Snow In Equestria

December 14, 2012

“It’s so big!” I screamed as I jumped out of the chariot and dashed for the entrance to the castle.

“Hey! Snow, wait!” Celestia called after me. Too late. The delusional part of my brain that takes over when something is overwhelmingly awesome was in control now. And it couldn’t be tamed until my impulses were satisfied.

As evidence of this uncontrollable entity, I proceeded to shove my way past the two guards blocking the entrance. But before I crashed face-first into the door, however, I crossed my wings in an X shape in front of me. They did the same thing they always did – glowing and hardening – and I crashed through the door, no problem.

Besides the large hole I left behind, anyways.

I charged through what appeared to be a throne room, with the sound of many hooves and Celestia’s voice following closely behind. Massive stained-glass windows lined the extravagant hall, filtering the light into colorful, jagged shapes onto the crimson carpet.

Eventually, the hall came to an end and I took a different route. I ran past two more guards. They didn’t know what was going on, so they simply observed for a moment, only to join the growing herd of guards (and Celestia) that were already chasing me.

I should have probably stopped by now, but like I said, that uncontrollable part of my brain had taken over for the time being. My childish, unpredictable impulses were now my number one priority. And at the moment, I wanted to see the entire castle, so those guards were not going to stop me until I had seen as much as I could.

I took a detour up a flight of spiral staircases, causing the guards to form a single file line, slowing them down and tripping a few of them up. I looked quickly over my shoulder, and apparently Celestia was leading them, as she was the first to begin ascending the stairs in pursuit of me.

I sprinted through the hallway after I reached the top. The hallway itself was nothing special; however, the room at the end of it was rather interesting. The large door was purple with a black moon in the center. I knew what that picture was. It was Luna’s cutie mark, of course.

With all the hope in the world that I would find Princess Luna on the other side, I charged the door, again crossing my giant, indestructible wings in front of me. For a second time, the door was broken in and smashed, and when I contracted my wings and looked up, I saw the terrified face of my favorite Princess of the Night. It looked as if she was heading towards the door when I burst into her room.

Those stairs had given me a decent lead on Celestia and her guards, so I had some time. I ran up to Luna and hugged her as tight as I could.

Hug a princess… CHECK!

“Eep!” she cried.

Fangasm~!

“G-get off me!”

I let her go when I heard the sound of Celestia’s voice calling my name again and ran to the other side of the room.

Eventually, a few of the guards rushed through the door. Being the normal, sensible person I was, I jumped out of the window.

It’s not like I broke the window or anything, it just happened to be open, and so I jumped out of it. Unfortunately, most of the guards were pegasi as well, so several of them dove out after me and basically air-tackled me. Within seconds I was pinned to the ground, one of them holding down each of my legs, plus two more for each of my wings.

I laid there silently for several seconds. The guards held onto me tightly, ensuring that I was completely unable to move. Eventually, both Celestia and her sister, Luna, flew down to my point of apprehension.

“What the hay was that about, Snow!?” Celestia reprimanded me, clearly winded from the chase.

“I dunno,” I answered, getting my mind straight. “I saw the castle, and it was massive and shiny, and I guess I couldn’t control myself,” I said almost excitedly. “Then I saw the throne room! It was so cool, and I had to see more! After that, I found Princess Luna, so I hugged her and jumped out of the window,” I explained. They knew about as much as I did at that point.

“This one is very strange, sister,” Luna said in what seemed to be a calmer, quieter version of the royal Canterlot voice.

“Oh, and sorry about breaking those doors,” I apologized, remembering the damage I had inflicted on the castle. Celestia groaned in exasperation.

“Come with me,” was all she said. “Guards, release him.”

The guards were definitely hesitant to let me go, but they did as they were ordered and I slowly stood up. Celestia immediately picked me up with her magic and began carrying me back into the castle.

“Whoa! What are y-you-…?

“Quiet, Snow.”

And so I shut the buck up. I was silently carried all the way to a strange, barren room. All that it contained was a few chairs around a square, wooden table, as well as a single light in the form of a candle in the center of the table. The candle was lit and no light showed through the dark window.

