You know that feeling that comes right after waking up, that sudden feeling of the world changing just slightly, just enough to know that you’ve left the world of dreams and entered the world of the real. Well that’s the same feeling one gets when leaving their own dimension to enter into another’s and you believe me, that is one incredible ride. The changing colors of the tunnels, the darkening and lightening of the sky, and sometimes ground it really depends on which wants to be on top that night.
I’ve been travelling through this space for such a long time, I don’t even remember how I got here anymore, was I the villain trapped by the hero in his own failing invention? Or maybe I was the hero trapped on a failed attempt to find the villain. Really I could be any of them, or perhaps none. Maybe I was born here, in this gap between dimension, merely falling for eternity. Honestly, to me it really doesn’t matter anymore, I’m just really lonely. I could really use a friend or two. So I’ve decided to make a wish, I’ll wish for friends, people who will help me through my problems and who I can help in return. Just maybe it will help me, I wasn’t going to get my hopes up, but I don’t think it will hurt anything.
“I wish for friends that I can care for, trust, who will help me with my problems, and who I will be able to help in return.” I wish with all my heart, but without air it is not heard, but I continue regardless “If anything can hear me, please grant my one desire.”
And there I continue to float, endlessly through the… Wait what’s that… Is that a star...? No, no it’s too bright, and besides, it was on the ground or is that the sky today. Now a new feeling comes over me, I feel amazed, something new and different from the old always changing things around me, something constant. I try to move closer to it, which is no easy task when there was nothing to really travel through, but I struggle as hard as I can moving closer inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard, until I finally reach this new object. It’s as round as a circle, but somehow also seems like a square, it feels like an ever changing constant. However, in the end it’s something new, different, and something I must have. I reach out for it and after what feels like an eternity, I make contact with it and feel content, but I suddenly see a bright light and know no more.
You know how earlier I said that traveling through the dimensions, leaving your own, feels like waking from a dream? Well landing in a new one feels quite the opposite, like you’re suddenly placing blinders over your eyes and only seeing what you want to see. It’s an amazing feeling really, you just feel like you no longer have to know about everything, that you can simply have fun and enjoy yourself, because that’s what your dreams are for, having fun and enjoying yourself.
With that I open my eyes for what feels like the first time in an eternity, which it may have actually been, and take a look at this wonderful new land that I have landed in. It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen and I’m not ashamed to say that I would have cried tears if I had been able. Living in the gaps between dimensions doesn’t allow you to get much in the sustenance. The grass may have been a slightly darker than I thought it should have been, the sky much darker than I would have thought, and the trees appearing half-dead, but that didn’t matter. This place was different, it was constant, it didn’t change on a whim, the sky stayed above and the ground below, it was simply wonderful.
Than for the first time in my memory, I looked at myself. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried to see what I was like before, but I’ve never been able to look without feeling slightly sick. It wasn’t only the surroundings that constantly changed during my dimensional trip, I myself constantly changed share. At any second I could have been part bear, dog, mouse, cat, lizard, even human a time or two, or any combination thereof. I’ve never really noticed or cared about any of that really, I always knew at the very least that I was me and that had always been good enough. But now I finally had a constant body, something that would always remain the same. I was going to look at it and feel proud to see me. I realize that I keep saying this, but this is the most wonderful feeling that I’ve ever had. These constants are wonderful.
When I finally got over my little gushing about constants and looked at myself, the first thing I saw was I had hoofs, four of them. Not that it felt awkward or surprised at all, I’ve had hoofs enough time to not have a problem with them, even like them sometimes. I looked at little higher at a two pairs of short blue legs, which are really nice to have. I can remember once not having any arms or legs, wasn’t very much fun. Finally I looked at my main body; it was an oblong shape, still covered with the blue fur that had coated my legs, and towards the back end of it I saw a nice long white tail, just hanging down almost touching the ground. I couldn’t see my face, but I was sure that I would be able to take a look at it later, and would probably not care how it looked as long as it didn’t change much.
With my self-inspection complete for the first time ever and feeling the happiest I had ever felt in my existence, I stood up and promptly bumped my head into the top of the log I had apparently been sitting inside, which explained the overall darkness of the setting. I had found all these amazing things inside a log, I wonder what the outside was really like.
I quickly ducked down and carefully trotted out from within the log on my four new legs, and realized that although it wasn’t as dark as in the log, it still wasn’t that bright. From this information, I deduced that it was night, yay for me I can solve something a baby can figure out. Looking around, what I had thought were only a few tree turned out to be a great many. Hundreds, thousands perhaps, trees surrounded me as far as I could see. While a few were bare like the one I first saw, most were covered in greenery several of which held apples. Never had I seen so much fruit, it was amazing.
