I could see Twilight talking to a light grayish amber coated mare, who's mark took the shape of a scroll tied up with a blue ribbon. I almost walked up to them, but It looked like Twilight was in a somewhat important conversation with the silver maned bespectacled mare.

Assured of where my host was, and not wanting to interrupt, I decided to keep wandering semi aimlessly. After a few minutes I just synced up with the traffic flow naturally, but I kept an eye out for landmarks so I wouldn't lose myself in the throng of ponies.

It felt like an hour had passed, and I think I had made at least one full circle of the town, passing the purple circus tent imitating structure that made up Rarity's home and workplace. 'I wonder if she's in right now, or busy with whatever holiday is going on.'

Once again on the southern fringes of the town, I found myself walking into what had to be a park, filled with benches, shady trees, a few picnic tables, and a smattering of playground equipment spread throughout. Everywhere I looked, at least one filly or… whatever you call a young male horse was running, jumping, flying through the air, or using said playground structures with looks of glee and laughter.

I sat there at the entrance to the park, watching the children run around and play with their friends. I was met with the paradoxical whimsy of wishing I was young like them, ignorant of having to make rent, their only concerns being having fun, and at the same time realizing that I was indeed as young as them, and not being too thrilled about potentially reliving my school days.

With a shudder, I pushed the circular thoughts aside and turned around, intent on going back to the library to decipher the written pony language so I could read for fun.

As I spun around, I found myself face to face with a little yellow filly just taller than I was, her big orange eyes staring intently into mine. "Hey thar!" The redhead greeted me in a thick country accent when she realized she had my attention.

Unfortunately, this still took me by surprise, and for the second time that day, I considered how to kick the habit of letting out little adorable squeaks of distress. The earth filly didn't seem bothered by me scuttling back from her, and continued her introduction. "Ah’m Apple Bloom, what’s yer name? Are ya new around here? Ah haven't seen ya in school. Where did ya live before here?"

I looked at the child and briefly wondered why she thought we would be in the same school, then I remembered that I had to look up a smidge to make eye contact and threw that question in the dumpster. 'How exactly do I keep forgetting I got turned into a child?' I wondered internally, while trying to sort out how I felt about the whole interaction.

Eventually I landed on a patient smile and returned her greeting, if only to be polite. "Uh, hi, yeah I'm new around here, I'm Argent." I told her about my stay at the library, and this prompted her to talk about her residence, that being the farm to the south, whose apple orchards kinda wrapped around that entire half of the town.. Said Sweet Apple Acres, as it was named, which I'm fairly certain I've heard before, was bigger than the entire town as well, and provided a kind of buffer between Ponyville and the forest of horrors known as the Everfree.

"I've heard that before…" I muttered as soon as her explanation wound down. "Right, the hospital!" I exclaimed, waving my hoof awkwardly in an attempt to snap my nonexistent fingers. "Apparently I was found somewhere in there. Do pe-onies. Ponies, do they go in there…" I trailed off, as the child had a look of sheer terror on her face.

"You were tha filly ma sis brought back outa there?" she questioned. "What were ya doin in those spooky woods? Were ya chased? Was it a manticore? An ursa!?"

"Yes? I think, wait, your sister is Applejack?" At her affirmation I nodded. "Then yeah, as for the rest, I have no idea. Now, leaving that all aside, is there something you wanted, or am I just blocking the way in." Not that there was much of a fence mind you.

"Oh, weeell, ah' jus' noticed you were new an' all, and, uhm, ah' like your… hair thingy, It's pretty." She gestured vaguely at my forehead, prompting me to cross my eyes.

"Oh, uhh, thanks? It's not a decoration though, it's my horn." I pushed my mane out of the way to better show off that the crystal was indeed rooted in my head.

"Really, wow! Ah' didn't know a unicorn's horn could even look all sparkly like that. So, you can do magic?" She took a step closer, her eyes sparkling with interest.

"Uhh, kinda?" I glowed my horn a bit, twinkling noises and warbly blue magic dancing around its angular facets. "I'm kinda new to the whole magic thing. Twilight has been teaching me, but I still can't even pick things up properly."

