Heir of Winter

Chapter 1

Dreams are Sometimes Real

Dreams are the gateway to a life you never lived, at least, that’s what I like to think of them as; endless possibilities and unknowable futures. But alas, I’m just your average human male, multiple years out of highschool with no real direction to go, no car, no money, no job, no real life to live. How old am I you’re asking now? That’s not important, to me at least, but for the sake of just being less of a drag, I’m twenty four years old and still living in my parents house with very few friends to show for it; most if not all of my old school friends moved away ages ago and the most contact I have anymore with them is either via the internet or a single friend that I hang out with once a month or so. Dreams can only give you so much from your own life's respite.

This is about something different altogether. You see, I have these dreams sometimes about other worlds. Fantastic worlds, filled with life, hope and wonder. And usually, for the most part about a place called Equestria. Equestria is a place I think about a lot more than my own life, more because I don’t like Earth for all its problems, its strife and drama. You know, all that ilk. Now, Equestria is a place, well, more of a fictional place if I have to say it is, which I don’t want to say is because of my own dilemma. I would rather say it’s just another place humans have not touched and defiled with their bloody conquests for land and fame. Someplace I would actually want to protect with my life; something I almost never say about anything or anywhere. Earth included.

Anyway, Equestria is a land governed by two Alicorn rulers that make the night and day by using magic to move the sun and moon around their planet of Equis (for seemingly unknown reasons since one on earth would think that their planet would naturally rotate around their sun and the moon around their planet).

Their subjects are the earth ponies, the unicorns and the pegasi. The earth ponies mainly govern the land as farmers as they are more closely intertwined with the land then the other races, of course this means that like the land they also have unique abilities, traits and the like. Earth ponies have a vast amount of stamina and strength, it wouldn’t be unusual to see one hauling around a massive amount of stock in a cart for selling in the market. In that notation, because they are so close to the land and what comes off it, they are generally astounding cooks (assuming they practiced; getting a pan of cookies out of an oven with your mouth isn’t exactly an easy task)

Pegasi on the other hand, or hoof in their case, are masters of the sky and are able to craft the very fabric of weather, fly at blisteringly fast speeds and even stand on clouds. Most prefer to live in the sky rather than the ground as they feel it gives them more freedom. I personally think there’s more reasons than just a sake of freedom, such as the ground having a different air quality then their lungs can handle. For lack of better terming, different air quality to them would make a pegasi rather sleepy on the ground a lot of the time unless they got used to the difference.

Now, Unicorns on the other hoof or hand are generally the wild card of the three races or, technically, four races. Alicorns being a combo of all three. For what they lack in strength or flight they gain in the arts of magic. Magic being the very premise of their being a well trained Unicorn in the arts of magic and the arcane could very well trump over all the other races aside for the Alicorns. Their abilities in magic can make them able to fly, or give themselves a large boost to their strength. Generally the only limit to magic is a unicorns own ability or imagination to craft new spells, or rather their own innate magical ability as not all unicorns are made equal in that manor. The same can be said for the other races regardless, it’s all down to their own ability and their specialty.

Specialty being that of something called in their world. A Cutie Mark. This mark that comes onto both sides of their flanks at some unelected time in their lives is a representation of their own talent, generally a symbol tieing into what that talent is, or rather a part of what it is. After all everybody, or everypony in their case, has more than one tallent.

Anyway, these dreams of mine are usually of this world. Most being vague in their meanings or what they want me to see or know, at least that’s how I like to think of dreams, a glimpse into another world away from the problems of your own.

I just plain don’t like Earth in its entirety. Sure some things here and there are nice. But honestly I would rather not wake up in the morning to see it again.

Waking up the the same old morning is rather boring, the same routine, the same people, same old and same old. But like same old, a person in a rut tries their best to get themselves out of it or, at the very least, try to find the thing that’s causing the problem and find a fix for it, even if it’s only temporary. That is of course to say if it can be fixed at all.

I almost never bother to take walks when I wake up in the morning, though the times I do it’s usually to collect my thoughts on a rather large dream that I had woken up to. Why I picked to go take my walk in the backyard woods during the winter on the other hand I’m more than likely never going to figure out; it’s always better to take walks in the summer.