The change in atmosphere was a little strange, but in reality, they probably brought me here because they didn't know what else to do with me. They were most like going to bring me to a controlled environment, ask me a few important questions, and then decide whether I was a threat in any way.

“Snow, we’re going to have a little talk about humans,” Celestia revealed as she let me down inside the room. Luna followed her sister into the room after me and shut the door. I took a seat across from the two princesses and we began.

“My sister has told me that your name is Snow, and that you are not a pony, but a… human. Is that correct?” she questioned.

“Yeah, that’s right, with fingers and everything,” I confirmed, wiggling my hooves around, which earned me strange looks from both princesses.

“What’s the diet of your species? Is it the same as ours?” Celestia asked after clearing her throat.

“Oh, umm… humans are omnivores, so some things are similar. Other things… not so much,” I replied.

“See my teeth?” I said before flashing them a large smile. I kept it up so they could examine my canines for a moment before I retracted. They seemed slightly disturbed, but overall, they took it very well.

“We shouldn’t have much trouble finding food for you then,” Celestia mused mostly to herself.

 Luna took a few notes on a piece of nearby parchment with her magic. It looked like she wasn’t even trying, as if the pen wrote down anything she was thinking.

“Are humans a violent race?” Celestia asked suddenly.

Well, here goes nothing.

“Nope,” I replied simply, looking down again. Luna blinked a few times.

“You’re a pretty awful liar,” she said bluntly.

“Yeah, I know. Well anyways, yeah, some humans violent,” I admitted.

“How so?” Celestia asked after a few moments of silence.

“I mean, that’s a generalization. When compared to ponies, were very violent, but the average human, like me, is alright. But there are a few bad apples every now and then. Like I said, most of us are fine,” I repeated.

“Have you ever hurt another human?” Luna asked. I wasn’t sure what kind of question that was. I don’t think anyone could say that they’ve never hurt someone else before.

“I’ve never killed anyone,” I replied, hoping that would be some kind of equivalent. Sadly, it was not.

“Answer the question,” Celestia urged.

“Well, sure I have. Wait, what I meant was…” I sighed. “I have never intentionally hurt anyone with the sole purpose of harming them.”

“Please explain.”

“Ah, you’re m-making this difficult! Of course I’ve hurt another human before. I’ve been in a couple fights, but that’s how all humans are,” I argued. “I don’t enjoy hurting people, I don’t want to hurt people, and I hope to God that I don’t hurt any pony.” They pondered on this for a moment.

“I see,” Celestia replied solemnly. There was a short pause.

“What do you mean?” I asked worriedly.

“Just… try to behave yourself while you’re here and we probably won’t have any problems. Anyways, can you explain the anatomy of a human?”

“Well, I’m probably not qualified to go into any extensive detail, but I can try, I suppose,” I replied. They simply waited for me to continue.

“Humans are bipedal creatures. We have a midsection, I guess, two arms, each with a hand, and each hand with five fingers. There are two legs, each with a foot, and each foot with five toes. Head on the top of course. No tail,” I summarized. “I guess that’s about all I can think of at the moment,” I finished quite intelligently (not).

“Kind of like a monkey?” Luna asked.

“I’m not a monkey!” I suddenly exclaimed. The princesses drew back for a moment at my change in volume. “Closer to apes, but it’s taken us seven million years or so to evolve from them. So no, I am neither a monkey nor an ape. Only human.”

“Okay then, not a monkey. Got it,” Luna repeated. “Please explain the planet you are from.”

“Uh, well… It’s called Earth, for starters. There are about seven billion or so humans and counting. It’s rather over populated in many areas, I suppose. I think we’re expected to run out of resources around nine billion or so.”

“Hold on,” Celestia said seriously. I complied. “Your race has over seven billion humans, and you have predicted your own demise? Has nothing been done to prevent it from happening?”

