Chapters "Ugh... Did anyone get the number of that bus?" I groaned as I felt myself return to the waking world. I've never drunk alcohol in excess before, but this is what I imagined a hangover to be like. Groggily, I opened my eyes only to feel an incredible amount of pain as my eyes adjusted to the light.
When I could once more see, the first thing I noticed was my feathered body. Wait, uh what? Feathered? Damn, that yogurt must have been spiked with something strong. I never really was one for panicking, because panicking usually doesn't fix anything. Usually, the best course of action is analyze my surroundings and call upon any useful and relevant information regarding my situation.
As I looked around, I noticed for the first time that I was in a dense forest, filled with towering trees. Thin rays of light filtered through the leaves, illuminating small patches of ground. I was in a clearing, about 20 feet in every direction, forming a very unnatural looking ring of dirt. Ok, the last thing I remember is eating yogurt and waking up here. That leaves multiple scenarios; I was kidnapped and dragged into the forest then left to die. I was covered in feathers so it is probably more than just that. Maybe I was covered in tar and feathers? Nope, my skin feels very not-tarred. These feathers are definitely attached to my skin without any adhesives that I can see or feel. I doubt that I was experimented on by the government or mad scientists so that leaves one, unlikely and impossible reason.
They say, that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. So of course, that means that I'm the toymaker's creation in a fanfic. I mean it makes sense, it may be whatever drugs were in that yogurt talking but think about it. I woke up in a forest, with no understanding why, with a beak, feathers, and a tail. The last thing I remember was something unexplainable where a yogurt knocked me and my brother out at the same time. I've read enough 'Human in Equestria' fanfics to know what's going on.
Well, I may not be in some fanfic that I am currently breaking the fourth wall in, but I know that this so far, this has the elements of HiE written all over it. Heh, see what I did there. Anywho, that means I should probably avoid a few things: Panicking uncontrollably, going into denial, being a bitch to whomever I meet, and if this is a gender bender... don't freak out and cry over losing your man card.
So what kind of story am I part of eh? Always wanted to go to Equestria, let's hope that I got a good deal. First of all, what am I? Beak, check. Feathers, check. Talons, check. Wings, fuck yeah, check. So I'm a griffon, huh. And now for the moment of truth... Yep, I'm female now. Fuck ya! I got the good end of the deal. What you expected me to freak out or something over losing my precious 'man card'. Hah! I won't give you the benefit. I'm actually glad that I switched genders. I don't see what's so great about being male over female anyways. Pfft.
Maybe, it's because I'm transgender and that I'm super obsessed with MLP, but I didn't feel panic at all. Quite the opposite actually, things could be much worse. I bet my brother would hate it here though. My brother... He was fainted a little before I did. I wonder if he is around here somewhere.
"Yo, Stanis!" I called my brothers name a few times to see if I could find him. After the third time, I heard a branch break behind me and I quickly whipped around. Sitting against a tree at the edge of the field was my brother, with his pupils dilated and claw held up to his face in a mixture of disbelief and disgust. I don't think he is taking this as well as I am.
I almost missed the snarls of to my right as I continued staring at my brother. What I saw the snarls originating from almost scarred me for the rest of my life. Creeping out from the shadows of the bush was a giant tiger like creature snarling with blood dripping out of its gaping maw. The blood red eyes combined with the gashes and cuts throughout its body created a pretty terrifying creature to behold.
"Well, shit."
"Well, shit." My brother seemed to snap out of shock long enough to give me a questioning stare. I shrug. "I don't know why I said it twice, but it just felt right, you know?"
With no response, I turned my gaze back to the beast. Apparently it wasted no time stalking closer to me. Barely a moment after meeting my gaze, it pounced. I'd like to say that I acted with some level of skill or instinct. In reality I barely moved at all. I stood stock still and stared as the bloody form grew closer. Time slowed down in the face of my impending doom, my brain going into overdrive.