“Cold as usual.” I remark to myself while I rub my gloveless hands together, ”I could have just stayed indoors in a nice and also, frankly, just as cold room of my own; not like the cold bothers me as much as it used to.” My room is normally always cold in the winter, be it just from my heater not working right or otherwise; you get used to being cold after a while. On the bright side the snow wasn’t all that deep this year, it for made walking around with normal shoes a lot easier on me; though it didn’t save my socks from getting wet.

The walk through my home's backyard was uneventful, I had honestly figured I would have ran into a deer or two since I see them from my back yard window every so often, but right now? Not even a sound aside the crunch of snow under my shoes could be heard; frankly it was rather unusual, though I wasn’t one to question things very often. Eventually I came to the pond that I normally passed by whenever I felt like coming back here, though that wasn’t often in the slightest. I always liked to stop here and sit on the rock next to it, right under a massive tree that always felt warmer than usual. Though I never had come back to the pond in the winter, I found it odd that the pond hadn’t frozen over in the slightest, nor did the rock have any snow on it. I figured it best to just call myself lucky that my butt didn’t have to get wet from sitting down.

And that’s exactly what I did, I went over to the rock and sat my rump down to think while looking down at my still reflection in the pond. ”Why do I always have to wake up in a place that doesn’t feel like home?” I asked myself reflection aloud; thinking in my head always seemed harder to me for some reason. ”Every time I wake up I always wish I could just go back to sleep and live in my dreams instead, more so when those dreams feel more like home then my life here on a planet called earth.” That’s how my thinking usually goes, talking to myself, wishing for things to change, wanting a different life other than the one I was living.

I leaned my back against the trunk of the large tree behind me and my rock. It was an old tree, almost too old to think possible. You could take seven fully grown adults and they still wouldn’t be able to get all their arms around the size of its massive trunk, it wasn’t even a redwood tree. ”And you’ve seen just about everything, haven't you?” I remarked to the tree, it almost felt like I could get an answer from it for some reason, no matter how many times I asked it something it always sat there listening with its warm glow; even if I felt a little silly for doing so.

I sat under that tree for a long while, just pondering the what ifs of life, eventually starting to feel like I wanted to take a nap; something I almost never bother doing, let alone sleeping outdoors. It was a long walk back to the house and I didn’t feel like heading back while tired while I had wet and cold socks to deal with; I took my shoes and socks off to dry on the warmth of the tree figuring it better to have them off then to have them on. I chose to sit myself against the tree and sleep for a while, ”I wish I could have lived a better life than this; there’s so much I wanted to do with my life that I can’t do here.” I said aloud to nobody in particular while I put the hood of my hoodie over my head to block out the sunlight and drifted off to sleep. The tree giving me an unheard answer.

Strangely enough, I didn’t dream at all while sleeping under that tree.

I awoke slowly, my rest being entirely uneventful. The first thing that I noticed is that I was entirely covered head to toe in snow, I didn’t remember the weather forecast saying that it was supposed to snow today, ”Typical.” A smaller and higher pitched voice remarked that didn’t sound like my own said using my mouth, ”And since when do I sound like a girl?” I remarked to my own voice as I pushed my way out of the snow with my face to look at the outside world.

It was still day time as far as I could tell, in fact, it looked like no time had passed at all. I did however notice that everything looked a fair amount larger than it used to, ”Alright, weirdness noted.” I mumbled to myself, pushing the rest of myself out of the snow, not used to the voice coming out of my own mouth. I promptly fell flat onto my face, my center of gravity being entirely off from where it used to be, something was definitely different. ”Okay, so either I’m dreaming or my body is entirely different from what it used to be.” I noted while sitting myself on the snow to get a better look at my surroundings, everything looked pretty much the same aside for the now frozen over pond that was covered in snow, ”No reflections for me I guess.”

