Selected Excerpts from:
The Journeys of Duchess Moon Dancer of Canterlot
An Autobiography

Most ponies throughout Equestria already know who I am. But, for the sake of this autobiography, allow me to introduce myself to you properly. My name is Moon Dancer. The title of nobility conferred upon me by Princess Twilight Sparkle is that of Duchess. But I prefer to be called simply by my birth name, Moon Dancer.

My exploits are very well known. Countless writers have written everything from history books to wildly speculative fiction and pithy comic scrolls about me. I have all of these tomes in my private library. I can tell you two things about them: First, I have read them all. Second, they are all fantastically embellished, if not outright wrong.

I suppose I brought some of that upon myself. Before I decided to write this autobiography I was a very private pony. Of course I have friends; many of which you do know much about including the Princess of Friendship herself. While I’m open to my friends, the public life is something I was never keen on indulging in.

I have been and always shall be a bookworm. You will learn throughout these pages that like my friends, books are very special too me as well.

Unfortunately, my silence has lead to claims that I am too stuck up for the masses, or my unofficial title as the Savior of Equestria or the Protector of the Unicorns went so far into my head that I am content with just living out my days basking in the splendor of the palace.

I can assure you, my dear reader, that is wrong. I lost countless nights of sleep over my decision to write an autobiography. Many of the souls in this book were alive at the time of its inception. Sadly, many have departed from this mortal coil to join the celestial aura, including my beloved. Their secrets will be shed within these pages. But history must be written down so that it is not forgotten.

My friends and loved ones, including my princess and even my children, all encouraged me to write this biography knowing full well that secrets of their private lives would be made public. But they agreed to do it for the greater good. The history of Equestria, even her darkest hours, needs to be written down for future generations.

What you have in your hooves is the result. This is the story of Moon Dancer, my journeys, my triumphs and failures, and the discoveries I have made.

I assure you that what words lie within these pages are as accurate as I could make them. Some were painful to write; others were a joy. But most of all, it is time I stepped out of the shadows and clear up the speculation around my name and my history, and to that extent a known but untold history of Equestria.

Finally, dear reader, I hope you will learn from this work what I have learned in my life. The lesson I hope to teach you is that the destination is not as important as the journey.

-Moon Dancer

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An appropriate place to begin my story is two days after the running of the leaves, fifty years ago in mid-town Canterlot. The setting hasn’t changed much so imagine a normal street in Canterlot on a bright sunny autumn day.

Crisp leaves tumbled down cobblestone streets silently towards the west. Gusts of wind or the wake from a delivery cart would occasionally pick them up in the air and they would swirl about before coming to rest against the worn smooth stone.

I caught briefly my reflection in the window of the bakery as I trotted past with a smile. Long before my mane’s colors muted with age it was a brilliant reddish amaranth with a streak of purple and violet. Just like today, I fancied sweaters. The one I wore then was a gray color and had a thick collar. The top of my mane was tied together in a messy ponytail with my favorite hair band; two plain pink balls of polished Bakelite.

I remember well that reflection. Beyond it, inside the bakery I saw my friends Lemon Hearts and Minuette. I caught Minuette’s eye and she waved at me with her usual cheery self. I pushed open the door to the bakery with my magic. The warm smell of baking dough and sugar icing delighted my nose.

“Hi Moon Dancer!” Minuette beamed as I walked up to the table and scooted out a seat with a brush of magic. I sat down and adjusted my old horn rimmed glasses. The publicly available pictures of me of that time illustrated just how simple I chose to live. That and I spent a sizable portion of my bits every month on books. The tape connecting the two broken halves of my glasses together was a testament to that.

After my glasses sat back down against my muzzle, my eyes focused on the delightful donut sitting in front of me, most likely purchased by Minuette. Having not had lunch beforehand and waking up a few hours before noon after an all night study binge takes a lot out of a mare, and I was no exception. I ate into the strawberry donut with coconut icing gleefully. “Sohhy umf laift. Hmmph.” I smiled at the little spectacle I was making myself into and swallowed, then breathed. “Sorry I’m late. All night study session.”

Lemon Hearts and Minuette both held their hoofs to their mouths and giggled. Minuette motioned a hoof at her lip while looking at me and I realized she was signaling that I had a lose crumb somewhere. A quick swipe of a napkin took care of it. “Oh, thank you.”

