Author's Note

For those of you that didn't see the blog post the other day, a decent portion of this chapter was rewritten after I initially finished it. It originally started with about a 500 word summary of the events of the first section, was only 3,200 words long, and started at "‘Well, this is a first…’" I apologize that this took a few days longer than planned to release, but as I said in the blog, I wasn't happy with the original version, so I held off until I was happy with it.

Now that Chapter 3 is done, I will be working on a chapter for my crossover fic before I come back to this one.

As always, I do my own editing, so if I missed anything, please don't hesitate to point it out.

If you enjoyed this story so far, consider checking out my WoW Crossover story, located here. If you are a fan of warcraft, or tranformation stories, consider checking it out and leaving a comment or like!

"Speech bubble."
'Thought bubble.'
Whiteboard messages.

Escape this reality

On the morning of my second “day” as a pony, I awoke to a surprise. As I lay in bed, attempting to wipe the sleep from my eyes, my ears perked as the door clicked open, and a cart loaded with books rolled into the room, followed closely by Heart and Star. Not noticing I was awake yet, they both began noisily trying to shush each other.

“Quietly now Heart, we don’t wanna wake the poor colt. He needs his sleep to recover.” Star whispered, bumping the cart into the bed with her inattentiveness.

“Quiet me? Quiet you!” Heart replied, trying her best to stay quiet. “You’re the one pushing that noisy cart around, ramming it into things.”

“My cart isn’t the one making all the noise,” Star shot back. “It’s you and those massive hooves of yours. I don’t care what your parents say, one of them has to be part Clydesdale for you to end up with stompers like those.”

“Stompers?!” Heart gasped. “Well, my hooves may be big, but at least they aren’t flat like yours! Tell me, how much has the hospital taken out of your paycheck for property damage this month alone?”

Star shot Heart a death glare and opened her mouth to retort, but froze when she saw me awake and watching them.

‘Aww, there goes my morning entertainment.’

“O-oh, good morning little one,” Star stammered, quick to recover. “How are you this morning?”

Realizing Star wasn’t talking to her, Heart whipped around and put on her best fake smile. “Good morning indeed! Are you ready for breakfast?”

‘Food would have been better with the show, not after.’ Smiling at the nurses, I nodded my head. “G… good, ya… yours?”

“We’re doing great, dearie, thank you for asking!” Star beamed, pushing her cart into the corner of the room. “And your morning is about to get much better. We noticed you enjoyed that “Hardy Colts” book I left here, correct?”

‘So that was her book, was it?’ I nodded before reaching out with a wing and grabbing it. Holding it up to her, I gave her the cutest look I could muster. “Ah-I fi-finished. More?”

Star took the book in her forehoof and walked it over to the cart. “Oh, you want more, do you? Well, you’re in luck. I just so happened to bring my entire collection in for you, all fifty-eight books!”

‘So… many… books!’ I could feel drool drip out of the corner of my mouth and lifted a foreleg to wipe it away.

“Somepony looks excited,” Heart teased. “He looks almost as excited as you get over those books, Star.”

“They aren’t ‘just books’, Heart. We’ve been over this before! They are, in fact, one of the best series of books ever written. So much better than that ‘Daring Do’ book you’ve been fawning over lately. These books are classics.”

While the two mares were arguing over which book was better, I struggled to try and reach the cart of books. Hooking my good wing on the headboard, I leaned out over the edge of the bed, stretching for the cart.

‘Almost… there…’

“And what, exactly, do you think you’re doing, young colt?”

‘Busted...’ Looking up, I saw both of the nurses with amused expressions on their faces.

“I think this one might like books more than you do, Star,” Heart laughed.

“A colt after my own heart,” Star joked, sitting on her haunches and holding her hooves over her chest. After having a laugh at her own joke, she stood up and took one of the books in her mouth. “Now, I’ll give you the next book in the series, but you’ve got to promise to eat your breakfast, ok? You need the nutrients to help you heal.”

Once I nodded in agreement, Star handed me the book, and I propped it up against the tray they had brought in to put my food on. ‘Huh, when did that get there?’ Using my good foreleg to hold the book open, I picked up the silverware with my wing and dug in as soon as Heart set the tray down.

Rolling the food cart to the door Star and Heart both gave cheery goodbyes, telling me to call one of them when I was ready for the next book.

‘The Hardy Colts: Identity Thief.’

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When lunchtime rolled around, Star stopped by with my second surprise of the day.

