The self-inserts.

by Jonah Fun

Rating: everyone
Tags: Adventure, Human, Romance
Length: 4512

2 bronies, one very different from the other, find themselves sharing a dream in which they are both ponies. But when the dreams turn out to be more real than they first thought, it becomes a fight to survive the 2 different worlds.

Jonah is a quiet boy, very anti-social but polite and kind.
Daniel is a loud boy, popular but ignorant and vicious.
Both hear about the show My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic. Or rather, it's fandom.
Both laugh and dismiss the idea of liking a girls show….
…Before becoming Bronies themselves.
One random school day, the boys find themselves being cursed by an old woman in an assembly. Their dreams of ponies become far more real, the ponies there being consistent with the characters on the show.
Their dreams will affect their lives in a variety of ways…

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-07-29 17:53:37 UTC

The First Sunday

Jonah was tired, oh so tired. he got up and looked left to his bedroom. It was a messy place, dominoes and playing cards scattered everywhere. Jonah lay back on his bed and groaned, knowing he had to tidy it up today. Still beats school he thought, grimly. He swung his legs out from under the quilt he had been lying in and somehow found his footing. He stood up, and took some precarious steps forwards to the mirror that hung next to his wardrobe. He stared into the mirror, looking at the creature staring back. It was quite tall, about 5 foot 10 inches, and has a couple of glaring red spots around his mouth. His nose was covered in blackheads, and his chestnut hair lay scruffily upon his head. The creature in the mirror now stared at Jonah's eyes, while Jonah stared back. He had dull blue eyes, that just floated in the sockets. He blinked, as if to break the trance. Jonah sat down, and began to sort out all the stuff in the room.

Daniel awoke, and his eyes shot open. He knew what day it was. He threw the bed cover off of himself and jumped eagerly out of bed and down the stairs to his living room. There, on the sofa, lay a few presents wrapped in one of 2 generic types of wrapping paper. He grinned, an ran at the presents, immediately clutching the biggest one and tearing the wrapping paper to pieces. On the other side of the room, a single mother congratulated herself on another good birthday for her marvelous son. She reflected on how far he had come from a little baby, back then a cute little teddy, now a big (if not slightly chubby) man. The 14 year old was taller than her, and stronger too. He still had very little hair, but he wore it that way. He said it was cool. He also still had his mother's ivy green eyes, which sparkled when you looked at them. Daniel laughed as he tore open yet another present, 3 CDs piled onto one. He chucked them aside before moving on to the next.

Jonah looked at the now spotless room, and gave a big sigh of satisfaction. He looked at his revision desk, and saw the piece of paper lying there. He had forgotten what he had written on it last night, so he aimlessly trekked over there to have a look. He saw the out-lines of a pony, sketches that he had drawn himself. The boy grinned thinking about it. At first, when he heard of the show My Little Pony Friendship is magic and it's fandom he laughed, and thought the internet was pulling another one of it's bull tricks. Eventually though, he gained enough interest to see what all the fuss was about, and he was instantly hooked. He didn't know why, maybe it was the diverse set of characters, or the believable world they created, or perhaps it was something about the art-style? Jonah had no idea why he liked it, he just did. Maybe that in it's self was why he liked it so much.

He sighed as he sat down at the desk and finished up the sketches. He then reached for his drawer and pulled out a pencil case. He opened it, and out spilled the many different coloured pencils in his possession. He hadn't thought so much about what colour he'd be. His hand hovered over the many pencils, his fingers itching to pick one up. He needed to think carefully about this: The colour of a pony is a very important thing indeed. He decided to mull it over while colouring in his cutie mark, which was a paintbrush over a pallet, plainly showing his talent for art. Once he had done that, He'd decided on A yellow-ish green colour. He sat for a while colouring it in. The eyes he did crystal blue, and the mane and tail were fiery orange. He sat back and looked at his pony-self, satisfied with his work. He wondered how he would get on if he were actually in Equestria. How he would live, How he would interact with the main 6...

"Breakfast ready!" His Dad called from the kitchen, breaking the boy's trance. He sighed.

"Coming!" He yelled back, getting up and making to leave his room. But then he had a thought. A name! Everypony needs a name! What should he call himself... He clicked his fingers. He'd thought of the perfect name. He would be called... Palleto Brush. He scrawled that on the picture quickly then ran downstairs to his breakfast with a smile on his face.