“Well, of course, but I don’t think there’s anything we can do to keep the population from expanding even further. A small percentage of the population can’t keep seven billion others from continuing to re-populate, so I guess it’s inevitable, in a way. It’s not supposed to happen during my lifetime, so whatever.

“Moving on,” I continued. “There’s no magic on Earth. Not like you have here, anyways. But we do seem to be a few hundred years ahead of you, technologically speaking.”

Luna seemed the slightest bit offended after she processed what I had said.

“What would make you say that?” she asked a little indignantly. Celestia looked like she may have said something, but I interrupted her, snorting mirthfully.

“Well, that thing for starters,” I said, pointing at the candle in between us. A chuckled lightly as it flickered and made the room slightly dimmer for a moment.

“It’s a… candle?” she asked questioningly, cocking her head to one side.

“Exactly, that’s old-fashioned. Like, at least a hundred years old-fashioned, actually,” I continued. “You should consider replacing it with a light bulb. It’s an empty glass bulb with a filament inside that’s heated with an electrical current. I think the filament is made of tungsten or something.”

“We’ll discuss this later,” Celestia decided. “Now, the next question. Why did you come here?”

“Uhh… heh. About that…” I started meekly, rubbing the back of my neck. Both princesses leaned in eagerly. “I don’t know.”

“That was a bit anticlimactic,” Luna stated.

“Yeah, kinda. I was skydiving – that’s where you jump out a giant machine twelve thousand feet in the air and land safely with a parachute – and as far as I know, I turned into a… pony halfway down and crashed into the ground,” I explained. There were a few moments while the princesses talked quietly with each other. I was too far away to eavesdrop.

“I suppose that until we find out what that reason is, we’ll have to keep you in the castle,” Celestia decided.

We began to make our way back to the throne room, walking up way too many stairs along the way.

“May I ask how old you are?” Luna asked on the way.

“Because I’m so mature?” I chuckled, “I’m fifteen years old.”

“Really?” she asked confusedly. “Are you sure?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m sure. Why? Is that weird?” I asked, remembering that Celestia was also surprised at my age.

“I guess it’s not. You just look a lot older than that.”

“Oh… And sorry about the hug, Luna,” I remembered as we walked up more stairs.

“That’s quite alright,” she said dismissively. “But you might want to hug my sister too before she gets jealous.” I know it was probably intended to be a joke, but that’s exactly what I did.

Hug two princesses… CHECK!

 “Snow!” Celestia cried out after a few seconds. She shook her neck around a few times, but I held fast and screwed my eyes shut. This only elicited a new bout of laughter from Luna, and Celestia was growing increasingly frustrated. She beat me with a wing a few times, but to no avail.

“Snow, if you don’t get off, I’ll use my magic. And you do not want that,” she threatened.

“Come at me, bro!” I countered. Her horn began to glow and I think she had every intention of ‘coming at me.’ I quickly weighed my options and let go.

“Fine!” I pouted, sitting back on my haunches and crossing my arms (forelegs?).

“I swear, you’re like a little filly!” she reprimanded; although, I could sense a hint of amusement in her voice.

“Just to clarify, a filly is a young female of your species, correct?”

“Sure is,” Luna replied mirthfully.

We soon arrived in the throne room and Celestia told the guards to return to their respective posts. I recognized the room from my previous caper. Celestia took a seat at her throne and Luna and I stood in front of her.

“Uhh, I haven’t eaten in a couple days,” I remembered. For some reason, I wasn’t even that hungry right then. Maybe it had to do with being a pony, “You have food here, right?”

“Oh. Yes, of course,” she replied worriedly. As if on cue, another guard walked into the room and approached us. This one was different, though. She wore no armor, and she had a shining white coat, just like mine, although her mane was a silvery gray color.

“The issue in the royal garden has been tended to and resolved, your majesty,” she stated proudly as she approached and bowed to Celestia.

“Excellent. Thank you, Silvermane,” Celestia replied.

Silvermane? Interesting…

“Hi Silvermane, I’m Snow,” I greeted her, holding my hoof up. I was just fricken excited to meet ponies at this point.