The filly oohed and awed as I tried to twirl a leaf on the floor. "Well, ah' can't imagine how hard it must be to do the lev-i-tay-shun," She enunciated carefully, fighting with her accent around the longer word. "Stuff, but it sure sounds neat. Hey! If you have a crystal horn, does that mean you're a crystal pony?"

'Another kind of pony? How many are there anyway?' "I… don't think so? Maybe, but I don't know anything about them, so…"

"Ya mean they didn't teach ya about 'em in yer old school?"

"No…?" I shook my head, before glancing up at the sky. I still wasn't very good at gauging time by the sun, plus I hadn't checked beforehand to have a reference point. "I feel like we may have gotten off topic, I'll just be heading back, you enjoy yourself--" I rambled as I extricacted myself from the situation, circling around the yellow filly so I could leave. 'Screw it, let's find some books so I can learn the reading.'

"Wait!" Applebloom cried, a hoof outstretched but just barely not touching me, I flinched back an inch. "Tha- that's not what I wanted ta talk about either… what I meant to say is, do you wanna play a game?"

'...okay world, I know I made the mistake of reminiscing on simpler times earlier, but that doesn't mean I actually wanted to hang out with kids…' Before I could come up with a reasonable excuse, I made the mistake of looking directly at a little pony who's expression of hope quickly wilted into sadness as the seconds dragged on. "Iiiiiiiii-yes, yeah, sure, what sounds fun? Tag? Charades? Cards? Comeonpleasedon'tmakethatface." I pleaded before tears could form. Seeing kids cry was one of the worst things in the world in my opinion, and I wasn't sure I could handle a pony child doing so.

And again, her mood flipped on a dime, from gut wrenchingly sad, which is downright painful to see on an adorable little plush worthy pony, to dancing in joy. "Awlrigh'!" She cheered in her charming drawl, pumping a hoof in the air. "Let's play hide an' seek!" She booped me on the nose. "You're it, get countin'!"

"I thought you said hide and seek, not tag!" I complained, shaking my head vigorously before sneezing. With a weary sigh I laid down in the grass and covered my eyes with my hooves. My ears twitched and swiveled, independently following different sets of steps in a way that left me completely clueless as to where she had gone, and made me sorely miss my undervalued stationary ears.

Upon shouting out "ten!" I sprang to my hooves with surprising agility. I spun in a circle, scanning each corner of the park methodically-- 'hold on…' I turned back a half step. The filly herself had actually done a great job hiding, she was completely hidden by the shrubbery, I hadn't even heard the bush rustle, but her giant pink bow stuck out like, well, a giant pink bow in a bush.

Still, I didn't want to make her feel bad, so I hummed a random tune as I casually trotted around the park, making a show of looking behind trash cans, up the slide, and under rocks she couldn't have possibly fit under.

As the tune devolved into the jeopardy theme, I decided I had let the round go on for long enough, and meandered back toward the quietly laughing bush. I sat down beside the accessorized bush, and let out a long, contemplative "hmmmmmmmmmmmm." Then I reached over and tapped her shoulder. "Found you."

"Darn! Ah' was sure ya wouldn't find me." She stomped out of the bush in mock anger, a smile on her face. I laughed at the display, but the laugh sounded too much like giggling and I cut myself off. With effort. "Jus' you wait, Ima find you in half tha time!" She boasted.

"Oh reeaally~?" I sang, circling the filly. "Because I already have my spot picked out, and I don't think you’re gonna find it." I challenged, looking pointedly at a bench over her shoulder before mimicking what she did to me. Ponies' faces scrunch up all kinds of funny when you boop their nose. She tried to huff indignantly as she turned around, but I could just make out her stifled laughter.

As soon as the count started, I was off, sprinting like a kitten suffering from the zoomies. I slid along my belly under the bench, kicking up a large cloud of dust with my hooves and making quite a racket. It kicked at the leg of it for good measure before I quietly tip toed -- tip hooved? -- over to a nearby tree.