That’s when I heard it, the most wonderful sound that I can ever remember hearing. That wonderful, amazing, incredible sound…
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS APPLE BUCKERS YAAAHHHH!!”
I realize that to anybody else such a sound may have been obnoxious, annoying, terrible, but to me it was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. Sentient beings, other beings, beings that I could make friends with, it was perfect.
“I’m coming new friends!” I shouted aloud, and with that I ran as fast as I possibly could in the direction the sound had come from, tripping a few time, but not caring. I had all my mind set on that one goal, but one thought kept coming to mind, what was apple bucking and why did it make me feel it odd that people would yell about it.
I am Dark Star, the New Crusader
When I first made that wish, I never actually thought that anything would happen. I’d made so many wishes before, that I had all but lost hope that I would ever be able to leave that horrid place. I really wonder what made this wish so special that it was granted.
However, at the moment I honestly don’t care, I’m going to make some new friends and I won’t be lonely ever, ever again. I ran as fast as could towards the origin of the scream. I had to get there before they left, I just had to. I dodged the giant apple trees and jumped over the rocks that stood in my way. I hadn’t heard anything since that one scream, but I knew I was going the right way, I just had to be or else I really was going to… I really don’t know and really don’t want to find out.
Finally, I knew I was getting closer, I knew I was almost there. Don’t ask me how I know that because I really wouldn’t be able to give you an answer. It was just like I knew, I knew with all my body, heart and mind that there were three new friends waiting over that hill right ahead of me, I knew that if I could reach them before they left that they would be my new friends before the night ended. I just knew and it felt wonderful. Unfortunately, running while in a euphoric state of mind tends to result in really damages and that was why I ran my head straight into a rock.
I must now believe that my head is harder than rock, I mean I feel a little dizzy from running into it, but overall not so bad. One would think that running into something that hard at the speed I was moving would at least have knocked me unconscious, but overall I felt fine. Even if I had been hurt worse, I’d still keep going, I needed to reach those three.. That’s when I heard the sound of conversation heading my way and saw three fillies heading my way, an orange pony with wings, a white pony with a horn, and a yellow pony with a bow in her red hair. I hid behind the rock, I may have really wanted friends, but it was still my first time seeing another being, I think anyone would be scared.
“Did ya hear that noise just now?” the yellow pony, my first friend to be, said to the two other fillies.
“Yeah, it was really loud, what do you think it was?” the white one, my second friend to be, responded.
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out” the orange one, my third…well you know, told the other two, “We might even get our cutey marks in investigation!”
“Hey ya good idea.” the yellow one responded.
“CUTEY MARK CRUSADERS INVESTIGATORS!!!”
And with that yell they all ran towards the rock I was hiding behind, and while it scared me something fierce, this was my chance to make new friends. So I waited behind that rock as they ran towards me, scared stiff as the rock. I had to make a good first impression, I had to make a good first impression, I had to make a good first impression. That was all I could think about as they got closer. Ten feet, eight feet, five feet, two feet, one foot, and they were at the rock. I couldn’t get myself to move, so I just waited, hoping beyond anything that they would find me. I needed this chance; it was likely my only one. Finally the orange pony ventured behind the rock, to where I was hiding, while the other two searched the nearby trees. I saw her eyes and she saw mine, and then we both screamed. The other two must have gotten farther away than I thought, because I didn’t hear any rushing hoofsteps.
When he had both finished screaming our little hearts out, she just continued to look at me. I don’t know why, maybe I had something odd on my face, it wasn’t like I could see it or had a chance to look before I heard the scream earlier. I also heard some noise behind me, it sounded like my two other friends to be were coming to investigate the screaming, I guess they really had been pretty far away.
“Hey who are you?” the orange filly asked me with an air of suspicion in her voice, “and what are you doing here?”
“Oh I’m….” I started, and it was then that I remembered, or more like couldn’t remember, that I didn’t have a name. It had been so long since I had needed it, what with no one else to talk to. So within the next couple seconds I needed to come up with a good one, without any knowledge of what names would be found odd here. Well it couldn’t hurt to try anyway. I thought of the most striking thing about me, the contrast between my dark blue coat and my white tail, and then said the first thing that came to my mind. I’ve kind of regretted it ever since, but it worked.