“Oh Dream, There seems to be this cute young filly her wanting to see you,” Star called out in a sing-song voice.

Tucking a scrap of paper in the book to keep my place, I looked up to see Star holding the door open for Rarity, with two ponies I recognized as her parents behind her. Setting my book aside, I gave her a friendly smile and a wave.

“Hello there, Dream Weaver was it?” Rarity asked. Receiving a nod in response, she smiled before continuing. “It is very nice to meet you, my name is Rarity Belle, but you may call me Rarity.”

‘I see she was even a stickler for manners as a filly.’ “N-nice to me… meet you, Ra-rarity.”

“I say, are you ok?” Rarity asked, giving me an inquisitive look. “Is there something stuck in your throat? If you need, I can get you a drink.”

“Rarity!” Her mother snapped. Rarity opened her mouth to respond, but her mom turned to me and started talking. “I’m so sorry about that, sweetie. It seems that Rarity,” She shot her another look. “Seems to have forgotten that the nurse had told her you were having some difficulties.”

I simply attempted to restrain my laughter and waved it off. “It’s ok.” ‘Your reaction to her question was worth any hard feelings caused by it.’

“No, it wasn’t ok!” Rarity snapped, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “I can’t believe I could be so… so inconsiderate like that! It was so… so… uncouth of me.”

‘Wow, big words for such a little pony.’

Her dad walked over and gave her a comforting pat on the back, rolling his eyes. “Honey, have you been reading that dictionary again? We’ve told you before, you don’t have to talk like one of those fancy city ponies to make your outfit look better, you can do that perfectly fine just the way you are. You even got the cutie mark to prove it.”

Upon mention of her cutie mark she instantly cheered up, and in the blink of an eye was standing on her hind legs, forelegs resting on my bed as she talked excitedly about her new mark.

“Oh, that’s right, I didn’t have my cutie mark last time you saw me!” She angled herself to give me a better view of her flank and had I not been elevated above her in a bed, I’m fairly certain she would be sticking it in my face right now. “I just got it yesterday by making the most amazing costumes ever for the schools summer play.”

Rarity went on and on, describing to me the dresses she made in excruciating detail. At some point while she was talking, her parents had gone to sit in chairs in the corner of the room, her father going through the books Star had left me earlier.

“...and Don’t even get me started on the outfits I’ve designed since. I had so many gems left over that I just had to do something with them. Of course, I’m going to have to make them last for a while… Mom and dad grounded me for going to get that geode.”

“And for good reason, too, young lady,” her dad cut in. “You got that rock from the Gem Fido foothills, that’s diamond dog territory. They don’t care how old you are, they catch you on their land, they will kidnap you and put you to work in their mines.”

“But daddy,” Rarity whined. “I didn’t want to go there, my horn…”

“I don’t want to hear it, young lady, you’re grounded and that’s that. If you want to keep arguing we can make it two weeks.”

“Yes daddy,” Rarity sighed. Perking back up, Rarity gave me another bright smile. “But if I hadn’t been out there in the first place, I don’t think anypony would have found poor Dream Weaver here. He was so far out, and his coat blended in so well with the bush he was in. Even the doctor had trouble seeing him, and I was pointing right at him.”

“...which is why you're only grounded one week instead of the four I had wanted.” Her dad grumbled.

“Four weeks?!” Rarity gasped, putting a foreleg to her head like she was going to faint. “Why that would be the worst possible thing!”

‘Oh my god, she did it as a filly, too!’

“Now now, dear, it’s not that bad." Rarity's mom chided, rolling her eyes at her daughter's antics. "You’ve still got a month of summer vacation once your time is up.”

“Still isn’t fair…” Rarity pouted. “And I just feel so terrible right now, here I am talking up a storm, and you can’t even talk back. How are we supposed to hold a proper conversation like this?”

Before I could attempt to answer, Heart walked into the room with what looked like a dry erase board in her mouth. “I think I may have just what he needs.”

‘I still don’t understand how these ponies can talk so well with things in their mouths.’

“I noticed our little friend here is quite skilled with using his wing for manipulating silverware, so I decided to dig out one of our dry erase boards so he could write his answers to us.”

“Oh, that is a wonderful idea.” Rarity’s mom complimented, before shooting Rarity a sly look. “You hear that, Rarity? You can finally have a conversation with that colt you wouldn’t stop bugging us about.”

“Mom,” Rarity whined.

‘I know she saved my “life” and all, but if she keeps whining like that she won’t be best pony anymore.’