'Alright, weird hoof grip abilities, don't fail me now!' I silently pleaded, rearing up and plonking my front legs on its trunk. With a hop and a heave, I hung from the bark, before carefully lifting one leg and plonking it down again. Now that I was hanging from them, I was able to more easily feel what it was like to grip things with my hooves, and I gotta say it's weird as hell. For starters, it didn't really feel like I was grabbing with my hooves, but rather something in them was pushed out and suctioning to the surface or something. It also felt vaguely magical, so that was something to 'look' into later.

I clambered onto the first thick branch I could find, and hid amongst the canopy, with my tail in my mouth so I didn't leave any obvious clues hanging around like she had.

"Two, one!" Applebloom shouted, confidently turning and strutting toward the bench. She knocked on it with a hoof. "See, told ya ah woul-- huh?" I clamped my hooves over my mouth to keep my laughter from escaping, as the little filly circled the bench three times, and even checked inside the trash can next to it. She then ran around the park at random, doing much the same as I just had, but with much more seriousness.

'Hehehehe~ my plan works! No one ever looks up!' I cackled trying to keep myself from tumbling out of the tree as the rolling laughter sought to knock me from my perch. 'Man, why am I so into this? Did I really miss schoolyard games this much?' I didn't dwell on that too much, opting to just enjoy the game while it lasted. It was nice, to have a little mindless fun after the week I had, even if I wasn't awake for most of it.

I cackled quietly as Applebloom went to ask other foals in the park where I might have gone, and they all pointed in different directions.

Soon, the sun had passed its zenith, and the filly had, coincidentally, chosen the tree I was hiding in to sulk under, panting from her run around the park. She sighed, and got up to leave, but before I could wonder if maybe I had taken things too far, her back legs shot out, connecting with the base of the tree and sending a tooth rattling vibration up its trunk, shaking the canopy. This also had the likely intended side effect of getting me out of the tree.

I laid on my side, struggling to get air back into my lungs after the fall knocked the wind out of me. The country filly booped me on the nose, again. "Foouund you~" she giggled, dancing in victory.

"Ow." I huffed, rolling onto my belly with a wince. "How do you-- geez you're strong." I pushed myself into a sitting position, rubbing my sore side. "Alright, what gave me away?"

"Your horn was glowing!"

'You traitorous noggin stick!' I mentally growled, glaring at my crystalline growth.

"It was a pretty good spot though, ah' never woulda found ya up thar! If ya hadn't given yerself away, that is." She complimented, bumping shoulders with me as she trotted off.

"I should hope so, I was banking on the fact that no one ever looks up, but I guess you proved me wrong." I sighed, following along like a good little playmate.

"Ya wanna go again? Ah've got a real good spot in mind this time!" She asked, looking over her shoulder at me as we walked back to the center of the lot.

I considered trying to excuse myself to go back to the library again, but… "heck yeah! This is fun!"

< ◇ >

I spent the entire afternoon hanging out with Applebloom, enjoying the moment and playing silly games that I hadn't since grade school. At some point I might berate myself for acting like a child, but games are games, no matter what age you are.

I never again tried to hide too high up when playing with her, and vowed to remember to never do so again, being knocked on your ass isn't fun. Fortunately, we switched to tag after the third round. Unfortunately, while I was much better on my hooves than I was before, I had nothing on a natural born earth pony, who never seemed to run out of stamina.

I was trailing behind the happily skipping filly, wheezing for my life but still doggidly trying to tag her back. Once more, I tripped over my own legs, but this time I didn't get back up, I just lay there, sprawled out in the grass gasping for breath.

"Ya good?" Bloom asked, peaking into the top of my vision. I waved off her concern and closed my eyes, continuing to wind down. The grass beside me rustled, and when I looked over, I found that she had rolled onto her back beside me. "That was fun."

I nodded. "Yeah." I said softly, having finally found enough air to spare for words.

"Argent, are you here?" The voice of my host came.

I rolled over onto my stomach and waved a hoof in the air to get her attention. The mare trotted over happily, smiling down at the two of us. "So this is where you've been all day?" Her voice spoke more of genuine curiosity than anything negative, but my ears still folded back. "When we got home and you weren't there, you had us really worried, didn't you read the note?"

