Chapter One: Down the Rabbit Hole
It was a beautiful day in Equestria. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and all of the ponies were out enjoying the day. After all, today seemed even more magical than usual, and Ponyville itself is a pretty magical place already. So everypony was out and about, busying themselves with some task or another. Rarity was giving out sun hats, Fluttershy was playing with her animals, Applejack was on vacation in Appleloosa, and Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were probably out pranking somepony since the weather was perfect for it.
That left a very bored Twilight Sparkle alone by the river.
Spike had pleaded she leave her abode in the library and go outside. Partly because he was sick with a slight summer cold and wanted left alone, and partly because she had been inside reading, reorganizing, and filing away her past to-do lists for two of these lovely days now. He didn’t even let her take a book as he shoved her out and locked the door behind her.
“’That’s unhealthy Twilight,’” she mocked, swishing a hoof through the cool water. “’Go have fun Twilight.’ I WAS having fun! Who doesn’t enjoy organizing and reading about obscure pony history? That’s lots of fun. And all those papers I have to write. I’ve got a deadline! Oh…” Twilight shut her eyes and groaned. This is gonna be a bad day…
“Damn it, I’m going to be late.” Her eyes flipped open and head popped up at the unfamiliar voice. A stranger? Maybe he needed help finding his way around! Thank Celestia!
“I can help! My name is Twilight Sparkle and…” She jumped to her feet and eagerly looked around. But no one was there. “Um, hello?”
The only other creature there was Angel. Her tail drooped in disappointment at the sight of the cranky little white rabbit. “Oh, Angel. What are you doing here? Fluttershy’s going to be worried sick about yo-”
“I don’t have time for this!” he snapped back. And so he hopped away. Twilight’s jaw dropped to the ground. How long have I been in the sun? I must be hallucinating. “Damn it, I’m not gonna make it!”
“Angel!” Twilight yelled, galloping after him. “Wait! Where are you going?”
“There’s no time for waiting!” She groaned. How ridiculous she must have looked to all the other ponies, chasing an imaginary bunny and…
Where was everypony? It was if they all had disappeared. But Twilight didn’t have time for questions. This was the most interesting thing to happen all day, and possibly the strangest thing since… Okay, a lot of weird things happen to us on a weekly basis, but Angel talking! I need to study this! ….Oh, and take him back to Fluttershy.
Before she knew it, Twilight was at Fluttershy’s house right by Everfree Forest. At this point, maybe the yellow Pegasus needed to know that a certain rabbit of hers was running around talking and apparently missing appointments.
“Fluttershy!” she hollered, then shut her mouth in a panic. She hit a hoof to her forehead. “Nice one, I probably just scared her off. I’ll just get him myself! If she can catch a rabbit, I can too!”
Conveniently, Angel was in the garden, scurrying around frantically. When he saw the lavender unicorn coming for him, he promptly stuck out his tongue, and then ran under a bush by the wall of Fluttershy’s cottage. Twilight grinned. “I got you trapped Angel!”
When there was no reply, she started to inch forward. Twilight cautiously looked under the bush. There was a gaping hole underneath it. Peering into it, she let out a startled gasp.
“Oh no! This thing goes on forever! He’s probably hurt! I better get Flutter-”
Just as she was turning around, a pair of hooves shoved her down the hole. Twilight fell screaming hysterically, trying to use her magic to save herself, but her horn would only shoot… confetti?! What was going on?
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!” she wailed. Finally, her lungs gave out and she was gasping for air. Twilight twisted violently in the air, unable to tell which way was up and which way was down in the pitch black tunnel. “AAAAAAH!”
After about five minutes of this, a worn out Twilight stopped yelling. The shock of falling had worn out. “Shouldn’t I have hit something by now?” She also observed that her speed of descent had decreased dramatically. And while the top of the hole was now pitch black, she swore there was a light near the bottom.
“This is all very curious,” she muttered, watching a desk and some books float by. “Am I dead? Did I hit the bottom and this is death? At least there’s books.” But as she reached over to pick up a book, she found the pages were blank. Book after book, all of them were full of white paper. “OH COME ON!”
After awhile, she found a quill and some ink. “Let’s give writing a shot.”
And so Twilight wrote about what was going on for awhile. After her jaw started cramping (her magic still wouldn’t function correctly), she gave up on that too. “I’ve been falling for hours. This is so weird. And… who pushed me? I swear I saw a flash of yellow, but Fluttershy wouldn’t do this. Besides, I’m obviously not thinking clearly.”
Suddenly, the purple unicorn hit the ground with a soft thump. However, the book she was writing in hit her with a loud thump. She yelped in pain, falling over and holding her head tightly. “Ow, ow, ow…”
As the pain subsided, Twilight finally got to her feet. A little shaky, she attempted to levitate the book and quill. It seemed to work just fine, and she wrote as she started walking.
“I’ve finally hit the bottom. I’m in a room full of doors. Big doors, fancy doors, little doors, and a door on the ceiling. Is that the one I fell in from?” She stopped to inspect the room further. “I’m going to try opening one now.”