“Colts are gross. I only wanted to check on him because he was really hurt when I found him.”

“Aww, that’s cute,” Heart gushed. “Does somepony have themselves a little crush?”

While she had a light blush before, Rarity’s entire head turned red at this, and I had to stick a hoof in my mouth to keep from laughing at her.

“I do not!” Rarity protested, her voice becoming more high pitched and squeaky.

“Of course you don’t, sweetie,” Heart chuckled. “I’ll leave you two to talk, I’ve got a few more patients to check on before lunch.”

Giving Rarity a few minutes to compose herself, I decided to mess with the dry erase board. Picking up the board, I searched the bed for the marker, before discovering it sitting in a little clip on the top of the board. Pulling the marker out, I noted that it was one of the ones with the eraser on the cap. ‘Huh, convenient…’ Although it took a little practice holding the marker so that my feathers wouldn’t get in the way, I managed to write my first message and held the board out for Rarity to read.

The blush finally mostly gone from her face, Rarity turned to read the message I had written her.

Thank you for saving me.

“Thank you for… oh, darling, it was no problem at all. You were a pony in need of help, I couldn’t just leave you there.”

Still, you saved my life, so thanks.

“I wouldn’t go that far… I’m sure somepony would have found you out there. In fact, I’m sure you’re parents were out there looking for you, and they’re just waiting at home to hear if somepony found you.”

There was an awkward silence for a few moments before I scrawled a new message on my board to try and get the conversation started again.

So, you were telling me about your new cutie mark?

“Ahh, yes, my cutie mark!” Rarity turned to the side to show off said mark. “Oh, I was so happy when I finally got it! Ok, so, I had signed up to help with the costumes for our school's summer play…”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rarity and I passed most of the rest of the day talking, but when Star showed up to drop off dinner, Rarity’s parents told her it was time to leave. With a quick hug, and a promise to be back in a few days, Rarity and her parents left to get their own dinner. The rest of the week passed without much of interest happening. But the night of my sixth “day” in Equestria, something interesting finally happened...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

‘Well, this is a first…’

While normally I would fall asleep at night in the human world and wake up to morning in the pony world, today was different. Today, I had fallen asleep in the middle of the day, passed out at my desk working. When I woke up, it was the middle of the night, and I was a pony.

Taking a look around the room, I took a moment to ponder my situation. ‘Ok, so apparently if it’s daylight on Earth, it’s night time here. It was quarter after ten in the mourning last I saw before I passed out, so here it should be…’

Finally spotting a clock on the wall, I squinted, struggling to read it in the dark. ‘Ten twenty-three at night? Alright, so it looks like there is a twelve-hour difference between the time here and the time back home. That’s either very convenient or the messed up part of my brain producing this hallucination just decided to invert the time for simplicity sake… Either way, I should really be asleep right now. Or would it be awake?’

Laying back down, I scrunched my face up in thought, oblivious to the sound of hoofsteps and the clinking of armor echoing down the hallway. ‘I should be asleep here, and awake in human land. But if this isn’t real, then wouldn’t I already be asleep? But if that was the case, then I should really be awake right now…’

I was broken out of my thoughts by the sound harsh whispering directly outside my door.

“... are you doing? It’s the middle of the night, and the patients need their sleep!” I recognized the voice of the doctor that had originally brought me in. “What business do you have, causing such a ruckus in the middle of the night.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” A very deep, very official sounding voice answered back. “My partner and I were given orders to make sure the colt’s room is secure, and to post ourselves at his door so that only hospital staff may enter.”

‘Hold on, what?’

“What, but why? It’s late, you couldn’t have done this in the morning?” The doctor asked.

“No, sir, it could not have waited. I am not at liberty to answer any of your questions, however, my C.O. should be arriving shortly to fill you in.”

‘C.O.? Not at liberty to discuss? From the way he’s talking, he must be a guard or something.’

The door to the room clicked open, and a large white unicorn stallion clad in gold armor walked into the room. His horn gave off a pale yellow light, and I quickly closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep. After a few moments of silence, I slowly open my eyes and saw that the unicorn was now looking at the window, which was engulfed in the same pale yellow light his horn gave off. Casting one more glance my way, the light from his horn extinguished and he left the room, the door clicking shut behind him.

Sitting up, I inspected the window, attempting to figure out what he had done. ‘Based on the armor, I’d say that was a Royal Guard. But what is he doing here, and what was he doing the window?’