“I’m Dark Star,” I finally finished, “and honestly I was just running towards the screaming I heard earlier, I thought maybe someone was in trouble.” I know, I told a slight lie, but I couldn’t very well tell her that I ran towards people screaming in the hopes of making friends, how would that have looked.
With much less suspicion in her eyes, the orange filly responded, “Huh, I didn’t hear any screaming earlier, oh well that doesn’t matter, I’m Scootoloo, nice to meet’cha.” She held out her hoof like she was expecting me to do something with. I had no idea what I was she wanted, but I raised my hoof as well and waited. For a few seconds we just stood there looking at one another, until she gave me a funny look. Finally, she put her hoof down and just as I was about to join her, thinking that we had finished this strange ritual, she lifted both her front hoofs and started to shake mine. Eventually she stopped and sat back down. I really hope that was a greeting and not some manner of attacking.
“Hey Scootoloo, where’d you go, we heard someone scream.” I heard the other two fillies yell.
“Over here, behind the rock!” Scootoloo yelled back, than looked over at me, “and I found something interesting.”
“Oh, what did you find Scoots?” the yellow one asked.
“I found another pony and look he doesn’t have a cutey mark, just like us.”
“Awww, I thought it was going to be something really exciting” the yellow one replied, while both she and the white one looked at my flank, “but I thought we were the only three in all of Ponyville that hadn’t received our marks yet.”
I just continued to look on, wondering what these cutey mark things were. Apparently they were important, and apparently it had something to do with a pony’s flank, which made me feel vaguely uncomfortable.
“So what’s his name?” the white one asked.
“Um, my name is Dark Star” I replied.
“Well it right nice to meet’cha,” the yellow one stated, “my names Apple Bloom and the white one here is Sweetie Belle.” They gave me their names, this is great. Getting their names is the first step to making friends right. I’ll have three new friends very soon, yes!.
“It’s nice to meet you both.” I replied, and then like Scootoloo had done for me, I held out my hoof, which Apple Bloom quickly grabbed with two of her own and shook my arm vigorously. Honestly it felt almost like it was going to pop off, I think it even kept going for a while after she stopped. I just couldn’t control it.
“So Dark Star, where are you from?” Sweetie Belle asked. I knew a question like this would come eventually, I was just hoping that it would be a little while later, hopefully much, much later. Unfortunately it looks like that part got moved up a bit and I’m going to have to figure out a lie quite a bit sooner than I thought. It’s not like I could tell them that I had been hurtling through dimensions for the last I don’t how long and got here thanks to a wish. They would think I was nuts. Well there’s always the old standby, pretending you have amnesia, but I don’t really want to lie to them anymore than I have to, they are my new friends. So maybe a partial truth?
“Um, I came from over that way, I don’t really remember much else about where I come from.” I said pointing towards where I had ran from, to which they all gasped surprising me greatly, “Um, is something the matter?”
“You came from the Everfree forest,” Sweetie Belle stated, “that place is really dangerous.” Well, I hadn’t meant that, but it’s as good a story as any. I did come out of the forest, but I was already at the edge anyway.
“Um, maybe, all I know is that I was that I was in some real trouble, than suddenly I was transported from that trouble and ended up over there somewhere, I really have no idea how I got here,” I said, which was the honest truth, I really have no idea how I fell out of the dimensional gap to get here, “then I heard some people scream and rushed over here to help if I could. Honestly, I’m really happy to be here instead of back there.” Which wasn’t exactly a fib, but wasn’t the whole story either.
“Really, well it’s good you’re safe now, and let the three of us be the first to welcome you to Ponyville.” Sweetie Belle said smiling.
“Hey since you don’t have a cutey mark, want to join the Cutey Mark Crusaders. We’re the only ones in town without them.” Scootoloo asked, the other two were nodding to show their agreement. I still had no idea what the cutey marks were, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from getting three new friends.
“YES, YES I WOULD LOVE TO COME!!!” If you couldn’t tell I was excited you weren’t paying attention.
“Hey does this mean we get to initiate him?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Yup.”
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS INITIATORS, YAAAHHH!!!”
“Um, do I have to yell too?” I asked.
“Of course you do!” Sweetie Belle replied.
“Mind doing it one more time than?” They all nodded, and I breathed in deeply.
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS INITIATORS YAAAHHHH!!!” After which they ran off towards the forest of trees, and I followed. This was the beginning of my new story, I would make friends with everyone, I would have all the friends I could want. I would keep the promise that I made in my wish, I would help them with their problem, I would make sure they were protected and safe; I would make sure they were all safe… no matter what.