“No problem.” Minuette’s giggled again. I beamed at her in thanks.

Minuette’s dominant color was blue. She had a moderate blue striped mane with an even lighter highlight, glimmering sapphire blue eyes, and a light almost foal blue coat. We could never figure out her hourglass cutie mark. Everything about her seemed to say time was fleeting and wisdom was key, but in Minny’s presence you knew that happiness was more important than all of that.

The cynical among you might think that Minuette was hiding some deep dark secret behind her chipper presentation and brutally disarming smile, like her smile was forced and the gleam in her eyes were an illusion. But if you had a chance to spend enough time with Minny, you would have realized how wrong you were. Her enthusiasm was the force the glued all of my friends together, and her smile was so, so infectious. I can say that without question she was the leader of our little band.

To her right sat Lemon Hearts munching on a vanilla donut with chocolate sprinkles. While Minuette was the bright-blue bonfire in the room, Lemon Hearts was the sweet-yellow-coated former class clown that had all the good ideas. I say former class clown because over time her legendary antics as a filly became just legends. She also developed a reputation for organization and making lots of good quality food in a short period of time, a set of talents that landed her a very posh job at the Palace. Backing away from the practical jokes did wonders for her reputation. She even branched out of the Palace from time to time.

The rumor was, if you were going to be planning any big formal dinner in Canterlot you wanted Lemon Hearts to plan it out. But be forewarned, Lemon had a waiting list and the princesses took priority.

Then there was me. Moon Dancer. Over a year or so previously I never would have thought about eating donuts in this corner bakery with my friends. To be honest I didn’t even really think they were my friends. Books were my friends. Big, sturdy books. They were also my weakness and my retreat when hurt.

This time I’m recalling is me after Princess Twilight came back into my life and made amends with me; after she illustrated for me with a wave of her hoof just how many friends I always had. I smiled at the fortunes of my friends, and how fortunate I was to have them, and took another bite of my donut. There was pain still there of course. No pony living or dead ever really forgets just what rejection feels like, even if it wasn’t intentional.

That story is best left to Princess Twilight’s A Brief History of Friendship, chapter 5. Now, the overpowering emotion was the bond I felt with all of them. My friends made up for that pain in a big way.

“Hey.” My brow furrowed lightly in concern. I have told you about three of my friends, but there was another that was not there that day besides Twilight Sparkle, and Lyra Heartstrings, who moved to Ponyville several years ago. . “Where’s Twinkleshine?”

Minuette looked up at nothing as she thought about it a second. It wasn’t unheard of for Twinkleshine to be absent for our little daily ritual. She’d be out of town in Ponyville or Appleloosa or some other place.

Twinkleshine had inherited a small fortune upon the untimely deaths of her parents in a train accident. Her family had always been adventurous and in their will they insisted that their daughter see all of Equestria. Trips to Manehatten and Baltimare were common.

She was a jack of all trades. A true master of trying everything at least once. It landed her some exclusive credentials. She had tried theater acting and pizza delivery in Manehatten, hoofball playing and haydog vending in Baltimare. Apple bucking, rock farming, you name it. She had done it all and then some. Being a member of the Ponyville choir was one of her favorite activities, but it was by no means her only job.

All that travel meant that of all of us, Twinkleshine was the most world wise. This made her an effective anchor and a soft-spoken level-headed realist. She never held her wealth over us, and she was able to bring Minuette down when it became obvious that our friend had taken in too much happy helium.

More importantly, Twinkleshine was cautious about her travels and would always tell us where she intended to go and how we could contact her.

“She didn’t say anything about leaving Canterlot. Maybe she jaunted over to Ponyville for something.” Lemon suggested.

“Hmm. Possibbbllyyy…” Minuette sang, still lost in thought. Lemon Hearts looked at me.

“I’ve got nothing.” I responded to her unspoken question, and shrugged.

“Hey Waitaminute.” Minuette finally looked down from her imaginary sky and looked at both of us. “Doesn’t the Ponyville choir start practicing for their Hearths Warming concert right about now? She could be in Ponyville and simply forgot to tell us. She’s done that before.”

“You’re right, she did.” Lemon Hearts responded for the both of us, I nodded. “I swear that filly just needs to follow Lyra's lead and move to Ponyville with the time she spends there.”