Daniel had been taken to the zoo as a birthday present, and was currently looking in at the alligator. It sat there, silently, boring him to tears. How Fluttershy thought this was something worth wasting your life on he would never know. Then again, Fluttershy was a horse herself, maybe animals enjoyed the company of different animals. Why the hell was he question the logic of a kids show, My Little Pony at that. Why the hell did he even watch the bloody thing? He didn't know. Maybe it was how innocent the ponies were. Yeah, that was it. No stupid innuendos or anything like that, just 6 innocent ponies having fun. That's what the show was. It was different to all the other stuff he went through in day to day life, that's for sure.

"Come on honey, we don't have all day" Daniel was snapped out of his train of thought.

"Coming, ma." He walked after his mother, hands in his pockets, hood over his head.

When Daniel got back home he half expected Kevin to ring him and give him a delivery, but he didn't ring. So instead the boy focused on finishing his own pony. His name was Fire Brand and he was a brilliant red alicorn whose magical powers bested that of Twilight's and speed rivaled that of Rainbow Dash. He had a noble brown mane and tail, along with blood-red eyes and a smug grin. His cutie mark was a phoenix, highlighting his brilliance at all fire magic available. The show would probably be ten times better if Fire Brand was in it, he thought.

Daniel yawned. He was sleepy, and he had school tomorrow. He put on pajamas and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He returned to his room and went to sleep on the thought  of Fire Brand being in the show. Little did he know, on the other side of the city, Jonah was settling down with thoughts of his own pony...

Daniel's dream

As Daniel went to sleep, Fire Brand awoke.

He got up, stretched his wings, and grinned.

Then he was walking towards Rainbow Dash's house, for they had prepared a race.

Then he was knocking on her door, which immediately opened revealing a blue pegasus. She grinned back at the alicorn.

"Ready?" she said.

"Always." he replied.

"3-2-1, GO!"

Then the two were racing around all of Ponyville, neck and neck. But, while the blue pegasus was trying her hardest, the red alicorn was just having a nice relaxing morning flight.

Then, Fire Brand shot forward, going faster than the speed of sound, easily lapping Rainbow dash within a matter of seconds.

Then the blue pegasus was panting heavily at the starting line, and the red alicorn walked upto her.

"Better luck next time." he teased. The pegasus chuckled.

"Even luck wouldn't help me against you, you're so fast!"

"I know. Anyway, I need to go see Rarity now. If you'd excuse me."

Then he was at Rarity's doorstep, and knocking on her door.

"Oh Rarity? You know that suit I ordered." Once again, the door opened and the reply was immediate;

"Yes, come in dear." Upon entry, he saw the suit. It was brilliant. "How do you like it?" Rarity asked.

"It's... okay." Fire Brand replied nonchalantly. "It'll do."

"Oh, I'm so sorry to disappoint you Fire Brand!" Rarity cried in over-dramatic despair. "Oh, I know!" she chirped, "I'll let you have it for free! Can you ever forgive me for failing?"

Fire Brand thought about this for an achingly long time, before smugly grinning at Rarity. She beamed back at him.

"Oh, thank you I-" Fire Brand cut her off with a feather to her lips. He silently took the suit and left.

As he was on his way to his house, a pink mare came out of no-where and started babbling:

"Hi Fire Brand! Have you seen the latest movie in the theater where the aliens areall like, OoooOoooO and the ponies are like Ahhhhh! untul the end where the learn they can defeat them using cake, (I LOVE that part) and then the-"

"Pinkie pie" Fire Brand yawned "you talking so much you're send me to... to..." He collapsed.

Daniel woke up. Did he really just dream about ponies? oh well. His dreams were his buisness, and no-one else's. He got out of his bed and prepared for school.

Monday Morning

Secondary School.

Jonah was certain this place had a doorway to hell or was built by the demons who dwell there. He hated it, coming in to pointless lesson after pointless lesson, suffering through the endless idiocy of his class mates.

People said he was anti-social, Jonah said he had a brain that he didn't want to erode by talking to these idiots.

First period of five throughout the day was Music. It took place in... well, pretty much the entire music department. The classroom that they came to at the start of the lesson was surrounded by Macs and Keyboards, with a window on the left and a board on the right showing many printed out powerpoints about the Beatles, all of which were done by younger students a couple of weeks down.