'Starting to wish I could have.' "No… sorry?" I tried.

Twilight just smiled at me as sye settled into the grass next to us. "It's fine. All it said was that we would be out of the house for a little bit, and that you should have started on your readings. But, I can forgive you this time, since you were making a friend." She nodded at the earth filly next to me.

"Howdy Miss Twilight! Argent an' I was jus' havin fun, she's really good at hide n' seek." Applebloom complimented, but I paid that little mind.

"Really now?" The unicorn asked politely, getting an enthusiastic nod and brief retelling of all my spots; the tree, on top of one of the play structures --which thankfully didn't end in another rude reintroduction to the ground, just her shouting "found you!" At the top of her lungs half the park away -- even my attempt to change spots constantly, eventually she caught me sneaking back to the original tree, which is where we switched to tag.

"Sounds to me like you two had a lot of fun." She summed up, and I found myself agreeing, in a much calmer manner than the earth filly. "Well, after a day like you had, I bet you're hungry." I nodded, actually somewhat surprised that the question wasn't answered by my stomach, as was the running cliche.

I bade farewell to Applebloom, and went back to Golden Oaks with Twilight. "I know you must have been bored, all alone in the library." She began, getting me to turn from looking down the path to up at her. "And I'm not mad!" She quickly assured me. "We were just worried, is all, looking around town for a few hours. You're not in any trouble, but a note of your own would have really been appreciated."

"Sorry, I just wanted to learn my way around town…" I sulked.

Twilight gave me a tap on the shoulder. "I already said it was fine. You were just out having fun, although reading a little might have made tomorrow's lesson easier. Spike should be back home making dinner for us,"

Conversation fell off at that point, and we made it back to the library in short order. We spent a few hours doing the quill exercise again, where she assured me I was getting better, but I couldn't see it. After a quick dinner, I went up to the loft to sleep. Having spent all my energy for the day, I drifted off quickly. 'I wonder if that Night Strider will still be there?'

< ✶ >

As soon as Spike and Argent went up stairs, Twilight once more descended the steps into the basement. Looking left and right as if expecting someone to jump out at her, the unicorn pulled the cover off a blackboard in the corner and flipped it over. Various chalk writings and drawings littered its surface, along with a few pages tacked on with putty. Admittedly, it wasn't much, but this little board held her gathered research on the little filly up the stairs.

Twilight didn't quite agree with keeping all this a secret from her, but it wouldn't do Argent any good to be scared, it wouldn't be good for anyone really.

The study was still in its infancy, so only the most obvious anomalies were listed. How she switched tribes had sparked her research, but the details piled on quickly; from how her magic would change colour at the drop of a hat, to how the highlights in her mane, tail and body would all fluctuate in saturation to coincide with her change in demeanor. A stack of papers detailing her unique horn makeup sat on a nearby table. And strangest among them all, how when the filly yawned a tiny rainbow would form for a moment, and it wasn't just for show, either.

Twilight picked up the prime example, a brightly coloured glass in her magic, examining it from all angles once more. At one point it was just an ordinary cup, but something about it had fundamentally changed. The unicorn was still waiting on that delivery before she would have the proper equipment to learn more about it.

"Where did you come from?" Twilight asked the blackboard, tapping chalk against her chin.

Author's Notes:

And here we have the latest chapter decently sized and right on time!

Honestly, I'm amazed I was able to get this done so fast, so I hope it doesnt dissapoint!

Also, this is the first chapter I've posted since I got my Patreon up and running!

My current job makes it difficult to keep to my self imposed upload schedule because they cant keep my hours straight, so if any of you are feeling generous and wanna help out a steadily improving writer, please consider donating a little.

Do or dont, Ill still be working on this story, but you do get some cool perks if ya do, like access to chapters before anyone else, before my editor even!

Anyway, I've rambled enough, click on the funny coloured word up there if you wanna check out the patreon page, or the one down here, they lead to the same place, so take your pick.

