Child of the Moonby _MoonbeamChaptersPrologueThe HouseguestThe OfferThe ChangeThe HomecomingPrologueI didn't realize it at the time, but for me, everything started quite a while before the talking horse showed up and asked me to… Sorry, getting ahead of myself. There was quite a bit leading up to that point, sure. However, the first one that I was there for was the dream, about two years before the alicorns found me. A forgotten temple. No, an empty city. No, a mountaintop. Landscapes shimmered in and out of my perception as I tried to settle on a location that seemed interesting enough to spend the night in. Back then, my lucid dreams were occasional, but not uncommon enough for me to give this time much surprise. I eventually settled on an infinitely expansive field, setting up the lucid dream. Shutting my mind’s eye to concentrate on specific details of the dream, I could feel some of the changes I made fill in around me. A flat, grass-covered plain, under a clear, sunny sky without any other structures as far as the eye could see. I’d add some later, but for now I’d just sit down and contemplate for a bit. Once I was confident all the details were right, I mentally opened my eyes and took a step forward. The laws of physics are different in dreams. For things like flying, that's great. When the ground suddenly decides to become noncorporeal, not so much. Without warning, I was in freefall through a floor that had been solid a second earlier. And if you think it's disorienting when you fall off the map in a game, I can assure you it has nothing on actually experiencing it. Stupid dream grass. I'm not sure if I ever really stopped falling, or if the dreamscape above me vanished, leaving me without anything to orient myself. I'd fallen into a space-like area, seemingly without any discernible features. This new dreamscape was unstable. Chunks of stars would move in and out of existence, and when I looked down at my hands, they were… fuzzy, like on a television with bad reception. That in itself was unusual. Normally, the only time a dream stopped feeling real was when I stopped concentrating on it. In front of me, a mass of energy condensed. It wasn't magic or anything, but when there's another person by you, you can just kind of… sense it. That's what this was. At first, I couldn't see it at all, before a coherent figure started to become visible. I didn't recognize it at first, only something large, dark, and definitely not human. As it continued to focus through the unstable environment, I could see a dark purple-blue unicorn, with a pair of wings on its back and a mane that looked like the night sky, nearly identical to the one behind it. It only said one thing. “It's you.” It was a woman's voice, but distorted like everything else here, as if put through a voice synthesizer. Even through that, the voice carried a hint of loss, as if the unicorn had recently been crying, or perhaps was just about to start. It- she, I guess - took a deep breath, distorted by the mental static. Before she could say anything else, the dream collapsed. The stars in the background went out as if an invisible wave passed through the sky. The presence in front of me suddenly winked out of existence, severing a tiny thread of silver light I hadn't noticed connecting us at her horn. As abruptly as it had started, I was alone in the abyss. I woke up with a start, gasping for air. After I'd caught my breath, I rolled over in bed to check my alarm clock. 5:27. Too early to actually get out of bed, but too late to go back to sleep. Deciding on a happy medium, I pulled my phone off the bedside table. I knew I had seen that unicorn before somewhere, but I couldn't remember where. Luckily for my sleep-addled mind, the first search result for “purple-blue unicorn wings moon” was a wiki page for Princess Luna. A cartoon version, but clearly the same as the thing I had just seen. A My Little Pony character. Having had no experience with the show up to that point other than reputation, my first reaction was, “I really hope that's not my subconscious mind trying to tell me something about my sexuality.” (I later found out I was closer than I thought). Directly underneath the picture was a “first appearance” label. Lucky me, she's in the pilot. After thinking it over for a moment, I turned up my phone’s volume. Not like there was anything more productive I could be doing, I told myself. I'd watch the episode on Netflix, laugh off the odd coincidence, and forget about the whole thing. I'm sure you can guess exactly how that went. The HouseguestThe fate of two worlds hung in the balance. " Galactus has reached Equs!" shouted Luna in the Royal Canterlot Voice. "We'll take down his minions," Wolverine responded. "Take the X-Shuttle to space and-" I threw my head against the back of the chair in frustration. Were I not in public, I would have slammed my forehead into the desk. I held down the backspace button for a few seconds and resumed my normal task of staring at a blank Word document. Everyone else in the room was still stuck in a physics test I finished fifteen minutes ago. I had other problems. I never did figure it out, I could write essays just fine in English class, but when it came to this, I just couldn't think of anything. I kept hoping inspiration would strike someday. Apparently, that was not going to be today. After a few more minutes of staring at a blank sheet of digital paper, I gave up and shut the laptop. Despite the fact a few other students had finished, we all had to sit quietly. That, and think about our mistakes. Not on the test. I probably got the best score in the class. For the past several years, I'd been running around on the Internet. Watching YouTube videos, reading My Little Pony fanfiction, the usual stuff. I'm not sure why I started trying so hard to give back now, in my senior year of high school. I've got enough to worry about anyway, but that's just how I do things sometimes. Maybe that's what makes it all the more embarrassing that I can't write to save my life. Eventually, enough people finished for the teacher to let us go. I was hardly surprised to see my girlfriend, Sara, standing outside the classroom waiting for me, despite the fact she was supposed to be in the middle of class. I still don't know exactly what it was we saw in each other; I was a straight-A student who had just gotten accepted to the best liberal arts college in the state, she barely showed up at school half the time. “Heyyy, handsome.” she said, grabbing my arm. She was trying to sound seductive and failing so badly she had to be faking it. “Hi, Sara.” I haphazardly responded back. “Wanna come over to my house later tonight? My parents are gone for the weekend on some business trip.” That was unlike me, but circumstances were changing. The college I was accepted into was over an hour away, so I'd would up spending more and more time with her. She shook her head. “Sorry, Chris. I've got a job interview at 5. Maybe tomorrow?” That was a surprise. She hadn't tried to get a job since the babysitting incident in her sophomore year. Even so, she sounded sincere enough. “All right.” I answered. “Tomorrow.” I never did find out if she was telling the truth. The last hour or so of school was pretty mundane. There's not much I could say about it you couldn't already guess. French was the worst. I nearly fall asleep in there multiple times, and I like school. My seat was near the back of the room, so if anyone else noticed me that day, none of them bothered to point out that I was completely out of it. The only thing even remotely interesting happened halfway through, when I was practically asleep at the desk. I heard a voice, in my head. It sounded… Choppy, like a radio with a bad signal. The voice was female, but I couldn't make it out. I just heard something that sounded vaguely like “M---*shrnnk* --a- -*buzz* ---ng.” I sprang up, and my knees hit the bottom of my desk, sending my pencils rolling onto the ground. Everyone else must have been at least as tired as I felt, because none of them pointed it out, not even the teacher, who didn't miss a syllable. As I picked up the pencils I knocked away with when I came out of my little stupor, I concluded I had just had a daydream, and my thoughts got away from me. Yeah. That was totally it. The auto shop I worked at was closed on Fridays, so I more or less had the whole house to myself. I walked into my room, shut the door, and pulled out a high-capacity USB drive. I carried the thing everywhere up to that point, even if it was largely unnecessary. My parents wouldn't get it, but I doubt they would freak out too much if they found out what I had on it; I mean, it's not like there was porn or anything. (That was in the external hard drive.) Then again, I've been wrong before… I plugged it into the computer and opened the drive. I had all five seasons of My Little Pony on there. It took me quite a bit of googling to get them all (thanks, Hasbro! buckers.), but it was probably worth it. It had been a few months since I watched the first two episodes, might as well start there. I never got tired of the Nightmare Moon storyline. Don't get me wrong, more recent seasons are great too, but I always did like the original few the best. By the time I was done with the episodes, it was almost 6, so I went to the kitchen and threw some Kraft Mac n’ Cheese on the stovetop. It's not exactly gourmet dining at my house when I'm the only one there. Mom called my aversion to cooking laziness. I called it advance preparation for college. As I was waiting on the water to boil, something felt… off. Not in a “deja vu” way, but… when someone is near you, even if you can't see them, you know. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting - a break in, or maybe Sara’s job interview went even worse than I expected. I was not expecting to turn around and see Princess Luna. Luna Eclipsed did not adequately prepare me for what the Princess of Night actually looked like. Obviously, she looked like her cartoon counterpart, but, well, that's a cartoon. It vaguely resembles the real Luna, in the same way Bilbo from the animated Hobbit movie vaguely resembles Martin Freeman. She was sitting on the floor, and was probably about at eye level with me. She didn't have on her crown, or the chest armor and horseshoes she usually appears with in the show. Obviously, she looks quite a bit like a horse on Earth, but that would be like saying a supermodel looks quite a bit like a gorilla. She was significantly more evenly toned than a horse, and had a brain cavity nearly as large as a human’s. I later found she was incredibly light - about fifty pounds, despite being nearly as large as a horse from Earth- but could still get slammed into a brick wall and walk away without a bruise. Her cutie mark was about the same as it looks in the show, but it seemed more like a pattern in the fur itself than any kind of tattoo. The crescent moon was pure white, a sharp contrast to the pitch black fur splashed around her flanks, as if someone had spilled India ink all over her back. The rest of her body was covered in a thin layer of dark purple fur, which was immaculately well-groomed. Not a hair was out of place. Luna’s mane and tail still waved in nonexistent wind, but they didn't look like hair. If anything, I'd say they look like an animated picture of the night sky. And I don't mean they're dark with a bunch of white, glow-y areas, I mean I couldn't see any individual strands of hair, and the stars actually twinkle without Luna doing anything. I swear I saw a shooting star in her tail. Her wings rested at her sides, and were way, way bigger than they look in the show. If she fully extended them, she'd probably have at least an eight-foot wingspan. Her horn was an even deeper purple than the rest of her, practically black. It was nearly two feet long, and looked sharp enough to impale someone with. Her eyes were a brighter blue than any I'd ever seen on a human, and were pointed straight at me. I thought it was an optical illusion at the time, but they were glowing. Actually emitting a small amount of light. While not as ridiculously large as they appeared in the show, they were still quite a bit bigger than a human’s, and seeing them so focused on me was almost mesmerizing. After I walked a full loop around her, Luna stood up to her full height, about a head taller than me. I wasn't sure why at the time, but when she finally said something, it made my hair stand on end. I guess some things are just universal, no matter what universe you grew up in. "We need to talk." The OfferAt some point, we've all wondered what it would be like if we could meet our favorite fictional character. (Yes, you. Don't worry, you can admit it. I'm a paragraph on a