Waking up as a child is one thing, waking up as a child with four self aware tentacles is another.
Waking up in a strange body is one thing, waking up in a strange body with four tentacles and a gap in your memory is another, something is wrong and I hope to learn what exactly has changed.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP! I struggle to open my eyes and slap my hand over my phone before quickly silencing my alarm and shuffle out of bed. It seems to be morning if the small rays of light shining through the blinds are anything to go by.
After a few moments I stumble down towards the living room still barely conscious, however something quickly catches my attention as I gaze around noticing neither of my parents are awake yet. After another few moments I decide to grab breakfast and enter the kitchen but as soon as I reach towards the cabinets I'm snapped awake as I realize they are out of reach.
"What, how the hell did I get shorter?!?" I yelled out before quickly clasping my hands over my mouth in shock, why is my voice higher pitched? I sound like an 8 year old and that's clearly wrong I'm 22. I quickly rush towards the bathroom and stare at the full length mirror attached to the back of the door. This is clearly the worst choice I've made today as all I see is some small child with pale skin, white hair, light blue eyes with a much deeper blue limbal ring. She's wearing a black and white gothic dress with red highlights, and I very much am not an 8 year old goth child. After several moments of increasingly shallow breaths and a rising panic I notice 4 black tentacles emerge from behind the child, wait no me, they emerged from behind me and each "Looks" towards me as a feeling of concern radiates from my back I quickly notice one is holding a black doll shaped like a dog towards me. For some inexplicable reason I grab the doll from the tentacle with extreme urgency and suddenly my panic begins to fade as a feeling of calm begins to fill my head.
Why would this doll make me feel calm is beyond me at the moment as I look back towards the mirror and begin examining myself. I quickly come to two realizations, one is that I am absolutely adorable and the second is that the tentacles on my back seem to have relaxed somewhat and seem to be looking around at my surroundings with curiosity.
I could feel a desire to comfort me and a motherly care and love radiating from all four tentacles in my back. It strangely made me even calmer and helped to ground me from the remnants of my previously present panic. After a few moments of silence staring at the tentacles they all focused back onto me which caused me to blush slightly and look away from the mirror finally.
After shaking my head a few times I began muttering. "OK, calm down Dakota you've only become a small child with strange tentacles coming out of her.... Her? Oh god I'm a girl!" It suddenly struck me that not only was my body younger but also female. This was definitely going to take a while to get used to, but I decided to stop thinking about my new body and focus on the fact that I haven't heard either of my parents getting up yet.
Deciding to walk upstairs and open the door to my parents room on the opposite side of the hallway from my own room only to find it void of any living beings. I quickly squeezed the doll in my arms and walked back downstairs lost in thought over what exactly was going on when several loud knocks came from the front door.
I took several deep breaths before walking up to the door and opening the front door. I saw three... Ponies? One had a yellow coat and red mane with a red bow in its mane, to her right was one with a white coat and two tone lavender and pink mane with what looked like a horn on its head, and next to that one was an orange one with a purple mane and a pair of wings. We all stared back at each other silently for several moments before I looked up and saw several other "Ponies" all staring at me frozen in place. I slowly looked back down to the three pony like creatures on my front porch and mumbled "What the hell." They stared at me looking just as shocked as I felt. After a few moments I quickly slammed the door shut and slumped to the floor placing my hands over my face and sighing loudly wondering just what was going on as several panicked shouts rang out from behind the door.
-Third Person Begin-
"What was that thing!?!" Scootaloo shouted. "Ah don't know girls. But maybe we should get Fluttershy? That thing seemed kinda jumpy." Applebloom quickly said. "Whatever it was, my sister would go crazy if she saw its clothes. Did you see the dress it was wearing?" Sweetiebelle added. "Maybe we could get our cutie marks in helping it?" Scootaloo asked looking at her two friends." I don't think so, Scootaloo. Do you remember what happened when we tried to get our cutie marks in taking care of animals? My sister is still upset over the mud from Applejacks pigs." "Yeah this might be beyond us girls. Let's go get Fluttershy." Applebloom said nodding sagely before the three of them rushed off towards Fluttershy's cottage.
-Third Person Over-
After several deep breaths I stand back up and ponder what I hear, it sounded like talking, kind of a mix of German and French if I where to take a guess. After a few moments longer I look around and decide to peek out of the blinds of a front window in my home and look at the surroundings outside. It looks like a medieval village almost with the thatch roofs on many buildings however I notice that some appear to be shops with shingles on their roofs or just flat stone. As I'm observing the new surroundings of my home I spot what appears to be a tree with doors and balconies on it. After several moments I notice a purple pony with a horn peering at me with a telescope, I decide to gingerly wave and give a half smile causing it to open its mouth in what I assume is a gasp before its engulfed in a purple flash and disappears.