“Oh, umm… hello, Snow,” she replied as she looked between me and Celestia for approval. Celestia nodded and she tentatively shook my hoof by brohoofing with an up and down motion. “My name is Silvermane.”

“Silvermane, could you please help Snow get something to eat?” Celestia asked kindly.

“Of course, your majesty,” she replied without hesitation, motioning for me to follow her out of the room. I bounced after her and followed her to a kitchen only a few rooms down the hallway.

As expected, the kitchen was massive. I walked over to a kind of pantry, which was essentially an entirely separate room, and it was filled to the brim with all kinds of ingredients and foods.

“So, what are you, some kind of special guard?” I asked as I rummaged through the contents of the enormous pantry. Silvermane remained in the doorway, observing me as I delved deeper into the pile of various foods.

“I’m one of the Assistant Synchronizing Supervisors in the castle.”

What? What the hell is that? I didn’t know the meaning of the title, but there was something else that I did notice.

“Ha, you’re an ASS,” I chuckled.

“Umm… excuse me?” she asked, with her head cocked to one side in disbelief.

“Assistant… Synchronizing… Supervisor… ASS,” I said slowly in between snickering, hoping she would understand my (clever) acronym. Success, she got it! Sadly, she wasn’t that amused.

“Dear Celestia…” she groaned pleadingly.

I kept digging through the piles, haphazardly tossing things to the side if they didn’t particularly catch my interest. I found a few familiar things, but nothing too appetizing. There was no meat, I noticed, which was too bad, considering I still had my canine teeth. Meat really sounded good right about now. I’d have to ask the princesses about that later. But I’d have to wait for a good time to bring it up.

“What’s taking you so long? Just grab this pizza or something and get out. And stop throwing the food!” she demanded as I nearly hit her in the face with a can of soup.

“I don’t like pizza, just one more minute,” I promised.

And yes, I don’t like pizza.

Deal with it.

I got no response for a while, so I looked over to her. She remained silent, but she didn’t need to speak. Her expression said it all. It was something along the lines of ‘Are you bucking kidding me?’

I quickly picked up a box of what looked like macaroni and cheese, although I couldn’t read equestrian. The written language appeared to be comprised of incomprehensible backwards letters. I was careful to pick out the macaroni that was in the shape of little ponies. Why they would have such things in the castle’s food supply at all still remains an enigma. I stepped out of the pantry room with the box in my mouth.

“Wow,” she deadpanned as I walked past her. “You are probably the weirdest pony I’ve ever met,” she marveled.

“Well, I’m not a pony,” I replied as I shoved all of the tossed food items back into the pantry and shut the door.

“True,” she conceded. “Celestia has informed me of this, but seriously, first you don’t like pizza and then you pick the pasta with the little shapes?” she asked, seeming more dumbfounded than insulting. “That’s little filly food.”

“Hey, Celestia called me that earlier, too.”

“For good reason, probably,” she mumbled.

“Hey, the little shapes are more fun to eat.”

She simply facehoofed and walked with me to the stove. I set the box on the counter and turned to Silvermane.

“We may have a slight problem,” I started slowly.

“And what would that be…?” she started.

“Uhh… I can’t use these hooves all that well yet. Anyways, cooking this would probably take about five hours with my current ability,” I told her, hoping she would take the hint and help out. She certainly understood, but she just stood there and stared at me.

“P… Please?” I asked hopefully, sticking out my bottom lip. She maintained her glare, but after another moment or two, she gave up.

“Give it here…” she said wearily as she approached the counter.

I quickly hoofed her the box and backed up to give her some room. She reached into a lower cabinet and expertly pulled out a pot, almost as if she had been using her hooves her entire life (imagine that).

Soon enough, the food was done and I was ready to eat. They had forks and spoons and other familiar utensils, which I found comforting but confusing at the same time.

The food tasted just like it did back on earth, so I figured eating Equestrian food wouldn’t be as bad as I thought. Although, seeing as all Equestrians are herbivores, there was still a lot of potential for this to get worse.