website, I don't judge.) Maybe it was Harry Potter, or or whoever your favorite member of the Mane 6 was. Maybe you've thought about what you would actually do if you actually got to meet them. No matter how you'd think it would go, I can personally attest that if the magical alicorn princess of the night suddenly decides to show up inside your home without warning, you will probably react something like this: First, you will go through your memories of the past few hours, just to make sure you didn't accept candy from a questionable stranger at some point that day. If the answer is "no," you will probably stare at said no-longer fictional character, waiting for them to do something. To her credit, Luna really didn't react to me while I was ogling her, other than following my gaze when I walked around her. In hindsight, I probably should have at least introduced myself. Or done something other than have a staring contest. At some point, I'm still not sure exactly how long it took me, you will work up the courage to reach out and touch them. The area my hand happened to find was Luna's mane, which still seemed like it was an animated oil painting up close. It didn't feel like hair, I couldn't even feel any individual hairs. I'm not entirely sure how to describe it, it felt… viscous, sort of oily, but without the wetness, and it didn't stick to my hand. It definitely felt real enough. So, to recap, a My Little Pony character was in my house, sitting on the floor while I stuck my fingers into her mane. I'm not exactly a diplomat, but I'm pretty sure that this was not the best way to introduce humanity to an alien diarch who has the power to control the moon in her home world. I stepped away from Luna and pulled out my phone. I needed somebody else here, to make sure I wasn't going completely and utterly insane. I wasn't sure who I was planning to call. Maybe Sara, maybe my parents, maybe the police. Well, no. I never did consider calling the police. I doubt they really would have helped. Regardless, I never got the chance. Nothing I had done before grabbing my phone had caused any real reaction from her, but that did. A spark of - was that fear? - shone in her eyes. Ponies’s faces are far more expressive than a normal horse’s, or even a person. It must have been fear. "Wait!" she whispered forcefully, taking a half step towards me. She was cautious, as if she was afraid of scaring me away, but was also worried about the the device in my hand. To her, I was a bunny holding a shotgun. Apparently, there was something about my phone that scared the Princes of Night enough that a second after she saw it, I felt a tugging from it and the phone went sailing across the room, coming to a stop next to the wall opposite me, seemingly uncracked. When Luna spoke again, she was visibly tensed up, as if she expected a monster to pop out of my phone. Actually, given what Equestria is like and how little she knows about Earth, that's not a bad guess. "You… you probably shouldn't use that," she stated in what sounded like a subdued version of the Royal Canterlot Voice that was still loud enough to make the closest window vibrate. Hopefully, none of the neighbors noticed. “O-okay..." I managed to stammer out. The last thing I needed was to inadvertently doom the entire planet to annihilation because I scared an extraterrestrial world leader. "...Do you want..?" Think! Something I could grab in a few minutes that an alicorn would like! "...Coffee?" was the first thing that came to mind. Luna went wide-eyed. "You have coffee?" she asked, grinning like a five-year-old in a toy store. And that was how, five minutes later, Princess Luna was sitting on my couch, still staring at me. I was utterly mesmerized as Luna grabbed a cup of coffee I made with her telekinesis. I didn't feel anything unusual when she grabbed the cup out of my hand, which made my second observation even stranger: there was no visible sign of what she was doing. She didn't have a glow-y field around the mug, not even her horn lit up. The entire time I was getting the drink, I don't think she ever stopped staring at me. She hadn't spoken since asking for coffee. It was honestly starting to get unsettling. Luna started drinking from the mug in small sips, as if wanting to savor it, then giving up and chugged the rest of the drink in one long gulp. Once she put it down, she went straight back to looking at me. At this point, I was struggling to think of something to say to her, and it looked like she was doing the same thing. Apparently, Luna decided on what to say first. “You should probably sit down.” She pulled herself off the couch, and I took her place. As soon as she sat down on the floor, she continued. "My name is Princess Luna. I have no doubt you already know this, but I am not from your world. Six years ago, I Returned to ruling my nation, Equestria, after a long exile. Shortly after I regained power, I began looking at Earth." I must have looked more scared than I felt, because Luna seemed to soften her tone. "N-not for conquest, if that is what you are afraid of. I don't want anything from your species - hoo-mans? Is that what you call yourselves?" I coughed. "Humans." I responded. "Humans? Yes?" I nodded. "All right. In any case, I don’t want anything to do with Earth. I only came here tonight for one reason." She took a few steps closer to me. "And we're looking right at it." Maybe if this was all just hypothetical, I could have come up with some collected, informative response on behalf of the human race. It wasn't, though. This was real, and so I said the only thing I could think of: "Why me?" For the first time since I saw her, Luna broke her gaze. Staring off into some random point in the distance, she started to speak. I'm not even sure she was talking to me, just letting out a painful memory. "We... we had a child. When they were just a yearling, we lost them. For years, we never saw them, were never able to find them. It was like our child just vanished off the face of the world." She turned back to face me. Her muzzle was streaked with tears. "Until-" her voice cracked - "until now." Perhaps, given Luna’s emotional state, I was too demanding with my response, but let's be honest, would you have reacted any differently? I sat down on the couch. "Wait. You're telling me that you had a long-lost son, and it's somehow me, despite me having two biological human parents who both have no idea who or even what you are?" I buried my head in my hands. In hindsight, maybe I was being too critical - I mean, I was hearing this from what I thought until about twenty minutes ago was a fictional character from a television show intended for six-year-old girls. I was asking quite a bit for something. - anything, really, at this point - to make sense. I felt an appendage wrap around me from the side. It was warm and sort of prickly, almost... feathery? I turned my gaze back to Luna. During my small outburst over the sheer insanity she had wreaked upon me since appearing in my house, she had apparently gotten back onto the couch and scooted over to me, then wrapped her left wing around me like a child's safety blanket. "Well, no. That... isn't quite right." Her tone was calm, like I was a little animal Fluttershy was trying to calm down, even though we were both about the same size. She took a deep breath, then continued. "I didn't have a son." Her voice started breaking again. "I... I had a daughter." I shut my eyes, trying to process everything that she was saying. Let's see: a princess of Equestria, from a cartoon show I watch, suddenly appeared in my house. She then told me that I was somehow her long-lost daughter, despite me being an 18 year old man with two very present parents, not to mention that Luna had been on the moon for the past thousand years, assuming the show was recent history from her perspective. What's next, am I an alicorn or something? How are you even supposed to respond to the kind of information she gave me? "I have an... offer for you," said Luna, derailing my train of thought before I could find an answer. She said it in a flat voice, like she’d rehearsed it. Luna paused, as if waiting for a reaction from me. When none came, she continued. She tried to hide it, but she was clearly upset. I'm still not sure if it was with me, with Celestia, or with herself. Or maybe all three. "You can come home. To Equestria. As a mare. You will have the privileges of a noble, have quarters in the castle with a private teacher to bring you up to speed with Equestrian life, and live as my daughter.” I didn't respond at first. I had to judge what was going on. "And...if I don't?" I asked, trying to figure out how to answer her. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. A single tear trickled down her cheek. "If..." her voice caught, and she made a noise that sounded like a horse had choked while trying to gargle. I couldn't tell if it was a whinny or a sob. "If you turn down our offer, we will erase your memory of tonight. Our paths will never again cross, and we... we will leave you to carry out your human life - here." That was clearly too much for her to take, and she buried her head in my chest, sobbing softly. If she really thought I was her child whom she hadn't seen in years, it must have been a pretty emotional night for her, especially if I couldn't remember anything from Equestria. It almost felt like a large dog was pushing itself against my chest, so I did the first thing that came to mind. Luna was considerably lighter than me, as I found when I pulled her into my lap, and started rubbing her belly. That seemed to calm her down quite a bit. Well, at least, the sobbing stopped. That's a step. Now what? Luna was asking a lot from me. Emigrating to a magical world inhabited by magical ponies was going to have consequences, and those consequences could be terrible. ~~Even~~ Especially if I was the daughter of one of their rulers. Daughter. Odd that that stuck out so specifically. An alien princess from a children's cartoon who claimed I was somehow her child was currently sitting in my lap while I petted her like a dog. In that context, anything else is kind of a minor detail. Even besides the loss of species, I had a pretty good future ahead here on Earth. Guaranteed acceptance to an Ivy League college, a moderately attractive girlfriend, a 3.9 GPA, the works. The idea of throwing all that away after a fifteen minute conversation under ordinary circumstances was... troubling, to say the least. But Luna appearing in my home was definitely not what I would call “ordinary circumstances.” Maybe, looking back, if I wasn't put on the spot like this, I would have had a different reaction. Then again, if I'm really being honest with myself, I made up my mind the second she said I could come with her. When I looked back at her, Luna was a little bit more collected. Or, more accurately, she was no longer crying. I cleared my throat. "Luna?" I called for her gently. She didn't move most of her body, just rotated her head to face me with a range of neck motion no horse on Earth possessed. Her eyes were still wet, but not bloodshot. That was odd. I brushed a few tears off of her face. She wasn't saying anything. Sometimes, I wonder if I should have done what I did. Literally every problem I've since had in my life, I was dragged into by those three words. In the end, though, I never would have said anything else. "I'll do it." The ChangeLuna gave me a blank stare. I could feel her muscles tense up involuntarily. Whatever she was expecting me to say, it wasn't “yeah, sure, I'll toss away everything I ever knew and loved (except an obsession with a children's show nobody else knows about, including my significant other!)” Luna's eyes went wide. “Really?” She regarded me quizzically, as if she hadn't actually expected me to agree that quickly. In one fluid motion, she flipped off of my lap and landed on the floor with reflexes that seemed more catlike than anything else. “Thee… Thee will come with us?” No turning back now. I nodded. Before I could respond further, she tackled me, squealing like a little girl. I could see her tearing up again, but this time, it wasn’t out of sadness. “You're coming back.You're coming back to me. Moonbeam.” I had prepared for a lot of different circumstances and possibilities in my life. Having to explain that I was going to disappear without a trace in order to live with a talking unicorn who claimed to be my long lost mother, to my biological mother, was not one of them. Just when you think you've covered all based… That left me with just a few minutes to figure out how to break the news to my loved ones without sounding like I'd finally lost it. I walked over to my computer and pulled it out of sleep mode, causing Luna