Contrast, First Impressions

Alexander slowly came to with a sheer, relaxed smile.   His body felt like it had gotten the best sleep in its life and then he had eaten some mythical golden apple or some other legendary super fruit on top of that.  Indeed, he felt like he was barely clinging onto his clear head and not falling into a euphoric stupor.  There was no doubt in his mind that his "Dam!  I feel good!" was cranked up to a solid eleven.

Opening his eyes, he found himself staring up at the roof of a bed's canopy.  He could have picked apart the details, but he didn't feel like it.  Instead he just summarized that this wasn't some cheap knock off or even a medium priced bed.  This was an actual, high quality bed that only really, really rich people could afford.

With a huff of breath that didn't quite turn into laughter, Alexander made a pleasantly confused smirk.  "OK,"  he tried to say, only to cough. His voice was scratchy and came difficultly, His throat felt like he had just gotten over being sick and the mucus around his vocal cords hadn't gotten the message, making him sound like some person with throat cancer or something.  He wouldn't even have recognized it as his voice, had it not been cut off when he coughed.

He cleared his throat as best he could and tried again, "OK, Alexander Almond Barke, where the hell are you?"

A soft, almost motherly voice came from the bedside to his right, "So your name is Almond Bark?  I must say it is quite lovely."

Calmly and lazily, Alexander rolled his head to look at the person who had just spoke.  But calm went right out the window when his suddenly widening eyes fell on the source of the voice.

The white horse with a horn and multicolored mane that was made of what he could only approximate as being made up of fire tried to speak again, "Hello there my little pony.  I am princess Cele-"

"Aaaaahhh!!" Alexander screamed.  With no feeling in hands or feet, his grip on the bed slipped many times as he did his best to scramble from under the covers and as far away from the thing that was in front of him.  Upon making it most of the way off the bed, his left arm slipped for the ump-teenth time, but when he put it back down it landed on something that was bony and flesh-like instead of the bed.  A sharp pain from somewhere on the left side of his torso made that side clench up, making him role over towards the edge.

Just as his face landed square on the bed, he felt like he had jammed into something and heard a tearing noise.  The bulk of his body fell off the bed with some of the covers being dragged along with him, but something was keeping his head from following suit.  For lack of better description, it was like something was entangled around a single spot on his forehead.

with a loud but painless thump to the floor, Alexander started noticing things.  His neck didn't feel like it was the right length for one.  It felt much longer than it should have been.  Pulling up his arms, he could only scream again as he found chocolate brown fur and nubs meeting where his hands should have been. Finally noticing the muzzle at the bottom of his vision he screamed even louder.

The white horse came and poked its head around the bedside as Alexander just lay sprawled out, with his head somehow still caught on the bed, continuing to scream again and again.

After finally succumbing to the tightening of the mucus that was garbling his voice, he took several sharp, panicked breathes.  His eyes never moved from the white horse as he did so.

A few moments later as his breathing started to settle, the white horse spoke up in a worried tone, "Are you all finished panicking now?"

Finally, Alexander's eyes unglued themselves from the white horse and did a quick sweep of his surroundings.  With one final sharp breath and a cough to loose the mucus again, he answered, "Still thoroughly freaked out.  But ya, I think I'm done panicking."  His eyes finally looked up at the spiraled horn at the top of her head and the crown nestled behind it.  "...For now at least."