It would be an understatement to say I was scared shitless.
One moment, I'm walking in the downtown area of Chicago. The next, I wake up in a dark forest, the tree cover far too thick for me to see very far. Worse yet, the trees were contorted into bizarrely dark countenances... or at least, I THOUGHT they were the trees. And the pièce de résistance of shitty situations - I had my hands and feet exchanged for hooves. I'm not sure why I didn’t scream my head off, whether it was pure shock, or fear of awakening something within the bloody forest.
But maybe I should start with introductions. My name is Tobias Arsnön. I'm a twenty five year old from Chicago, Illinois. I’m just your normal, average guy... who doesn't know where the hell he is, or how his equine transformation took place.
I started to walk... or trot... whatever the hell it’s called. Nevertheless, you could barely call it that; the shift from sneakers and leg muscles from running track to a brand spanking new set of hooves was not a good one. I found myself stumbling around, not at all assisted by the darkness brought on by the forest. Eventually (read: several thousand steps later) I got my bearings with the new appendages. I also found out that the hooves had far less nerve endings than feet - every stump and root I rammed them into hurt, but not nearly as much as it would have had my shins received the same treatment.
I don’t know how long it took me to find my way out, and when I did, I was no more enlightened on where I was. I looked down at my cursed limbs, and noticed my skin - once smooth and a pale tan, was now a bleached white coat. Of course, I racked my brain several times to remember the possibility of someone slipping me something in a drink or something I ate, but figuring I hadn't eaten or drank all day (another matter that was to be attended to) it was incredibly unlikely. I assumed I wasn't dreaming, figuring there were no shadow creatures attempting to grab at my skin, nor was there anything weird happening besides my new form.
Of course, just as I thought this, a cloud made of what looked like pink cotton candy
drifted over, proceeding to rain chocolate milk onto my coat.
If I wasn't confused before, I was completely baffled now. Whatever the hell this place was, it didn't operate on any discernible logic. I ran to avoid further humiliation by the demonic vapour, proceeding straight onto a knoll overlooking what appeared to be a small town. The town, however, was just as crazy - it’s centre building was revolving in midair, an entire overcast of those pink clouds were settled and downpouring, and a stampede what appeared to be long legged rabbits made their way through the outskirts of the village.
Although my surprise vacation needed no more of this Kafkaesque nonsense, there seemed to be no other centre of civilization anywhere else, besides an old English kingdom nestled into a mountain, but that looked a great many miles away. Defeated, I reluctantly trotted into the nonsensical village.
As I was walking, I heard a commotion in the sky. Curious, I turned my head up the the sky, to find a purple pony in a hot air balloon, with an orange pony on top. Driving said balloon was a bright yellow pony, chasing after a greyish blob on a cloud. The cloud also had a white and a pink pony attached to it by a piece of rope. Not wanting to get involved in the slightest, I assumed all the clatter and noise coming from the fiasco suggested that whatever was happening was in somebody’s favor, and continued my walk to the gigantic floating centre.
It didn’t take me more than a few minutes to make it to my destination. When I finally got there, however, I saw the same ponies from before - now adorned with various sets of regalia, all in battle positions against the most unholy thing I have ever laid eyes on. Its head—somewhat equine, but oddly misshapen—sported a pair of mismatched horns: one from a deer, and one from a goat. Its body, which was long and quite slender, had a whole jumble of odd limbs attached to it, all from different animals. Scariest of all, however, was the sheer fact it could speak. Wanting to avoid this entire situation, I jumped into a nearby bush, and peaked out. The beast gave a bellowing laugh, before uttering something.
“Chaos is a wonderful, wonderful thing.”
Its voice was very clean, and almost soothing, which would have been hilariously ironic had it not been for the sheer pain of gazing upon him. To my nonexistent surprise, the technicolor equines offered rebuttals. The purple one decided to pipe up against the monstrosity.
“Not as wonderful as friendship.”
This voice, although slightly harsher than the beast’s, was still relatively pleasing to the ear.
“Oh, this again?”
The beast seemed relatively tired of this friendship bullshit.