I just stare dumbfounded at the spot for several seconds before I hear a scream behind me. I turn around and see one of the tentacles holding the purple pony off the ground it quickly begins speaking in the strange language looking at me with wide scared eyes. I just stare blankly for several moments with a cocked head before saying "What?" The pony seems confused at what I said before slowly speaking several more words towards me in a slower more controlled voice looking between me and the tentacles.
I look over to the tentacle holding her and ask "Uhm... Could you let it down? I don't think it wants to hurt me." I feel hesitance and annoyance pointed towards the purple pony coming from the tentacle that is holding her for several seconds before it unceremoniously drops it to the floor.
After the purple pony stands back up I decide to look her over, she has a dark blue mane with a purple and pink highlight and a violet coat. I decide to call her Spark for now considering how many sparkles and sparks I saw when she pulled her teleporting trick I also noticed that her voice seems feminine. I notice Sparks horn begin to glow as she begins speaking again before one of the tentacles grabs a hold of her horn causing the glow to disappear and a look of confusion spread across her face. I look at the offending tentacle and gently tap it. The tentacle in question quickly lets go of her horn but hovers ominously close "staring" at her.
Spark begins to talk again but I just turn towards the door and point towards it and look at her with a look of annoyance. After a few moments of staring at me Spark's eyes widen and she looks around probably realizing she just broke into my house.
I turn back towards the door and open it only to come face to face with a yellow coated pony with a pink mane. It was then I noticed that I was at least a head shorter then either pony currently near me. I looked up into the blue eyes of the pony in front of me with a bit of hesitation, only for the pony to give a small gentle smile and say a few words very softly to me. It seems she recognized my hesitance quickly and wanted to put me at ease, after several seconds of her incomprehensible words I noticed the three ponies from earlier behind this pony along with the fact that she had wings.
It was as I was looking back towards the yellow pony that my stomach decided to inform me and every nearby living being that I had not eaten breakfast yet. The yellow pony froze as soon as the growl from my stomach began before looking towards me nervously. I decided to just wave the four ponies at my front door in and walk towards the kitchen to get some food.
As I walked towards the kitchen I heard Spark and the yellow pony, I guess I'll call her butter for now, talking to each other in what seemed a mostly casual greeting. I walked into the kitchen and looked towards the four tentacles on my back and asked "You guys wouldn't happen to be amazing cooks, would you?" I suddenly felt a swell of pride and cockiness from all four as they quickly darted around the kitchen preparing what smelled like chocolate chip pancakes.
After a few minutes they finished and laid out a massive plate of pancakes in the middle of the dining table and put five plates out at different chair. I quickly sat down and placed several on my plate and looked back to the tentacles "Could one of you get syrup?" One quickly darted into the fridge and brought me some syrup which I quickly coated my pancakes in.
The second I took a bite my eyes widened and a loud moan came from my throat, these where the best pancakes I'd ever tasted, you could quite literally taste the love and care that went into making them. Noticing my reaction to the food Spark and Butter quickly approached the table with curious gazes before purple's horn glowed and one of the pancakes floated to her mouth. The second she bit down the gasp and moan of pleasure she made could easily have one questioning exactly what was happening in this kitchen.
Seeing purples enjoyment of the fluffy disks the other four ponies sat down and hesitantly grabbed some as well. Several questionable noises later and everyone was enjoying the delightful morsels of syrupy chocolaty goodness these tentacles made.
I looked up at the four tentacles curiously as I pondered how strange it was to have four appendages each operating separately from you. I could somewhat feel their emotions I believe, and as I brushed a hand over one I noticed that I could even feel sensation from them even if it was a bit muted.
After several more moments looking over the four tentacles I was beginning to get bored and decided to walk towards the living room wondering where my parents where. As soon as I began to try and think where they would be a sudden realization struck me. I couldn't remember a single thing about either of my parents, not faces, names, or even what they sounded like. A sudden feeling of dread and panic began to seep into my mind and these thoughts began to swirl around and my mind began adding even more questions like 'why I was a small girl suddenly?' and 'why I was in some pony world?'
Before I could begin to truly panic one of the tentacles gently patted my head and another pushed the doll I had sat down when I was eating back into my arms causing a sense of ease to settle back into my mind. It was strange how comforting I found this doll even if I had never seen it before.
