One Horn Too Many

“T-that’s it! We’re out!” A clear male voice rang near the borders of the Everfree Forest. “Edward, we did it! We’re out of the woods! I was so sure we would get chased off by a timberwolf!”

“We got lucky, my friend, let’s just hope we won’t ever have to mess with those blasted tree humpers,” another stallion quipped, his voice tainted by a strong refined accent.

“Yeah… lucky...” a maroon stallion muttered, leaving the cover of the twisted trees for the open fields. “Right...”

The tip of his hooves flattened softly against the dirt path, almost as if squished by his own weight. It felt comfortable, natural even, and it scared him the most.

“I-I… I still can’t believe that happened,” he murmured, twisting his neck to take a look at his body.

Twitches shook his eyes, as his pupils shrunk to tiny dots. His breath grew shallow, turned into minuscule gulps of air, too little, too sparsely, as the realization hit again, as the truth made itself cruelly undeniable.

He was not human. Edward wasn’t human.

They were ponies. Stallions. Animals. Fucking animals.

They had hooves instead of hands and feet, a muzzle where their mouth used to be, eyes so huge they felt like they could see in wide screen. They were unable to stand upright, too unsteady on their hooves - no, feet, FEET! -, but even if they had had the necessary agility, they would have eventually fallen back. Ponies were quadrupeds, were they not? That’s what they were now, PONIES! HOOVES, MUZZLES, GIANT EYES, TAILS!

And horns. Plural. They had horns, curled backward, unlike that of any unicorn they had ever seen, not even from King Sombra. Twin grey horns just like those of goats span from the top of their heads, their tips coming just short of their manes. W-what were they? He didn’t know… there never had been a pony like that on the show. Their only theory so far was that they were freaky mutated unicorns.

A reassuring thought if there ever were some.

How would the others even react? M-maybe it would add to the credibility of their stories. Maybe being so bizarre would help convince someone that they were not from that world. Or it’d send them to a research facility and a nice asylum. The thought made his mouth go dry, it racked his nerves. He felt he’d just lose it, lose control of his mind and his body.

As if obeying a twisted order, his tail swished wildy, hitting his grey companion on the flank.

Turning about, the darker stallion delivered a swift slap to his distraught partner. “I don’t want to drag a useless idiot behind me. This is going to be hard enough on the both of us.”

Massaging the painful spot, said partner gave a begrudging message of bitter gratitude. “Thanks, you limey.”

“Frogger,” Edward muttered in retaliation. “We need to look on the bright side, with any luck, Twilight or the princesses can just magic us back, willy nilly and that will be that.”

“Y-you think? But how would they even know where to send us? We’re bronies, from an entirely different universe!”

“They could use the magic residue or what not, or maybe they can track the statue, or something of the like.”

“Or they already know about humans! There was that Equestria Girl movie...” His voice trailed off, wondering if it would impact their chances of going back home.

“Now let’s not mix that trash with canon my friend.” Edward gagged, waving a hoof in front of his face in disgust.

Taking note, Pierre cringed, stuttering. “I-I mean, the first generation! Megan!”

“See, looking on the bright side is much better than going all bonkers, wouldn’t you agree?” Ed assured, tapping Pierre’s head pointedly for emphasis.

His friend’s mouth twisted with annoyance, pushing him away and muttering a few words of no flattering quality. Edward only managed to catch a single one of them. “Enfoiré...”

“Twat...”

“D-do we have ANY plan at all?” Pierre spoke up suddenly, stopping in place and turning to face his companion, a look of panic on his face. “Are we just going to waltz up in there and say ‘Twilight Sparkle, please don’t think we’re creepy, but we’re aliens from another world and we look at you sleep and have adventures, so it’d be really nice if you could throw us through the dimensions so we could get back to that.’?”

“Well, when you say it like that, of course she’ll think we’re insane. You need to be a lot more subtle! I mean, in the name of the queen, grow a spine, frenchie,” Edward retorted dryly, waving a hoof at his nearly panicked comrade.

“Oh? And exactly how do you plan on being subtle while telling her we’re not, despite appearance, ponies?”

“We’re obviously not normal ponies, now are we? This could vastly help our defense, Pierre.” The grey stallion bit back, a smug smile crossing his features.

“No, we’re not,” he whispered, sounding miserable.

With nothing else to say, Pierre followed his ‘dear’ friend inside the borders of the quaint rural town they had been looking for. Their luck had at least insured they would be close to the place of residence of Equestria’s national heroes.

The problem was… they had no idea where the library was in Ponyville. They would search, they decided. A simple plan that presented little opportunity for complications, or at least it was their hope. If worst came to come, asking for some directions would cost them too little in comparison to the gains they wished for.

Trotting in a slow pattern, both to give the impression that everything was perfectly normal and to compensate for any coordination problem they retained with their four legs, the two stallions made their way in the first streets. Glancing around with the hope of locating a carved tree, they observed the population going on about their business as it did every other day. At first.

Their progression did not go unnoticed for long.

It started with a whisper, a single exclamation, from one mare to another. Daisy spoke to Rose, and the latter turned around instantly, eyes wide. She, of as little constitution as she had ever shown, fainted on the spot. Then, on the other side of the street, a passing stallion noticed them, his surprised stop gathering the attention of his date. It took no little more than that for the words to travel, jumping from head to head. Each pony notified stopped at least for a moment to glance, to verify the veracity of the vehement rumor growing.