That left me with the only option of looking my limbs over. The first thing I noticed was that I didn’t have hands or feet, only hooves covered in fur that was just as white as the snow; I honestly couldn’t tell the difference. My hair, or mane in this case, was also just as white as the snow and liked to get into my eye, my now apparent tail was the same color. ”So, either I got turned into a filly or I’m still dreaming.” I would have done the pain test to find out if I was, but, there’s an odd thing about my dreams that caused me not to. I can still feel pain in my dreams, an oddity that I never figured out. A second check over told me my favorite hoodie was absent from my body, not something to be happy about but at least I had fur as a replacement.

The filly part was true, there’s nothing down there anymore aside a tiny pair of teats. I wasn’t going to dwell on it; on one side of the scale if I was dreaming then I would eventually wake up and even if I wasn’t I had a new life to live for no apparent reason; and I did say I didn’t like my current one, I wasn’t going to complain about the details and I had my reasons not to. Even if that meant leaving my family behind and having a vagina, I was overdue to move out anyway.

Having checked over everything that I could think of I didn’t feel the need to wait around any longer. The snow was deep enough to help me regain my center of balance and gave me a better sense on how to walk around on four legs, aside for a few fumbles here and there, relearning to walk wasn’t all that difficult; though it didn’t keep me from falling into deeper patches of snow. I went back in the general direction of my home, the trip taking a lot longer because of my size and inexperience with my current body. By the time I got around where my house should be It was around the mid morning hour, a time I tried my best to eat lunch at; though that was usually the time I got myself out of bed.

I would have liked to have said I went inside to eat lunch, that simply wasn’t the case, my house wasn’t there. In its place was a park rather empty of anybody aside a single adult sized pony wearing a scarf keeping an eye on others that seemed around my size playing around in the snow, none of them gave me any notice, I figured I blended into the snow too well for them to see me. It was around this time that I felt like saying that I was more than likely not dreaming, the one thing about my dreams is that people or others in the dream with me had always been fuzzy blurs. These figures were as clear as day.

“Come on everypony, back into the schoolhouse for lunch!” The adult in the group exclaimed while dinging a bell on a post. It was around that same time that I noticed the vibrantly painted school building literally right next to the playground; how in the world did I miss that? It was also around that same time that my belly decided to make its hunger apparent to me by growling rather loudly in a defiant exclamation, ”Feed me you silly filly.” It seemed to be saying. I wasn’t going to argue with it, if the schoolhouse had food I wasn’t about to pass it up. I made my way with the others into the school building. Surprisingly none of them noticed me, that is until I was the last one to step into the building.

“Ghost!” one of the fillies exclaimed at me screaming and falling over as if she had fainted. All eyes were on me after that, there was a lot of confusion and screaming. The adult on the other hoof, I guess it would be hoof now, worked on calming everypony else down from my arrival. They didn’t take all that long to calm everypony down, seems they were rather good at their job. On that note they were also looking at me after the commotion, ”Well, you gave us all quite the startle, though, I will admit. I wasn’t expecting any new fillies to teach today.” She eyed me down in study, her eyes looked as if they could look through anything. Though with my coloring, I would almost take that in a more literal term.

“Erm…” I stuttered, ”I got lost on the way here, forgot my lunch at home.”

The pony studied me for a while longer before sighing, ”You should have come sooner then or at least with one of your parents. School has already started” She said with a huff, ”If somepony wants to share some of their lunch with her please do. After that you can have a seat next to Sweetie Belle. Also, I would like to talk to you after school is over.” She glances over to the one that actually, in fact had fainted. ”And somepony please wake Sweetie Belle up.” With that she walked back to her desk to eat.

Lunch was unsurprisingly, again, all eyes on the snow white filly. I had a lot of questions asked to me, like 'When did you move to Ponyville?” or ”Where did you come from?”, ”What’s your name?”, ”Do you have a cutie mark?” and all the like. Unfortunately a lot of the questions I simply couldn’t answer either because I didn’t know or because I didn’t want them to know. Though on the bright side I did get lunch, ironically from the very filly named Sweetie Belle whom had fainted upon my arrival. A whole tulip sandwich, apparently her sister packed her an extra for some reason, it was rather buttery to my pallet but overall not bad.

