A Certain Happening.
Chapter 1: Arrival
'Mrf', I grunted as something nudged me. I couldn't see what it was, but the dream had been as confusing as hell up until now, anyway. It had been a real jumble of images, sounds and all sorts of weird stuff. Something nudged me again. I opened one eye blearily and looked out at the world. It seemed very strange. More like a cartoon than anything. Suddenly great deal of pink obscured my vision and a high-pitched female voice squeaked. "He's waking up."
I tried to focus. A pony?! A 'My Little Pony', pony?! Oh, great. One of those dreams. You ever had one of those? Where you are dreaming and you 'wake up' only to realise a short time later that you've just 'woken up' into another dream? Yeah, those. I've had them before, sometimes several 'layers' deep. I resolutely shut my eyes and tried to reclaim the first dream. Ponies. Yeah. I knew I shouldn't have followed my friend's advice and read that danged 'My Little Pony' fanfic before going to bed. Now the blasted things were invading my dreams. I opened my eye again. Yeah. That'd be Pinky Pie. I let my eye roam. "And Twilight Dreams... no... that wasn't it. My brain wouldn't come up with the correct name but it didn't matter, I'd be out of this dream shortly. Or so I hoped. I'd never really liked MLP. Too saccharine. To fakely sweet and... bleah.
Pinky Pie nudged me with a hoof. She and Twilight Whats-her-name jumped back as I swung an arm to scare away these dream ponies. This dream was becoming too scarily real. Then I had to smile. It was still a dream, though. I knew because I saw my arm. Yup. I was dreaming. I had to be. I mean I could see my arm, or what seemed to be my arm, covered in thick, long, grey-brown fur. This should be interesting. There was one disturbing thing, though. Secondary dreams didn't usually last this long. Ah, well. Perhaps if I just ignored them. I resolutely shut my dream eye and...
Okay. That wasn't a hoof, that was a horn. Pointier than a hoof. I really wished this dream would end. Oh, great. Here came another one. Princess Moon or something. I rolled my dream-self over and landed with a crash. Dang. This dream was an odd one. I'd never fallen out of bed in a dream before. At least, not without waking myself up... A rib hurt, but that wasn't unknown. I'd felt pain before now in my dreams; why, I remembered when I... "GAH!" Okay, this was getting scary. I'd just been hit in the face with a bucket of water. Still, the way this dream was going, I'm just glad it was only the water and not the bucket. It was then I realised that I hadn't fallen out of bed, but rather off some bales of hay.
I sat up and looked around. Yeah. That'd be... I tried to dredge up a name as water streamed from my face. Apple-something.
"Hi! You awake yet?" that'd be Twilight Whats'erface. I shuddered and then my eyes popped wide open as I finally realised something that my brain had been refusing to allow itself to admit. This wasn't a dream. Somehow, I'd been not only transformed into... into I don't know what, but I'd been dumped into a cartoon. I wondered why it couldn't have been Roadrunner or Yosemite Sam or something similar. I mean, there were worse cartoons I could have been dumped into, but this wasn't exactly one of my favourites.
"What is it and how did it get here?" I took that to be Moon... No, Luna. That was it. Princess Luna, sister to Celestia. Or something like that. What few memories I had of the show were slowly coming back to me.
Suddenly I thought of something. A rather important something seeing as I was surrounded by female ponies. I jerked up to a semi-seated position and looked down my body. I then sank back with a relieved sigh. I had worn my cargo shorts to bed. And they had grown as I had. I was decent enough. Yeah. I was far larger than normal. Hairy, too. Oh, good Lord. It reminded me of an idea for a story I'd had. A sasquatch. Was I one of those, now? I felt my face and realised it was so. I wasn't human any more, I was a sasquatch. I wondered what other weird stuff was coming my way.
My sudden movements, however, had startled the ponies who had all jumped back. Apple-whatsit recovered first and turned to Luna. "I don't know what it is. It was here when I came in for some straw."
"I'm a sasquatch." I muttered, feeling slightly obligated to respond.
"What's a sasquatch?" Yeah. That'd be Twilight Sprinkle. Sprinkle? No, I didn't think that was it, either. "We've had a few 'humans' here before, but nothing like you." Yeah. The voice sounded like it really wanted to know all about me. The problem is, I didn't really know, myself.
"I'm a sasquatch." I muttered as I sat up. Even sitting down I was about as tall as most of them. Luna, I saw, was the tallest, just about a foot taller than I was whilst seated on the floor. She'd probably come up to my chest or thereabouts. "Hello, Princess." I said politely.
"Hello..." her voice trailed off. "You knew I was a princess?"
"It shows." I told her, trying to think fast – never one of my strong points. "You look like a princess."
Her eyes positively sparkled. "Thank you." she responded with a regal toss of that magnificent mane of hers, a flick of her tail and a small flutter of her wings. "I am, indeed a princess."
Suddenly I remembered. Before I could stop myself, I turned; "Twilight Sparkle. That's it."
Twilight looked quite shocked. "How... How did you know my name?" she asked.
I thought frantically. I couldn't really tell her that she was part of a children's cartoon show. Even half awake as I was I knew that wouldn't be a good idea. "Tales of your wisdom has filtered to my world." Yeah. That'd have to do. "And you are the famous 'Pinky Pie', correct?"
"Yes!" she was practically bouncing. "Am I known, too? Am I?"
"The six of you are." I told them. "Stories of you all are known. Including yours, Applejack" I said as the names came back to me.
"Oh! Wow!" squeaked Pinky and I resigned myself to having to hear that rather annoying squeal. Then another two came in. "Ah. The beautiful and selfless Rarity and the lovely, if rather timid Fluttershy.” I could only hope I was getting them right.
As the door of the... barn – it looked like something of that sort – swung open, I saw that it was still night. Meh. I wondered if it was usual for ponies to be up and about at this time of day.
"Hey! What's goin' on in there?" A voice called from outside. I shook my head. Well, I may as well enjoy this as much as I could. "And that will be Rainbow Dash." I didn't really feel like laughing. I felt like my claws were scratching chalkboard. I looked around them. Well, I suppose this would be the first time this many women had shown an interest in me for a long, long time. I didn't know why God – if it were God – had put me here, but it was no use whining, I'd just have to do the best with what I had and put a smile on it. You know, like when you're in hospital and you really just gotta make the best of things.
I turned to Luna. "So, when do I meet Princess Celestia?"
The others didn't see the look Luna gave me then. There was nothing sweet and sugary about that look, let me tell you.
The other ponies looked at me, obviously puzzled. Pinky stopped bouncing. "Who's Princess Celestia?" she asked in a puzzled tone.