The white consumed me, enveloped me like a blanket. I looked around me for some sort of indication of where I was. None. I glanced down toward my feet, but the white all around me was so thick I couldn’t see them. Although I didn’t trust my balance in this strange new world, I focused all of my thoughts on dragging my right foot forward.
My milky surroundings slowly faded out into a single beam from somewhere above me. I scanned around for its source, but a searing pain shot through my chest and I doubled over. My mouth was open, but my lungs were on fire and I couldn’t make a sound, no matter how much I wanted to scream in agony. If I thought my broken ribs had hurt, I was sorely mistaken. Now they seemed like a simple bruise.
The pain spread throughout my entire body, sparing nothing. Everything from my eyes to my fingers to my toes burned. I managed to open my eyes enough to see what was going on. I squinted at my hands...
I actually did manage a scream this time, shocked at what was going on. My fingers were shrinking into nonexistence, and my palms were becoming cylindrical. Fine, dark grey fur was sprouting out of my forearms and coating my arms in a sleek coat.
Suddenly, the pain subsided, leaving a dull throbbing sensation all over my body. I collapsed on the ground and groaned. My eyes went out of focus, and a black tint filled the edges of my vision. I only had time to make the realization that I was probably dead before the black clouded away my eyesight and sent me off into a forgetful, calm syncope.
*****
I don’t know how long I was out, but the beam of light I had observed had moved down from where it was before I blacked out. I forced my eyes open and tried to focus on the scenery around me.
A sword lay on my right. How did that get there? It had a familiar look to it. I examined it more closely. A blood red ruby was set into the pommel. Ah. There it was. The Scythe of Belial had completely transformed itself into a sword. Pretty clever of it, really, but I still wasn’t sure how a (mostly) inanimate object could have morphed itself into something else. There had to be a catch.
Slowly, I sat up, grumbling. Considering what I had just experienced, the splitting headache I had felt something like a massage. I was comfortable... mostly. Sitting felt weird for some reason, like my legs were splayed out on either side of me. I looked down.
“AAAAUUUUGGGGHHH!!!” I screeched. I fell over backward, flailing wildly, trying to escape what I saw. There’s the catch, I thought to myself. I closed my eyes for a good ten seconds, took a deep breath, opened them again, and looked down. “Why the literal flying monstrous fuck am I a horse?!” I shouted. I examined my new hooves and wondered why I was so surprised by them. I guess they were just grey cylinders that I was supposed to stand on. Joy.
I placed my two ex-hands on the ground and extended my back legs. My rear hooves eventually came into full contact with the ground. I wobbled a little bit, but I soon gained balance and looked away from the ground.
After everything I had read in my father’s library, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what the living world looked like. But nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared me for what I saw just then. Warm golden light filtered down through the rustling leaves. The trees creaked softly in the gentle wind. The clearing I was in was covered in flowers of reds and purples and yellows. They swayed slightly as the whispers of air moved across their delicate petals.
“Wow...” I breathed out quietly, taking in the sights and sounds. A small brown bird twittered past my nose and landed on a branch to my left. It watched me for a second before fluttering away. A grin slowly consumed my face as I watched a pair of squirrels chase each other up a tree, chattering away. I was officially speechless. All my fighting, all the running and the hiding and the fear and pain were things of the past now!
I could no longer contain myself. I let out a shout of pure excitement, “YAHOO!” Birds scattered out of the trees and bushes around me. I suppose they did that when I screamed after seeing my hooves, but honestly, I was too shocked to notice. I wanted to jump for joy, to run and never stop running through the new world of light green and gold. So I tried to run... and fell flat on my face.
“Well, this is embarrassing.” I muttered into the dirt. I awkwardly regained my... hooves and glanced at the forest creatures to see if any of them were going to make fun of me. Luckily, forest creatures are forest creatures and therefore generally don’t do that sort of thing. I looked down at my shaking hooves again.
Okay, evaluation time. I was in a forest, I was in the living world, and I had somehow transformed into a pony. Okay, I’ll admit, I was not expecting that. Good job Fate, you got me! Apparently my bones had actually morphed themselves into the bones of a horse, or pony... or something. And then I grew fur. No wonder I felt like I had gone through a damn wood chipper.
I sighed, gingerly raised my right front hoof, and placed it on the ground in front of me. The remaining three hooves wobbled dangerously, but I managed to keep my feet, well, hooves. Better than last time, I guess. I did the same with my left hoof. This wasn’t going to be nearly as easy as I thought. I teetered dangerously, sticking my wings out for balance.