Of course, with all the adrenaline coursing through my body, I had some miraculous moment of kung fu glory, right? Well, I didn't. Instead I starting screaming and thrashing my forelegs out as I ran in circles. Ya, great going body. Wait, why haven't I met a painful and violent end yet?
Cracking an eye open, I finally realize what happened and start laughing maniacally. Wiping a residual tear from my eyes, I survey the mess I created. Somehow, I must have impaled the animal. A lot. It was probably the thrashing. It looks like I went all stabby stab on his throat and continued to slash up the lifeless body. The intestines, or I think those are intestines, they're pretty mangled, are hanging from a gaping cavity in the torso. Blood was still soaking into the ground around the body, no longer spurting, and the throat was completely ripped open. Ugh.
Note to self, be careful with claws around body. Shouldn't I be like traumatized or something right now? I’m not exactly desensitized to violence. Sure I've played plenty of violent video games, but that does not equate to being okay with blood and gore all over my feathers. I’m seriously going to have to get these puffed back out big time. Wow, I really am starting to think like a griffin...
Off topic, right. Maybe it’s just the nerves getting to me combined all of this adrenaline, which is starting to fade off as I feel fatigue began to consume my body. I know what I said about not freaking out, but it really should be scaring me more than this. I just feel so alive, better than I've felt for much of my life. Sure, I wasn't going to be very comfortable or safe around here, but the thrill is amazing. Oh jeez, I'm an adrenaline junkie aren't I?
Still, I've always hated blood and I could never see a lot of it without feeling sick to my stomach. Now I just feel... Locating feelings ... Accessing Databases ... Loading Loading ... Error: No feelings of remorse, guilt, or disgust located. Nothing. I don't feel any negative feelings at all. Shit.
And the panicking too. I should be like Stanis, who is still not moving by the way. I'm not saying that I want to panic, but just being okay with all this is, well, not normal. I got ripped from my home and family, most of it at any rate, my friends, and my life. I don't have a future, or at least a normal one in this case. Further more, why am I assuming I won't ever get home. I can get home. I need to get home. I will.
My parents are prob- No, calm down. I... I just need to sit down and think. Thinking rationally will get me home, not yelling and screaming. Still, even as I my breathing returns to a somewhat normal pace, I can't help but think that I may never get home.
I may never see my parents again.
Dinner with Ideas on the Side
Light flooded my vision as I opened my eyes. Looking around, I realized we were no longer in the clearing, but I was still covered with dried, caking blood. I had to hold in my bile as I felt the blood gluing my feathers together. I need a shower.
The smell of cooked meat wafted towards me. Getting off the surprisingly comfortable dirt bed, I lumbered towards the source. In the center of a clearing, next to a fairly large fire with a slab of meat roasting over it, sat my brother. I honestly had no idea that Stanis knew how to prepare a roast. I suppose he had gone camping plenty of times in the past, but he never had to actually hunt or cook his own food or make a fire even.
"Hey, Stan! How do you know how to do... this." I wave my hand towards the firepit.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, uh, make a fire?"
"It's really not that hard to figure out. Get some sticks and leaves. Throw them in a pile and hope to God they catch."
I stared at him blankly. "And how did you light it? You don't have a match or two hiding in your feathers do you?" He grimaced when I mentioned his feathers. With his ar- wing, he simply pointed at what I guess is a piece of flint and a knife. "And where did you get the knife," I continued.
"I found it. And I know what flint looks like. I played Minecraft." I snorted. Stanis probably looked it up before one of his camping trips.
"Ok, so that explains the fire, but what about the meat? I don't think you've ever gone hunting before," I retorted. He simply rolled his eyes.
"You know that tiger thing that you sliced and diced?" I nodded. "Well I decided to try skinning it. Although, I kinda lost a lot of the meat." I glanced over at the knife that he 'found' and noticed that it had a tinge of red coating it. How I missed that before, I have no clue. I briefly wondered if the meat could have poison in it that is found on certain animals, but I quickly discarded the thought. No reason for a predator to have a defense mechanism like that.