to jump. For a moment, I expected her to ask what the computer was, but she backed away from me, seemingly biting down on her tongue. She had been keeping an odd distance since I'd accepted her offer. Doing my best to put it out of my mind, I pulled up Word and quickly typed up an explanation which would hopefully prevent my face from appearing on a milk carton: I've just received an excellent offer, which will likely cover me for the rest of my lif- (Insert info dump here) . I have chosen to accept it, and I'll have left by the time you read this. I'm not sure if I'll be back or not, or write again, but I'm going where I want to be. -Chris Hardly perfect, but it was going to have to do. I briefly considered sending something less vague to Sara, but ultimately decided against it. I didn't realize it until much later, but this was my way of breaking up. Probably for the best, all things considered. Long distance relationships are hard enough between states, I'd rather not try to keep something up between dimensions. Besides, she could never stand my obsession with MLP. I spun around in my chair, putting me almost nose to nose with Luna. While I'd been writing, she had quietly walked up to my computer and read over my shoulder. When I turned around to face her, she suddenly became very interested in a particular spot of carpet directly beneath her hooves. I could see why. Albeit unintentionally, her arrival forced me to choose between her and my human existence. I know I made it in stride, but that isn't a choice I would force on anyone. By going with her, I was throwing away the last seventeen years of my life. Even if I reunited her family, it would destroy mine. “Luna?” I called out to her. She looked back at me with a soulful gaze that would rival Fluttershy, as if half-expecting me to say I'd changed my mind about leaving. I tried to put on a reassuring smile. “How long will it take you to get that transformation spell ready?” I guess I still could have said no. Luna could have erased my memory, left without a trace, and I would never have known otherwise. Luna would have, though. Moreover, this wasn't an unwelcome concept to me. My life just turned into the opening of an HiE fic, I'd never forgive myself if I let an opportunity like that pass me by. If Luna had any doubts about me coming with her earlier, they were long gone now. I swear I saw a hint of a smug grin cross her face. “About as long as it'll take you to take off your clothes.” Okay. It was more than a hint. Luna swears I made a sound that vaguely resembled an elephant sneezing. All I know is that it must have been pretty funny, because Luna actually laughed, before abruptly cutting off. That was easily the most human thing I'd seen her do since she showed up, but even that was fairly equine. It sounded familiar, but I couldn't figure out where I'd heard it before. It wasn't obviously a whinny or anything like that, and I can't remember Luna laughing in the show. That was going to bug me for a while. “So… Just to clarify, this is permanent, right?” I broke the silence, partly because I'd had enough awkward staring for the night. Partly because I wanted information. Had Luna not effectively guilt tripped me into coming with her ~~oh, don't give me that face, we both know it's true.~~ Sorry, got distracted. Had Luna not effectively guilt tripped me into coming with her, I would have asked for this information long before... well, probably saying yes anyway. Obviously, I related to Twilight Sparkle the most out of the Mane 6. My world may have just been turned inside out, but I still wasn't making an uninformed decision! “More or less.” Came the reply. “Humans are… odd, concerning magic. It just sort of passes around you, like it can't… see you, I guess would be the word. I'm sure you noticed you couldn't see anything when I used my magic, but I see a glowing field around what I focus on. To get you functioning like a normal pony, I'll have to add in a lot of magical safeguards, or your body would reject the magical energy needed to get us both to Equestria, which would probably kill you. The safeguards also have the side effect of locking you in the pony form, unless an extremely powerful magician wants very much to get them off.” “A powerful magician… Like… You?” I don't think she was expecting me to understand most of that explanation. Luna shrugged her forehooves and begrudgingly muttered an “I suppose.” “And I'm guessing you don't want to remove them.” I knew I was pushing her, but can you blame me? “I-If it's any consolation, thee will probably live longer and learn magic more easily than thee would otherwise,” she stammered, not making eye contact with me. That's a “no.” At least I found out early on, as opposed to learning later, once it's too late to do anything and getting upset with Luna about it because of some stupid rebellious teenager trope. I decided to drop the subject for the time being. We could come back to that later. Next question. “Once I come with you, could I come back to Earth?” “You mean, as a pony? That would be simple enough. Provided you don't mind nopony recognizing you as human. Tell me, do human leaders still worship the abnormal as divine, or just kill anything that doesn't fit their established worldview?” That was a little more curt than I was expecting. Of course, she was right, and I knew it. Probably because it's the only sentient race on Earth, the human race is pretty xenophobic, no matter how much ~~we?~~ ~~they?~~ try otherwise. A talking unicorn appearing in the home of anyone but a typical brony would probably lead to them having an extended stay at some top secret facility at best and being shot by a trigger happy police officer at worst. I'm beginning to see why Luna didn't want me calling for “help.” Luna was pawing the ground, trying and failing not to be forceful. “Ready?” she asked, her voice dripping with poorly hidden anticipation. My mind was going in a thousand different directions. I could feel my heart beating inside my chest. Still, I nodded. I must have looked pretty nervous, because Luna, who had never seen a human other than me, picked up on it. She nuzzled a fist I didn't realize I had clenched with her nose. “It’... It'll be all right,” she muttered between strokes, probably as much for her benefit as mine. I couldn't decide whether to think of her as a very friendly, sapient dog or a life coach. A canine life coach. That's an odd comparison, but probably the most accurate. No point in delaying the change any further. For the second and probably last time, I ran my fingers down Luna's mane. “Ready,” I finally said. I firmly shut the door to my bedroom. Luna was on the other side of the door, preparing the spell. I hadn't wanted to be in the same room with her for this. Additionally, there was a full length mirror on the door to my closet. I had to see what was going to happen with my own eyes. As I found out later, Luna had spent quite a bit of time working on this spell to make sure it wouldn't be painful, like most of the transformation magic Equestria has. That's not to say the effect the spell had on me was pleasant. I had never been exposed to any active magic before then. There was suddenly enough inside me to completely change my species. The result was my body reacting to the large amount of magic somewhat like it would have reacted to large amounts of electricity. In other words, I got electrocuted. It wasn't exactly painful, per se, but if you ever stuck your finger in a power outlet, you should have a pretty good idea of what I was feeling all over my body. I don't remember falling down, or even blinking, but when I opened my eyes, I was lying down in front of the mirror. I still looked the same, though. That was going to change. Very, very fast. The first thing I saw was my hair, which darkened like a shadow passed over it, causing it to change from brown to a deep purplish blue. Of all the things that were going on, that was the most surreal, simply because I couldn't feel anything happen. I could a few seconds later, when my hair began growing with supernatural speed. My hair grows pretty fast naturally, but this was impossible. It grew a foot longer in less than a minute. I had to brush bangs that I didn't have ten seconds earlier out of my peripheral vision. That was when things got weird. The hair just felt itchy when it grew, but everything from there was a bit more intense. My feet went numb, a pretty good indication of what was about to happen. I lost sensation in my toes almost immediately, and my knees locked, leaving my legs sprawled out behind me. Looking in the mirror, I watched as my toes disappeared with a weird sucking feeling as they retracted into my feet. There was a feeling like pins and needles as thin, purple fur began to grow where my toes used to be. It spread up my legs, which began to contract. I couldn't feel them shrink, but there was a noise like my bones were snapping. Luna had to have heard that. I guess she thought that if I was having an issue, there would be a lot more screaming. That was when the numbness hit my, ah, midsection. That was the only part that actually hurt. It took about thirty seconds for, well, let's just say nobody would be calling me a “he” anymore. A growth appeared above the previous change, while the fur - my fur - kept climbing up my body. Thicker, ropey fur sprouted out of my tail. My tail. I had a tail. That drove it home: I was no longer human. My bones creaked again as my pelvis realigned itself to support a different posture. I was going to be on four legs. That didn't take nearly as much practice as I was afraid it would at the time. After everything from the waist down was done changing, things sped up even more. I watched fur shoot up my torso. I was relatively thin, so nothing visibly changed in terms of shape, but I could definitely feel something underneath the skin. The coffee I’d had earlier sloshed around audibly in my stomach while my vital organs all decided to take a little trip around my belly. Mainly my stomach and mammary glands, I guessed. Of all the crazy changes that were happening to me at that moment, the loss of opposable thumbs was the one I was looking forward to the least. I cannot, however, say it was unwelcome at the time. I'd been standing on my hands ever since my legs finished changing, and it was getting unpleasant. Hands are great and all, but I don't understand how anyone can support their weight with them for extended periods of time. And because I know you're thinking about it: no, I couldn't do handstands in elementary school, okay? The keratin buffer was welcome at the time, though I was going to miss my hands. My head was the last major area to change. For a terrifying second, I went completely blind while my eyes readjusted. Looking back at the mirror, I saw my eyes were slightly farther apart, and had changed color. Similar to Luna’s, they were bright blue, but lacked the supernatural glow hers have. My teeth started to get flatter, but not, you know, fall out or anything, which I was half expecting. That would make for a hell of a mystery scene: the clothes the person was wearing, all of their (permanent) teeth, and an incredibly vague letter, with no sign of struggle and nothing else out of place. Wouldn't be out of place in a “great unsolved mysteries” book if you ask me. As my ears started to travel up my head, my face sort of distended, with the same pins and needles feeling I got from the fur growing, only somehow inside my skull. I could see all of that happen to me, and I can't even begin to describe how off-putting that was. To put it in perspective, I nearly threw up when Sara convinced me to watch Human Centipede. I do not do body horror. I couldn't feel anything happen to my brain, which was probably for the best. Even if she was changing literally every other aspect of me, I would have been pretty pissed if she mind raped me. Assuming I found out. I hope I would have found out… Almost like an afterthought, there was a sharp zap on my forehead as another bone started growing out of my skull. My horn didn't get nearly as long as Luna's, but it still poked through my bangs by several inches. The final change was also the most subtle: I shrank. Hence the term “My Little Pony. I wasn't pocket-sized or anything, but I probably would have just barely come up to my waist as a human. Even so, I probably lost about half my weight. Don't ask where it went; I just changed my species in about five minutes, this isn't the time for scientific scrutiny! We can come to that later. There was a knock on my bedroom door, interrupting my little tangent. “Are you done? Should I come in?” Luna's voice traveled through the closed door. I hesitated. I rotated a hoof around. The exterior was