I found myself standing in front of the bookshelf in the living room as a tentacle retrieved a photo album from said bookshelf. After the tentacle sat the photo album on the coffee table I took a seat on the couch and began flipping through the pages.
The first page had a young girl with Brown hair and bright blue eyes with a pale complexion standing smiling between a man and woman with several other adults and children on both sides of the first two adults. The next few photos showed fewer and fewer family members standing besides them before it was just the original girl and the two adults, the woman was sitting down looking much thinner and paler. The next photo was just the young girl with a small smile on her face, but her eyes told a different story, that of someone who had lost everything. Next to her was the woman, now in a wheelchair and looking extremely thin with a faint smile on her face. Written under it where the words.
Goodbye Momma
I noticed several wet spots on the album and cocked my head in confusion before turning to the last page. It contained only a single image of the same girl, now with white hair and much paler with four familiar tentacles coming from her back and a smile like that of a survivor who had been rescued and was heading home. Under this photo where the words.
Momma's back
After a few moments I noticed the ponies seem to be talking near me and sounded concerned I looked up to see Spark approach me gently before looking towards the photo album with a curious look. I simply shrugged and stood back up and stretched curious where the water had come from earlier. After several moments I heard a stuttered word and looked over to see purple with a hoof over her mouth on the verge of tears. She said several words in a shaky voice before picking up the photo album in her levitation magic glow and walking quickly outside towards the tree.
The other four seemed confused for several moments before looking over to me with a curious look. I simply shrugged and looked between the four of them before the white coated pony said something to the other three with orange and Bow nodding quickly and Butter looking unsure.
I decided to call white squeaky as her voice squeaked pretty often, orange would be Buzz because her wings seemed to buzz when she started talking excitedly, and yellow with a bow would be Bow for obvious reasons.
After several more moments of the three small ponies chatting animatedly and seemingly ignoring Butter they suddenly rushed towards me and grabbed my legs and drug me out my door. I desperately clawed the floor and all four tentacles radiated amusement at how quickly I was overpowered by three ponies smaller then me. Butter let out a startled noise but hesitantly followed as the three drug me to a fate unknown to me.
-Third person view earlier that day Fluttershy's Cottage-
Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetiebelle quickly ran towards Fluttershy's cottage. After several minutes they arrived outside of the Cottage and quickly knocked on the door. Fluttershy slowly opened the door a crack and peeked outside quickly spotting the three slightly frantic fillies who began to talk over each other trying to explain exactly what brought them out to her Cottage.
Eventually Applebloom managed to be heard above the other two quickly saying "Fluttershy there's a weird creature in town!" This caused Fluttershy's eyes to widen as she opened her door fully before asking "What? What kind of creature?" She was hoping it wasn't an Everfree creature, while many of them could be very friendly others where impossible to talk to.
"Ah don't exactly know, it was inside a house that just appeared in town today." Applebloom quickly responded. Looking up at Fluttershy who's face had taken on a very concerned look. After a few short moments Fluttershy Asked "W-well has it done anything?" As her natural shyness returned.
Applebloom blinked several times and put her hoof to her chin in thought for several seconds before saying "Well no, it just kinda opened the door when we knocked and look around before slamming the door shut, we rushed here right after." Fluttershy nodded slightly before saying quietly "W-well maybe its shy? If I suddenly appeared in a new place I would be pretty scared." All three fillies looked between each other for several moments before looking back to Fluttershy.
Scootaloo asked "So what should we do?" This question stumped Fluttershy for a few moments before she looked towards the three fillies and said "We should see if it needs any help, I'll come with you girls." Shortly after that all four of them headed towards town at a quick trot.
-Third person view Golden Oaks Library-
Twilight Sparkle was a very busy mare. Earlier that morning an extremely strong magical surge had been detected in Ponyville. Twilight had quickly located the focal point of the magical surge and a building she hadn't seen before near the outskirts of Ponyville. She had decided to observe the seemingly new building from the balcony through her telescope quickly jotting down anything of note she noticed about the building and its immediate surroundings.
Eventually she saw the three cutie mark crusaders approaching the door. Twilight was unsure what reason those three where doing until she noticed Applebloom approach what appeared to be the front door and knock rather quickly at the front door. Twilight sat watching with bated breath as the door slowly opened and she saw a very strange creature looking out at the three fillies.