Oh yeah, wings, I had those. Why do they have feathers now? So I’m a pegasus? No, not quite. I still had all four of my wings, and heck, they didn’t look that bad with the feathers anyway! Yeah, stay positive. So what if I couldn’t actually walk? Who needed dumb walking anyway?
I facepal... hooved. I could still blink, duh! Why walk when I could just teleport everywhere? I closed my eyes and imagined myself outside the forest, or somewhere with food, I was hungry. Anywhere would be nice really. I opened my eyes and... nothing had changed. I was still standing in the same clearing. Well that wasn’t right at all. I tried again, still nothing.
“Uh oh” I whispered, “not good, not good at all.” My blinking, that which had made me so special, was gone. Desperate now, I looked around, trying to think of something. “Okay, don’t panic. I have to be able to do something!”
The bird I had observed earlier landed back on its branch about thirty feet away. I looked at it. Maybe I could blink there. I closed my eyes and imagined myself standing under the tree. I opened them again. Nothing.
I heaved a sigh. There had to be something. I picked a spot to my right, approximately ten feet from where I was standing. I closed my eyes and wished to be there.
At first I thought nothing had happened, but when my legs dropped out from under me and I landed in the dirt again, I noticed the tree with the bird in it was farther away. At least I could still blink within a certain range, and probably within my line of sight too.
The problem was, once I did, I couldn’t keep my feet, dangit, hooves. I sighed again. I guess it was something I did often. I regained my hooves, at least a little easier this time, and snorted at my own clumsiness. A full-grown demon from the sixth level of Hell was having trouble walking.
I was just about to lose myself in the gorgeous scenery around me again when a shrill, piercing scream shattered my eardrums. It was shortly followed by a thundering roar, which I suspected was a monster of some sort. I spun around to my right, to where the noise came from, kicked up the sword next to me, settled it neatly on my back, and took off sprinting in its direction.
Hold on a second. I was running when I couldn’t walk more than a few steps just a minute or two ago. I suppose I was just over-thinking it. Walking is a natural instinct of any animal species, right? But I didn’t have time to explain it to myself at that point. I had a hunch that I had some rescuing to do!
It took me about thirty seconds of running to reach the source of the shriek. I burst into a smaller clearing, where a massive manticore howled at something or some...pony I couldn’t see. I’d seen manticores in my father’s castle, but I’d never thought they’d exist in the living world.
It pawed at the tree trunk, shaking the branches violently. A small white figure suddenly appeared, dangling precariously from a limb. It looked like a young pony, perhaps seven or eight years old, and it was about to fall.
I took off running in its direction, then jumped off of the ground and caught my left front hoof on the branch next to the small white figure. I now saw she had a pink and purple curly mane and large sea-foam green eyes. I picked her up with my right hoof and set her back on the branch. This really was easier than I thought. I could get used to this...
Something slammed into my gut and I hurtled through the air until I smashed into the tree trunk to my left. The sword spun off my back and came down on a rock with a loud clang. I slid comically down the trunk. I landed on the ground with a soft thud and examined the gashes the manticore’s paw had left on my side. I was bruised and cut, and my ribs had probably cracked again. That should not have happened. The only things that had been able to inflict any kind of pain on me before were those damn Excubiars. Now it was just a pissed off manticore.
“You know, this day just goes from bad to worse,” I muttered to myself. As if it had heard me, the manticore roared in reply and swatted at me again. “Alright point taken leaving now!” I launched myself up, snatched up the sword and swung it over my back, grabbed the still-screaming filly, and bolted. The manticore let out another blood-curdling roar and charged after me. I ducked and weaved and wove my way through the forest, with the manticore hurtling behind me.
“Uhh, mister?” the filly asked.
“What?”
“I think if you keep running this way... I think we’re headed for Ghastly...”
“Ghastly what?” I turned my head to look at her.
“GHASTLY GOOOOOOOOOOORGE!!!” she screeched as we plummeted off the cliff. Okay, maybe it wasn’t just her screams. So what if it caught me off guard? I’m allowed to be scared aren’t I? I guess that manticore had knocked some sense into me. Risking the pain, I spread my wings and glided slowly across the mighty ravine below us. I could just barely make out a river at the bottom. Yeah, that deep.
We drifted lazily across the canyon to a small ledge about fifty feet down the opposing cliff face. It may have seemed like a lot, but given the depth of the rest of the abyss, it really wasn’t too far from the top.
I glanced over my shoulder. “You alright back there, kiddo?” I asked. She scrambled off my back, careful not to touch the sword more than was necessary and plopped herself down on the wide ledge next to me.