We all giggled at that. It was also not uncommon for Twinkleshine to slip Ponyville in her sentences in place of Canterlot. Our missing pink-maned Daring Do loved Ponyville more than Canterlot. It probably had something to do with how much she adored the ways of the earth ponies, but she never admitted that to us. It was just obvious. Not too many Unicorns liked apple bucking for instance, Twinkleshine loved it.

With the mystery solved with a hypothesis for now, Minuette turned to Lemon while I finished off my donut. She put her head on her hooves and smiled. “So, any juicy gossip lately? State dinners or such and such?”

Lemon Hearts with her access to the palace, and even occasionally Princesses Luna and Celestia, was our insider. Sure we had Princess Twilight, but even though she made it a point to show up in our lives from time to time, Lemon Hearts proved to have the more entertaining gossip.

She gave us an unfiltered and candid picture of life inside the Palace. Even though she didn’t have a title of nobility, the servants and guards and everypony else all included her in their hushed conversations. Lemon Hearts was part of the Canterlot Palace’s informal gossip club. Her friendship with the Princess of Friendship elevated her to gossip purveyor and occasionally she was prodded for information on the whereabouts of Twilight Sparkle by a member of the royal guard who had taken a liking to our beloved princess, though he made her promise never to reveal his name.

Lemon swallowed and leaned in while smiling deviously. Minny and myself leaned in as well. Gossip was fun, and it reminded us that the princesses were ponies too. Well, immortal alicorns, but ponies nonetheless. “Wellll…. I learned something about Princess Celestia you might find quite interesting. See, since I work closely with the royal kitchen I’m privy to the requests from the residents. So, I was in the kitchen this morning and I overheard Chef Golden Truffle arguing with a servant about Celestia’s breakfast.”

After a bite of donut, she continued. “Turns out, the princess usually prefers black coffee in the morning with no cream or sugar, and rye toast with butter. The servant handling her breakfast had asked for black coffee with three sugars and sourdough with strawberry jam, so Chef Golden Truffle kept on loudly asking the servant to repeat the order. He was out of sourdough and was in a panic.”

Minuette and I looked at each other then back at Lemon Hearts. “I don’t’ get it,” we said in unison, shaking our heads.

“’sokay. I just found out myself what it means. It turns out, that Celestia only requests that breakfast whenever something is about to happen. The guards even figured it out. Any day that something bad is about to happen in Equestria, she requests coffee with sugar and sourdough with jam. The guards call it her ‘early warning breakfast.’” Lemon air quoted with her hooves. “Cool huh?”

Minuette laughed and began saying something back to Lemon Hearts, my reaction was more subdued. Her voice faded away quickly as I thought about all those times in the past where Celestia would have ordered that breakfast. Nightmare Moon, Discord, Tirek, the more recent problem with Starlight Glimmer. All those times Equestria was in some sort of danger. I thought of the Palace in total disorganized panic. But I wondered if it also triggered on small things like parasprites, bugbears, or Trixie Lulamoon. “Some early warning system.” I blurted out.

Minuette and Lemon stopped their chatter and looked at me. “’beg pardon?” My lemony yellow friend blinked.

I chuckled. “It’s nothing, I’m just thinking that it’s a reeaaaally effective way to know something’s bad is going to happen.” I enjoy sarcasm. “Is this more for amusement of the guards or do they take it seriously and try to prepare for an apocalypse that they don’t know anything about?”

“You know, I really don’t know. I just know the guards have a name for it and the chef starts yelling when it happens, but that’s just Chef Mushroom Butt flipping out over his world being thrown into abject chaos caused by lack of sourdough. So…”

“I wonder what’s going to happen.” I said. Equestria was rife with calamities in those days.

“It may be nothing. The princess ordered the same thing yesterday, and nothing bad happened.”

A few moments later Minuette snorted a laugh. “I wonder if they send scrolls to the other princesses with the words ‘Sourdough Emergency!’”

I looked back and fourth between my two friends laughing and smiled at Minuette’s corny joke. The friendly energy between us was always refreshing. I never wanted it to end. I didn’t know that this would be the last time for a while I would see two of my closest friends, or that I would be an integral part of the reason Celestia had ordered her Early Warning toast and coffee a second day in a row.