I must have zoned about a bit because when I came to, the previously raw meat was now a delicious golden brown color. After Stanis shouted "Cena!" we dug into the meal. Well I was a bit hesitant because I hadn't eaten any meat besides seafood for some time. A while back I became pescaterian because of health and moral reasons. After that brief moment's hesitation, I dug in anyways because it was either that or starving. Plus, I was in a whole new body now and I was pretty certain that my high cholesterol didn't carry over.
***
After the dinner, Stanis and I decided to rationally talk about what was happening. Both of us were really stressing out, although I more so because my anti-anxiety meds were wearing off. I hope I can get some more while I'm stuck in Equestria.
"Hey! Earth to Jack!" He snapped his fingers in my face, getting my attention. "You can save your inner monologuing for once we're out of this mess."
I stared blankly at him as I tried to remember what we were talking about. "I'm sorry, I completely zoned out there. What were you saying?"
Huffing in annoyance, Stanis repeated what he said, "I asked where we were in this Equestria place."
"Oh yes, of course. Well I don't know shit." I started stroking my invisible goatee. "If the fanfics are correct the-"
"Will you shut up about the fanfics?! Those are all made up and probably only accurate in the slightest bit." My brother crossed his arms in defiance.
I chose my next words carefully, "You are probably right, but they could at least help a little. Now if I had to guess, I'd say that we are in... Actually, I have no clue where we are. I think the best option is to just try to find a town and ask some ponies there for help."
"So basically, walk around randomly until we find civilization? We could be miles from anywhere." My grin grew at every word. Staring at me strangely, Stanis backed away a little. Was this what I looked like when I killed that beast. Who cares?
After all, "We don't have to walk anywhere. We're going to fly there."
Don't Call Me a Scootaloo
"Flight? Really?" Stanis raises an eyebrow.
"Well, yeah," I say, not understanding his confusion.
He just shakes his head. "And how are we supposed to fly?"
"With your wings? Duh."
"Wait, wings?" He cranes his neck to look over his shoulder. "HOLY SHIT! I have wings!"
Facehoofing, I deadpan, "Dammit, did you really not realize you're a griffon? Like that is probably the first thing I realized when I woke up." I look up at him. "Did you think you were some half-assed lion or something?"
"Uh, hehe... Just kidding! I knew that we had wings all along. Hehe..." My brother scratches the back of his head and grins sheepishly.
"Yeah sure. Let's just get this over with." Slipping on some aviators to an epic strum of my guitar, I look back at my brother. Why is he looking at me like that? I pull down my aviators slightly to glare at my brother. I knew I would win this staring contest.
"Bro, where did you get aviators and a guitar?" I smirk at him.
"Where did you get your knife?" With that I used my hind legs to propel myself into the air and started flapping my wings. I quickly became best friends with the ground once more and I heard Stanis snickering. "Shut up! I can't focus with your stupid face distracting me." Yep, master of insults.
"Honestly, we shouldn't even be able to fly. I mean our wings are way too small to lift our body. Also, as far as I can assume, since we have the body of a lion, we also don't have hollow bones. We really shouldn't even be able to eat because our digestive track is also most likely replaced by that of a lion without a guzzard." As I stared at him blankly, he continued. "Although, we may be lucky if our esophagus has something called a crop. A crop is a place where food can be stored for la-"
He was interrupted suddenly when I put a talon over his beak. "Shh, it's okay. It's just magic, let it happen." He just glares at me.
***
About an hour later, we were still unsuccessful in getting airborne for extended periods of time. My brother tried to give me tips multiple times, but I mostly ignored him. It was at his latest tips, though, that I got an idea.
"Wait, you were saying that eagles usually use thermals to gain altitude right?" He nods. "Well, a common fan theory about how pegasus in Equestria can fly is by using magical upwards winds to keep afloat." His eyes flash as he realizes what I'm suggesting. "So maybe we can use those to gain altitude and then fly like normal. So how do we fly?"