It was the last complete week until the summer holiday and, though some may say final weeks are easy, surviving school still had it's challenges. The glaring hot sun that even Celestia would tone down was one of them, meaning Jonah had to ration the water in his water bottle strategically and make sure to remember to fill it up at lunch time so he could keep cool. Another challenge was the variance of lessons. In Music, he had to practice a couple of solo pieces that he would eventually preform for his B-tech. In English next lesson, He'd be starting an assessment that counted towards 15% of one of his English GCSEs. After breaktime, He'd be watching a Docu-drama about Hitler in History. Needless to say, the difference in brain activity required in these 3 activities was huge.

But, as ever, the biggest and most unavoidable challenge was the other children. They'd be even worse this week: They were beginning to grow whiny under the heat of the sun; a couple of schools across the country were actually closed because of the intense heat wave, giving the fools every reason to believe that this one should be shut too. Even worse, the assessment that Jonah had to do in English coming up would take place in the classroom, as it wasn't important enough to be taken down to the hall for, and the teacher would be juggling 2 different classrooms.

If you couldn't figure it out, this meant that, throughout the assessment, the worthless mindless mainstream slaves who thought they were worth something (A.k.a the naughty kids) would be giggling and whispering and talking and possibly even throwing things about during one of the most important hours of Jonah's life, where he really needed to concentrate because he wanted a good grade.

But Jonah had been suffering these kids for almost 3 years now, and was a hardened warrior within the psychological battleground that was the school grounds. He knew the safe lessons, the troublesome kids, the correct thoughts, and the safest routes to the lessons he needed to get to. The only thing Jonah really didn't have was an ally. Oh sure, he had his mother and father, and they were always there whenever he needed to share the pain of the school life, but there was no-one he could savour little victories with, or anyone to calm him down a bit while actually at the hell-hold. Again, there were special teachers who tried to help, but they couldn't really understand. They dealt with kids, Jonah wasn't one.

He sat on one of the chairs scattered around the music room, though there were no tables. The music room was neat like that. He looked around the classroom and saw something out of place. Natural blonde hair. There were no natural blonds in the music class, but then again it was entirely possible that someone else had a late change of mind and wanted to do music instead. But now he was looking closer at the girl, for there was something eerily wrong with her. She was sitting with her hands crossed in her lap, her legs softly swinging, and her head was ever so slightly tilted towards the ground. He couldn't see her eyes, though if he could then he'd put his pocket money on the fact that they were distant.

But before he could analyse the girl anymore, Mr Maple called for the register. He listened out for his own name, as well as the girls. How she spoke was crucial.

"Jonah Troncks." Sniggering. You'd think after 3 years they'd get used to it.

"Yes, sir."

"Lily Trinkle." Jonah had never heard of the name, but the school had two-hundred and fifty students in his year alone, it was  one of many unknown to him. More sniggering.

"Thank you." Sir said, sternly. Hang on, why'd this girl get special treatment? Then he saw the look passed between the girl and sir and it him. This girl was new.

Which means she'd need a buddy.

Picked by one of the few competent teachers in the school.

Now, Jonah liked Mr Maple. He was a brilliant and passionate musician, as well as an entertaining teacher if nothing else. No-one ever fell out with him, and he was generally a very understanding person. However, since he could show favoritism, he wasn't able to help Jonah too much with his problems except give him a great lesson whenever he came to his classroom.

Of course, he probably had talked to the girl before the lesson and got to know her a bit, so he could assign her to an appropriate person. Who better then the anti-social friendless Jonah, used to the school's dangerous ways!

He'd be metaphorically carrying her all day. Shuck.

The group of kids each went off to one of the practice rooms, and a couple went and turned on the macs to listen to some music. Jonah went to a nearby Keyboard and began practicing one of his solo pieces, but was quickly interrupted by a polite tap on the shoulder. He turned and saw Lily's face for the first time. She had shiny cheeks, and deep, sea blue eyes. above her right lip was a bright red spot, and a couple of blackheads were dotted around her nose. She was about as tall as him. Jonah looked at Mr Maple, who beamed back at him. He could almost see the halo. Jonah sighed.

"You play?"

"Yes." Her voice was high, and sweet.

"You got a piece to practice?" This time she only nodded.

"Well, there's a bunch of keyboards here. Go ahead and practice."

"Aren't you going to..."

"To what? Make a move? To ask you to let me hear you play?" he scoffed. "There's a hundred and twenty four other boys in our year for that." She sulked to the keyboard beside him. Jonah sighed. He hated doing that. Being mean wasn't his forte, but sadly, it's something that you get better at the more you do it. He looked at the girl again. She was repeatedly pressing the on button with little success. He didn't know why, but he walked over to a black box behind one of the the macs and flicked a switch on it. The girl turned the keyboard on, and looked at the boy open-mouthed.