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Thirty minutes later we bid each other goodbye. Lemon Hearts was first out the door. She was always the first to politely excuse herself because she had a tight schedule at the Palace. This was the perfect way for us to know when it was time to leave. I exited the bakery behind Minuette.

“Don’t forget Saturday. Sleepover, my house.” Minny sang enthusiastically.

I chuckled and smiled. “Do you ever think we’ll outgrow sleepovers?”

My blue friend feigned shock and insult across her muzzle. “Why, I never ever want to hear you ask that question again Miss Dancer. You should be awfully ashamed of yourself.” She poked me in the side and turned her nose up in the air. “Outgrowing sleepovers. Hrmphh.”

She pranced a few yards ahead of me, turned around and winked.

I shook my head. “I swear, you’re worse than Pinkie Pie.”

“I learn from the best!” As Minny walked away she called back. “If you see Twinkleshine tell her to bring the hayburgers.”

“I will.” I called back and Minuette waved back moments before I lost her to the throng of Ponies walking about for their noonday commutes.

I looked around at the colorful scene and began the short walk to my next destination; the book store a few blocks closer to the palace. After that were my classes at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, of which I was a graduate student. While Twinkleshine loved Ponyville, I’ve always loved Canterlot. Being in the capital of Equestria, the seat of its power, had quirks that an intellectual like myself would never have been able to live without. Often times I wondered how Twilight managed to handle living in Ponyville for so long. Then again, with Twilight being the personal student of Princess Celestia, deliveries and visits were not a huge problem.

Canterlot was a town of Unicorns, and while earth ponies and pegasi also called Canterlot home, it was built on top of great pools of magic that only Unicorns could successfully tap. This was the home of Haycarte, Star Swirl the Bearded, and countless other wizards. Some of their houses were now museums, and their libraries were treasures that I could get lost in for months if I didn’t have to occasionally eat, sleep, or go out with my friends.

Then there was the palace that towered over all of this. It was built into the side of an ancient mountain, itself just as mysterious as the age of the original palace itself. The palace grew in size and splendor over time, but somehow I felt its space was never really wasted. It held powerful ponies, and rooms for every function imaginable. It also held within its walls special archives and the royal library containing books that I would have given anything to be able to see.

I stopped at an intersection and looked around to gather my bearings. I knew I probably could have asked Princess Twilight to let me see the palace archives. But I was so wrapped up in my studies and Twilight in her princess duties, it seemed time never let our paths cross long enough for me to ask. At least we considered ourselves friends, and that was worth a lot to me. The key to her personal Canterlot library helped as well.

“Everypony stand aside! This is official palace business! Stand aside please!” The gruff voice of a Canterlot Palace Guard snapped me out of my thoughts and into what was going on before me. I was standing at a corner watching a palace guard detail walk through the street. Naturally they had done a great job herding ponies on to the sidewalks as a sizeable detail of armored guards walked by. The crowd fell silent.

“Somepony important must be in that cart.” I heard a mare behind me whisper.

I was front and center for the whole show. I cantered my head to the side to spy a large carriage approaching. It was being pulled by two more palace guards. The carriage itself was a box carriage, used to transport cargo. This one had plain cloth covered sides.

Whatever it was, they didn’t want any pony seeing what was inside. It wasn’t gilded so the chances of any important pony being inside it were low. Prisoners? I smiled. The Palace dungeon was said to contain absolutely no prisoners most of the time. The riff raff usually ended up in the town police jail.

Slowly the carriage passed by, every now and then the entire thing creaked and shuttered as one of its four large wooden wheels ran over a particularly tall or loose cobblestone. The squeaky wheels where coupled with the rhythmic clip clop of the ponies pulling it as well as the guards walking alongside. Any pony could get lost in the sound. It sounded official and important.

Then I heard the crack.

To this day I do not know if I was the only pony who heard the sound of the carriage’s back axle giving way as one of its wheels dipped sharply into a pothole of displaced cobblestones, but I did. Adrenaline kicked in when I saw plain as day where the axle had split from the wheel to its center. The wheel nearest to me began to wobble.

The back of the carriage had just cleared the center of the intersection when it hit yet another odd cobblestone. The carriage shuttered, the wheel tilted severely and finally gave way.

The adrenaline blocked out the shouts of the guards and every noise other than the sound of my own levitation magic when I let my horn flare to grab the back axle in an attempt to prevent the back of the carriage from falling to the ground. I focused on the grey-green of my magic and could feel the weight of the cart feeding back on me through my horn. I closed my eyes at the strain.