Soon, it became impossible not to notice the attention given to them, as equally difficult for them to ignore it and go on their way.

“Why is everyone looking at us like that?”

Following the general gaze of the crowd, the grey stallion grimaced. “It’s likely due to our twin goat horns, or at least that’s what I’d assume.”

“Great… so we are mutants...” Pierre looked down, not noticing how his ears flattened as a mimicry of his expression. “Besides also being humans, I mean.”

“Well now, we haven't even seen Twilight yet, who’s to say we can’t remedy this yet?” Edward reminded him, a hint of sympathy lining his normally confident voice.

“Well… no one, yet.”

“Well damn, Pierre, if you keep talking like that, you’re sure to jinx us.”

“Please, you said out loud that you didn’t want to meet any timberwolf. I’m the one tempting Fate?”

“We haven't seen hide nor hair of a timberwolf, now have we?”

Immediately, the maroon stallion dropped down, putting his hooves over his ears. “Lalala, can’t hear you. If I can’t hear it, I’m not jinxed!”

“Oh, how mature, you nobhead,” Ed huffed dryly, pushing his friend on the shoulder firmly.

At the contact, Pierre’s hooves moved away from his ears, a smug grin on his lips. Behind his infuriating smile, Edward could see that he considered it a victory for him. With a grimace, the brit roughly lifted him to a standing position and forced him forward.

“Come on, come on, we have places to be.”

“Yeah, okay. Let’s try to find the library, for real,” he agreed, a shiver running down his spine as he ran a hoof against his left front leg.

“Oh, so up till now our search was fake?” the sarcastic limey pondered. “Oh, and why exactly are you shivering like a soaked child?”

“I just hate the feeling of touch with a hoof. D-does it not freak you out?”

“Not particularly, why would it?”

Pierre glared, scowling darkly at him. A shout of indignation built up in his throat, but he forced himself to push it down. They didn’t need unwanted attention at the moment… Not more than they already had.

Falling into an awkward silence, they continue to trudge on, making their way slowly but surely through the rural town. Eventually managing to find the large tree that housed Ponyville’s fabled library, they paused, taking in the sight. There was no denying it was impressive, doubly so by how much it matched their own memories of it. The tree loomed over them, giving them the impression of being almost insignificant. As if it knew…

“Ah, huh… after you, Ed,” Pierre finally managed to articulate.

“No, please, frenchmen first and all that.” Edward motioned toward the door.

As he opened his mouth to reply, unkind words no doubt well-prepared, another voice cut him off completely.

“Excuse me, sirs.”

They both turned at the sound of the deep voice, Pierre in particular losing his voice when his eyes fell on a royal guard. “W-what?”

“Twat!” Edward punched his shoulder - or did the closest approximation of the gesture he could manage with hooves - before clearing his throat. “Is anything the matter, officer?”

“We didn’t do anything wrong!” Pierre blurted out, earning a glare and a curious look from the two other stallions.

“I certainly hope so,” the guard said goodnaturedly. “No, I simply saw the two of you trotting on your own in the streets and I was wondering...”

They leaned forward imperceptibly, curious in spite of themselves. Ears flickering, their attention was completely on the stallion before them.

The question was not what they expected.

“Did you two lose your bodyguards?”

Edward's eyebrows lowered into a frown. “Excuse me, have we lost our what now?”

What kind of question is that? What do we look like? We’ve just spent a whole day walking non stop through some of the most dangerous woods on this entire planet.

“Our bodyguards?” Pierre repeated, eyes shining with confusion.

“You know, it’s not right for two bicorns to be on their own like that.” He sounded mildly chastising, eyes narrowed with disapproval, though strangely not aimed at them. “Anything could have happened.”

“Well, excuse me, officer, but it’s really none of your business what we do on our own time, now is it?” the british stallion mused.

“Oh, yes, of course.” The guard put a hoof in front of himself, seemingly sheepish. “I was just trying to do my job, you know?”

Nodding, they pretended to be understanding, at least.

But, as they tried to walk inside the tree, the guard made a motion to follow them. “You two don’t mind if I follow you inside, right? I’d rest easier if I knew nothing happened to you until you can find your bodyguards again.”

At that, Edward seemed just about ready to make an asinine comment, but a quickly placed hoof on his shoulder from Pierre defused him, for the moment. It did not, however, stop him from glaring daggers into the obnoxious officer’s head.

Reluctantly, glancing at the imposing stallion that insisted on being around, Pierre entered the library, almost tripping on the first steps. Albeit muffled, the gasp that then came from the guard rang very clearly to their ears.

Something was not right.

“I’m getting a very strange vibe off this place, what say you, Pierre?”

“It’s not the place that worries me...” he whispered, eyes darting back to the guard.

“I wonder where the magic bearing princess is?” Ed said as he stepped into the center of the main room.

“Hum… helloooo?” they called, looking around in the hopes of locating the one they were searching for.

For a moment, silence answered them. They could not see anyone wandering through the alleys, peering for books, no one. No dust rested on the shelves, but otherwise, one wouldn’t be so foolish to believe the library was deserted.

They stepped further in, hearts in their throat with the thought that maybe, it wasn’t the right place, that there would be no solution to their problem. But, joy suddenly started pumping through their veins, as they heard a feminine voice they both recognized. “I’m coming!”

Entering the room was a lavender mare, unique amongst so many due to the combination of her wings and horn, who they hope would be their savior: Twilight Sparkle.