Ch 1

‘Wish for the impossible, strive for everything else,’ Rook told himself. His body was spread out on a blanket near the top of the grassy hill. He stared upwards towards the night sky, waiting to see a shooting star. Well, it’s not like he’d have to wait long. After all, the meteor shower was due in only an hour. Why else would a high school student be out on a hill alone at 2:42 am on a school night?

The hour counted down and Rook’s anticipation grew. His mind began to formulate his wish. What childish desire had he always wanted fulfilled? Rook pondered the thought, and, finding his answer, settled in for the show.

A minute later, the stars began to fall. Momentarily distracted by the spectacle, he almost forgot to voice his wish. Soon enough, however, his mind caught up. Spotting a particularly bright meteor, his lips formed the words, “I wish I was a shape shifter.” Come on, what little child wouldn’t wish for superpowers? And tonight was all about the indulging his inner child with a selfish wish. Unfortunately, Rook wasn’t expecting what happened next.

“Wish granted, selfish brat.”

All the world went black.

Rook found himself suspended in a void. Well, not exactly. To him, he felt absolutely nothing. He couldn’t even feel his own body. No sight, smell, or sound could be perceived. That is, until a voice that was not his own called out.

“Michael ‘Rook.’ You are a selfish wisher. You wish upon a falling star without any conviction and have the nerve to ask something only for yourself.”

Something about that voice seemed familiar, but Rook couldn’t place it. He wanted to call out to reply, but couldn’t locate his own mouth.

“I’m in a particularly foul mood today. So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to make sure your wish comes true in an absolutely horrible way. Good luck with the rest of your life!” the voice laughed. The void around Rook transformed from emptiness to unconsciousness.

Rook awoke lying in the middle of a rocky wasteland, without another living soul in sight. The sun shone down onto his face, but not into his eyes. They were covered by a slip of paper that had been taped to his forehead. Reaching up, he grabbed the paper out of his eyes and sat up. Rook looked down at the paper and read, ‘have fun, you little boggart.’

Upon reading the word ‘boggart,’ the paper promptly folded itself into the shape of an origami mouth, which stuck out its tongue. After delivering its insult, the note began to shred itself apart.

“Well shit. That is most definitely a bad way to get my wish granted,” Rook muttered to himself. He remembered the boggart from the Harry Potter books. The creature assumed the form of whatever you feared most. From how it was described, the boggart seemed like it had to transform into the fears of those nearest to it.

‘Not that I believe some stupid note,’ he continued to himself. ‘Still, that doesn’t explain that void, or the fact that I’m here. Where am I, anyway?’ Unable to determine his location, he began to walk towards the sun. Having no idea what time it was, he could not say whether this was east or west.

Rook had been trudging along for several hours now. Other than the fact that the sun was now setting behind him, almost nothing had happened. Sure, there were a few more trees now, but that didn’t help him at all. His stomach growled in want of food and his mouth ached for even a drop of water. With neither in sight, he continued to trudge along.

A few more minutes of walking led him to a mildly interesting sight. All throughout this particular area, large holes dotted the landscape. Each was surrounded by a small molehill, but the hole was far too large to be from a mole. The whole scene gave Rook a vague sense of familiarity. Stopping by one of the holes, he kicked a pebble in. Not hearing it hit bottom, he continued on his way. Suddenly, a faint yelp could be heard from within. A moment later, a furry head emerged.

The moment its eyes made contact with Rook, he lost control of his body. His limbs and head shrank inward towards his torso. Within a moment, he had become a writhing mass of limbs suspended in mid air. A second later, his body had decided on a new form. Rook’s body turned and let out a deafeningly loud hiss, his new height easily thirty feet tall. The head panicked, diving back into the hole with a series of loud yelps, like a wounded dog.

Without someone watching it, Rook’s body relented control to Rook’s mind. Rook looked down at himself and saw the body of a three story tall tabby cat. Rook shrank back down into his human form, barely even realizing that he had done so.