“Help me.” I barked out and stepped forward, hoping to get leverage that way. The closer range would allow my magic to get a better handle on the axle.

All around me I could hear the unmistakable sound of magic flaring to life. I chanced a look around. It seemed like every unicorn, the guards and the bystanders, had all grabbed a hold of the cart in different places, and the weight diminished greatly. The wagon was covered in a patchwork of magic of all the colors on the rainbow. A few earth ponies were leaning against the cart and holding it up while some pegasi had grabbed the top frame in their hooves. It was a beautiful sight.

This was the indelible spirit of all ponies. It is our willingness to band together when something happens, to help other ponies.

I turned to one of the guards who noticed my gaze. The white Pegasus stallion smiled and nodded at me in thanks. Then I heard another crack, and a collective gasp from the crowd. The guard who had smiled at me now looked forward with a stone cold expression.

I discovered later that while all the ponies had a hold of the cart, no one had thought to coordinate the effort. Perhaps it was me that should have yelled out the crucial instruction to slowly let the cart down or prop it up on something. But hindsight was only twenty-twenty, and I’m the pony who had to wear horn-rimmed glasses.

The unfortunate side effect of all this magic and cooperation was that some unicorns were pushing against the cart with their magic and others were pulling. The earth ponies and pegasi were pulling the cart up. This meant every inch of the cart was straining in a different way. The wagon was old and the wood was due to be recycled. It would never see that day. Splintering and cracking filled the air to my left. I let my magic drop. I didn’t realize how close I was standing to the cart until it’s entire structure towering over me disappeared in a cloud of wood chunks. The cloth collapsed and so did its metal frame.

I fell to the ground and held my hooves over my head. Suddenly the world around me gave way to rainbow colored chaos. Wind rushed at my body from all directions. It made me feel like I was falling and flying at the same time. There were other things too. My eyes were closed but I could still see. For brief moments in time I lost awareness of my body like somehow I was being detached and re-attached.

Then I tumbled forward and out of that bright windy nothing, and on to a smooth cold surface. I came to rest on my back. I laid there for a moment, noting that the crowd had stopped talking. I distinctly remembered my life flashing before my eyes, but it was strange because I didn’t feel dead. Stranger still, my body didn’t feel right. Things felt out of place.

I caught hold of my breath and slowly inhaled, and then exhaled. The air seemed different, I also expected to smell the sharp aroma of splintered wood that I knew I had to have been laying on top of and under. Instead the air was crisp and clean, with faint odors I had never smelled before. I felt no pressure over me.

There were sounds that I couldn’t identify. They sounded mechanical and nearby. When I slowly opened my eyes I looked up into a crystal clear sky. Idly I wondered how long I had been out, and why no pony would have thought to help me up off the street. Then I thought back to the surface I had fallen on.

Stranger still, that particular intersection in Canterlot was all cobblestone. This surface was cement. “What the hay!” I muttered and sat up. The adrenaline wearing off left behind in its wake a nice headache and I moved a hoof to my forehead and froze when I noticed that my hoof didn’t look like my hoof.

“What!?” I dangled what was supposed to be my hoof in front of me. The fetlock and hoof were gone, and where there was supposed to be fur, just light yellow-gray hairless skin?

Panic started to rise in me as my brain registered that this strange looking foreleg was in fact mine. I turned what used to be my hoof over. My hooves had been replaced with skin covered digits, like a griffon’s front talons but much more delicate.

“H-how odd.” I laughed nervously. The headache seemed to grow. Instinctively I brought my new body part up to my forehead, then stopped all motion when I felt around smooth skin on my forehead. My horn was missing!

“My horn! Oh no oh no oh no.” I felt around my forehead and my muzzle and noticed it was much flatter. I could still feel my eyebrows but everything else to my eyes and nose and mouth were completely foreign. I felt for my ears, they were now to the sides of my head, level with my eyes.

Now in full panic, I turned myself clumsily around to get up, only to collapse again when I couldn’t gain balance and instead lurched forward, planting my face firmly into the ground. I turned around again and brought all my legs up above me. “Why are my hind legs so long!?”