It appeared to be bipedal, had extremely pale skin, no noticeable fur to cover the majority of their body, a white mane on top of their head, two front facing blue eyes, a predominantly black and red dress, and most curious of all four long black appendages that appeared to sprout from somewhere behind it. Twilight's curiosity peaked when the creature slammed the door shut and the three crusaders ran off toward the southern end of Ponyville.
As twilight continued her observations of the house she noticed the creature seemed to be peering out from one of the front windows of the house before looking directly at her. After several moments the creature gave a small wave and crooked smile. The fact that the creature not only noticed her but had acknowledged her with a greeting similar to that of a pony caused Twilight to let out a gasp.
Suddenly she had to know more and her horn lit up as she pulled in arcane energy from her surroundings and quickly formed and cast a teleport spell to the small bit of interior she could see behind the creature. In an instant Twilight was grabbed and lifted off the ground by one of the four appendages on the creatures back. She let out a short squawk of surprise and was so surprised she forgot she could teleport out of the creatures grasp.
The creature quickly turned to her in surprise and simply stared at Twilight for several moments. Twilight may have been scared but her curiosity overpowered her as she rapid fired questions not giving the creature a chance to speak "What are you? How did you get here? Are you the source of the magical anomaly?"
After several moments the creature said something in an unknown language peaking Twilight's curiosity even further. An entirely new language no creature has heard before! Before twilight had a chance to speak again the creatures tentacle holding Twilight dropped her rather harshly to the floor.
Twilight decided to cast a scanning spell on the creature to try and learn more but as soon as her horn began to light up as she drew in arcane energy one of the black appendages shot out and wrapped around her horn unceremoniously cutting her spell off and blocking her from pulling in any more ambient magic.
This greatly shocked Twilight as very few things could cut off a unicorn from magic. As twilight stared up at the black tentacle like appendage wrapped around her horn it suddenly withdrew as the creature tapped it.The tentacle hovered close to twilight seemingly ready to strike.
Twilight quickly attempted to calm the creature down saying "I'm sorry if I upset you, I don't exactly know if I did something wrong." As twilight continued to speak the creature turned away from her and pointed towards the door before looking back at her. After several moments Twilight realized she had just entered this creatures house without permission but as the creature turned back towards the door and opens it Twilight spots Fluttershy and the cutie mark crusaders standing on the other side.
-Third person view outside of Dakota's home-
Fluttershy had raised her hoof to knock on the door before it suddenly was pulled open and she was face to face with a creature unlike any other she had ever seen before. After a few seconds Fluttershy noticed the slight withdraw the creature had done along with its wary expression and decided to try and reassure the poor thing saying "Oh, its OK please don't be scared, nopony here will hurt you." And smiling gently towards the creature.
After a few seconds the creature began to relax a little before suddenly a loud growl was heard. Fluttershy sharply tensed for a moment before noticing that the creature didn't look aggressive or defensive and in fact, it had begun to turn around and walk inside its home waving one of its arms as if to gesture for her to follow.
Deciding to follow the creature inside Fluttershy gently nudged Applebloom next to her with a hoof and gave her a small smile before following the creature inside. As soon as Fluttershy enter she noticed her friend Twilight Sparkle and asked "Oh, Twilight you came to meet the new creature as well?" Twilight smiled towards her friend and said "Ah, yes I noticed a magical surge this morning and was investigating this house when this creature noticed me."
Twilight rubbed a hoof on the back of her head blushing slightly before saying "I may have teleported inside and scared it when I saw it waving at me." The mention of the creature waving towards Twilight peaked Fluttershy's interest and Fluttershy asked "Oh, it waved towards you? Has it tried to communicate any other way?"
Twilight began walking behind the creature following it into what appeared to be a kitchen as she said "Well, it seems to speak a language but its not one I've ever heard of. Maybe you can speak to it?" Fluttershy followed behind twilight and gently rubbed a hoof under her chin and said "W-well maybe, I feel like I can read some of its body language but I haven't heard it speak."
Both go silent as the creature suddenly speaks in a high pitched yet soft voice towards the four tentacles and each one moves to do something different, two heading towards the fridge in the room, one heading towards a high cabinet, and the last moving towards the oven.
As the tentacles go about doing whatever it is they are doing Fluttershy says "Oh, I think it might be a she. It sounded rather girly." Twilight looked over to Fluttershy for several moments before saying "Oh? I guess that makes sense considering she is wearing a dress." Both ponies go silent as they watch the four appendages quickly moving around ingredients and setting the table.
As they watched Twilight noticed that the two tentacles providing ingredients to the tentacle using the stove seemed to be pulling magic from their surroundings. At the same time Fluttershy watched the tentacles with interest and she noticed each seemed to operate independently of the creature almost like they where separate beings.