hard like a fingernail, but there was a concave surface of soft flesh it encircled. I could probably open a door. I took a step forward, and proceeded to fall on my face with a small oompf. Walking was going to take practice. I'm just glad I didn't fall on my horn. I turned my head toward the door. “Yeah, come in!” I shouted. My voice had changed too. I sounded like… Try to stay with me on this one, I sound like that “cool girlfriend” your one friend had. Remember, the one who always talked like she was trying to get him away from you and with all of her friends’ boyfriends? Yeah, that one. And if you didn't have that friend: I sound like a combination of Twilight and teenage Cadence. The first time I heard it, I nearly jumped back. Talking with a voice that sounds nothing like your old one is more than a little disorienting. Most of us can't remember a time when we couldn't stand up, and if you can, it was probably because some kind of physical disability. We really do take being able to stand for granted. Once I blinked the wetness out of my eyes, I took my first good look at myself. No wings, I'm glad to say. Honestly, I don't think Equestria would ever be ready for Princess me. As far as I could see in the mirror, I was a pretty normal unicorn. Oxymoronic statement, I know, but it's true. Blue eyes, fur slightly darker than Twilight’s, and a deep, purple-blue mane and tail. And Celestia, my eyelashes. If I hadn't seen them grow in, I'd swear someone stuck mascara on them. The doorknob lit up with a blue glow, and Luna walked into the room. Before, we were at eye level, but now she towered over me. I barely came up to her chest. Her eyes focused on me, and her breath caught. “I hadn't seen you since you were a filly. I… I wish I could have been there when you grew up. I am truly sorry.” She seemed ready to burst into tears again. I never really had to do the “meeting an obscure relative you don't remember and trying to connect” thing, but I can say based off that night there's a lot of awkward staring. I suppose it was for the better that I didn’t revert back to the age I was the last time Luna saw me. I don't want to go through puberty again, and I really don't want to repeat elementary school. This time, I was the one who broke the silence. With a kick of my back legs, I propelled myself towards her. I wrapped my forelegs around her head in embrace. Luna flinched. She still swears she didn't, but I know. After a moment, she pulled her forelegs around me. We stood there for several minutes. As soon as Luna broke off, I promptly fell on my side rather anticlimatically. Luna pushed me back to my feet with her nose, and took a deep breath. She asked me the same question as before: “Ready?” This time, I didn't hesitate. “Ready,” I said, filled with determination. Luna didn't waste any time or energy on a response. Her horn glowed so brightly it hurt to look at. As her eyes lit up with a white glow, the floor fell out from under me, and the whole world disintegrated into blue light. The HomecomingTeleportation can feel like one of two different things. If it's a relatively short distance, like what Twilight does in the show, it feels like a really fast long jump without the leg motion. If it's a long distance, like, say, between dimensions, it feels like getting packaged into a tube and shot out of canon at breakneck pace. As I was being telekinetically thrown through the fabric of reality, the only thought that went through my mind was “how the fuck does Twilight do this and still come out standing?” It felt way longer at the time, but I was only actively traveling for a few seconds. When I landed on solid ground, I fell on my face for the third time in as many minutes. Hopefully, that wasn't a sign of things to come. I was incredibly glad I skipped dinner, because I honestly don't think I could have kept anything down at that point. Slowly, I pulled myself to my feet. (Feet? Hooves? This is way more confusing than it should be. I'll go with hooves.) Luna, who was seemingly unaffected by the teleport, trotted over to me. “Here, have some peanuts,” she said with a concerned expression, waving a small bag in front of me with her telekinesis that I swear hadn't been in the room a second ago. “Between the transformation and the long distance teleport, you've probably lost some salt and protein. Eat up.” It looked like one of those tiny baggies they give you for free on airplanes, so I did the human thing, ignoring the reference. Somehow it was already opened, but I couldn't grab individual peanuts without fingers. I could, however, grab the whole bag, which I did. I didn't trust myself to try magic without something blowing up at that moment, so I just turned the bag upside down and dumped its entire contents down my throat. That got rid of most of the stomachache. With my desire to throw up out of the way, I looked around the room I had ended up in. The room was almost pitch dark, having no sources of light other than Luna's horn. The heavy shades on the only window in the room were tightly drawn, making it impossible to tell what hour of the day or night it was. Looking around, almost everything was the same color: dark blue with purple accents. The only furniture in the room was a small table and chairs with a complete tea set sitting on top, along with an enormous bed in the middle of the room.Looking up, I didn't see a ceiling, but a huge, moving image of the night sky. Stars, galaxies, a full moon, it was indistinguishable from the real thing. There were two doors on either side of the bed: one ornate and encrusted with silver filling around the hinges; and another with more blackout shades drawn over it, presumably leading to some kind of terrace. There was only one place this could be: Luna’s bedchamber. “Moonbeam?” Luna called out to me. I stopped for a moment. Of course she was talking to me. “There's… something I want to show you.” She opened the curtain-covered door, and a cool breeze filled the room. After glancing back at me, Luna stepped out onto the balcony, leaving the door wide open. I still didn't have the hang of walking on four legs, so I wound up sitting on my rump and pushing myself forward, more scooting than walking after her. It was about eight on a February evening when I… left, so it came as a surprise to see the moon high in the sky, surrounded by a blanket of stars, galaxies, and other celestial bodies which seemed to vaguely resemble Luna’s… I don't think “hair” is the right word. I'll stick with “mane and tail.” It was about then I made my second, even stranger observation: it was cool. It was probably thirty degrees at most most during the winter back on Earth, but it was probably fifty degrees that night, the kind of weather you get in June and July. Was it somehow later here than Earth? A slightly stronger gust of wind came seemingly out of nowhere, rustling my fur and causing my mane to fall over my right eye. I wound up trying to push it out of the way with a hoof, but it was like trying to use chopsticks without thumbs. I succeeded only in hitting myself in the face. This could take some getting used to. As I tried to get my mane out of my eyes, I saw my hair suddenly start glowing blue as it lifted itself back over my head. Looking down, I saw Luna smiling at me, her horn still glowing. She gestured back toward the night sky wordlessly, closing her eyes in concentration. Before my eyes, the moon began to fall toward the horizon. Obviously, I'd seen the moon set on Earth, but that takes hours. With Luna's magic, this one went from near its zenith to the horizon line in under a minute. As soon as the moon was out of sight, a small ray of light appeared at the exact spot in the distance where the moon set. The tiny sunbeam traveled across the land, finally reaching its destination directly at the balcony Luna and I were in. Luna squinted, trying to adjust her eyes. “I swear she does that on purpose,” she muttered, trying to get into the shade of her bedroom while technically still being outside. Ultimately, she wound up beside the inward-facing door, staring out like a mouse from a hole. The sun rose more slowly, but still way, way faster than on Earth. While the moon was near it's highest point when I first saw it, the sun stopped just barely above the horizon. Luna motioned for me to come in, then shut the door, dropping the room back into near-darkness. The ceiling remained unchanged, except the moon was gone. Luna trotted to the other door, pushing it open to reveal an abandoned hallway only slightly better lit than the room. “Come on,” Luna teased, her wings fluttering slightly. “I wouldn't want to keep your aunt waiting.” Right front, back left, front left, back right. I kept going over it in my head, and I was clearly improving. I could now walk unaided, but every time I stopped concentrating on walking, I would trip. That being said, figuring out how to walk with twice as many legs was significantly easier than it probably should have been. Can't complain, it beats getting stuck on the floor of Luna’s bedroom. Two flights of stairs and one small maze of dimly lit, near-identical hallways later, we came to a set of massive double doors, easily twenty feet tall. They were balanced perfectly, opening with only a light touch of Luna’s hoof. I'd heard about what was behind them plenty of times, but none of that prepared me for the real thing. The walls of the throne room were all stained glass, letting a rainbow of colors appear when viewed directly, but not enough to make it seem like a rave. The window moldings were solid gold, complementing the floor, which seemed to be half gold on my left, and half silver on my right. Both halves had numerous gemstones embedded inside, any of which would have been worth a fortune on Earth. The edge of the golden half seemed slightly distended, as if it had been welded in. Or perhaps it was once entirely gold, and had the silver half added in later… like after the reformation of a certain princess. None of that, however, compared to the pony sitting alone on the gem-encrusted throne. Celestia was several inches taller than her sister - huge by pony standards, but still not as big as a fully grown horse. Like Luna’s, her mane and tail shimmered in nonexistent wind. Instead of a starry sky, Celestia’s hairdo was more comparable to the northern lights. It rippled through a kaleidoscope of colors constantly, giving no indication as to its natural color. Her horn was almost an inch longer than Luna’s, and probably twice the size of mine, reflecting the slightly colored light like glass. “So, you are finally here.” Celestia’s voice was flat, as if she'd rehearsed the line. She stood up, towering over me. “After two years of searching, my sister finally found you.” Her eyes were piercing, scanning me, as if looking for some indication of who I was. Apparently, she found it, because when I returned her gaze, she gave me a tiny smile, before turning to Luna. “I'm sorry it took so long,” said Celestia, before embracing her sister. “Maybe now, we can be a family again.” That was the first display of emotion I'd seen from Celestia, which made me feel… weirdly left out. “I'm here now,” I said after they separated. “Were you planning a family reunion or something?” “No,” responded Luna. “It would be rather difficult to explain to the public that I somehow have a fully-grown daughter, despite the fact I'd been gone long enough most ponies had forgotten I even existed. The only ponies that know about you are in this room.” Celestia turned back to me. Though she still tried to show no signs of emotion, her eyes were wet, like she was holding back tears. “Well… I did arrange for a mentor. Somepony to help you with fitting in,” she corrected. “She worked wonders with another pony who needed help fitting in in Equestria as well. She should be here in a moment.” As if on cue, a flash of purplish light radiated out from the center of the throne room. The princesses, expecting the flash, had already turned away, but I was caught by surprise and nearly fell on my side. Another thing about hooves - good for slightly uneven ground, bad for trying to gain traction on a hard, flat surface. Fortunately, rather than having to introduce a character while laying on the ground, I felt something gently push me back to my hooves, defying gravity and leaving me with the same tingly feeling from my change. The world was a bit of a blurry mess, but when I turned my head around, I think I caught a tiny smile on Celestia's face. As I blinked away the afterimage, a purple shape about the same size as me came into focus in the same place I was facing a moment earlier. Was that..? “You wanted to see me, Celestia?” asked Twilight Sparkle. Then she noticed the other two ponies in the room, her eyes locking on me. “And who's this?”