"Thank you." she uttered. Jonah simply shrugged his shoulders and went back to his keyboard.

Fifty minutes later and it was almost the end of the lesson. Jonah was in the middle of playing one of his pieces when Lily once again tapped his shoulder, making the boy jump. "GWAA!"

"Oh! I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He muttered. "What is it?"

"I was just wondering how to get to S3, that's where my next lesson is." Jonah sighed. that's where he was next, too.

"Show me your timetable, I'll explain everything." he unfolded the small piece of paper she had given to him and looked at what he first thought was a copy of his own timetable.

"Huh..." he said slowly. "Seems you've got all the same lessons as me."

"So I guess i can just follow you to lessons, then?" Jonah looked at the girl, then to to the gods he had somehow angered, praying them to forgive him. He looked back at the girl.

"I guess so." He sighed.

Daniel made it to S3 late. He probably could've made it if he hurried, but it was far easier to make an excuse and take a few words. When he entered the bog-standard classroom the teacher, Miss Greenbee, Turned to him and pried;

"Why are you late?"

"Had to get my book from my locker miss."

"You've missed the first 5 minutes of the lesson"

"Sorry miss." he lied.

"It's your time you're wasting. Sit down and start your assessment." he reluctantly did as he was told. Jonah looked at the boy with a frown, shaking his head as he got back to work. He despised that type of person, who pranced around treating others without respect. It was disgusting to him.

The bell rung. Breaktime. Daniel was up and out of the classroom almost immediately while Jonah waited for the crowds to diminish slightly. He looked over at the girl. She was doing the same. Strange, he thought she'd want to get away from him as much as he'd like to get away from her.

"You're not normal." She said. Jonah froze behind her, speechless. He didn't know why the sentence struck him as odd; perhaps it was the way she said it. She sounded as if she were in deep thought. "Believe me, I know." She silently left the room. Jonah followed after her,

"Hey, wait!" he called. the girl turned her head. Jonah realized he had no idea what he was going to say "You know where the next lesson is?" he wanted to punch himself. Lily nodded, and pointed down the hall. "S23" She said. He knew she understood. "Right then..." The girl hung there for a second, looking at the boy. She sighed began to turn round.

"Know what you're going to do at break?" he asked. Once again, the girl turned.

"What are my options?" she smiled.

"Sadly, not much. You can order a snack from the cafeteria, sit in the hallway downstairs, or go to the library or-"

"Library sounds good." She interrupted.

"Oh. Well, okay then. This way." He walked past her, and she followed. They descended the stairs and entered the crowd of rambling, shouting, pushing teenagers. One of the worst things about school is the noise at break and lunchtimes, hence why Jonah spent most of them in the library, where it was quiet. The girl obviously thought the same way.

He hadn't expected that.

Nor did he expect Daniel to take an interest in the new girl. But then, he wasn't thinking about Daniel at the time. Daniel himself had heard from a friend who went to music about Lily and had gained a small bit of interest in the girl, but when he first saw her following after that asshat Jonah he knew she'd be trouble. The gang of boys walked up to the girl. Jonah silently continued to the library.

"Who are you?" He asked the new girl, though he already knew it.

"I'm Lily, who are you?" she chirped. The boys laughed.

"I'm Daniel. You new round here? Got a boyfriend quickly, eh?" He teased.

"Hmm? where?" she asked.

"Wh...where? huh?"

"You said... oh, never mind," She rolled her eyes. "Excuse me." with that she slipped past the boys into the library entrance. Daniel looked at her in annoyance. By rolling her eyes, she was acting as if she was better than him, he thought. She was wrong to think like that, the bitch had barely know him for 2 minutes.

What an awful human being, He thought.

Assembly

As mentioned before, history was simply watching a video. After history was a short slot of time called "registration time". This was either filled up by nothing, A short session with a class "Tutor" or, as was the case on Monday, an assembly. The weekly assembly took place in the hall. The students were supposed to line up outside in their tutor groups and quietly make their way inside before taking their seats and listening to what the year head had to say.

Jonah sighed as the rabble of 14-year olds noisily made their way inside the hall and took their seats preparing to not listen for the next 15 minutes. Lily sat beside him. Their year head, Miss Duringham, made her way to the center of the presenting area. Jonah noticed an grey-haired wrinkly old woman sitting quietly in the corner.