“That’s right. You couldn’t break apart our friendship for long.”
The orange pony spoke, possessing a southern drawl, which was relatively unsurprising given its choice in headwear.
“Oh Applejack, don’t lie to me. I’m the one who made you a liar. Will you ever learn?”
Apparently the orange one had a name—albeit a weird one.
“I’ll tell you what we’ve learned Discord. We’ve learned friendship isn’t always easy. But there’s no doubt it’s worth fighting for.”
“Ugh, gag.”
I echoed his sentiment.
“Fine, go ahead, try and use your little Elements, "frenemies". Just make it quick. I'm missing some excellent chaos here.”
“Alright, ladies, let’s show him what friendship can do!”
I myself pondered how much power the bonds of “friendship” could truly have.
This of course, was before their jewellery acted as a conduit for some kind of rainbow flavoured power, and sealed the being apparently known as Discord into a stone form.
This was about the time I fell out of my bush.
“OH SH-” My expletive was cut off by my muzzle meeting grass.
The six ponies briefly stared at my prone body before huddling around it.
“You okay pardner? Looks like ya’ took a bit of a tumble there.”
I spit out the lump of grass that had caught in my muzzle.
“Of course I tumbled - what else could have happened? Do you honestly think I jump face first into patches of grass for kicks?”
“No need to be so sarcastic, jeez. We were just making sure you were okay.” The cyan pony spoke. I lifted up my body from its position on the ground, and shook myself out.
“I suppose I’m fine, for the most part. However, I have one question.”
“Hmm?” All the ponies uttered in unison, craning their necks closer to mine.
“Where, in the fuck, am I?”
After a few gasps, and a very dramatic faint from the alabaster pony, the purple one offered a scornful glance. “Number one, no need for such language! Number two, what do you mean where are you? You don’t recognize the town?”
I shot her back an equally scornful glance. “I mean I have no clue where I am, and no, I do not recognize this town. It does not hold any significance whatsoever, nor does this new form I’ve been stuck with.”
“You better start making some kinda’ sense soon mister.” Applejack joined the glare game, to which I happily acquiesced, responding in kind.
“You’re saying that I SHOULD start making sense? This coming from a group of ponies who somehow banished an unholy creature to stone using jewelry and friendship?”
Applejack turned her gaze to the purple pony. “Twilight, this feller’ is makin’ less and less sense every second.”
“Twilight” turned to me. “What else did you expect? Friendship can solve everything. After all, friendship is magic.”
Those last three words rang in my head for a good bit.
I finally let those screams loose.
After a couple of minutes, the screaming died out. My stomach rumbled, and I flopped back down onto the ground. I had heard of the show before - a few of my friends in Chicago were self-professed “Bronies”, and watched the show fervently. I tended to change the subject as soon as possible whenever the matter came up, so my knowledge of the lore was supremely limited.
“So what did I do to deserve this?” I thought. “Somehow jumping into a TV show made for small children... I must be dreaming, that’s gotta be the only way... except that fall hurt too much to be doing any sort of dreaming... oh god, what happened?”
The group of six now looked visibly discontent, almost to the point of worry. “Are... you okay?” Twilight asked.
I stayed silent, still processing everything.
“Is he broken?” The yellow one quietly suggested.
Twilight shook her head, and turned her gaze back to my body. “For some reason, he seems to be in shock.”
Finally, I found the words for my feelings. Sadly, they did not come out as elegantly as I had hoped.
“How-but-ponies-talking-children-w-w-what?” The words stumbled out of my mouth. I let out a heavy sigh, and tried to start again. “M-maybe I should start with names. We can sort everything out far later.”
Twilight tilted her head back to her friends, most of whom gave confused shrugs. “Well, I suppose I can start. My name is Twilight Sparkle.” She pointed to the cyan pony, and moved her hoof to the right as she named them off. “That’s Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie. And what’s yours?”
I had to think for a few seconds. With all of these weird names, I had a feeling “Tobias” would confuse them even further. “I-I have no idea.” I lied.