Bye, have an awesome week!
Carmine Patreon!

Chapter 9: Behold My Nine!

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I was sat in my living room in the dream house, drumming my hooves impatiently
as I waited for my guest to arrive. To my left sat a few unfinished icons. Games like Fallout or Subnautica had seemed like a fun way to while away the hours before I remembered that they could be so terrifying, and therefore would be horribly terrifying from a true first person perspective. Minecraft lay abandoned nearby, one of its faces pried off with a screwdriver, menus floating over the directed block from my attempts to ferret out the issues.

On my right sat simpler things, box games of Uno, Sorry, and Risk that would be much more fun, and I may even eventually make them more than dream representations of cardboard and plastic. Before me was a book, with actual legible English writing in it, containing the gist of all my magic lessons from Twilight. I had been reviewing that, trying to see where I wasn't understanding things properly when I realized that the thing held my comprehension, and likely wasn't going to be much help, especially when one considered the fact that magic just worked in the dream, so I wasn't going to get any meaningful practice in.

An agonizing three minutes of boredom later and I heard a knock at the door. Scrambling downstairs, I skidded across the hardwoods toward the aperture, the pulsing red symbol for a lock at head height let me know the door still hadn't been updated to let in a certain pony. Punching the red circle swapped it for a green one, this time with a key, and the door opened just a crack, wide enough to wedge a hoof in the door and swing it open fully.

On the other side stood the expected filly, ruffling her wings nervously.

"Good night, young Argent." She squeaked at me.

I regarded her in confusion for a moment. 'She shows up and says goodbye? Oooh wait!' "Heh, never heard that as a greeting before. Good night, Night Strider." I stepped back and welcomed her in with a smile.

The blue pegasus smiled in turn, stepping into the house. "How does the night find thee?" She asked as she made herself at home, hopping up into an oversized recliner.

I lifted a hoof and tilted it back and forth in a so-so gesture. "Well enough. Magic is hard and the local language makes no sense! You?"

The filly nodded sagely. "T’is true, the language is quite vexing, however you seem to speak it fluently."

"I'm having more trouble with the written word, actually. Be right back." I supplied before scampering back up the stairs. I returned a moment or three later, with a large assortment of cardboard boxes wrapped in a periwinkle glow. "So, how do you feel about board games?"

Night Strider looked from me to the games. "Thou meanest games similar to chess?"

"Yeah, I've got one of those in here somewhere."I shuffled the boxes until I came out with a set of the game in question. I set the stack beside the table and hopped into the loveseat opposite the filly. "I wanna take a break from the more complex stuff until I figure out why it drank a gallon of nightmare fuel."

The filly nodded again. "A wise decision, thou shouldst not invite such horror into thy dreams." She fidgeted a bit. "Wouldst thou mind if we were to request more of that drink from the other night?"

"Not at all, feel free to pick through the games while I whip up a batch." I motioned with a hoof before hopping back down and making my way to the kitchen. A kettle of water was set to the stove burner to boil while I got out a bag of mix that was totally always in that cupboard, obviously. Two spoons found their way into a pair of mugs just as the whistle of the water started. A dash of milk and a few marshmallows finished things off, and I carried the drinks back in my magic.

When I returned to the sitting room, Night Strider had opened Monopoly, Life, and Clue and was skimming through the instructions of the latter. She set the folded paper down and sighed. I booped her nose with a mug of cocoa, getting a squeak from the pegasus. "By the way, what's your story?" I asked by way of greeting, ignoring her glare entirely.

"'Our story?'" She asked, raising one regal brow and accepting the mug with her forehooves.

"Yeah, what plot are you from? You didn't disappear when I turned the game off, so I don't think you're from minecraft." I elaborated as I retook my seat.

"Plot?" She asked, looking even more confused.

"Yeah, what's going on, where are you from, how did you get in the game, that kinda stuff."

<◇>

'This is perfect! We spent all morning compiling an identity for Our Night Strider persona!'