“But really though, what is your name?” One of the colts in the class asked. I didn’t really have one to give as far as I knew, at least not one for this pony body I had. I had no other choice but to lie about it.

”Wispy Spirits.” I said, though for some reason it didn’t sound like I actually was lying about my name; it fit rather well considering my body color. I hadn’t noticed the teacher giving a letter to a Pegasus outside a window.

The rest of school thankfully went smoothly, math and the like. It also confirmed my location. I was on Equis, in the nation of Equestria, in the town of Ponyville. Truth be told I couldn’t have been any happier to figure that out, it’s a place that I had wished I had been born to so many times over that the very thought was almost surreal to me. How could I have gotten here was another thought, along with why did I become a filly? I was a guy before, so a change in gender is definitely an oddball. Not that I’m complaining about it, it’s a chance to see life on the other end of the scale, though using the bathroom is going to be weird for a while. Regardless, those questions could hopefully be answered later.

School ended a little while later when the clock on the wall struck three past noon. All the other fillies and colts grabbed their bags and went off home with their parents while the older ones went home alone, leaving me alone in the schoolhouse with the teacher. ”So, Wispy Spirits was it?” I nodded at the teacher while she looked at me, ”I sent a letter into town asking for your parents registry and residence since they didn’t come with you to bring you to school today, or to be frank, bother to tell me you were coming.” She said with a sigh, ”My name is Cheerilee by the way, in case they forgot to tell you. On a side note, the response letter I sent to the town mayor should be here shortly.” And, like clockwork, a knock on a window next to Cheerilee signaled the arrival of the towns courier holding out a letter to her with their mouth, the teacher taking it and thanking the courier for their service; evidently a pony named Derpy being the said courier.

“Now let’s see here.” Cheerilee said as she skillfully opened up the letter and took out the paper, reading it over. She then gave me a quizzing look. ”Well. From what I’m reading here you’re either lying about your name, which I’m certain you’re not, or there’s no registry what so ever about your family. Let alone yourself.” I wasn’t surprised, as far as I knew I had only just arrived on Equis this morning. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that let alone tell her where I came from to begin with. I didn’t have any family here so I said the only thing I thought I could tell her and not it be a total lie.

”I don’t have parents.” I stated; it wasn’t entirely a lie. I did have parents where I came from to begin with, but here on Equis I may as well have been an orphan. That thought wasn't something to be happy about.

Cheerilee gave me a dumbfounded look, ”No parents?” She asked as if in disbelief, I nodded. ”Well, surely you have somepony to go home to don’t you? Family or relatives?” I shook my head no. ”At least a home to go to?” She asked, tearing up a little. I didn’t really have anything, I had only just got here. Just yet another thought to add to being unhappy about my current situation.

”Nothing.” I stated, now realizing even more that I had a bit of a large problem. ”I don’t have anypony.” Something inside me must have broke when I said that as I flat out started crying my eyes out into Cheerilees chest, I hadn’t even noticed her walk up to embrace me.

My inner filly self cried out for the better part of an hour, part realization of my situation while another part was simply happy to be on Equis. The place I wanted to call home and the place I was going to be for the rest of an unknowable future as far as I knew. ”Well, seeing as it doesn’t seem like you have anywhere else to go,” Cheerilee spoke up after wiping the wetness from her eyes, ”I should offer you to stay with me for a while though I don’t exactly have much room in my house for somepony to be staying with me for very long.” Cheerilee stated. ”You could at least stay until the weather warms up a bit. After that though, I’m afraid I don’t really have any other options that I could give you since school will be starting up again once winter break is over. I would rather not have to send you to an orphanage.”

With myself not having much of any other options other then taking her up on her offer I went to Cheerilees home with her. Her house was exactly as she said, it was frankly tiny in compare to the houses surrounding it. A small window with a few potted and surprisingly unwilted flowers adorned the front part of the small building; Cheerilee seemed to take notice of me eyeing them, ”They’re called Winter Lilies, they last all winter long so long as they have cold weather and a bit of snow every now and then. No idea why though.” She shrugged while walking to her door and pulling a key out from under a flower pot with a hoof, seems the ponies here can grab things with their hoofs rather than using their mouths for everything rather than what I had seen via dreamscape; definitely not a complaint from me. Anyone, pony or otherwise, would feel bad for a somebody who had to use their mouth to take things out of an oven.