PrologueI didn't realize it at the time, but for me, everything started quite a while before the talking horse showed up and asked me to… Sorry, getting ahead of myself. There was quite a bit leading up to that point, sure. However, the first one that I was there for was the dream, about two years before the alicorns found me. A forgotten temple. No, an empty city. No, a mountaintop. Landscapes shimmered in and out of my perception as I tried to settle on a location that seemed interesting enough to spend the night in. Back then, my lucid dreams were occasional, but not uncommon enough for me to give this time much surprise. I eventually settled on an infinitely expansive field, setting up the lucid dream. Shutting my mind’s eye to concentrate on specific details of the dream, I could feel some of the changes I made fill in around me. A flat, grass-covered plain, under a clear, sunny sky without any other structures as far as the eye could see. I’d add some later, but for now I’d just sit down and contemplate for a bit. Once I was confident all the details were right, I mentally opened my eyes and took a step forward. The laws of physics are different in dreams. For things like flying, that's great. When the ground suddenly decides to become noncorporeal, not so much. Without warning, I was in freefall through a floor that had been solid a second earlier. And if you think it's disorienting when you fall off the map in a game, I can assure you it has nothing on actually experiencing it. Stupid dream grass. I'm not sure if I ever really stopped falling, or if the dreamscape above me vanished, leaving me without anything to orient myself. I'd fallen into a space-like area, seemingly without any discernible features. This new dreamscape was unstable. Chunks of stars would move in and out of existence, and when I looked down at my hands, they were… fuzzy, like on a television with bad reception. That in itself was unusual. Normally, the only time a dream stopped feeling real was when I stopped concentrating on it. In front of me, a mass of energy condensed. It wasn't magic or anything, but when there's another person by you, you can just kind of… sense it. That's what this was. At first, I couldn't see it at all, before a coherent figure started to become visible. I didn't recognize it at first, only something large, dark, and definitely not human. As it continued to focus through the unstable environment, I could see a dark purple-blue unicorn, with a pair of wings on its back and a mane that looked like the night sky, nearly identical to the one behind it. It only said one thing. “It's you.” It was a woman's voice, but distorted like everything else here, as if put through a voice synthesizer. Even through that, the voice carried a hint of loss, as if the unicorn had recently been crying, or perhaps was just about to start. It- she, I guess - took a deep breath, distorted by the mental static. Before she could say anything else, the dream collapsed. The stars in the background went out as if an invisible wave passed through the sky. The presence in front of me suddenly winked out of existence, severing a tiny thread of silver light I hadn't noticed connecting us at her horn. As abruptly as it had started, I was alone in the abyss. I woke up with a start, gasping for air. After I'd caught my breath, I rolled over in bed to check my alarm clock. 5:27. Too early to actually get out of bed, but too late to go back to sleep. Deciding on a happy medium, I pulled my phone off the bedside table. I knew I had seen that unicorn before somewhere, but I couldn't remember where. Luckily for my sleep-addled mind, the first search result for “purple-blue unicorn wings moon” was a wiki page for Princess Luna. A cartoon version, but clearly the same as the thing I had just seen. A My Little Pony character. Having had no experience with the show up to that point other than reputation, my first reaction was, “I really hope that's not my subconscious mind trying to tell me something about my sexuality.” (I later found out I was closer than I thought). Directly underneath the picture was a “first appearance” label. Lucky me, she's in the pilot. After thinking it over for a moment, I turned up my phone’s volume. Not like there was anything more productive I could be doing, I told myself. I'd watch the episode on Netflix, laugh off the odd coincidence, and forget about the whole thing. I'm sure you can guess exactly how that went.
The HouseguestThe fate of two worlds hung in the balance. " Galactus has reached Equs!" shouted Luna in the Royal Canterlot Voice. "We'll take down his minions," Wolverine responded. "Take the X-Shuttle to space and-" I threw my head against the back of the chair in frustration. Were I not in public, I would have slammed my forehead into the desk. I held down the backspace button for a few seconds and resumed my normal task of staring at a blank Word document. Everyone else in the room was still stuck in a physics test I finished fifteen minutes ago. I had other problems. I never did figure it out, I could write essays just fine in English class, but when it came to this, I just couldn't think of anything. I kept hoping inspiration would strike someday. Apparently, that was not going to be today. After a few more minutes of staring at a blank sheet of digital paper, I gave up and shut the laptop. Despite the fact a few other students had finished, we all had to sit quietly. That, and think about our mistakes. Not on the test. I probably got the best score in the class. For the past several years, I'd been running around on the Internet. Watching YouTube videos, reading My Little Pony fanfiction, the usual stuff. I'm not sure why I started trying so hard to give back now, in my senior year of high school. I've got enough to worry about anyway, but that's just how I do things sometimes. Maybe that's what makes it all the more embarrassing that I can't write to save my life. Eventually, enough people finished for the teacher to let us go. I was hardly surprised to see my girlfriend, Sara, standing outside the classroom waiting for me, despite the fact she was supposed to be in the middle of class. I still don't know exactly what it was we saw in each other; I was a straight-A student who had just gotten accepted to the best liberal arts college in the state, she barely showed up at school half the time. “Heyyy, handsome.” she said, grabbing my arm. She was trying to sound seductive and failing so badly she had to be faking it. “Hi, Sara.” I haphazardly responded back. “Wanna come over to my house later tonight? My parents are gone for the weekend on some business trip.” That was unlike me, but circumstances were changing. The college I was accepted into was over an hour away, so I'd would up spending more and more time with her. She shook her head. “Sorry, Chris. I've got a job interview at 5. Maybe tomorrow?” That was a surprise. She hadn't tried to get a job since the babysitting incident in her sophomore year. Even so, she sounded sincere enough. “All right.” I answered. “Tomorrow.” I never did find out if she was telling the truth. The last hour or so of school was pretty mundane. There's not much I could say about it you couldn't already guess. French was the worst. I nearly fall asleep in there multiple times, and I like school. My seat was near the back of the room, so if anyone else noticed me that day, none of them bothered to point out that I was completely out of it. The only thing even remotely interesting happened halfway through, when I was practically asleep at the desk. I heard a voice, in my head. It sounded… Choppy, like a radio with a bad signal. The voice was female, but I couldn't make it out. I just heard something that sounded vaguely like “M---*shrnnk* --a- -*buzz* ---ng.” I sprang up, and my knees hit the bottom of my desk, sending my pencils rolling onto the ground. Everyone else must have been at least as tired as I felt, because none of them pointed it out, not even the teacher, who didn't miss a syllable. As I picked up the pencils I knocked away with when I came out of my little stupor, I concluded I had just had a daydream, and my thoughts got away from me. Yeah. That was totally it. The auto shop I worked at was closed on Fridays, so I more or less had the whole house to myself. I walked into my room, shut the door, and pulled out a high-capacity USB drive. I carried the thing everywhere up to that point, even if it was largely unnecessary. My parents wouldn't get it, but I doubt they would freak out too much if they found out what I had on it; I mean, it's not like there was porn or anything. (That was in the external hard drive.) Then again, I've been wrong before… I plugged it into the computer and opened the drive. I had all five seasons of My Little Pony on there. It took me quite a bit of googling to get them all (thanks, Hasbro! buckers.), but it was probably worth it. It had been a few months since I watched the first two episodes, might as well start there. I never got tired of the Nightmare Moon storyline. Don't get me wrong, more recent seasons are great too, but I always did like the original few the best. By the time I was done with the episodes, it was almost 6, so I went to the kitchen and threw some Kraft Mac n’ Cheese on the stovetop. It's not exactly gourmet dining at my house when I'm the only one there. Mom called my aversion to cooking laziness. I called it advance preparation for college. As I was waiting on the water to boil, something felt… off. Not in a “deja vu” way, but… when someone is near you, even if you can't see them, you know. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting - a break in, or maybe Sara’s job interview went even worse than I expected. I was not expecting to turn around and see Princess Luna. Luna Eclipsed did not adequately prepare me for what the Princess of Night actually looked like. Obviously, she looked like her cartoon counterpart, but, well, that's a cartoon. It vaguely resembles the real Luna, in the same way Bilbo from the animated Hobbit movie vaguely resembles Martin Freeman. She was sitting on the floor, and was probably about at eye level with me. She didn't have on her crown, or the chest armor and horseshoes she usually appears with in the show. Obviously, she looks quite a bit like a horse on Earth, but that would be like saying a supermodel looks quite a bit like a gorilla. She was significantly more evenly toned than a horse, and had a brain cavity nearly as large as a human’s. I later found she was incredibly light - about fifty pounds, despite being nearly as large as a horse from Earth- but could still get slammed into a brick wall and walk away without a bruise. Her cutie mark was about the same as it looks in the show, but it seemed more like a pattern in the fur itself than any kind of tattoo. The crescent moon was pure white, a sharp contrast to the pitch black fur splashed around her flanks, as if someone had spilled India ink all over her back. The rest of her body was covered in a thin layer of dark purple fur, which was immaculately well-groomed. Not a hair was out of place. Luna’s mane and tail still waved in nonexistent wind, but they didn't look like hair. If anything, I'd say they look like an animated picture of the night sky. And I don't mean they're dark with a bunch of white, glow-y areas, I mean I couldn't see any individual strands of hair, and the stars actually twinkle without Luna doing anything. I swear I saw a shooting star in her tail. Her wings rested at her sides, and were way, way bigger than they look in the show. If she fully extended them, she'd probably have at least an eight-foot wingspan. Her horn was an even deeper purple than the rest of her, practically black. It was nearly two feet long, and looked sharp enough to impale someone with. Her eyes were a brighter blue than any I'd ever seen on a human, and were pointed straight at me. I thought it was an optical illusion at the time, but they were glowing. Actually emitting a small amount of light. While not as ridiculously large as they appeared in the show, they were still quite a bit bigger than a human’s, and seeing them so focused on me was almost mesmerizing. After I walked a full loop around her, Luna stood up to her full height, about a head taller than me. I wasn't sure why at the time, but when she finally said something, it made my hair stand on end. I guess some things are just universal, no matter what universe you grew up in. "We need to talk."