“I... I think so?” She turned around in circles, examining herself. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said in her squeaky voice. She looked at her flank. “Darn it. I was hoping for a cutie mark in cliff diving.”
Puzzled, and deciding to ignore her, I shrugged and turned and glanced up the cliff, looking for a way up. I stretched my wings and gave them a experimental flap, wincing immediately. So that wasn’t an option. I noticed the filly staring at me, her eyes huge and amazed.
“What?” I deadpanned.
“You have four wings,” she whispered in wonder. “That is so cool! I bet Rainbow Dash will be so jealous and she’ll challenge you to a race and then the whole town will come to watch and Twilight can keep score and Pinkie Pie will throw you a “Welcome to Ponyville” party and mmmpph!”
I stuck my hoof in her mouth to shut her up. That manticore was still back there somewhere and I didn’t trust it not to follow us, despite us being on the other side of a canyon. I heaved another one of my practically patented sighs and motioned to the white and pink filly.
“Alright, climb on. Try not to impale yourself,” I said, looking back up the cliff. The young pony climbed back on as I readied myself for the next part of our little adventure.
“Umm, mister? What are you doing?” She asked.
“Climbing out, obviously. Can’t fly, have to do it somehow. Besides, it’s not like you weigh that much anyway, so I may as well take you with me,” I explained. She stuck her tongue out at me and I returned it in kind. No one said I had to be mature.
She climbed on my back and I set my rear hooves into the ledge. There looked like there would be enough little hoofholds to make my way up. Well, no time like the present. I planted my forehooves on the rock face and began pulling myself up, hand over... hoof over hoof.
An awkward silence settled over us, broken only by the wind howling down the canyon. I could feel the filly shifting around on my back, probably getting bored. I just kept climbing, ignoring the little stabs of pain from my chest.
“Sooooo...” the filly started, “my name is Sweetie Belle. What’s yours?”
I decided to humor her. She was probably a bit freaked out right then anyway. “Lacuna!” I called back over the wind.
“That’s a funny name!” was her response. Charming, wasn’t she? I continued my ascent up the cliff but apparently she wasn’t done talking. “So where are you from?” She squeaked.
“Somewhere far away, and not a pleasant place either, let’s leave it at that,” I answered, not wanting to think too much about it. This world was my new beginning. I didn’t want to dwell on my old home.
“Is that why you have a sword? Because you came from someplace dangerous?” She asked. Maybe she was sharper than I had thought.
“Yes,” I growled, starting to get annoyed. I had to concentrate on not falling off and ending up as mush at the bottom of a chasm. “I have a sword and four wings because I come from a place very different from this one. Now stop asking so many questions. I have to concentrate.” I continued to plod up the cliff. I still had about twenty feet before I could leave this filly somewhere before she could ask about every single detail of my life.
At least she was smart enough to know that both of our lives were in danger and stopped talking. I climbed the last few feet in silence and finally snagged my hooves over the edge of the cliff. I heaved the both of us over and she hopped off my back as though nothing had happened. “Children,” I muttered to myself.
I looked over at her. She seemed to be staring at my hip for some reason. I followed her gaze and nearly toppled over the edge of the cliff again.
“Why do I have a picture on my butt?”
“That’s your cutie mark! It tells you what your special talent is, duh! Everypony knows that!” She explained as if I was the biggest idiot in the world. Which maybe I was, who knew?
“Uhh, what on earth is my “special talent” supposed to mean?” I asked, exasperated.
“It’s whatever you’re really good at! Yours has a... big scary-looking thing on it. What the heck does it have to do with you?” She was way too energetic for having just survived a trip into Ghastly Gorge. Again, children.
I finally managed to twist my head around enough to actually see the stupid thing properly. It seemed to be three crescent shapes intertwining around a black and purple scythe. That explained a lot. The image itself didn’t stand out too much from my grey fur but it did blend nicely I suppose. I don’t know, I’m not a fashion designer!
The filly seemed to be completely distracted at this point. “Gee, it sure is getting late. I’d better go find Applebloom, Scootaloo and Fluttershy! They’ll be excited to meet you! Or maybe they’ll just be mad at me for wandering off into the Everfree Forest on my own, I’m not sure,” she shrugged. With that, she dashed off into the forest in front of me. And honestly, I was suddenly sad she was gone. Groaning at my own inability to be a strong, independent grey stallion, I trudged after her trailing, curly pink and purple tail.
I followed her for at least ten minutes as I began to get that weird feeling you get when you’re distinctly lost. I don’t know if she knew I was behind her, but if she did, she gave no sign of her knowledge.
“Applebloom! Scootaloo! Fluttershy! I’m coming back!” she called out, stopping in her tracks. She waited and shouted again at consistent intervals, presumably for other pony friends of hers.