With his newly gained vigor at being allowed to explain things, Stanis starts, "Well, eagles fly in a circle in thermals to slowly gain altitude. They aren't flapping birds, they are soaring birds so they rarely actually flap to keep afloat. Once enough altitude is gained, they narrow their wings and shift their center of weight to move forward at high speeds. They often try to angle towards another updraft so they can rise up again once they glide. The air, or magic in this case, flow faster above than below the wing due to its shape, which causes low pressure above. That pulls the eagle upwards." I'm starting to think my brother knows conveniently way too much about birds.
"Dude, why do you know conveniently way to much about birds?" He just ignores me and walks around. I get the idea that he is basically trying to find stronger magical currents. Although, I'm pretty sure that they are pretty much present all throughout the world so it shouldn't be a problem.
"What if we just have to do what feels natural?" He looks at me in surprise, then in confusion as he tilts his head slightly. Adorabeetus! "I mean, we are trying to think about this too hard. What if it just comes included and pre-setup like instincts." Walking was something that I didn't think abo-"OOOF!" I stumble onto my face as soon as I start thinking about walking. Well shit, I guess all those fanfictions were pretty accurate about that.
Feeling a spark of new felt confidence, I prepare my legs to launch into the air. With a push, I'm off and am flying like I've been doing it all my life! This is actually, like wow. I never thought flying would be this good. The feeling of exhilaration and wind ruffling my feathers... It's, it's... Shit.
"AHHHH! GET ME DOWN! NONONONONONONONONO!" I feel my wings clamp to my sides as I start hyperventilating. A few moments pass and I feel myself collide violently with the ground. I spit out a mouthful of dirt and sit up.
I completely forgot about my fear of heights. I'm basically Flutter-goddamn-shy.
It took some time, but I eventually convinced my brother to carry me. It was pretty nice and I got to fly, sorta. In reality, I just spread out my wings and whooped for sometime before getting bored.
When I get bored, I try my damndest to find something interesting. When I'm stuck in the middle of the sky with just Stanis to talk to, the something is him.
"...andthenIwasrunningdownthehallsofmyschoolandbeingalllikewhoopwhoopyoucan'tcatchmebutthenItrippedandtheycaughtmesoIhadtochannelmyinnerpinkieandnotgetcaughtsoikeptrunningandrunningandIeventuallygottothetoiletandIwaslikehayoumotherbuckerscantgetmenowwhenImalluphereonmythroneandnoonehadanyideawhatwashappeningsoIjustlaughedand..."
***
"...the great and powerful Trrrrrrrrixie! Needs some peanut butter crackers..." So maybe I had way too much energy.
"Will you just shut up?!" Stanis turned to look at me angrily. "You haven't stopped talking since we took off! Not to mention the fact that you've pretty much been quoting My Little Pony this whole time." I just rolled my eyes at his insolence.
"Trixie will not bow down to your will. She shall conquer all of Equestria with her amazing talents!" After another bout of giggling, I went back to my normal personal. "Well can you blame me? I've always wanted to impersonate characters from MLP and now that my voice is high-pitched, I can!"
"Jack, why aren't you upset about changing gender, and well-" My brother looks slightly downwards. "-losing your manhood?"
"Pfft. Dicks weren't so great anyways. Sure they might be an important part of you, but I already mentally lost my manhood years ago!" Still uncomfortable with the whole ordeal, Stan huffed and turned forward again.
As we lapsed into silence, I began to think about the whole situation. My brother and I woke up in Equestria as griffons after eating weird drugged frozen yogurt. That sentence by itself really expressed the insanity we were knee-deep in. I had pure white fur coating my body and varying shades of grey on my wings. Currently, my hair took on a Gilda-like hairstyle and is light grey throughout, except on the top. Stanis has a color pattern on his head, except that it is all puffy and it's so adorable. Anyways, his wings are a deep crimson red and he has a light blue coat. I totally lucked out with my good looks.