I had finished eating and decided to go see what the princesses were up to, so I dashed out of the kitchen, leaving my bowl and utensils on the table as I called back to her, “I’ll be back later!”

Whether I would actually return or not was undecided at the time.

“No, w-wait! Snow!” she called back.

She didn’t act quickly enough so I ignored her and went off in search of Celestia… or Luna. Really it was whichever one I ran into first.

I walked through some the hallways and passed a few guards on the way. They glared at me, but refrained from tackling me. Maybe Celestia told them not to if they saw me. I found nothing interesting, so I headed up another flight of stairs and walked down the next hallway.

This must get confusing for the princesses all the time. The hallways looked identical.

There weren’t any doors in this hallway, except for one at the end. It was a large wooden door, with no markings and a large handle.

No locks were on any of the doors I’ve used so far, so like the mature pony I was, I creeped in silently without knocking. And oh, what luck! Celestia was sitting on a fancy-looking purple cushion with her back turned to the door.

I shut the door again, making sure to not make a sound, and skulked across the room towards her. I looked around the room. It appeared to be her private quarters.

There was a bed on the opposite wall and a few more cushions like the one Celestia was lying on. There was also a fireplace on the other side of Celestia, but it was not lit at the moment. This was definitely the room of a princess. I carefully looked over her shoulder from a few feet away and looked at what she was reading. Unfortunately, I was still illiterate in Equestrian. I wondered if it was a friendship report from Twilight! Le gasp~!

Instead of saying anything, I hopped onto the massive throw cushion right next to Celestia.

“Ay yo Princess!” I bellowed.

As expected, she shrieked and jumped up to her hooves. Two guards that were apparently on the ready rushed into the room. About that moment, Celestia had recognized me and sighed in a mix of relief and frustration.

“Halt, guards! It’s just Snow,” she said just before the guards were able to charge me.

The guards vacillated for a moment, knowing that if they were ever going to tackle me, now was their chance. Eventually, they backed off and returned to the hallway. Funny, I didn’t see them on my way in. Celestia then turned to me, looking mostly surprised but disapproving nonetheless.

“What do you want, Snow?” she asked quite ungratefully, but still managing to sound polite about it.

“Oh, nothing. Just seeing what you were up to,” I replied, relishing the warm area that Celestia had left when she jumped out of her seat. The cushion itself was very comfortable as well.

“I was reading a letter,” she answered, still a bit shaky from my sudden appearance. “From Twilight.”

“Is it a friendship report!?” I suddenly cheered.

“Umm, no.” My enthusiasm visually deflated. “It has to do with you, actually.”

She picked the letter back up with her magic and moved me off of the cushion, placing me on the nearby wooden floor. She proceeded to take the her spot back and leave me on the hard, desolate floor, where I quickly felt all of my built-up warmth quickly fade and turn cold. It was a traumatizing experience, really.

She continued to read and ignored me for the time being, so I jumped back onto the large pillow and scooted up next to her to look at the letter for myself. I hoped that she wasn’t uncomfortable with me pressed up against her side, because she was warm and squishy and that felt nice. And for the third time in the past hour I remembered that I couldn’t read.

“What does it say?” I asked quietly.

“Read it for yourself,” she offered, turning the parchment towards me a little.

“I can’t…” I mumbled.

“What?”

“I can’t… read this,” I repeated.

“Oh, so you’re… illiterate?” she asked awkwardly, obviously somewhat surprised. I looked back to the letter and blinked a few times.

“I, u-uhm… suppose I am,” I realized, my ears flopping down dejectedly. She levitated the letter back towards herself and took another look.

“Well, the letter is just more details on exactly what happened when you got here. Nothing you wouldn’t already know.”

“Interesting,” I yawned, resting my head on her shoulder.

I guess around then, I was basically asleep. I wasn’t entirely conscious of it, but I knew that I must have fallen asleep once I was awoken by Luna’s voice as she conversed with Celestia.