Hearing voices in the hall again, I leaned forward as far as I could and strained my ears, attempting to eavesdrop on the conversation.

“...t’s going on here?” I heard the doctor ask again.

‘Is he still buggin’ that guard, or did another one show up?’

“I apologize for the abrupt intrusion, sir,” An authoritative sounding voice answered, this one female. “But we made a discovery while looking for the colt’s parents, and we had to act fast to assure his safety.”

“Discovery about his parents? So you found them then?”

“Yes, we found them, however...” The guard hesitated.

“That’s wonderful, I’m sure they have been worried sick about him! Tell me, when will they be here?”

“Well, that’s part of the problem… They won’t.”

“What? What do you mean they won’t be here? What kind of parents would leave their colt injured in the hospital like this?” The doctor asked, beginning to raise his voice.

There was silence for nearly a full minute before the guard responded. “His parents were found dead in their home. An investigation was performed due to signs of foul play. It was discovered that they were both murdered, execution style and the time of death was determined to be the morning the colt was found. We have reason to believe that the colt’s “accident” was anything but and that he was fleeing from whoever killed his parents.”

There was a loud thump right outside the door, followed by a long period of silence.

‘So, what? “My” parents were killed in some sort of mob hit, and they think I managed to survive somehow?’ Laying back in bed, I allowed my mind to wander. ‘But what are the guards for, do they think someone will come back and try again?’

As I lay in bed, scenarios of mob ponies busting through my window and guards storming through the door to fight them off ran through my head, I heard talking outside the door once more.

“So the guards, they’re…”

“We don’t think anypony knows he survived, but we were ordered to station guards here, just in case.” The guard answered, preempting the doctor’s question.

“And what about the colt… Do we tell him? What’s going to happen to him?”

“I think, for now, it’s best if we keep him here, under guard, and allow him to recover,” the guard paused once again, before continuing with a bit of hesitance in her voice. “As for telling him… It may be best if we just let him think we’re still looking. I know, I don’t like it either, but it may be better to leave him ignorant, rather than having a scared colt locked in a room, in his condition, jumping at shadows.”

“What about the funeral…”

The guard gave out a long, drawn out sigh before answering. “Both parents came from small families and were only foals. The mother’s parents are listed as deceased, and the father’s family disowned him. From what we’ve been able to gather, the father had quite the gambling problem, and made a habit of betting money he didn’t have. We’re thinking he owed too much to the wrong pony, and they came to collect. Attempts have been made to contact any of their more distant relatives, but so far we haven’t had any luck. If we can’t reach any of them, then they will just be given a burial without a ceremony.”

“So we just leave him in the dark? Lie to him, let him think his parents are still out there? Doesn’t that seem a bit cruel to you?”

“I know it isn’t the best solution, but it’s the safest one we could think of. Besides, even if I could think of anything better, I don’t have the authority to do anything. The Princess has involved herself in this case, and she is adamant that the colt’s safety be our highest priority.”

The ponies had begun raising their voices again, and noise from the room next door alerted them to the fact that they were waking the patients.

I heard the doctor sigh, followed by the sounds of hoofsteps moving away from my door. “Let us finish this conversation in my office, we’re disturbing the patients.”

A second quartet of hoofsteps, preceded by the light clanking of armor, alerted me to the departure of the guard. Allowing myself to relax once more, I attempted to process everything I had just heard.

‘Ok, review time… “My” parents, or rather, the parents of the colt whose place I took are dead. Not only that, some type of pony mafia may be after him. Me? They’re after Dream Weaver, whose place I took, but they don’t know that. But then if I took his place, that would mean this would have to be real, and I essentially killed him...’

Shaking my head, I attempted to refocus. ‘No, bad! Don’t think like that! This isn’t real, it’s just one big hallucination. You didn’t take anyone’s place, and you sure as hell didn’t kill them to do so!’

I rolled around on the bed, attempting to get comfortable. ‘But if this isn’t real, how do I explain the pain? It sure feels real… The injuries here are exactly the same as the ones I got in real life,' I winced as I put pressure on my injured wing. ‘That doesn’t explain the wing, though… I know I didn’t hurt my back at all.’

Finally finding a comfortable position, I settled in and attempted to fall asleep. ‘There’s no way this can be real, though. This kind of stuff only happens in bad fanfiction!'

