Starting from the background.

There are not many things I like more, than a good walk in the forest. It's good for health, it's relaxing, it's fun.

There are not many things I dislike more, than a good walk in the forest in late autumn. Probably, the only thing to compete is the same forest during the early spring. And the reason is the same one. Mud.

By the time I stumbled out of the forest to the small farm, surrounded by the empty fields, I had mud on me in several layers, with a lot forest trash and, judging by the smell, at least one deceased rodent somewhere in it. The very sight of my wings was so horrible, that every look at them produced an angry rant from Strict, made up mostly of the words, that would burn paper, if you'll try to write them. On top of that, I was hungry like I never ate in my life - thanks to pegasus fast metabolism. Naturally, a northern forest this late in autumn contains nothing edible for a pony. So the farmer I met near the farmhouse was presented with the sight worthy of a horror story.

The farmer himself, on the other hand, was as generic Finnish farmer, as it gets - blonde hair and beard, pale blue eyes, tall, wide, calm as a glacier. He met my arrival with a raised eyebrow, and when I made an attempt to talk to him, displayed the most of the emotions I've seen from him - he raised another one. Then he sniffed the air and, without a word, motioned me to go to the side of the house, where a watering hose was connected to a wall outlet. It took him at least half an hour to wash all my forest trophies away from me, and then he spent about an hour watching me cleaning the feathers under the strict guidance of Strict - raising an eyebrow every time I failed an "easy move, that every foal knows from the moment of birth" and snapped back at my invisible tormentor not bothering to do it quietly. Overall it seems he had a good laugh, but his face would have passed acceptable at any funeral as well. As he never attempted to talk to me, I assumed he doesn't know any of the languages I used around him, so our communications was rather limited. That, however, wasn't a big obstacle in our big friendship, as after he noticed, that I have finished with the wings, he gave me the best present I ever received in my life - an entire haystack.

The groan I've heard from Strict was far less than amused, though.

"What's wrong? You won't say that pegasi is allergic to hay now, won't you?" I asked, slowly approaching  the haystack.

"No, quite the contrary. It's a healthiest food you can imagine," the amount of ice in his "voice" was enough to bring about an ice age. "That's exactly the problem. You see, if you aspire to be in the Royal Guard, you must be healthy and fit. And if you want to be healthy and fit, you train well and you eat properly. Which means that uncooked hay is your number one food. Since I've got my cutie mark and my path to the Guard was set, it was practically the only food I've ate. Unfortunately, I like cooked food and I hate hay since the moment I've tasted it for the first time. Fortunately, you seem to like it, so it shouldn't be a problem."

"Actually, humans don't really eat hay," I confessed. "We usually eat animals that eat hay."

That confession made Strict very silent for a while, so I got to the problem at hand - food. Which was the problem because my current body was of the pony who hates hay, and, as I discovered with the first bite, that was not a psychological issue. I don't know, how it is possible to make equine tastebuds this way, but that hay tasted as horrible, as if I was still human, sans the instinctive retching. On top of that, hay is not very filling, so to get fed you need to eat a lot of it. It took at least a half of haystack, that was the size of myself, to silence the stomach, and it felt like I needed another half to actually feel sated. Well, it wasn't actually that bad, as I was very hungry, and I tend to ignore the taste of the food anyway. What was bad came just about the moment I was preparing to finish of the remaining half of the hay, appearing from behind the haystack and looking at me with it's bright blue eyes. The Bad was about five years old and was smiling at me.

And the next moment I was hovering good three meters above the ground, wings spread and locked in position, cold shivers going down my spine, while the little girl below giggled and called to me. I understood the word - "pony" sounds about the same in the most languages. The farmer looked at me with both eyebrows raised and a possible hint of a smile. I slowly drifted to the roof of the nearby barn, landed and slowly folded the wings, taking some time to understand, why and how I was able to pull that off.

The first one was easy - little girls can be really scary when they are obsessed with something, and that show, from which Strict fell off on me, it's target audience is about that age. The second one was a bit out of my area of expertise, though.

"Care to explain how I did that?" I asked, trying to figure out a proper way to lie down with all the extra legs. For some reason I suddenly felt very tired - despite being fresh even after the trek through the muddy forest and up to the moment I took off.

"You... eat... ponies?" Was the response, pretty weak and stuttering.

"That's what you think is important?" I attempted to roll my eyes while not getting them off The Bad.

"You said you eat sentient species and that's not important how?" Now his "voice" was much stronger and way angrier.

"I never said we eat sentients. I said we eat animals who eat hay."

"But... It's... How... You mean, you have non-sentient herbivores?" Less anger, more surprise. Good.

She found the ladder. Bad.

"Not a single sentient herbivore until the last week, when this pony invasion started."

She's not strong enough to lift the ladder. Good. The farmer is moving in to help her. Bad.

"That's insane! Your world is insane! But that explains why I wasn't able to talk with the cows."

The farmer is not helping, he's getting her home! Excellent!

"You tried to do what? Poor cows. But that is a good story for a better time, right now I prefer to hear more about how it is possible to fly with no flapping."

Great, now she's crying and I feel guilty.

"Why? It's a complex technique with no practical application, and you can't do even the simplest of useful ones. Wait, where are we?"

"On the roof. Why it's complex and hard?" Like the most users I have to work with, Strict was able to keep to the point only with constant nudges.

"Because it requires a lot of concentration and it tires you down really fast. How did you managed to get up here?" And, as every single one of those users, he slips from it every second sentence.

"I've performed a complex technique with no practical application. Now, why it tires you down fast? You don't move a muscle."

"Because that's how the magic works. More concentration equals more effort. Don't ask why, I'm a guard, not a scientist, and it's probably classified anyway. You did what???"

The next couple of minutes was filled with Strict trying to come up with some new and creative insults to me, as he found it less than amusing, that I was evil enough to walk us through the mudbath and nearly ruin his precious wings, while a single smile from a little girl makes me fly like a Wonderbolt without even trying. At least, it took his mind off the human dietary preferences. While he was venting, I spread the wings and attempted to recreate the feeling I had twice by that moment - the feeling of flight. Sure enough, I was able to lift myself from the roof a bit, but was forced to land almost immediately, as a wave of fatigue overcame every part of my body. The same attempt, but with flapping the wings, had shown more promise - I was able to not only lift off the roof, but also to glide down to the road, that went from farm to the unknown, with no noticeable effort. From there I had waved a hoof to the farmer, who returned the wave with the smile, and trotted forward,  plans of further travel already forming in my mind, accompanied by the poetical swearing of Strict. That guy sure knows how to swear, I wonder, if they teach it in the Guard.