“Hey! Are you okay!” A soft concerned feminine voice yelled out from somewhere. I turned to look at the source of it. It was a creature that seemed similar to my current state. She stood tall and appeared to be walking on her hind legs. The forelegs were moving around the sides, to keep balance? I didn’t know. There were actually two of these bi-pedal creatures. One had yellow skin and a long pink mane. The other had white skin and a violet mane.

They were both tall, really tall, and they were galloping towards me on two legs. I shrieked as panic set in. All I knew was that I had to get away from them. I momentarily forgot my predicament as I once again got up on all fours and tried to run. I didn’t do too well; I hadn’t bothered really taking stock of my surroundings. I conveniently ran head first into the hardest, sturdiest object nearby. It was the base of a statue, and it hurt. Ringing assaulted my ears.

The headache reached a crescendo and my vision blurred into stars “Ooooohhhhhh…”

Those two creatures were beside me then, but I couldn’t fight them. Oh what had I gotten myself into? All I could do was listen to them with difficult comprehension as I began to feel weightless.

“Are you okay? Hello? What’s your name?” The pink one asked the other. She was concerned? They weren’t attacking me? “Rarity,” she looked up at the other, “I’m worried she hit her head awfully hard. Oh I hope she’s okay.”

“Call nine-one-one and I’ll call Sunset.” The other responded sternly.

I noticed in one hoof they were holding something pink and rectangular while tapping upon it with the other. They then held them up to their ears. I had little time to ponder what they were doing. My thoughts were blurring and my world was fading to gray and pastel stars.

“Do you think she came from the portal?” The concerned one asked. I hung on that last word, portal.

“I don’t know.” The one identified as Rarity responded. “Hello Sunset, darling…” The rest was incoherent words while both of them began speaking through the rectangles they were holding. My consciousness slipped away shortly after.

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Moving in and out of consciousness is not fun. Time doesn’t work right. Everything is like a foamy gray and occasionally you get little wisps of reality, swimming right on the edge of awareness.

The first shred of consciousness I had was being inside something moving, like a carriage. There was a shrill wailing sound that dipped and rose in tone constantly. It sounded urgent and commanding. Above me was a metal like ceiling, cabinets of metal, and things like wires dangled from the walls and out of view. They swayed back and forth as the carriage turned.

I felt presence around me. Hints of yellow and pink, and that comforting tone of the creature that hovered over me before I passed out. There was another I hadn’t seen before, with blue hair and gray skin. It was holding something to my chest. They were speaking to each other.

I slipped back into frothy gray, then out again, inside a smooth beige thing, like I was sticking through the hole of a vanilla donut. There was a whirring noise around my head. I mumbled something and tried to move my head, then I felt a warm gentle pressure against my hoof. “Try to relax honey, it’s just a cat scan, you’re doing fine, everything’s fine.” It was a calming voice.

“c-cat scan? That sounds redicu-lo” I remember asking in barely a mumble. Consciousness slipped away from my grasp again.

Amongst the gray I saw what I thought was Princess Luna. First there was a hint of purple and black that coalesced into the visage of an alicorn standing straight and tall as I felt her approach. Her face filled my vision and her eyes closed in delight as she whispered. “I’m glad you’re safe. I’ll tell the others. Don’t panic when you wake.”

The purple faded into points of light. The miasma began to subside from my senses. My hearing was first to return. It faded in as waves, first as muffled tones and then a full range of sound. I first heard a beep that seemed to coincide with my heartbeat. The low murmur of a dozen or so different conversations then swam in. I was in a large room, I judged from the echoes. I was on my back in a rather uncomfortable bed.

I heard somepony talking beside me, to my left. It was a male voice, slow and subdued, as if whoever it was didn’t want to wake me. “I have good news. The results of the cat scan show that while there is some swelling consistent with a concussion, it is very minor. The nurse said that Miss Dancer was briefly conscious during the procedure so she should come to pretty quickly.”

“Does she need to stay for observation?” Yet another new and unfamiliar voice asked what I supposed was a doctor. What was with all these new voices?

I had enough mental capacity to think again clearly at that point. I must have been in a hospital. I had a concussion. I cursed myself for not following up on the more recent applications of magic in the field of medicine. Using cats to scan for concussions sounded rather odd. Forcing those cats into some big donut shaped tube around my head sounded downright insane. But hey, stranger things have happened.