Luna cleared her throat and straightened up. With a hoof over her barrel, she prepared to regale the filly with her tale. "We art from an Old and most Noble family, although twas once a grand house, we number few in modern times. Our home is in Canterlot, the royal capitol, where Our slumbering form resides. We came to be in thy dream by… happenstance. By tradition, Our family art practitioners of the ancient art of Dream Walking, and We accidentally came upon thy dreamscape." She paused to take a sip of the delectable beverage in her hooves.

The pale purple filly blinked at 'Night Strider', glancing down at her hooves and muttering too low for her to hear. "Uhh, okay yeah, I think I got all that." She frowned at the middle distance, ribbing at her chin with her pastern. "So… no grand quest then, alrighty." She spoke in low tones that Luna had to strain a bit to catch this time. "Okay! So, whatcha wanna play while we wait for the day?"

The disguised alicorn looked down at the boxes now littered across the table. "We wouldst like to try this 'Uno'. It seems simple enough."

<◇>

"Ha! Behold, Our nine!" The blue filly shouted in joy as she switched the colour to yellow again.

"Why do you have so many of those!?" I whined, going back to the draw pile. The very infinite draw pile, because stopping every ten or so minutes to reshuffle things got boring.

"We hath been blessed by the goddess of chance, and winning!" The pegasus chirped.

The first game had gone to me, the second to Night Strider, as she picked up shouting calling me on not saying uno after I snatched victory from her. That she did it loud enough to rattle windows made me glad I couldn't experience burst eardrums in a dream.

We were now on our third hand, and had been for thirty minutes. The numbers were three cards left in Night's wings, and thirteen floating before me. Well, sixteen now…

'Oh, okay, thank you random draw deck~' I grinned at the filly like a shark. "Let's see if she blesses you again then." I placed down a plus four, earning a wide eyed look of shock from my opponent. "And let's keep it blue this time."

"She hast already done so!" The light blue maned filly cheered, slamming down her own with gusto. "And We desire red!"

My Smug grin never left, a third draw four fell atop the pile. "Nah, I like blue."

I received the dirtiest look for that, Night Strider synching up her muzzle and narrowing her eyes at me, but her lips quirked up just a hair… "no, We decree that the colour be red!" And another draw four fell from her wings, leaving her with only one card in the left one. "Uno!"

"What? No, that can't be right." I drawled, sliding my third card forward. "It's clearly blue~" I tried my damndest not to giggle like a little girl, but the face she made was just too good to resist.

"No…" she whispered, holding her singular card close.

"Yessss!" I hissed, nudging the drawpile towards her.

"You vile fiend!" She slammed both hooves upon the table, hard enough to make it buck and crack the floor.

"Why thank you~" I purred, dragging the table back to its original position, the cards having not left their place.

The filly sniffled as she carded through the draw pile with her feathers, drawing twenty in one smooth motion. I threw down a blue two, the Smug feeling of victory inching closer. With a dejected sigh, Night Strider flicked her next card out of her wing. "Behold, Our nine…"

<◇>

Checkers was the game of choice now, as it allowed for easier multitasking, such as conversation, or game tweaking.

"What is thy project?" Night asked, moving a red token into a defensive position.

"Trying to fix Minecraft, it's too fun to let one unexpected horror keep me from playing it." I informed her as I moved a slider across the small screen, adjusting the block-to-real ratio. I glanced at the board and mirrored her defensive move with my own pieces.

"Thou refer to the dream where we met? Thou wish to relive that experience?" She looked at me incredulously, slowly sliding a chip across the board with too much pressure, producing a strangely loud grinding noise.

With a flash of blue sparkles, I flipped my black coin over hers, putting the game in my favor. "It wasn't supposed to be like that, hence me trying to fix it, sure the game can get some good jump scares, but it's not supposed to go lovecraftian horror… not without mods anyway…"

Night Strider was quick to snatch up that piece, leaving us even once more. "Thou speak in riddles and oddities… thou maketh less sense than anyone else in this modern era." She complained.