I let out a yawn as my eyes begin to drift closed. ‘This is all just some kind of… of a weird dream brought on by my narcolepsy, that’s all…’

With that final thought, I drift off to sleep.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The following “morning” in the pony world, the doctor came to my room to check on my recovery.

“Good morning, Dream, my name is Doctor Mender,” the doctor greeted me upon entering the room. “Did you sleep well last night?”

‘Actually, I’m pretty sure I’m asleep right now, but sure.’ I nodded my head in response.

“That’s good, bed rest and nutritious foods are exactly what you need for a speedy recovery. Now, I’ve come to check on how you’re healing, and depending on the results I may get to take your wing out of that sling today.” Doctor Mender’s horn lit up as he walked around the side of my bed, encasing the covers in the same aura and pulling them back.”Just lay back and relax, I’m going to do a few scans to make sure everything is healing properly.”

I did as he asked and laid back in the bed, doing my best to relax. The doctor’s horn was enveloped with a brown aura, and moments later the same aura encased my body, bringing with it a familiar tingling sensation and tinting everything brown.

“Now, you might feel a bit of tingling.”

That was all the warning I had before my entire body once again felt like it fell asleep. The sensation only lasted a few seconds before it stopped, my body still encased in his brown aura.

“Everything seems to be healing up just fine. I’m going to do one more scan of each break individually, and after that, I should be able to remove your wing sling.”

The tingling sensation picked up again, and then I felt each individual body part “fall asleep” for a few seconds each. Doctor mender frowned for a moment and did one more series of scans before pulling a notepad out of his pocket, his aura fading from around me.

“Well, it seems you’re recovering quite quickly. Quite quickly indeed…” Doctor Mender tucked his notepad back in his coat pocket before his horn and my right foreleg. I watched as the bandage slowly unraveled itself from my leg, before rolling itself up and floating over to a trash bin. “The fractures in your wing and right foreleg are almost completely healed, and the breaks in your left foreleg are healing quite nicely. I’ve scheduled you for another set of scans in ten days. if the results come back as good as today’s, we will be removing the cast and setting you up for physical therapy.”

‘Physical therapy?’

Noticing the confused look on my face, Doctor Mender quickly explained himself. “With injuries such as these, it is important to strengthen the muscles, to compensate for both the degradation resulting from lack of use, and for the weakness of the bone as it takes its time to fully recover. Lean forward please.”

Doctor Mender paused from his explanation to remove the sling and wraps on my left wing. “As I just stated, once your bones are fully mended, they will still be weak for a time as they fully heal. You’ll want to avoid putting too much strain on them to prevent re-injury. Fan out your wings for me, please.”

I did my best to fan out my wings as he asked. As I flexed them, the left one started to burn and the right one refused to move the way I wanted it to.

‘Strange, I can easily use my wing to eat and write, but I can hardly flex them?' I frowned at my wing before getting an idea. I easily reached for the book on my bedside table and grabbed it. Holding the book in my left wing, I was able to open it up and leaf through the pages. ‘So they seem to act in place of my arms when I want to grab anything, but when it comes to basic movements they just do their own thing?’

“Interesting…” Doctor Mender was watching me carefully, taking notes in his notepad. “You seem to struggle with movements that are fairly simple, and quite important for flight control, but yet you have an amazing amount of precision when it comes to manipulating things with them.” His eyes drifted to my exposed flank. “It may have something to do with your special talent…”

Doctor Mender added a few more notes to his notepad before tucking it in his pocket in heading for the door. “Just a reminder, I’ll be back in ten days time for another scan, and from there we will work out your rehabilitation. In the meantime, I’ll have the nurse stop by with a few wing exercises that you can get started on now. Just remember, any pain or strain and you stop immediately and let one of the nurses know, understood?”

I nodded my head in response, not bothering to write a response to him.

“Then I will be by in a few days to check in on you.” Not waiting for a response, Doctor mender opened the door with a flick of his horn and walked out.

As soon as the door closed behind him, I blew a raspberry at him before reaching down to grab the covers he never bothered to return to me. ‘He’s an… interesting pony. I’m having trouble getting a lock on his personality. The nurses are both very cheerful, seem to love foals, and bicker like a married couple. The doctor… he’s acting nice and friendly one moment, then completely blowing you off the next.’

Reaching my wing over, I grabbed my book and opened to my bookmark. ‘Ah well, it's no big deal. Hopefully this… whatever it is, won’t last too much longer, and then I won’t have to deal with them anymore. I’ll miss the nurses, they’re nice, but that doctor? Meh.’