After a few minutes the tentacles placed a massive plate of what appeared to be pancakes on the table and the creature sat before speaking in her language again. Twilight watched closely as one tentacle moved towards the fridge and saw a brief flash of light as it returned with a container of what appeared to be syrup.
The creature poured the syrup over several of the pancakes on its plate before taking a bite and letting out a rather loud moan before quickly biting into the pancake again. Seeing this Twilight's curiosity was peaked again and she gently floated over one of the pancakes giving it a small sniff.
It smelled like a chocolate chip pancake and looked like one so with only a small amount of hesitation Twilight bit into the pancake before letting out an even louder moan and gasped before digging into the disk of delicious. Seeing this Fluttershy and the cutie mark crusaders decided the food must be safe and took seats at the dining table with the creature before digging in themselves.
As all of them where mostly distracted with eating Applebloom noticed the creature get up and wonder towards the main room of the house before one of the tentacles suddenly had a doll shaped like a dog in its grasp and lowered it into the creatures hands and another patted the creatures head.
As Applebloom watched the creature it wandered towards what looked like a book shelf as one of the tentacles pulled out something that she quickly recognized as a photo album. As Applebloom watched curious as to what the creature was doing while it sifted through the pages of the photo album she was shocked to see that tears where slowly trailing down the creatures cheeks.
"Twilight I think something is wrong with her, she's crying." Applebloom quickly said her voice having a tinge of panic in it. Twilight, Fluttershy, and the other two crusaders quickly looked up toward the creature and noticed that yes, indeed the creature was crying. Twilight quickly stood and looked over to Fluttershy saying "What do you think happened?"
Fluttershy was concerned, nopony cries for no reason and she looked over to Twilight saying "I have no idea, one second she was sitting here eating and suddenly she's crying on the couch." Deciding to investigate Twilight quickly walks towards the creature but slows down as she notices the bookshelf behind the creature. She has to stop herself from imagining all the books she has never seen before and focuses back onto the matter at hoof.
As Twilight approaches the creature she notices what appears to be a photo album sitting on the coffee table in front of the creature. Suddenly the creature shrugged towards her and stood up stretching out and looking around the room. Twilight decided to investigate the photo album and quickly flipped to the first page, It showed a creature similar to the one in front of her but lacking the tentacles, it had brown hair and seemed much less pale. As twilight examined the photo she noticed more of the creatures standing next to the first all much taller.
As Twilight flipped through the pages she noticed that each photo had less and less creatures standing next to each other until it was only the small creature and the smallest of the tall creatures. The tall one was seated in a wheelchair looking much paler and thinner with a small smile, the smaller creature was smiling but had a look Twilight had never seen before in her eyes. It felt like the look of a child who knows they are lost and will never be found and is heartbreaking.
The next photo was just the creature standing next to her alone, pale with white hair and the four tentacles coming from behind it. But it had a bright smile like that of someone who had been saved from the worst fate imaginable. Realization struck Twilight like an arrow through the head as she realized the two taller creatures standing next to the smallest one must have been her parent's and she had lost both.
Twilight looked up to the creature as tears threatened to spill from her eyes. Twilight looked over to Fluttershy and shakily said "I-I need to send a letter to Princess Celestia." Twilight levitated the photo album up to her and quickly walked outside towards her home determined to inform the Princess.
After several long seconds Sweetiebelle suddenly spoke up "Well since Twilight went home maybe we can show her around Ponyville, we might even get our cutie marks!" Scootaloo and Applebloom looked between each other and quickly nodded while Fluttershy looked between the three fillies and the creature unsure.
Fluttershy decided to say "G-girls maybe its not such a good idea, I mean she must be pretty confused right now." The cutie mark crusaders simply ignored Fluttershy and animatedly talked about where they should take her to first before finally Sweetiebelle said "Well if my sister finds out that she wears clothes like these and we don't bring her there first she will be pretty peeved with us." Scootaloo and Applebloom nodded sagely before all three looked towards the creature.
"Well how are we supposed show her around if she can't understand us?" Scootaloo asked looking back towards Sweetiebelle. Sweetiebelle took several seconds to think before confidently saying "Well I'm sure if we just bring her there she will understand!" All three looked towards the creature again before rushing towards her shouting "CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS TOUR GUIDES!" And quickly began to drag the creature by the legs towards the door ignoring Fluttershy's concerned protests about being too forceful.
None of them seemed to notice the tentacles gently bobbing up and down as if chuckling.