"Sorry, it's the game terminology and pop culture, although it does make us kinda even, you're a bit of a chore to understand." I replied, moving another piece into a defensive position. I reared around inside the cube, pulling out the model for the drowned, frowning at the twisted abomination in my hoof. It was quickly crumpled like paper and tossed in the waste bin. 'I might as well change all the mobs while I'm at it…'

The filly fidgeted in her seat. "...We are not well versed in thy modern tongue…" she admitted.

"No, that's obvious, but I'm sure you'll get it, it's just some practice is all. It's your move by the way." I informed her as a great many crumpled balls went in the trash. I pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil and started sketching out some replacement models for the game.

"Oh, right, Our apologies." She made a sacrificial move with a token, and chewed on a slice of apple, her brow scrunched in thought. "Thou mentioned thy troubles with the writ word, correct?"

I looked up from the pair of stacked cotton balls I had been decorating as a sheep replacement and sighed. I looked at the board for a bit as I sorted out my thoughts, ignoring her bait and moving a piece to the left wall of the board. "Yeah, it's just… why is it that the spoken language is the same, but the written is entirely different?" I confided in the dream character, it's not like they could tell anybody. "How many characters are even in the alphabet? It's all new and unhelpful, especially when you live in a library with a bibliophile, I just wanna read some books and practice magic, forget about the bigger issues until they get a bit smaller."

Night was quiet for a bit, silently frowning at the game. "We could teach thee." She offered, scrutinizing her moves.

"Huh?" I noised at her in confusion. "How would that work exactly? This is a dream."

"True, but we, that is, thee and I, art conductors of dreams, have thou not noticed thine dreams’ stability, dost thou not remember thy dreams when thou awakenest?"

"No, I do, that's not the issue. This is a fun way to pass the time, and you are fun to talk to, but this is still a dream, nothing is in here but what I know or can imagine."

The pegasus filly tilted her head at me so hard it looked like she should have fallen over, the look of confusion on par with telling people you're a flat earther, or that you think the sun revolves around the planet. "We are sorry, but WHAT?! Didst We not tell thee That We art a dream walker? Thou believe Us a figment of thine imagination?!"

"I uhh… yeah? Aside from all the thee and thou stuff, nothing you've told me sounds like something I couldn't come up with." I replied with a raised brow. 'What in the…? Oh right! You aren't supposed to tell dream characters they aren't real. Crap, they're already in existential dread mode.' "I mean-"

"Fie!" She declared, jumping from her seat onto the table. The light in the windows died, a glance outside showed that the sun had disappeared, replaced with a writhing sea of stars.

'Crap, this is about to turn into a nightmare, isn't it?'

"Fine then, if thou cannot see Us for that which we art, then we shalt take our leave!" With a stomp of her hoof, white threads bled brown from the stars and through the window, swirling around the filly and casting a shadow far too large for her small frame. With a tearing noise, a rent in space appeared between us, showing… showing something that is difficult to put into words… it was, kinda like the stars in the sky but…

While I gaped like a fish, the filly let out a haughty huff and marched through the tear in reality, which snapped closed behind her.

"...well, that happened."

<◇>

Luna shot from her bed in the predawn hour, her fair face set in a firm scowl. The nerve of that filly! The ignorance! How could she not recognize a sentient being? Did she truly think the shadows her mind could conjure would be so well formed? She believed her a mere figment? A passing fantasy?!

With a determined stride, the reduced alicorn marched over to her desk. In a whirl of magic a roll of parchment lay before her, and a quill found itself ensnared in her midnight blue aura. With a snort, she jotted down a quick message.

Then she retrieved another roll and rewrote it, foregoing her name and infusing the ink with a blue incandescence. "This shalt show her."

Starting Over As A Friendship Bomb

by Carmine Craft

Prologue: Trick Candle

Chapter 1: Rekindled Fuse.

Chapter 2: Awake Again, Meeting and Greeting

Chapter 3: Introductions and Discharge

Chapter 4: High Definition Nonsense and a Dream House

Chapter 5: Post-dream Discoveries.

Chapter 6: Practice and Application

Chapter 7: Terror from the Deep.

Chapter 8: Engaging in Recreational Activities

Chapter 9: Behold My Nine!