A concussion would have also explained the odd things I had seen. Perhaps whatever was in the wagon had fallen on me and knocked me out? This had all been a concussion inspired dream.

My eyes fluttered open to a sterile, white and unfamiliar ceiling of rectangular panels. One panel held what seemed like a light source of some sort. “Uuughhh.” I breathed through something that covered my mouth.

“She’s awake.” I heard the doctor say, then I saw his face. He had a black mane, blue skin, purple eyes, and a flat muzzle. It was one of those creatures again!

“Eeep!” I yelled out in shock.

Don’t panic when you wake. Princess Luna’s suggestion seemed fitting about then. I had no idea what these things where, and they didn’t seem dangerous, yet. I blinked and looked around. I repeated it in my mind like a mantra. Don’t panic when you wake. Don’t panic when you wake. Don’t panic when you wake.

The doctor creature held something in his strangely-digited hoof that filled my eyes with light. It caused me to blink uncontrollably. Another creature appeared over me and to my right. Unlike the doctor, who was smiling politely, she had concern in her eyes and a deep nervous frown across her lips.

Our eyes locked on to each other’s. I studied her features carefully while the doctor removed whatever had been covering my mouth. Its stretchy straps tugged against my mane as he pulled it up. She had amber skin and a red mane, much like mine, except she had yellow stripes in hers. Her hair bracketed her face in slight curls. I then realized the look in her cyan eyes were telling me that she knew something that I knew.

The doctor spoke up. “I’m going to ask you a few questions okay. I just want to make sure you’re firing on all cylinders. Nod if you understand, and say okay.”

“Okay.” I nodded and looked at the doctor. I had no idea what he meant by firing on all cylinders but I assumed that meant I was okay.

“What is your name?”

“Moon Dancer.”

“Great! What day of the week is it?”

“Thursday.” I offered.

“Good, good.” The doctor looked down at a clipboard and wrote something down. “Finally, who is the President of the United States?”

“Um.” I paused. President? United States? “I don’t know.” Just great. I managed to piece enough together at this point I had a fairly good idea what was going on… I breathed…

I’m Moon Dancer, a brave unicorn pony from Equestria who saved the unknown contents of a cart bound for the palace, only to have said contents fall on me. Get this, those contents were a portal to some place called United States! So hilarious.

I smiled awkwardly. “I don’t know?”

The doctor, didn’t look up from his clipboard. “Two out of three. You did hit your noggin. We’re going to give you some time to rest up and-“

“Who is the current ruler of Equestria?” The amber one beside me asked quickly. “And who is the Princess of Friendship.” The doctor and I looked over at her. Her face had lost all expression. Her eyes held mine. Something settled in the pit of my stomach.

I had never seen these strange bipedal creatures before in my life. Nothing, absolutely nothing in the multitude of books up to that time had anything mentioning them. Equestria has bi-pedal creatures of course, various primates, minotaurs, baby dragons, and some odd and end creatures are able to walk bi-pedal for short distances.

Discord came close. But discord was pure chaos whereas these, whatever they were, shared common characteristics, just like ponies. Throughout the known world ponies had met strange and sentient beings. Nothing like these creatures. This line of thought also didn’t explain why I was now one of them.

I realized the air around me was thick with the questions asked of me. Cyan eyes were still focused in on me, drilling holes into my head. The doctor had put down his clipboard and just watched with mouth agape.

I finally answered. “Princess Celestia is the ruler of Equestria and Twilight Sparkle is the Princess of Friendship.”

This invited a quizzical stare from the doctor. “What does that mean?”

I turned and looked at the girl as well. “Yes. What does that mean?” I asked her, pleading with her to tell me something about how she knew about Equestria, Princess Celestia or even Twilight Sparkle.

The amber colored girl giggled. “Oh Moon Dancer, stop being so silly. You had us all worried.” She reached in and hugged me, and ruffled my mane. I couldn’t turn away fast enough from what I assumed then to be a crazy basket case. “See, my sister has a pretty vivid imagination and has this entire world she created with these magical princesses that rule over a land of fairy tales called Equestria. She’s hoping to get a book published!”

She ruffled my mane once more. I tried to swat her away. “I think she’s going to be just fine doc.”

The doctor breathed. “All the same. I’d like to keep her here a few more hours for observation, then we can let her go home.”