***
After a few hours, we spotted a village on the horizon. It seemed normal enough with a multitude of thatched roofs and ponies walking through the streets. At the entrance to the town were two guards in full armor, carrying spears. They were also completely identical. The fanon was probably right about the armor enchantment.
I shifted a little in Stanis' claws and murmured to him, "Do you think we should get some more griffon sounding names?"
"What do you mean 'more griffon sounding names'?"
"Well as you can probably tell now, we are griffons and in the show griffons usually have a name starting with 'G'." I looked myself over for a second before continuing. "Also, I'm sorta female now and I don't think Jack sounds very female." Letting out a deep sigh of exasperation, my brother nodded his head in agreement.
"So how do we think of names?" Stan inquired.
"Uh... Shit. I have no clue, give me a sec." I pulled a smartphone out of my hair and looked on Google. "Sweet! Griffon name generator!" After a while of searching and my brother staring at my phone in shock, I finally picked out a name. "How does... Gwynilda sound?"
"Why Gwynilda and how do you have a smartphone?" Stanis asked, looking at my paws and then looking back at me with confusion etched on his face.
"What smartphone? We're in Equestria silly!" I rolled my eyes at him. Why would he think I had a smartphone? That would be absurd. "And what about you huh? What name do you want? Ooh we should call you Silly! But what if you get confused with my cousin Silly? What if I'm telling someone they're a silly filly and then you think that I said Silly and not silly and then you come over and get disappointed because I wasn't calling for you and then I feel bad and I want to make you..." I trailed off when I realized that my brother had one of his forelegs covering my mouth that whole time and I only just realized it. I think I got way too much into Pinkie Pie mode there.
"I think I'll stick with my own name thank you very much. I'd rather not lose the last bit of humanity I have left." With that, they both headed towards the town entrance.
"Hey Jack, what do you think of a bike ride today?" Stanis always was one for going biking, he asked me to go with him every other day.
"Dude, I don't know, you ask me this all the time."
"Ugh! Fine, we can go to SweetFrog afterwards. How does that sound?"
I rolled my eyes at his obvious attempt at bribery. "If I go, will you stop asking me?" After a curt nod from Stanis, I'm left alone in my room. I quickly get back to writing another chapter of my fic. Even after coming out as a pegasister a few days ago, I still felt embarrassed writing fanfic in front of him. Thankfully, he took me watching mlp quite better than I expected.
***
During the bike ride, we talked about various things, nothing mlp related, like schoolwork and my birthday party coming up soon. Part of the reason I decided to come out was because one of my friends was getting me a Rainbow Dash plushie, you know, best pony. Duh. Of course, I didn't tell my bro that I was getting a plushie, but I was just a bit more vague about it. He already disapproves of me watching mlp and I don't want to sound even more obsessed than he already thought.
Before long, we were outside of SweetFrog. With Stanis chaining the bikes to a light post, I walked towards the store. SweetFrog is this amazing place where you can buy frozen yogurt and stuff and all sorts of toppings. Like usual, I decided to get some vanilla yogurt and all the toppings. My brother met me at the counter after making his creation and we purchased the master piece.
"It's been so long since I had SweetFrog last. I almost forgot how good it tasted."
With a snort, Stanis replied, "Well maybe you should go biking outside with me more instead of staying inside on your computer all day."
"Outside? More? Instead of on my computer?" I scoffed with feigned surprise. "I don't know who you think I am, but that sounds like a horrid way to spend one's day." I expected my brother to face palm or at least seem disappointed both at my overuse at that joke, but also at the insult to the outside world. Instead, I saw my brother sitting at his side of table with a drowsy look on his face.
"Hey, Earth to dumbass!" I snapped my fingers in his face. Before I could smack a bitch a few times to get his attention, I started to feel very drowsy myself, very fast. With consciousness fading fast from my mind very fast, I attempted to panic and do something, but I couldn't even remember what I was scared about in the first place. My eyes closed completely and sleep blanketed my mind.
