The Shorse's Chortle

Queen Chrysalis was confused, to say the least. When she’d first seen this Alicorn, she couldn’t believe her eyes. She hadn’t gotten word from her spies of any more impromptu promotions like with Twilight Sparkle, and she certainly hadn’t been notified of any visiting embassies!

So where had this male Alicorn come from? With two pairs of wings, no less.

She’d only ever heard and seen females. It was intriguing, but also unsettling.

Maybe Celestia was building up an Alicorn army to overthrow the world or something.

That sounded like the self-proclaimed sun goddess.

Before he’d woken up, her minions had tied him to the stalagmite to get him creeped out when he did wake up. She just hoped he wasn’t all that powerful or merciless. And that he was easy to scare.

She noticed a bunch of other things about him, all of which she dismissed as distractions. Like his face- so sculpted and elegant. His wings- so large and beautiful. His color! She’d never seen such a vivid, vital green on any pony or changeling. She only ever noticed these things about others to copy them, but never otherwise. She was both surprised and a bit disturbed at how obvious and captivating such details were.

But she couldn’t pay attention to wings, or his hue, or his face . . . No! She had thousands of mouths to feed, and an entire country to overthrow. And he was the key to achieving all of it.

~

Winchester watched wide-eyed in wonder as a green light burst to life from above the eyes. He flinched a bit, but only from surprise, not because of its brightness.

He looked more closely at his captors. There weren’t goblins- that was for sure.

They looked more like bugs mixed with some kind of cat. They had insect wings and beetle shells adorned their backs. Their queen got the majority of his attention though. She was tall (and I mean really tall), and had long sheets of straight, green hair. She was holey. Literally- holes were bored through her legs and wings and even hair.

Ouch-Talk about body piercings.

She leaned close to him, and he noticed that what looked like a long, very crooked horn grew from the center of her forehead. Whoakay- demon unicorn.

“Hi?” he asked uncertainly, but she ignored him, staring at him as if he were the most enthralling, important thing ever.

He was about to ask what on earth she was looking at, but she touched her horn to his forehead and the sentence died in his throat.

He saw his life flash before his eyes. Well, only part of his life.

It stopped at the time he met Miramel. Suddenly, images of her scrolled across his vision, as if someone were reviewing a bunch of home video clips of his friend.

He tried to throw off the influence, but her grip had already been established, making it very hard to even focus on fighting her. Why did all his interactions with others have to begin this way? With someone trying to kill him or something?

He concentrated harder than ever and focused solely on the probing presence that was her mind. Finally, with an animal growl, he thrust her from his consciousness and opened his eyes. The demon unicorn had stumbled backwards, the green light from her horn flickering. Something occurred to him and he shifted uncomfortably in his bonds as the bug-thing rubbed its eyes.

“Uhm . . . I don’t know if that’s how you say ‘hello’ on your planet, but I’d be a lot more comfortable with a hand-er- hoofshake.” He waited for a reaction.

The queen straightened with a creepy laugh. She opened her eyes, and they glowed evilly.

“You are not from around here, are you?” she asked, her voice sounding like several different voices merged into one. He’d seen enough Last Airbender to imagine where this was going.

“What . . . gives you that idea?” he said, trying to sound James Bondish.

“You are very powerful, there is no doubt.”

“Thank you.” He said graciously, attempting to be suave.

“But unfortunately, your current situation renders you helpless.”

His eyes widened.

Crap.

“Isn’t that right, my children?” said the demon unicorn silkily.

Winchester’s jaw fell open as the entire cavern or wherever they were filled with an insect-like thrumming/buzzing sound.

He was going to need so much therapy after this.

~

This hut was bigger on the inside. The tree was misleading in that it gave the idea that there wasn't much room to be hollowed out. Miramel was able to stand straight up, maybe even extend her wings if she chose.

The smaller of the creatures watched her in awe. Miramel returned the young thing's gaze, and to her surprise, the pony didn’t look away- she smiled.

“So what’s yer name?” the diminutive creature said in a southern accent.

Miramel stared at her, momentarily looking away to see the striped creature gathering what looked like blankets, before she looked back.

The dragon turned pony wasn’t sure she could speak in this form. After a minute of waiting, the small thing took things into her own hooves.

“Ahm Applebloom!”