“Okay, if you insist.” The crazy one pouted. “Now if you’ll excuse me doc, I’d like to talk to my sister, alone.”

She led the doctor out of the little curtain divided room that I then realized I was in. Once the doctor was thoroughly banished, she shut the curtain and turned to me. Her expression then seemed less crazy and more cautious. I knew at that point it had all been an act. “Sorry about that.” She said quietly as she walked back towards me. “How do you feel?”

“My head hurts. I’ve been better.” I responded, then got down to business. “But you’re not my sister, and tell me how you know about Equestria, because as far as I can tell, Equestria this is not.”

“I better fill you in on what happened to you and where you are. First things first. If the doctor asks you who the president is, its Frank Cards. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now, did Princess Twilight ever tell you about the portal to the human realm?”

“Human?” I asked. I held up my hooves and waved the digits in front of my face. “Is that what I am in this place?”

“Indeed. Those are hands. Your forelegs are called arms. You are currently a human being. You have the portal to thank for that.” Thank you portal. “Humans are the dominant species here. There’s no magic.” She frowned strangely. “At least not much.”

I studied her eyes. Her answers were yielding more questions. “How do you know my name?”

“Princess Twilight told me your name.”

“But-“ She held up her hand and I fell silent.

“Please. Perhaps, I should start from the beginning.”.

She was right. We would have made it to the magical land of nowhere had I peppered her with questions.

“Shortly after you arrived I got a message from Princess Twilight. I’m able to communicate with her. I’ll explain how later on but you must know what happened. That carriage you tried to save was transporting a mirror. But it is more than just a mirror. It is a portal that connects Equestria to the human world.”

“I take it the mirror fell on top of me.”

“It did. Not many ponies know about the mirror. Princess Twilight and her closest friends know, as well as the Princesses themselves. Also myself and my friends here.”

“Now me, I’m afraid.” This was most excellent news, in a sarcastic sense. “But I’m friends with Twilight and she never told me about the mirror.”

“It might be just the Elements of Harmony. Anyway, and here’s the bad news.” The girl turned away from me and started pacing. I noticed during her pause that she was wearing clothing from head to fetlock. There were several different articles of clothing, including a black jacket with orange stripes on the arms, as well as a light blue shirt and blue pants. This world must have had a taboo on nudity, or frowned upon it.

She continued, “Princess Twilight tried to come in after you. She couldn’t. The mirror opens for a few days every 30 moons, but the princess found a way to preempt that. Whatever way that was stopped working. Twilight’s busy trying to figure out what happened. She doesn’t even how it opened for you. I’m, afraid, you’re trapped here for a while.”

I looked at her, deadpan, and let my head drop on the pillow. “Great. Just great.”

I stared at the ceiling, studying its otherworldly tiled appearance. I had seen nothing like it. The light tile in particular was really strange. It was all quite fascinating.

A silence fell over us, and I thought about all I had learned. My new red and sunshine maned friend knew an awful lot about Equestria and had intimate knowledge of the Princesses. She even had hidden knowledge about a portal to another world that the Princesses had conveniently kept from the public eye. That meant one obvious thing. “You’re from Equestria, aren’t you.”

“You’re right, I am.” It was comforting to know I wasn’t the only pony here. “Did you know that Princess Celestia had a student before Twilight Sparkle?” She asked.

“Yes. I met her once when I was a little filly. She was awfully rude and stuck up. She wasn’t a very nice pony to be around.” It was nothing but the truth. That same pony, Sunset Shimmer, had disappeared to whereabouts unknown. The rumor was she had wronged the princess so badly that she was in a forced exile.

“Yeah, I was, wasn’t I.” …And I had just found her.

I tilted my head to look at her. She was looking down at the ground with one arm held in the other hand. The way she didn’t look up at me told me this wasn’t a comfortable thing to dredge up, but at least I had a name to go with the face.

She sighed, then looked up at me. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Sunset Shimmer.”

Author's Note

Aaaannnnd there is chapter 1 and we have the two principal characters of this little adventure!

After the Prologue and Chapter 1 I will be settling into a cycle where I post a chapter after the next chapter is complete. This means that you will see chapter 2 after I'm done with chapter 3, and so on and so fourth. This is so that I can have at least one chapter in the pipeline in case anything happens in real life that prevents me from completing a chapter in the time that I would like. You will not be waiting so long for another chapter in case that does happen.