Twilight put down her journal and reached for the handle of a big, red and green polka dot door. Locked. She tried a smaller, bright blue door. Also locked. Door after door, every single one was locked. Finally, she tried kicking and scratching the doors, sobbing hysterically.
“I’m trapped!”
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It felt like hours had passed, but Twilight Sparkle was starting to correctly suspect that time didn’t run normally in this place. She didn’t want to open her eyes unless she woke up by the river again. The river! That’s it! This is only a crazy dream!
She had tried to convince herself she was imagining all this for awhile. It was sun poisoning. She had caught Spike’s fever and was delirious. It was a dream. But every time she opened her eyes, the room was still there and she was still alone.
“Alright Twilight, pity party is over,” she scolded, getting to her hooves. “We are getting out of this stupid little room if it’s the last thing we… oh?”
In the middle of the room, there was a crystal table that most certainly was NOT there before. One very large key sat on the top. “Where did you come from? Oh, I don’t care!” Gleefully, she snatched it up and tried it on the biggest door. “Darn, that doesn’t fit.”
Door after door, the key was simply too big to fit into any of them. Finally, Twilight had gotten to the very last one (excluding the one on the ceiling which she couldn’t reach). This door was too small for a foal to fit through. Still, desperately she shoved the key in. Click!
“It works! HAHAHA!” Twilight leaped around for a moment, taking a moment to write down her success. “Of course, the last door in the room is the one that opens. But it’s so small, I’ll never fit in there.” Her tail and ears drooped, the excitement now fading back to misery. “Well, I can at least look.”
Opening the door, she looked in with one purple eye. Inside (well, outside), was a beautiful garden. There were flowers like she had never seen, and a large hedge. She could even hear laughter!
“Oh, I wish I was smaller!” she whined, getting to her feet. Just then her stomach rumbled. “Heh, maybe if I starve for a bit, I’ll be small enough to squeeze through.” She chuckled to herself, writing frantically.
But, on the table, a bottle had appeared. Twilight cocked her head, but slowly she was beginning to get used to this. On it, there was a big pink bow and a tag that said “Drink me!”
As crazy as her day was, Twilight was still Twilight. “It may be poisoned.” Carefully, she parted some fur on her arm and dabbed in on her skin. After having no reaction, she put a single drop on her tongue. A tingly sensation overwhelmed her, but it passed within the blink of an eye. She waited a little longer.
“I suppose its okay,” she said, and hungrily she drank a gulp. The sensation that followed was so powerful she must have fallen and hit her head. Dizzily, she opened her eyes and gasped. “The room is so little!”
She panicked, pushing her hooves frantically around. One foreleg shoved open the biggest door, but at this size, there was no way Twilight could even fit through there. Her magic was also out of whack, and she ended up spilling ink all over the journal she had been writing.
“Now Twilight, calm down!” she ordered, but she couldn’t will herself to stop shaking. “You’re not a filly! Come on, things will be fine.”
“But they aren’t! I’m huge and alone and miserable and I’m surrounded by doors and I won’t ever get out and I wanna go home!”
“Deep breaths, deep breaths…”
“I’m going to be here forever!”
Finally, Twilight’s panic won over, and she burst into tears.
BYR: This is MY crazy story. Expect the crazy and nothing else.
She wasn’t sure how long she was crying, but eventually Twilight’s sobbing subsided. Wiping away her tears, she let out a little chuckle.
“Now do you feel better?” she asked herself. “All that crying over what is surely just a dream. Let’s get it together Twilight. No need to cry gallons of water all over the place… oh Celestia!”
The room was flooded with water. My crying did all that? But the pool of tears looked strange. From above, it closely resembled an ocean during a storm. It was dark, coming up in miniature, frothy waves. Paint from the green and red door had peeled off, giving the impression of seaweed and tiny little red fishes darting through the water. There was even a little teacup floating like a boat with a napkin sail and spoons for oars. A small, fluffy creature was rowing frantically against the current. Twilight watched in amazement.
“Well, I suppose this isn’t the strangest thing I’ve seen all day,” she muttered to herself. “But what in Equestria is that pink ball of fluff supposed to be?” Twilight tried to lean forward, but the slightest movement sent the water crashing violently. A yell of surprise came from the mysterious creature, and the giant pony froze in terror. I could have killed that thing; I need to be more careful at this size!
She continued watching the creature and its little teacup-boat, wondering how she should approach it. Moving to pick it up would only scare it at best or drown it at worst; that much was clear. However, calling out to it may get its attention, and maybe it may even help her out of this predicament. Twilight figured if the little thing was smart enough to make a boat and travel through an “ocean”, it should be smart enough to communicate.
The unicorn took a deep breath. As she did, the small boat drifted quickly towards her and bumped her front legs. She winced, which of course sent huge waves all over the room. That makes no sense, her brain yelled frantically as the pink fluff cried out. It’s impossible that such little movements are creating such violence!
NONE of this makes sense. Keep it together Twilight Sparkle! This makes NO sense, and trying to make nonsense into logic is only going to create stress. We don’t want stress right now. We can deal with that later. This is step one, and step one is to get out of this room.