The interior was something to behold much to my own surprise, In one corner of the building was a well furnished living room with the kitchen sitting right next to it, a bathroom with a secondary connecting door into a toilet room stood farther to the left of the entrance into the humble home. Stairs leading upward left me to assume that was where her bedroom was; a door in the side of the stairway was most likely a storage closet she used to keep odds and ends.

The thought of the bathroom sent a short warning signal from my now much smaller bladder as I made my way to the toilet room inside it, Cheerilee gave me a knowing look as she herself went into a side room that I hadn’t noticed. My first guess is that it was a secondary toilet room, but regardless I had my own needs to attend to.

But, my body being a different gender made things a bit awkward. I wasn’t even sure how to get this body to go; everything was on my back end. I looked down at the toilet with a semi bemused look, it was a floor urinal, I wasn’t surprised in the slightest. Sitting on a toilet would be a bit of a challenge for a pony, let alone a stallion. The thought of stallions made my mind wander as I went over to squat over the toilet, I was going to have to get used to seeing the opposed genitalia a lot more commonly than any unmarried human would since ponies don’t normally wear clothing; let alone wear pants. It’s a nudists dream over here on Equis and I was on the front row seat of seeing ponies with everything hanging out on display. The very thought made me flush.

I was glad to figure out that using the restroom was pretty much the same for both genders, and species, aside the fact that girls need to wipe front to back when doing a number two; not like I hadn’t been doing that already as a male. Picking up toilet paper with hooves on the other… hoof, was a challenge, I was half tempted to ask for a helping hoof from Cheerilee but I wanted to save myself and her from embarrassment. I shook my hoof at the paper in frustration only to realize that it wouldn’t come off instead, ”What?” I mentally asked myself in confusion as I shook my hoof again. It took me a while to notice a familiar feeling coming from the hoof holding the toilet paper, it felt like I was clenching a fist; weird considering I didn’t have hands anymore to do so. I relaxed my ‘Hoof Fist’ as if I was flat palmed with my fingers on a table, the toilet paper fell to the floor in a comedic fashion.

Was it really that simple? Did hooves and hands really work the same way in this world? I took the idea a step further and tried to pick the toilet paper up as if I was using just two fingers, and surprise surprise it worked exactly like I thought it would. The paper picked up like nothing.

Guess hooves work like hands in this particular version of Equis. I wasn’t going to have to miss out on having thumbs after all. Happy mood is best mood.

My business with the toilet finished I washed off my hooves at the sink and went to go find where Cheerilee went off to. Only to not find her anywhere to be seen, on a second look around I found a note on the living room table

Wispy, I’m sorry to run off on you without saying anything but I had some business to do in town since I wasn’t expecting a guest to be staying with me for a while, there’s some leftovers from my dinner I made the other day that you can help yourself to if you get hungry while I’m gone.

The bathroom closet is the laundry room where I keep all the bath towels and cleaning supplies while my room is upstairs on the right should you need anything while I’m working on grading school work, though that doesn’t take me very long to do either way.

On a side note, and a rather sudden notion on my part of simply wanting to help you out in the longer term of things, I’m taking it upon myself to ask the ponyville clinic if they would be willing to see you later in a few days time since I was unsure if you had ever been to one; it would help you in the long run if you had medical records should you ever need to use the hospital later in life. Now, I would rather not feed you anything you're allergic to so please be careful with what you eat; if it tastes funny or makes you feel weird. Don’t eat it. As for the clinic, it would help me better determine your age since I’m not sure if you know it yourself, mainly, I plain forgot to ask you how long you had been out alone since I figured it would be a touchy subject at the time.

Regardless I should be home in hopefully less than an hour.