They came through a small gap in the bushes around her after about five minutes. Two other fillies rushed in first, one with pale yellow fur and a red mane, and the other with orange fur and a light purple mane. A few seconds later, a pale yellow, full-grown pegasus with a light pink mane that covered half of her face caught up. The two fillies tackled Sweetie Belle in a ferocious hug that brought all three to the ground.
“Oh, um, I, uh, I don’t think that’s... uhh, that might hurt... uhh,” the older pony said softly. Then she spotted me. “Oh my, I’m sorry... I, um, didn’t see you there...” Her voice got progressively quieter until it petered away into nothingness. She pawed nervously at the ground and ducked her face behind her mane. The awkward grew. I took a step forward, wanting to break the increasingly awful silence between us while the three fillies wrestled on the ground.
“So... what’s your name?” I asked simply. The only response I got was a tiny whimper I couldn’t understand. I asked again. Dead silence this time. She had completely hidden herself behind her mane. It was then that the three fillies decided to burst back in on the scene.
“Her name is Fluttershy!” announced the purple and orange one. “You’ll have to forgive her, she’s, like, super shy and scared of everything, especially new ponies, and new ponies who are stallions (Fluttershy blushed a bright pink), and new ponies who are stallions with swords.” She paused there and stared at the weapon. “Dude, that is awesome! My name’s Scootaloo, by the way. The most awesome filly this side of Ponyville, and Rainbow Dash’s biggest fan!” she declared proudly. I’d been hearing a lot about this Rainbow Dash character.
“Gotcha. Scootaloo.” I sighed and resisted the temptation to roll my eyes. I turned to the away, only to be practically assaulted by the last filly, who grabbed my hoof in a powerful grip for someone her age and proceeded to shake it so hard my arm (leg?) started to go numb.
“Howdy there! My name’s Applebloom,” she practically shouted, as if I was deaf or something.
“So I assumed,” I said, rubbing some feeling back into my shoulder.
All three of the young ones then put their heads and hooves together and inhaled deeply. “And together we’re the...!” they began.
“Oh dear, not again,” whispered Fluttershy behind me. I turned to see her covering her ears. I got the message too late.
“...CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS!” The trees shook, the ground quaked and some birds fell out of the sky. Somewhere, miles away, Princess Celestia raised her head and looked out the window.
“My goodness, that was a loud one,” she chuckled and returned to her royal mountain of paperwork.
“The what?” I asked. They prepared to shout it again. “No, no, no, I don’t need to hear it again! But what exactly is a Cutie Mark Crusader?”
“One of us, of course! We’re on a quest to get our cutie marks! We’re the only fillies in Ponyville who don’t have them yet!”
Oh, those. “I see.” I turned back to Fluttershy. “I’m Lacuna. Do you know the way to... Ponyville? I’m... uhh... new around here.”
“I... I think so. It shouldn’t be far. What were you doing in the Everfree Forest anyway? New ponies usually come through town. It’s this way,” she explained as she walked off. I followed her, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders bounced loudly after us.
“Uh, I guess this is just where I ended up,” I said shiftily.
“Oh well. Do you have a place to stay?” she asked.
I hadn’t even given that idea anything close to a fraction of a thought. Where would I sleep? I didn’t have a bedroom waiting in a castle for me anymore. I decided to tell her the truth. “Uhh, no.”
“Oh. Uhh, okay, um, I don’t know if my woodland creatures would like having a stranger to stay, but otherwise I’d offer up my sofa... ummm... maybe Applejack? No, she’d have too much work to do... Rarity? Hmm, she’d be afraid you’d mess something up... ummm... Pinkie? She wouldn’t even let you sleep, and you’ll need that for tomorrow. Uhhh, I don’t even know where Rainbow Dash’s cloud house might be right now... maybe Twilight? She might have too much studying to do... but Spike gets to sleep there... and she’d definitely welcome a new pony... but I don’t know what she’ll say about the sword and all...” She was pretty much talking to herself, but I appreciated her company all the same.
And so, Fluttershy, the three little horrors and I trotted through the Everfree Forest toward a town I had never heard of in a place I was unfamiliar with filled with ponies I didn’t know. Sounded like a great adventure to me.
We reached the edge of the woods and approached a cute little cottage, which I assumed was Fluttershy’s place. I looked out beyond it at the small buildings and narrow streets, at the mountain with the castle perched on its side in the distance, and back to Fluttershy. I sighed again, but this time with content.
“Welcome to Ponyville,” she said with a smile, and trotted off toward the town ahead of me.