The OfferAt some point, we've all wondered what it would be like if we could meet our favorite fictional character. (Yes, you. Don't worry, you can admit it. I'm a paragraph on a website, I don't judge.) Maybe it was Harry Potter, or or whoever your favorite member of the Mane 6 was. Maybe you've thought about what you would actually do if you actually got to meet them. No matter how you'd think it would go, I can personally attest that if the magical alicorn princess of the night suddenly decides to show up inside your home without warning, you will probably react something like this: First, you will go through your memories of the past few hours, just to make sure you didn't accept candy from a questionable stranger at some point that day. If the answer is "no," you will probably stare at said no-longer fictional character, waiting for them to do something. To her credit, Luna really didn't react to me while I was ogling her, other than following my gaze when I walked around her. In hindsight, I probably should have at least introduced myself. Or done something other than have a staring contest. At some point, I'm still not sure exactly how long it took me, you will work up the courage to reach out and touch them. The area my hand happened to find was Luna's mane, which still seemed like it was an animated oil painting up close. It didn't feel like hair, I couldn't even feel any individual hairs. I'm not entirely sure how to describe it, it felt… viscous, sort of oily, but without the wetness, and it didn't stick to my hand. It definitely felt real enough. So, to recap, a My Little Pony character was in my house, sitting on the floor while I stuck my fingers into her mane. I'm not exactly a diplomat, but I'm pretty sure that this was not the best way to introduce humanity to an alien diarch who has the power to control the moon in her home world. I stepped away from Luna and pulled out my phone. I needed somebody else here, to make sure I wasn't going completely and utterly insane. I wasn't sure who I was planning to call. Maybe Sara, maybe my parents, maybe the police. Well, no. I never did consider calling the police. I doubt they really would have helped. Regardless, I never got the chance. Nothing I had done before grabbing my phone had caused any real reaction from her, but that did. A spark of - was that fear? - shone in her eyes. Ponies’s faces are far more expressive than a normal horse’s, or even a person. It must have been fear. "Wait!" she whispered forcefully, taking a half step towards me. She was cautious, as if she was afraid of scaring me away, but was also worried about the the device in my hand. To her, I was a bunny holding a shotgun. Apparently, there was something about my phone that scared the Princes of Night enough that a second after she saw it, I felt a tugging from it and the phone went sailing across the room, coming to a stop next to the wall opposite me, seemingly uncracked. When Luna spoke again, she was visibly tensed up, as if she expected a monster to pop out of my phone. Actually, given what Equestria is like and how little she knows about Earth, that's not a bad guess. "You… you probably shouldn't use that," she stated in what sounded like a subdued version of the Royal Canterlot Voice that was still loud enough to make the closest window vibrate. Hopefully, none of the neighbors noticed. “O-okay..." I managed to stammer out. The last thing I needed was to inadvertently doom the entire planet to annihilation because I scared an extraterrestrial world leader. "...Do you want..?" Think! Something I could grab in a few minutes that an alicorn would like! "...Coffee?" was the first thing that came to mind. Luna went wide-eyed. "You have coffee?" she asked, grinning like a five-year-old in a toy store. And that was how, five minutes later, Princess Luna was sitting on my couch, still staring at me. I was utterly mesmerized as Luna grabbed a cup of coffee I made with her telekinesis. I didn't feel anything unusual when she grabbed the cup out of my hand, which made my second observation even stranger: there was no visible sign of what she was doing. She didn't have a glow-y field around the mug, not even her horn lit up. The entire time I was getting the drink, I don't think she ever stopped staring at me. She hadn't spoken since asking for coffee. It was honestly starting to get unsettling. Luna started drinking from the mug in small sips, as if wanting to savor it, then giving up and chugged the rest of the drink in one long gulp. Once she put it down, she went straight back to looking at me. At this point, I was struggling to think of something to say to her, and it looked like she was doing the same thing. Apparently, Luna decided on what to say first. “You should probably sit down.” She pulled herself off the couch, and I took her place. As soon as she sat down on the floor, she continued. "My name is Princess Luna. I have no doubt you already know this, but I am not from your world. Six years ago, I Returned to ruling my nation, Equestria, after a long exile. Shortly after I regained power, I began looking at Earth." I must have looked more scared than I felt, because Luna seemed to soften her tone. "N-not for conquest, if that is what you are afraid of. I don't want anything from your species - hoo-mans? Is that what you call yourselves?" I coughed. "Humans." I responded. "Humans? Yes?" I nodded. "All right. In any case, I don’t want anything to do with Earth. I only came here tonight for one reason." She took a few steps closer to me. "And we're looking right at it." Maybe if this was all just hypothetical, I could have come up with some collected, informative response on behalf of the human race. It wasn't, though. This was real, and so I said the only thing I could think of: "Why me?" For the first time since I saw her, Luna broke her gaze. Staring off into some random point in the distance, she started to speak. I'm not even sure she was talking to me, just letting out a painful memory. "We... we had a child. When they were just a yearling, we lost them. For years, we never saw them, were never able to find them. It was like our child just vanished off the face of the world." She turned back to face me. Her muzzle was streaked with tears. "Until-" her voice cracked - "until now." Perhaps, given Luna’s emotional state, I was too demanding with my response, but let's be honest, would you have reacted any differently? I sat down on the couch. "Wait. You're telling me that you had a long-lost son, and it's somehow me, despite me having two biological human parents who both have no idea who or even what you are?" I buried my head in my hands. In hindsight, maybe I was being too critical - I mean, I was hearing this from what I thought until about twenty minutes ago was a fictional character from a television show intended for six-year-old girls. I was asking quite a bit for something. - anything, really, at this point - to make sense. I felt an appendage wrap around me from the side. It was warm and sort of prickly, almost... feathery? I turned my gaze back to Luna. During my small outburst over the sheer insanity she had wreaked upon me since appearing in my house, she had apparently gotten back onto the couch and scooted over to me, then wrapped her left wing around me like a child's safety blanket. "Well, no. That... isn't quite right." Her tone was calm, like I was a little animal Fluttershy was trying to calm down, even though we were both about the same size. She took a deep breath, then continued. "I didn't have a son." Her voice started breaking again. "I... I had a daughter." I shut my eyes, trying to process everything that she was saying. Let's see: a princess of Equestria, from a cartoon show I watch, suddenly appeared in my house. She then told me that I was somehow her long-lost daughter, despite me being an 18 year old man with two very present parents, not to mention that Luna had been on the moon for the past thousand years, assuming the show was recent history from her perspective. What's next, am I an alicorn or something? How are you even supposed to respond to the kind of information she gave me? "I have an... offer for you," said Luna, derailing my train of thought before I could find an answer. She said it in a flat voice, like she’d rehearsed it. Luna paused, as if waiting for a reaction from me. When none came, she continued. She tried to hide it, but she was clearly upset. I'm still not sure if it was with me, with Celestia, or with herself. Or maybe all three. "You can come home. To Equestria. As a mare. You will have the privileges of a noble, have quarters in the castle with a private teacher to bring you up to speed with Equestrian life, and live as my daughter.” I didn't respond at first. I had to judge what was going on. "And...if I don't?" I asked, trying to figure out how to answer her. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. A single tear trickled down her cheek. "If..." her voice caught, and she made a noise that sounded like a horse had choked while trying to gargle. I couldn't tell if it was a whinny or a sob. "If you turn down our offer, we will erase your memory of tonight. Our paths will never again cross, and we... we will leave you to carry out your human life - here." That was clearly too much for her to take, and she buried her head in my chest, sobbing softly. If she really thought I was her child whom she hadn't seen in years, it must have been a pretty emotional night for her, especially if I couldn't remember anything from Equestria. It almost felt like a large dog was pushing itself against my chest, so I did the first thing that came to mind. Luna was considerably lighter than me, as I found when I pulled her into my lap, and started rubbing her belly. That seemed to calm her down quite a bit. Well, at least, the sobbing stopped. That's a step. Now what? Luna was asking a lot from me. Emigrating to a magical world inhabited by magical ponies was going to have consequences, and those consequences could be terrible. ~~Even~~ Especially if I was the daughter of one of their rulers. Daughter. Odd that that stuck out so specifically. An alien princess from a children's cartoon who claimed I was somehow her child was currently sitting in my lap while I petted her like a dog. In that context, anything else is kind of a minor detail. Even besides the loss of species, I had a pretty good future ahead here on Earth. Guaranteed acceptance to an Ivy League college, a moderately attractive girlfriend, a 3.9 GPA, the works. The idea of throwing all that away after a fifteen minute conversation under ordinary circumstances was... troubling, to say the least. But Luna appearing in my home was definitely not what I would call “ordinary circumstances.” Maybe, looking back, if I wasn't put on the spot like this, I would have had a different reaction. Then again, if I'm really being honest with myself, I made up my mind the second she said I could come with her. When I looked back at her, Luna was a little bit more collected. Or, more accurately, she was no longer crying. I cleared my throat. "Luna?" I called for her gently. She didn't move most of her body, just rotated her head to face me with a range of neck motion no horse on Earth possessed. Her eyes were still wet, but not bloodshot. That was odd. I brushed a few tears off of her face. She wasn't saying anything. Sometimes, I wonder if I should have done what I did. Literally every problem I've since had in my life, I was dragged into by those three words. In the end, though, I never would have said anything else. "I'll do it."