Miramel stared at her. Not coldly, or warmly, but almost curiously. She looked away, and looked like she was trying to say something.

Applebloom waited patiently. Finally, it turned back to her.

“Miramel.”

Applebloom was startled. The Alicorn’s mouth hadn’t moved, but the sound had come from that area.

“That’s yer name?” The question wasn’t incredulous, but merely for clarification.

The Alicorn nodded once in affirmation.

Applebloom beamed and extended a hoof.

“Nice to meet ya, Mirameyl.”

Miramel slowly returned the gesture and they shook hooves as Zecora approached, holding a lot of towels.

~

Small-pupiled, and bright orange with shadows rimming the irises, Bones’ eyes snapped open, already in a skeptical glare. It was his automatic expression, often accompanied by a smirk of large teeth.

But there was no smirk this time.

There was snow. Everywhere.

Bones swore maliciously. He hated the cold.

That shorse. He was going to eat her.

Miramel wouldn’t stop him this time-he really was going to. And that little one, too. That dragon’d avoided being made a meal of for long enough!

But to devour them, first he had to get to them.

Why did those idiots open that box? They probably did it wrong and now they’d all freeze to death. They should have had him open it.

Not that he would have.

Wait-he didn’t hear any of their annoying voices. Only the shrieking of the wind.

His legs stiffened and his skin burned in the cold. He had to get somewhere warm or he’d be a living -scratch that- dead statue, memorial to the moronicy of friends.

He rolled his shoulders, then realized something. He wasn’t the same. He scrambled to his feet, then promptly fell over. He swore again. He looked in appall at eight hooves.

What in the -  going on here?!

His lithe, segmented body had been scrunched into a small, ivory-colored, fuzzy avatar. His clawed arms had melted into hooves along with his six back crab-like legs. His spaded tail had been replaced with one of hair! Hair black as night.

He laid his ears back instinctively, then did a double-take. He didn’t have ears.

Yes he did-now he did. And his imposing horns were gone -hair in their place.

Dang that horse!

He gasped. What did his face look like? He quickly felt it with his foremost hooves, and they stopped at his mouth. His teeth were gone.His teeth were gone! The ones fused to the outside of his mouth, anyway. And the bone-plates sharp as razors inside his mouth had been replaced with roundish-pointed teeth.

How was he going to eat those miscreants now?

The dragon-turned-pony hoped to whatever powers that were in this dimension that his tongue hadn’t changed. He stuck it out and above his snout to see-Nope-It was the same. Long, prehensile, and striped black and chartreuse. Good.

His hooves traveled farther around his mouth, then stopped at his nose. He had hair on his lip. It was like some cruel joke- a spiky mustache grew below his nose, in the exact shape of the teeth he’d lost. Hair-hair that he had to eat through.

He hated hair. He hated shorses! Especially ones called Trika. He hated them unless they were in a certain place-like on a plate, hog-tied with an apple in their mouth.

He smirked, but only for a second. He shuffled his hooves, getting a feel for how he was supposed to walk without catching one on the other seven. He settled for moving them two at a time, but he was still clumsy and uncoordinated.

He’d lost feeling in his extremities, and knew that the ability to use them wouldn’t leave too far behind. He squinted into the blizzard bad-temperedly, and his gaze fell on something in the distance that looked straight out of Candyland. The lights from its sparkling spires and glimmering streets seemed to beckon him with a kind, welcoming glow.

He rolled his eyes and started towards it, his face set in a disgusted scowl, forcing himself to keep a steady pace. Whoever lived there, they certainly wouldn’t have the satisfaction of seeing him hurry into the warmth.

Warmth. His now-rounded teeth were chattering, despite his clenching them.

Nope. He refused to run. Trika or one of those wusses would run. He wasn’t a wimp.

But those weaklings aren’t here. An imaginary shoulder-Bones popped into his mind.

Unlike the average sentient, Bones didn’t have good-self, bad-self arguments. His angel and devil were more just mini versions of himself -one rooting for his pride and dignity, and the other for selfishness and desire. Right now he was starting to side with the latter.

But what if someone sees me?

Then I’ll eat them.

He shrugged mentally. That worked.

He took off, snow blown up in clouds as he passed, and didn’t see the slender, scarred, Wisteria-colored mare left behind him, half-buried and unconscious in the white expanse.