Lost at Home

Lost at Home: A My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfic by the *Secondbestscribe*

Prologue: Just A Normal Schoolday

"Good morning, everypony!"

"Good morning, Ms Cheerilee!"

The chant rang throughout the classroom, bright as a bell. Twenty-five eager foal faces faced the front, where a cerise-coated earth pony was taking her place at the front of the classroom. Celestia's sun shone in through a window, and, almost on cue, hit the teacher's flank, which sparkled, almost showing off the cutie mark it bore: three smiling flowers.

"Well, everypony, another fabulous day greets us, and what a fabulous day it is!" smiled Cheerilee, turning so that she faced her class. "Today is the final day of the school year, and as I'm sure you all are excited to get home and have fun, let's get this day started!"

A chorus of cheers greeted this particular announcement. The fillies and colts of the Ponyville Schoolhouse loved their teacher, but they loved having fun outside school even more.

The three fillies leading the cheer were none other than the locally famous - and slightly notorious - Cutie Mark Crusaders. They were arranged in a triangle, spread around the classroom, as Cheerilee knew that they would whisper non-stop about their crusading attempts to gain their cutie marks.

One of the fillies was a unicorn, with an alabaster coat that took after her older sister, Rarity. She had pale, harlequin eyes that caught the heart of anypony who first clapped eyes on her, coaxing out a breathy sigh and a little "Aaaaauuuuuaaaww!" She had a curled mulberry mane, streaked with a light rose. Currently, her tiny horn was alight with magical sparks the same colour of her eyes.

Her name was Sweetie Belle.

The next filly was a pegasus. She bore a spunky tomboy manestyle, which slicked up at the back and at the front, showing off the cerise colour of the hair. Her eyes were bright with eagerness and a kind of unshakeable determination, displayed almost intimidatingly in the greyish-purple of their colour. Her coat was a light yet brilliant shade of gamboge, and on her back two currently flightless pegasus wings whirred.

Her name was Scootaloo.

The final one of the fillies was an earth pony, and seated at the very front and centre of the class. She had a mane similar to her teacher, coloured a bright amaranth. Her coat was a light-olive, bordering on yellow, and her eyes were a brilliant gamboge. What was so noticeable about her, however, was the large bow that she donned, which was a light crimson and nearly dwarfed her entire head.

Her name was Apple Bloom.

Cheerilee waited patiently for the cheers to die down, then beamed a large signature smile.

"Okay, foals, don't get too carried away!" she trilled. "We've still got work to do today - "

A chorus of inevitable groaning followed this statement.

" - but it will only take up a bit of our morning, and then we can go out to play a rousing game of dodge-horseshoes!" she finished, which coaxed up more cheers and yells of delight.

Clearing her throat, Cheerilee ducked underneath her desk and brought out a large book, holding it in her mouth. Depositing the tome on her desk, she opened it up, which caused a large cloud of dust to emerge from it, cloaking the entire classroom and earning a lot of coughing and general exclamation from the thoroughly over-excited fillies and colts.

When the dust-cloud eventually settled, Cheerilee called order to her class by thumping her two hind hooves against the blackboard behind her.

"Calm down, children, it's only some dust!" she cried, and soon enough everypony quietened.

Cheerilee smiled again, and cleared her throat as she peered down at the large book before her.

"Now," she began, "today I am going to read to you a legend that has been handed down Equestria for generations! It is a mystical and almost certainly mythical tale, but it is also one that everypony should know; and, I think, you will all find it nothing short of spellbinding!"

A row behind Apple Bloom, a pale-magenta earth pony filly wearing a tiara on her head rolled her cornflower-blue eyes and whispered, in a voice so loud it could have passed through a megaphone, "Bo-ring! Nopony wants to read silly old mares' tales!"

Two seats to the left of the filly, a bluish-grey earth pony wearing outrageously-sized glasses and a pearl necklace that was almost certainly fake, giggled in assumed agreement.

"Diamond Tiara! Silver Spoon! Please do not distract the ponies around you, regardless if you think that the Legend of the Other Equestria is a 'silly old mares' tale'!"

Cheerilee's scolding gained a ripple of approving giggles and chuckles, and Diamond Tiara sunk down low in her seat, pouting and blushing at the same time. Silver Spoon ducked her head nervously, and mumbled a clumsy, "Sorry, Ms Cheerilee." Diamond Tiara gave the other pony an indignant glare, but kept her mouth shut.

"Now," said the apparently-satisfied Cheerilee, "if there are no more objections...?"

The half-question hung in the air like a particularly menacing fly. Nopony said anything. Cheerilee, who knew this was the kind of reception her words would get, cleared her throat a second time, looked down at the dusty old book splayed open on her desk, and began to read...

Through the fabric of space and time, in a land that nopony knows, where the sun and the moon move, and where the weather changes, and where the animals live, and where the plants grow all on their own, is a land just like our own.

It is a land with earth ponies, who tend to the land.

It is a land with unicorns, who store the secrets of knowledge and magic.

It is a land with pegasi, who fly through the skies.

And it is also a land where the magical winged alicorns, known in our land as almighty princesses, and known in that land as a race as common as any other, walk and fly alongside the other pony races.

In this land, the sun and the moon move all on their own. There is no magic binding them, only their eternal course through the sky.

In this land, the weather is ever changing, with no ponies controlling and scheduling it, for here it is a wild, free thing, with a mischievous nature.

In this land, the animals live independently, without the care and consideration of the ponies, living in the forests and the seas and the deserts.

In this land, the plants grow and spiral up towards the sky, growing leaves without any help, bearing fruit with no assistance, staying alive against all logic.

This world is the same as ours, but it is also completely different. It is the 'other Equestria'. It is known as Ponytopia.