The ChangeLuna gave me a blank stare. I could feel her muscles tense up involuntarily. Whatever she was expecting me to say, it wasn't “yeah, sure, I'll toss away everything I ever knew and loved (except an obsession with a children's show nobody else knows about, including my significant other!)” Luna's eyes went wide. “Really?” She regarded me quizzically, as if she hadn't actually expected me to agree that quickly. In one fluid motion, she flipped off of my lap and landed on the floor with reflexes that seemed more catlike than anything else. “Thee… Thee will come with us?” No turning back now. I nodded. Before I could respond further, she tackled me, squealing like a little girl. I could see her tearing up again, but this time, it wasn’t out of sadness. “You're coming back.You're coming back to me. Moonbeam.” I had prepared for a lot of different circumstances and possibilities in my life. Having to explain that I was going to disappear without a trace in order to live with a talking unicorn who claimed to be my long lost mother, to my biological mother, was not one of them. Just when you think you've covered all based… That left me with just a few minutes to figure out how to break the news to my loved ones without sounding like I'd finally lost it. I walked over to my computer and pulled it out of sleep mode, causing Luna to jump. For a moment, I expected her to ask what the computer was, but she backed away from me, seemingly biting down on her tongue. She had been keeping an odd distance since I'd accepted her offer. Doing my best to put it out of my mind, I pulled up Word and quickly typed up an explanation which would hopefully prevent my face from appearing on a milk carton: I've just received an excellent offer, which will likely cover me for the rest of my lif- (Insert info dump here) . I have chosen to accept it, and I'll have left by the time you read this. I'm not sure if I'll be back or not, or write again, but I'm going where I want to be. -Chris Hardly perfect, but it was going to have to do. I briefly considered sending something less vague to Sara, but ultimately decided against it. I didn't realize it until much later, but this was my way of breaking up. Probably for the best, all things considered. Long distance relationships are hard enough between states, I'd rather not try to keep something up between dimensions. Besides, she could never stand my obsession with MLP. I spun around in my chair, putting me almost nose to nose with Luna. While I'd been writing, she had quietly walked up to my computer and read over my shoulder. When I turned around to face her, she suddenly became very interested in a particular spot of carpet directly beneath her hooves. I could see why. Albeit unintentionally, her arrival forced me to choose between her and my human existence. I know I made it in stride, but that isn't a choice I would force on anyone. By going with her, I was throwing away the last seventeen years of my life. Even if I reunited her family, it would destroy mine. “Luna?” I called out to her. She looked back at me with a soulful gaze that would rival Fluttershy, as if half-expecting me to say I'd changed my mind about leaving. I tried to put on a reassuring smile. “How long will it take you to get that transformation spell ready?” I guess I still could have said no. Luna could have erased my memory, left without a trace, and I would never have known otherwise. Luna would have, though. Moreover, this wasn't an unwelcome concept to me. My life just turned into the opening of an HiE fic, I'd never forgive myself if I let an opportunity like that pass me by. If Luna had any doubts about me coming with her earlier, they were long gone now. I swear I saw a hint of a smug grin cross her face. “About as long as it'll take you to take off your clothes.” Okay. It was more than a hint. Luna swears I made a sound that vaguely resembled an elephant sneezing. All I know is that it must have been pretty funny, because Luna actually laughed, before abruptly cutting off. That was easily the most human thing I'd seen her do since she showed up, but even that was fairly equine. It sounded familiar, but I couldn't figure out where I'd heard it before. It wasn't obviously a whinny or anything like that, and I can't remember Luna laughing in the show. That was going to bug me for a while. “So… Just to clarify, this is permanent, right?” I broke the silence, partly because I'd had enough awkward staring for the night. Partly because I wanted information. Had Luna not effectively guilt tripped me into coming with her ~~oh, don't give me that face, we both know it's true.~~ Sorry, got distracted. Had Luna not effectively guilt tripped me into coming with her, I would have asked for this information long before... well, probably saying yes anyway. Obviously, I related to Twilight Sparkle the most out of the Mane 6. My world may have just been turned inside out, but I still wasn't making an uninformed decision! “More or less.” Came the reply. “Humans are… odd, concerning magic. It just sort of passes around you, like it can't… see you, I guess would be the word. I'm sure you noticed you couldn't see anything when I used my magic, but I see a glowing field around what I focus on. To get you functioning like a normal pony, I'll have to add in a lot of magical safeguards, or your body would reject the magical energy needed to get us both to Equestria, which would probably kill you. The safeguards also have the side effect of locking you in the pony form, unless an extremely powerful magician wants very much to get them off.” “A powerful magician… Like… You?” I don't think she was expecting me to understand most of that explanation. Luna shrugged her forehooves and begrudgingly muttered an “I suppose.” “And I'm guessing you don't want to remove them.” I knew I was pushing her, but can you blame me? “I-If it's any consolation, thee will probably live longer and learn magic more easily than thee would otherwise,” she stammered, not making eye contact with me. That's a “no.” At least I found out early on, as opposed to learning later, once it's too late to do anything and getting upset with Luna about it because of some stupid rebellious teenager trope. I decided to drop the subject for the time being. We could come back to that later. Next question. “Once I come with you, could I come back to Earth?” “You mean, as a pony? That would be simple enough. Provided you don't mind nopony recognizing you as human. Tell me, do human leaders still worship the abnormal as divine, or just kill anything that doesn't fit their established worldview?” That was a little more curt than I was expecting. Of course, she was right, and I knew it. Probably because it's the only sentient race on Earth, the human race is pretty xenophobic, no matter how much ~~we?~~ ~~they?~~ try otherwise. A talking unicorn appearing in the home of anyone but a typical brony would probably lead to them having an extended stay at some top secret facility at best and being shot by a trigger happy police officer at worst. I'm beginning to see why Luna didn't want me calling for “help.” Luna was pawing the ground, trying and failing not to be forceful. “Ready?” she asked, her voice dripping with poorly hidden anticipation. My mind was going in a thousand different directions. I could feel my heart beating inside my chest. Still, I nodded. I must have looked pretty nervous, because Luna, who had never seen a human other than me, picked up on it. She nuzzled a fist I didn't realize I had clenched with her nose. “It’... It'll be all right,” she muttered between strokes, probably as much for her benefit as mine. I couldn't decide whether to think of her as a very friendly, sapient dog or a life coach. A canine life coach. That's an odd comparison, but probably the most accurate. No point in delaying the change any further. For the second and probably last time, I ran my fingers down Luna's mane. “Ready,” I finally said. I firmly shut the door to my bedroom. Luna was on the other side of the door, preparing the spell. I hadn't wanted to be in the same room with her for this. Additionally, there was a full length mirror on the door to my closet. I had to see what was going to happen with my own eyes. As I found out later, Luna had spent quite a bit of time working on this spell to make sure it wouldn't be painful, like most of the transformation magic Equestria has. That's not to say the effect the spell had on me was pleasant. I had never been exposed to any active magic before then. There was suddenly enough inside me to completely change my species. The result was my body reacting to the large amount of magic somewhat like it would have reacted to large amounts of electricity. In other words, I got electrocuted. It wasn't exactly painful, per se, but if you ever stuck your finger in a power outlet, you should have a pretty good idea of what I was feeling all over my body. I don't remember falling down, or even blinking, but when I opened my eyes, I was lying down in front of the mirror. I still looked the same, though. That was going to change. Very, very fast. The first thing I saw was my hair, which darkened like a shadow passed over it, causing it to change from brown to a deep purplish blue. Of all the things that were going on, that was the most surreal, simply because I couldn't feel anything happen. I could a few seconds later, when my hair began growing with supernatural speed. My hair grows pretty fast naturally, but this was impossible. It grew a foot longer in less than a minute. I had to brush bangs that I didn't have ten seconds earlier out of my peripheral vision. That was when things got weird. The hair just felt itchy when it grew, but everything from there was a bit more intense. My feet went numb, a pretty good indication of what was about to happen. I lost sensation in my toes almost immediately, and my knees locked, leaving my legs sprawled out behind me. Looking in the mirror, I watched as my toes disappeared with a weird sucking feeling as they retracted into my feet. There was a feeling like pins and needles as thin, purple fur began to grow where my toes used to be. It spread up my legs, which began to contract. I couldn't feel them shrink, but there was a noise like my bones were snapping. Luna had to have heard that. I guess she thought that if I was having an issue, there would be a lot more screaming. That was when the numbness hit my, ah, midsection. That was the only part that actually hurt. It took about thirty seconds for, well, let's just say nobody would be calling me a “he” anymore. A growth appeared above the previous change, while the fur - my fur - kept climbing up my body. Thicker, ropey fur sprouted out of my tail. My tail. I had a tail. That drove it home: I was no longer human. My bones creaked again as my pelvis realigned itself to support a different posture. I was going to be on four legs. That didn't take nearly as much practice as I was afraid it would at the time. After everything from the waist down was done changing, things sped up even more. I watched fur shoot up my torso. I was relatively thin, so nothing visibly changed in terms of shape, but I could definitely feel something underneath the skin. The coffee I’d had earlier sloshed around audibly in my stomach while my vital organs all decided to take a little trip around my belly. Mainly my stomach and mammary glands, I guessed. Of all the crazy changes that were happening to me at that moment, the loss of opposable thumbs was the one I was looking forward to the least. I cannot, however, say it was unwelcome at the time. I'd been standing on my hands ever since my legs finished changing, and it was getting unpleasant. Hands are great and all, but I don't understand how anyone can support their weight with them for extended periods of time. And because I know you're thinking about it: no, I couldn't do handstands in elementary school, okay? The keratin buffer was welcome at the time, though I was going to miss my hands. My head was the last major area to change. For a terrifying second, I went completely blind while my eyes readjusted. Looking back at the mirror, I saw my eyes were slightly farther apart, and had changed color. Similar to Luna’s, they were bright blue, but lacked the supernatural glow hers have. My teeth started to get flatter, but not, you know, fall out or anything, which I was half expecting. That would make for a hell of a mystery scene: the clothes the person was wearing, all of their (permanent) teeth, and an incredibly vague letter, with no sign of struggle and nothing else out of place. Wouldn't be out of place in a “great unsolved mysteries” book if you ask me. As my ears started to travel up my head, my face sort of distended, with the same pins and needles feeling I got from the fur growing, only somehow inside my skull. I could see all of that happen to me, and I can't even begin to describe how off-putting that was. To put it in perspective, I nearly threw up when Sara convinced me to watch Human Centipede. I do not do body horror. I couldn't feel anything happen to my brain, which was probably for the best. Even if she was changing literally every other aspect of me, I would have been pretty pissed if she mind raped me. Assuming I found out. I hope I would have found out… Almost like an afterthought, there was a sharp zap on my forehead as another bone started growing out of my skull. My horn didn't get nearly as long as Luna's, but it still poked through my bangs by several inches. The final change was also the most subtle: I shrank. Hence the term “My Little Pony. I wasn't pocket-sized or anything, but I probably would have just barely come up to my waist as a human. Even so, I probably lost about half my weight. Don't ask where it went; I just changed my species in about five minutes, this isn't the time for scientific scrutiny! We can come to that later. There was a knock on my bedroom door, interrupting my little tangent. “Are you done? Should I come in?” Luna's voice traveled through the closed door. I hesitated. I rotated a hoof around. The exterior was hard like a fingernail, but there was a concave