‘Am I really a boggart? This is going to be troublesome if I go into any sort of populated area, especially if the transformation is reflexive,’ Rook thought to himself. He continued walking. A moment later, he stopped and face palmed. ‘Boggarts can become anything they want. Why the hell am I walking when I could be, say, a truck?’ he thought to himself. It only took a passing thought for him to get his way.

The driver-less truck made excellent progress through the rocky wasteland.

Eventually, the occasional tree had made a more and more frequent appearance. Combined with the increasingly uneven terrain, the boggart had to make do with another form. The newly formed wolf made stealthy progress throughout the forest, his paws easily maneuvering over the roots and rocks in his path. The whole time, a sense of unease filled Rook's head. The forest felt eerily familiar to him, though he couldn’t place why. It looked nothing like any forest he had ever been in. The flora was rather strange, and yet familiar.

Rook the wolf continued walking through the forest. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a brown shape moving through the trees. Turning, he was shocked to see that he was only a dozen or so feet from a large grizzly bear. The bear eyed him for a moment, and then continued on its way without a second thought about the wolf. Rook, on the other hand, let out a sigh of relief when the large predator left. He face pawed when he realized that he too was a large predator and wasn’t in any danger. The whole experience, however, did answer an important question. He did not forcefully transform when seen by an animal.

His walk continued hour upon hour. His hunger continued to mount, though he did find an occasional stream to drink from. On and on he walked until he encountered a patch of vibrant blue flowers. Rook was about to step into the patch when a name surfaced in his mind: poison joke. Jumping back and transforming in a panic, the boggart butterfly hovered above what could have been a very sticky situation. ‘There’s no way that’s poison joke. This can’t be Equestria. Yet I’m one to talk. I’m a boggart. Boggarts don’t exist and yet here I am,’ he thought to himself, his emotions surging. ‘then, was that wasteland where the diamond dogs were? Could have been one…’ he trailed off, remembering the furry head in the hole. ‘Heh, I must be in the Everfree. Fan-fucking-tastic, I’m cliché!’ he laughed to himself, then abruptly stopped.

‘How the hell am I going to get home? If I transform into the fears of whomever sees me… then I’m never going to be able to get help. God help us all if Celestia sees me. Whatever a sun goddess is afraid of has got to be an abomination.’ Rook shuddered at the thought. ‘I also fear meeting Pinky Pie. ‘Giggle at the Ghosty’ could very well kill me now. I saw how the boggart hurt when Harry and his class laughed at it in the movie.’ Once again, Rook shuddered, which is an impressive feat considering he was a butterfly at the moment.

A flurry of motion later, Rook resumed his wolf form. He continued through the forest, albeit at a much slower pace. A cloud of depression followed him as he thought of where he shouldn’t go. Unfortunately, Ponyville was in the direction he was walking.

It was when Rook encountered a cockatrice that he found out what they feared most: mirrors. The poor beast had tried to ambush a wolf, only to find itself suddenly surrounded by the reflective surfaces. It shut its eyes and curled up into a ball in the center of the circle of mirrors that Rook had reflexively become. Rook, hungry from the last dozen hours without food, seized the opportunity. A pair of hands extended themselves from the mirror’s surface and made their way to the quivering cockatrice. They grabbed it’s neck and twisted. The crack signaled the end of its life.

Assuming the form of a human armed with a knife, Rook skinned and gutted the cockatrice. It was much like skinning any other small animal. Of course, that doesn't mean he had any skill with it. Not seeing any way to cook the shreeded chunks of meat, Rook improvised. He found a flat stone and set the meat upon it and promptly burst into flames. Holding a rock covered in meat, the fire djinn radiated enough heat to cook his food. When he was satisfied, Rook set the rock down and reverted to a human form armed with a fork. Without a doubt, the cockatrice needed salt.

Hunger satiated, Rook began to drift off to sleep. Before he could lose consciousness, however, a set of hoof steps approached where he lay. The bush rustled aside to reveal a pair of zebra eyes.

‘Damn.’

Author's Note

Look! A HiE fic! *Ding*
But hey, at least Rook didn't wish for anything pony related. And whomever decided to throw Rook into such a chaotic situation is a total jerk.
Yay Harry Potter!