Of course, once I heard the voices, my damned ears shot up and started twitching. Apparently it was obvious too, because they stopped talking once they realized that I was awake. I lifted my eyelids and saw Luna in front of me.

She had evidently pulled up another large pillow thing from somewhere and sat across from me and Celestia, who I had basically managed to roll on top of while I was asleep.

“Good morning, Snow,” Luna said teasingly.

“Mornin’, princess,” I groaned groggily as I looked up.

“I think it might be past your bedtime,” Luna chuckled.

“Hey, I’m fifteen years old. I’m not a little kid,” I argued, right before a poorly timed yawn.

“You mean foal,” Celestia corrected me. “A kid is a goat. Foal is the proper term a pony.

”

“Whatever, you know what I mean.”

“You sure act like a foal, though,” Celestia remarked.

Equestria was probably the only place in existence where the royalty acted this casual and were this fun to hang around. But then again, my grasp on what really existed and what didn’t has been pretty twisted lately.

“Oh, shut up,” I mumbled tiredly as I once again rested my head on Celestia’s shoulder.

“You wanna go to your bed? Your guest room should be all ready now,” Celestia offered.

“Nah, I’m good,” I replied, not moving. Celestia groaned and we said our farewells to Luna as she excused herself.

“Fine, you can stay here if you’d like, but I’m sleeping in my bed,” she said as she stood up, bereaving me of my pillow and primary heat source.

Celestia walked over to a table near her bedside, on which she placed all of her formal regalia and jewelry. I flopped over onto the center of the cushion and continued sleeping. After a few more moments, I could tell that the lights had been turned off.

I decided to stretch out my limbs before I went to sleep, so I stretched out like a cat and spread my wings out wide. I heard the sound of a ‘pomf!’ shortly followed by a loud smack. Why did that sound so familiar? Oh… ohhhhhhhhhh.

Well, crap.

At this point I was fairly certain that I had just bitch slapped the princess with my wing in the dark. My suspicions were confirmed when I heard Celestia groan crossly at me from across the room. I must’ve hit her on her walk from the light switch to the bed.

“Snow,” she growled, drawing out the last syllable.

“Ermahgersh, I’m sorry! Here, let me help!” I offered nobly as I retracted my wings and walked at a brisk pace towards the sound of her voice. Unfortunately, the room was still pitch black. I felt my hoof catch the end of her bed as I tripped, and so the inevitable shit-storm ensued.

The good news was that I landed on something soft and I was not injured at all. The bad news was that the soft thing was a very angry Princess Celestia. She yelped in surprise and I tried frantically to make sure she was alright. My eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness and I could feel her under me as she threw verbal obscenities in my direction.

“Snow, get off me or I’ll turn you into a toad!”

Suddenly, there was an urgent knock on the door and a voice. It was Luna’s.

“Sister, are you alright?”

I tried to get up, but my head ended up colliding with the bed in the dark and I fell back down on top of Celestia. Luna, having not received a response, quickly opened the door and turned on the lights. I then clearly saw the irritated look on Celestia’s face as I climbed off of her.

“How did…? What is going on?” Luna asked, legitimately confused and concerned.

“Snow thought it was a good idea to strike me in the face with his wing after I turned the lights out,” she said crossly as she recovered and stood up.

“You did what!?” Luna asked in disbelief, turning her angered gaze towards me.

“It was an accident! I tried to help!” I defended. “But I only ended up making it worse,” I admitted, almost winded from that whole ordeal in the dark. I pitifully crawled back to the cushion and curled up on it like a dog as Celestia stood up and dusted herself off before turning towards me.

“You’re ridiculous,” she said. “Just lie there and… and be good,” she ordered. I gave up and closed my eyes.

“Your face is ridiculous,” I barely whispered to myself out of habit.

“What was that?” Celestia asked immediately.

“Yes ma’am,” I said dejectedly.

The princesses conversed quietly for a short while before the lights were turned out again and I drifted off into sleep. Maybe I could work out some of the kinks tomorrow, but for now, there was a soft cushion for me to sleep on.