Her head somewhat assuaged, the pony tried to focus on the task at hand. One wrong move, and this creature could either run away in fright, or die. As gently as she could, Twilight spoke.
“Excuse me?” she whispered gently, making sure to maintain how much she breathed out as she talked. First relieved that the boat had only swayed, her anxiety came back in full swing as the creature turned around and let out an earsplitting scream.
“A JABBERWOCK!” Frantically, the little ball of fluff started rowing away. “HELP!”
“No wait!” Twilight cried out. The room thundered as her voice echoed around, and the pink creature stopped in terror, big blue eyes staring up at the giant pony in front of it. She began trembling terribly as the “Jabberwock” opened its giant jaws and gave a gasp. A giant hoof came down to her, scooping her up and bringing her close to her face.
Twilight stared at the terrified creature, mouth still agape. “…Pinkie? Pinkie Pie? Is that you?” Other than a long thin tail and whiskers, this looked JUST like her friend in Ponyville, right down to the balloon Cutie Mark on her flank.
Pinkie blinked in surprise. “Pie? I’m not a pie! I’m a mouse. Pinkie Mouse!” She laughed, sounding rather hysterical. “Jabberwocks don’t eat mice! They eat pies. I’m not a pie. I’m a mouse, so PLEASE DON’T EAT ME!”
Twilight’s heart sank. “Pinkie, please, it’s me, Twilight!” she said as quietly as she could. Tears were starting to run down her face again.
Pinkie Mouse’s eyes narrowed, as his she was studying the unicorn for any signs of recognition. “… Nope! I don’t think we’ve met.” She giggled and gave a little scoff. “Like I would forget a Jabberwock.”
“Please, can you tell me what’s going on here?” Twilight pleaded. “Why am I so big?” And WHAT is a Jabberwock, and WHY does that name ring a bell?
“Did you drink that bottle of rainwater?” Pinkie asked.
“Rainwater?” The unicorn struggled to remember what was in the bottle. “I thought it was chocolate milk.” Pinkie Mouse face-hoofed at this confession, which brings up an important question: Why would a mouse have hooves?
“Didn’t you go to kindergarten, or am I going to have to explain the rain cycle to you?”
Twilight flushed hotly. She didn’t much appreciate the condescending tone Pinkie was using to her, nor was she used to being treated like an ignorant filly. “Please…. Could you tell me? I… forgot.”
Pinkie chuckled darkly. “Okay,” she said, as if speaking to a baby, “rivers of milk are on the ground, right? Then sometimes, they get really bored and go play in the sky. As they do, the sun cooks part of them into chocolate and the cotton candy clouds freeze others into strawberry snow. Then they get homesick and go home.”
Twilight, completely bewildered at this, forced a little smile. “Oh... erm, yeah, I remember that! Hehe, um, thanks.”
Pinkie laughed. “You idiot, that was just a lie! I can’t believe you fell for that!” The pony-mouse fell over laughing, rolling around on Twilight’s hoof. “You’re so stupid it’s hilarious!”
“Pinkie, that’s not nice! You can’t laugh at others like that, it’s… mean.”
She stopped laughing, rolling over to face the unicorn. “Oh please, it’s only a joke. Calm down. Here, how about I make it up to you?” She pulled a plate out of nowhere with one shiny pink cupcake. “Here, take a bite. I made it just for you!”
Twilight eyed it suspiciously, and gave it a cautious sniff. It looked just like a cupcake Pinkie would have made back home. Not bothering to wonder HOW she summoned the cupcake from thin air (Wouldn't her Pinkie do that too?), she dipped a tongue in the frosting.
“AHH!” she screamed, spitting out the little still in her mouth. Her tongue felt like it was on fire. The icing had been the spiciest thing Twilight had ever eaten, and no matter how much she tried to scrap it off, it wouldn’t stop burning. Pinkie was cackling hysterically.
Tears started welling in Twilight’s eyes. This sounded and looked so much like Pinkie, but while the Earth pony had always been a laugher, she didn’t any sort schadenfreude personality. Other pony’s sadness made her sad. Where in Equestria am I?
“Hee-hee-hee! I haven’t laughed this hard in almost ten minutes!” Pinkie cackled. Suddenly, her voice cut off with a yelp. “Holy SMOKES! You’re shrinking!”
Twilight couldn’t even let out a gasp of surprise, because as soon as Pinkie Mouse said it, the unicorn shrunk down to the same size as the “mouse” in her hoof. With a splash she landed in the water, her side hitting hard against the waves. Twilight lost her breath as she sunk deep into the black ocean of her own creation.
I’m going to die here, aren’t I?!
Calm down young mare! It’s JUST a dream! Pinkie being here proved that!
That proved nothing!
Oh look, those really were red fishes.
Why have I got the feeling someone is watching me?
I should never have left my house.
Twilight’s head swirled with thoughts. She was getting more and more dizzy as her lungs screamed for air. The current swirled her around, pulling and throwing her through the water like she was a rag doll. Before long, her eyes fluttered shut.
The last thing she saw was the tiny door and the beautiful garden outside.