If confused or disdainful glances were currency, I would have been plenty rich by then. Twilight looked the most confused. “You don’t even know your OWN name? Well, how in the hay is that possible?” She shot a quick inquisitive glance up to the sky, before a happy look overtook her face. “Ah! I know what we can try. Come with me.”
Before I could offer any protest, I found myself being dragged along by Twilight’s magic. Whilst being dragged, I finally made the connection that she possessed a horn, and was, ergo, a unicorn. The same went for Rarity. Applejack and Pinkie seemed to be regular ponies, while Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash had wings.
“So a world full of bright colored ponies, unicorns, and pegasi, who can somehow utilize magic in several different facets, and apparently can speak. This MUST be some kind of punishment.”
Luckily, the impromptu trip was relatively short, and her final destination—a tree converted into a house—came into view. At this point, I was more surprised that such a building had not rotted out then about the idea of a literal “tree house”, which I took with a measure of shame. She opened its red door and threw me inside. Twilight scrambled upstairs, and through a doorway. I stood up, and took a brisk look around: books by the hundreds lined the wall, on all sorts of different subjects.
As I stared at a particular title—an antique version of the “Pony-Sutra”—Twilight burst through her door, holding several notebooks in her magical grasp. Alongside her, balancing a few quills and ink wells, was a baby dragon.
“Dragons? Honest to god dragons?”
“Spike, meet... whoever this pony is.” Twilight made an exaggerated gesture towards by body, and the notebooks held in her magic field dropped onto the floor. Spike bowed, and extended his hand.
“It’s exq-exqi-nice to meet you!” He stumbled out.
“Likewise.” I outstretched my hoof.
“Alright. Now that that’s over with, I’m going to try something. I’ve got a memory spell that might be able to extract some of the information about you from your head. Do you mind?”
“Not at all - I’d like to make some sense of the situation as well.”
Twilight leaned her horn down, and pointed it into my forehead. A large amount of heat built in my forehead, which developed into pain after a short while. It didn’t take too long for such to become unbearable, causing me to cry out.
“What’s wrong?” Twilight asked as she cut the spell.
“This spell hurts like a bi-ahem-a lot.”
“That’s normal. After a little bit, spells like that become painful to sustain. At any rate, I recovered almost no information. Are you sure you don’t remember anything?”
I thought for a second. “Although I could tell her what I honestly remembered, and my previous life as a human, it didn’t seem like she’d understand it, nor would it be at all consequential to why I was stuck here, figuring that part of my memory was conveniently blank.”
“Nothing at all.” I lied.
“Huh. Well, that’s a shame.” Twilight responded, picking up the notebooks strewn across the floor. “None the less, I should write a letter to Celestia, and see what we can do with you.”
“Celestia? Who’s Celestia?”
Both Twilight and Spike stared at me like I had sprouted three new heads.
“Princess Celestia? The grand ruler of Equestria? Deity that controls the sun? Nothing?” Twilight slowly raised her pitch in annoyance.
“Not ringing any bells.”
The duo groaned in unison.
“Spike, take a letter.”
Spike took one of the quills, an inkwell, and a piece of scroll paper that had dropped onto the ground. “Ready!”
“Dear Princess Celestia. I’m sorry to write you on such short notice, especially with the Discord conflict having just been resolved. However, the girls and I have encountered a pony who claims to have no recollection of neither Ponyville nor Equestria. He even claims to have no knowledge of you! A memory spell failed to retrieve any information, and I’m not sure what to do. Your faithful, and slightly confused student, Twilight Sparkle.”
Spike took a minute to finish penning the information, rolling it into a scroll, before proceeding to scorch it in a lick of green fire. The stunned look on my face must have attracted attention, for Twilight soon addressed my concerns.
“It’s magical fire. It sends whatever it incinerates to Princess Celestia, and allows her to return letters through a similar manner.”
I nodded my head, absently. Suddenly, Spike let out a large belch, and a scroll, affixed with an official seal, materialized in front of him. He handed it off to Twilight, who read it off.
“My Faithful Student,
I’m on my way.”