"QUIET!!!" The year head shouted as the room promptly silenced. She continued: "Today we have a very special guest with us. she has come to talk to us about dreams." The old woman stood up, and Jonah now looked more closely at her he could see the crooked nose and the warts on her face. Standing up she was tiny, around Jonah's shoulder height. She almost looked like a witch, making Jonah shuffle uneasily in his chair.

"May I present to you, Dr Ravencroft!" The audience weakly clapped, and Duringham quickly left the room. The old woman slowly creeped up to the crowd. Her voice was old and crackled, all that was missing was the pointy hat and a black cat.

"A long, long time ago, I lost my father in the war. I was only eleven when he died. No eleven year old should have to go through something like that, but never the less I did. Yet every night, in my dreams, I'd speak to him, and he'd smile sadly back. I didn't know where we were, or what we were doing, but there I was, and there he was. everything just seemed to fit nicely at the time. But when I woke? Heh, that was a different story entirely. I couldn't remember anything about my dreams, I wanted someway to make them more solid, more real. Alas, a lifetime later and I was 60 and still none the wiser."

"I had worked as a nurse my whole life, my fascination with dreams still bright in my soul, for still every night my young self would talk to my father. One day, I decided to look up dreams on the internet and slowly I began to piece together information. I made theories, putting facts together and trying out things of my own, such as special concoctions that would make dreams more... real. Eventually, I found a mixture that, if drunk by 2 people at the same time, will not elongate that dream to the full time of sleep, but allow the 2 drinkers to share their own dream worlds." She was silent as she let the sentence sink in.  Jonah was gripped by her words, as was Daniel

"So." She said. "Who wants to share dreams?"

A flurry of hands went up. The old lady looked at the crowd, analyzing who'd profit best from her drink. She looked Jonah who hadn't put his hand up. and then she looked at Daniel.

"Oh yes..." She muttered to herself. "You and You" she said, pointing to Daniel and Jonah. The two gave eachother questioning looks, before anxiously standing up walking down to the old lady. She pulled out a bottle, and poured a small amount of what looked like Cherry-ade into 2 cups. She then shakily gave the 2 cups to Jonah and Daniel.

"It doesn't look like a magical potion." said Daniel inspiring sniggering from the crowd.

"It isn't magical. Now drink." the two boys nervously glanced at one another, and simultaneously drank. It tasted like apple juice.

Nothing happened. Jonah wasn't sure why he was expecting anything at all, really.

After all, this was just a mad-woman with a potion... right?

"Well done. Enjoy your dreams. Now off, off with you all!" She said, smirking.

Jonah's dream

Jonah fell asleep, and Palleto Brush woke up.

Palleto was then downstairs, eating toast. It was yummy.

Then he was walking through Ponyville market, admiring the many stalls and all the chatter that came from them.

Then he was knocking on Twilight's door. The door opened, and Twilight popped her purple head out. She smiled at her friend and gestured him to come inside.

Palleto was then sitting comfortably near the fire, and discussing with the unicorn the latest book he read.

"So basically what happens is there's a boy called Mika and he works as a slave for Keckla. They live in Saddale which is an awful, awful town. The girl runs away and sets the slave free the day he was planning to kill her. Confused by this, the boy ran after her, and from there a bunch of crazy stuff happens. I tell you, it's a real page turner."

"Sounds great!" Twilight chuckled "Want some tea?"

"No I'm fine thanks." Palleto replied.

Just then, Applejack burst through the doorway dramatically. She was an orange land pony, with her blond mane and tail tied up in bunches at the end.

"Twilight, Palleto, Down at the barn..." she panted. Twilight ran over to her.

"Are you okay?" Twilight asked.

"THERE'S A MOUNTAIN TROLL NEAR THE BARN!!!" Twilight gasped in horror.

"Palleto, quick, go get everyone and tell them what's happening. Me and Applejack will see what we can do about the troll. Go!"

Then, Palleto was running to Fluttershy's cottage, knocking on the door deperately. The opened revealing a yellow pegasus.

"Mountain troll at the barn, come quickly!"

Then he was running to Rarity's place, but he was tired, oh so tired, and he could someone yelling a name.

"Jonah..."

His name.

"Jonah!"

Jonah awoke from the dream that he was thoroughly enjoying quite bitterly.

"Breakfast's ready!" Called his dad.

Jonah groaned. He had school today. That place was full of trolls, he grimly joked.