surface of soft flesh it encircled. I could probably open a door. I took a step forward, and proceeded to fall on my face with a small oompf. Walking was going to take practice. I'm just glad I didn't fall on my horn. I turned my head toward the door. “Yeah, come in!” I shouted. My voice had changed too. I sounded like… Try to stay with me on this one, I sound like that “cool girlfriend” your one friend had. Remember, the one who always talked like she was trying to get him away from you and with all of her friends’ boyfriends? Yeah, that one. And if you didn't have that friend: I sound like a combination of Twilight and teenage Cadence. The first time I heard it, I nearly jumped back. Talking with a voice that sounds nothing like your old one is more than a little disorienting. Most of us can't remember a time when we couldn't stand up, and if you can, it was probably because some kind of physical disability. We really do take being able to stand for granted. Once I blinked the wetness out of my eyes, I took my first good look at myself. No wings, I'm glad to say. Honestly, I don't think Equestria would ever be ready for Princess me. As far as I could see in the mirror, I was a pretty normal unicorn. Oxymoronic statement, I know, but it's true. Blue eyes, fur slightly darker than Twilight’s, and a deep, purple-blue mane and tail. And Celestia, my eyelashes. If I hadn't seen them grow in, I'd swear someone stuck mascara on them. The doorknob lit up with a blue glow, and Luna walked into the room. Before, we were at eye level, but now she towered over me. I barely came up to her chest. Her eyes focused on me, and her breath caught. “I hadn't seen you since you were a filly. I… I wish I could have been there when you grew up. I am truly sorry.” She seemed ready to burst into tears again. I never really had to do the “meeting an obscure relative you don't remember and trying to connect” thing, but I can say based off that night there's a lot of awkward staring. I suppose it was for the better that I didn’t revert back to the age I was the last time Luna saw me. I don't want to go through puberty again, and I really don't want to repeat elementary school. This time, I was the one who broke the silence. With a kick of my back legs, I propelled myself towards her. I wrapped my forelegs around her head in embrace. Luna flinched. She still swears she didn't, but I know. After a moment, she pulled her forelegs around me. We stood there for several minutes. As soon as Luna broke off, I promptly fell on my side rather anticlimatically. Luna pushed me back to my feet with her nose, and took a deep breath. She asked me the same question as before: “Ready?” This time, I didn't hesitate. “Ready,” I said, filled with determination. Luna didn't waste any time or energy on a response. Her horn glowed so brightly it hurt to look at. As her eyes lit up with a white glow, the floor fell out from under me, and the whole world disintegrated into blue light.
The HomecomingTeleportation can feel like one of two different things. If it's a relatively short distance, like what Twilight does in the show, it feels like a really fast long jump without the leg motion. If it's a long distance, like, say, between dimensions, it feels like getting packaged into a tube and shot out of canon at breakneck pace. As I was being telekinetically thrown through the fabric of reality, the only thought that went through my mind was “how the fuck does Twilight do this and still come out standing?” It felt way longer at the time, but I was only actively traveling for a few seconds. When I landed on solid ground, I fell on my face for the third time in as many minutes. Hopefully, that wasn't a sign of things to come. I was incredibly glad I skipped dinner, because I honestly don't think I could have kept anything down at that point. Slowly, I pulled myself to my feet. (Feet? Hooves? This is way more confusing than it should be. I'll go with hooves.) Luna, who was seemingly unaffected by the teleport, trotted over to me. “Here, have some peanuts,” she said with a concerned expression, waving a small bag in front of me with her telekinesis that I swear hadn't been in the room a second ago. “Between the transformation and the long distance teleport, you've probably lost some salt and protein. Eat up.” It looked like one of those tiny baggies they give you for free on airplanes, so I did the human thing, ignoring the reference. Somehow it was already opened, but I couldn't grab individual peanuts without fingers. I could, however, grab the whole bag, which I did. I didn't trust myself to try magic without something blowing up at that moment, so I just turned the bag upside down and dumped its entire contents down my throat. That got rid of most of the stomachache. With my desire to throw up out of the way, I looked around the room I had ended up in. The room was almost pitch dark, having no sources of light other than Luna's horn. The heavy shades on the only window in the room were tightly drawn, making it impossible to tell what hour of the day or night it was. Looking around, almost everything was the same color: dark blue with purple accents. The only furniture in the room was a small table and chairs with a complete tea set sitting on top, along with an enormous bed in the middle of the room.Looking up, I didn't see a ceiling, but a huge, moving image of the night sky. Stars, galaxies, a full moon, it was indistinguishable from the real thing. There were two doors on either side of the bed: one ornate and encrusted with silver filling around the hinges; and another with more blackout shades drawn over it, presumably leading to some kind of terrace. There was only one place this could be: Luna’s bedchamber. “Moonbeam?” Luna called out to me. I stopped for a moment. Of course she was talking to me. “There's… something I want to show you.” She opened the curtain-covered door, and a cool breeze filled the room. After glancing back at me, Luna stepped out onto the balcony, leaving the door wide open. I still didn't have the hang of walking on four legs, so I wound up sitting on my rump and pushing myself forward, more scooting than walking after her. It was about eight on a February evening when I… left, so it came as a surprise to see the moon high in the sky, surrounded by a blanket of stars, galaxies, and other celestial bodies which seemed to vaguely resemble Luna’s… I don't think “hair” is the right word. I'll stick with “mane and tail.” It was about then I made my second, even stranger observation: it was cool. It was probably thirty degrees at most most during the winter back on Earth, but it was probably fifty degrees that night, the kind of weather you get in June and July. Was it somehow later here than Earth? A slightly stronger gust of wind came seemingly out of nowhere, rustling my fur and causing my mane to fall over my right eye. I wound up trying to push it out of the way with a hoof, but it was like trying to use chopsticks without thumbs. I succeeded only in hitting myself in the face. This could take some getting used to. As I tried to get my mane out of my eyes, I saw my hair suddenly start glowing blue as it lifted itself back over my head. Looking down, I saw Luna smiling at me, her horn still glowing. She gestured back toward the night sky wordlessly, closing her eyes in concentration. Before my eyes, the moon began to fall toward the horizon. Obviously, I'd seen the moon set on Earth, but that takes hours. With Luna's magic, this one went from near its zenith to the horizon line in under a minute. As soon as the moon was out of sight, a small ray of light appeared at the exact spot in the distance where the moon set. The tiny sunbeam traveled across the land, finally reaching its destination directly at the balcony Luna and I were in. Luna squinted, trying to adjust her eyes. “I swear she does that on purpose,” she muttered, trying to get into the shade of her bedroom while technically still being outside. Ultimately, she wound up beside the inward-facing door, staring out like a mouse from a hole. The sun rose more slowly, but still way, way faster than on Earth. While the moon was near it's highest point when I first saw it, the sun stopped just barely above the horizon. Luna motioned for me to come in, then shut the door, dropping the room back into near-darkness. The ceiling remained unchanged, except the moon was gone. Luna trotted to the other door, pushing it open to reveal an abandoned hallway only slightly better lit than the room. “Come on,” Luna teased, her wings fluttering slightly. “I wouldn't want to keep your aunt waiting.” Right front, back left, front left, back right. I kept going over it in my head, and I was clearly improving. I could now walk unaided, but every time I stopped concentrating on walking, I would trip. That being said, figuring out how to walk with twice as many legs was significantly easier than it probably should have been. Can't complain, it beats getting stuck on the floor of Luna’s bedroom. Two flights of stairs and one small maze of dimly lit, near-identical hallways later, we came to a set of massive double doors, easily twenty feet tall. They were balanced perfectly, opening with only a light touch of Luna’s hoof. I'd heard about what was behind them plenty of times, but none of that prepared me for the real thing. The walls of the throne room were all stained glass, letting a rainbow of colors appear when viewed directly, but not enough to make it seem like a rave. The window moldings were solid gold, complementing the floor, which seemed to be half gold on my left, and half silver on my right. Both halves had numerous gemstones embedded inside, any of which would have been worth a fortune on Earth. The edge of the golden half seemed slightly distended, as if it had been welded in. Or perhaps it was once entirely gold, and had the silver half added in later… like after the reformation of a certain princess. None of that, however, compared to the pony sitting alone on the gem-encrusted throne. Celestia was several inches taller than her sister - huge by pony standards, but still not as big as a fully grown horse. Like Luna’s, her mane and tail shimmered in nonexistent wind. Instead of a starry sky, Celestia’s hairdo was more comparable to the northern lights. It rippled through a kaleidoscope of colors constantly, giving no indication as to its natural color. Her horn was almost an inch longer than Luna’s, and probably twice the size of mine, reflecting the slightly colored light like glass. “So, you are finally here.” Celestia’s voice was flat, as if she'd rehearsed the line. She stood up, towering over me. “After two years of searching, my sister finally found you.” Her eyes were piercing, scanning me, as if looking for some indication of who I was. Apparently, she found it, because when I returned her gaze, she gave me a tiny smile, before turning to Luna. “I'm sorry it took so long,” said Celestia, before embracing her sister. “Maybe now, we can be a family again.” That was the first display of emotion I'd seen from Celestia, which made me feel… weirdly left out. “I'm here now,” I said after they separated. “Were you planning a family reunion or something?” “No,” responded Luna. “It would be rather difficult to explain to the public that I somehow have a fully-grown daughter, despite the fact I'd been gone long enough most ponies had forgotten I even existed. The only ponies that know about you are in this room.” Celestia turned back to me. Though she still tried to show no signs of emotion, her eyes were wet, like she was holding back tears. “Well… I did arrange for a mentor. Somepony to help you with fitting in,” she corrected. “She worked wonders with another pony who needed help fitting in in Equestria as well. She should be here in a moment.” As if on cue, a flash of purplish light radiated out from the center of the throne room. The princesses, expecting the flash, had already turned away, but I was caught by surprise and nearly fell on my side. Another thing about hooves - good for slightly uneven ground, bad for trying to gain traction on a hard, flat surface. Fortunately, rather than having to introduce a character while laying on the ground, I felt something gently push me back to my hooves, defying gravity and leaving me with the same tingly feeling from my change. The world was a bit of a blurry mess, but when I turned my head around, I think I caught a tiny smile on Celestia's face. As I blinked away the afterimage, a purple shape about the same size as me came into focus in the same place I was facing a moment earlier. Was that..? “You wanted to see me, Celestia?” asked Twilight Sparkle. Then she noticed the other two ponies in the room, her eyes locking on me. “And who's this?”