Please make yourself at home

Cheerilee

P.S: That is of course assuming you can read this letter to know I left, I forgot to ask if you had any schooling

Now I’m just wondering how she managed to write all that down while I was in the toilet room, let alone the fact I could her writing. There’s a lot of details I didn't have about my being here and a whole ton of questions I should be asking myself and even more so that I shouldn’t even be thinking about, assuming this body is as old as I think it could be I would rather not be thinking about intercourse any time soon; probable that I still liked girls anyway.

Thinking back to the bathroom I realized that I finally had a chance to see my own reflection, a short walk back into the room lead me to face a large full body mirror on the wall. I wasn’t too surprised at the size of the mirror, ponies need larger ones to see their body better from all angles.

I wasn’t too far from my first assumption of what I looked like, I was bleach white across my entire body, mane and tail included. I moved a hoof to brush my mane from my eyes then felt my hoof run into something midway, further inspection told me I had a horn just as white as the rest of me. I was a unicorn, that in of itself opened a massive door that I had only dreamed of opening my entire life.

Magic.

Magic was something I had loved since I was just a kid, not just that pulling out a rabbit from a hat junk. I mean real magic like flying without wings, conjuring fire, water or lightning, levitating objects, water breathing by giving yourself gills, making things out of thin air. Those kind of things are something I’ve always dreamed of being able to do some day. Though the unfortunate part of that were the limits of the human mind and body as well as the limits of earth in of itself. Earth didn’t have that kind of magic anymore as far as anyone could tell, sure you could read stories people have made over time about these great feats of magic people supposedly had done in the past but all of those stories are just as they are. Stories with no real magic to show for them.

Now here on Equis I had a chance to do the things I wished I could have learned since the very beginning, ”And here my father said I wouldn’t amount to anything if I just sat around all day.” I said gleefully to myself before realizing that I had been jumping up and down for the past couple minutes, I had to settle myself down for a little while. I felt a bit sheepish for acting out like that, jumping up and down in excitement wasn’t something I had done since I was a little kid. But then again I pretty much was a little kid again. Wasn’t I?

My thoughts coming back to the present I went back to the mirror to look at what I was going to to begin with, my eyes.

Much to my own surprise they were almost exactly the same as they had been before while I was human, a shade of light silver black eyes stared back at me. They were a lot brighter colored than I remember them being, they used to be almost black and silver; it wasn’t like I minded, they fit this body perfectly.

My own curiosity got the better of me as I decided to turn around to take a look at my back end, carefully standing on three hooves and using the other to push my tail out of the way. Of course I looked at myself, why wouldn't I? Even more so when I’m still getting used to my new body.

Short story shorter, I had girl parts. What else did I expect sounding the way I did? Of course I would have them; and the awkwardness of getting used to them would surely come, much, much later. When I was damned well ready for it and mentally prepared to deal with it I would likely take a more 'In Depth' look at them. But for now? I figured it best to leave my back end alone for the better part of the future. One thing I told myself in the past is that I didn’t want kids at all; I was thankful that this body seemed to agree. At least for now at the very least

A lingering thought of the back end made me recall something of an important detail. The ponies of Equestria have something called a cutie mark, mainly a butt tattoo of their special talent. Though the meaning they gave was vague at best sometimes since ponies always have more than just a single talent, it was something that every pony ever eventually obtained in their lives. On a double take, it seems that I don’t have one yet. On a mental note I felt it safe to assume that my age could be some place around twelve to fifteen years of age, since I took note that I was moderately taller then most of the fillies and colts at the school yet still being shorter than Cheerilee.

Come to think I’m surprised that those fillies and colts didn’t start hammering me with questions since I wasn’t a regular at their school, that’s something that the new kid in town always has happen, questions questions and more questions. Perplexing to say the least but I wasn’t going to dwell on it. I had plenty of other questions to be asking myself now that I had some time to myself.

How I got here to begin with was on the top of the list, second being why my gender changed; though I didn’t entirely care to get an answer to that one. Third was simply what to do with myself now that I was here.

I remembered falling asleep under my usual tree then waking up here, though there wasn’t anything in between is the issue. “One moment I’m a human taking a nap under a tree on Earth, the next I’m a unicorn on the planet of Equis. I suppose I could chalk it up to magic causing me to come here, though, that would mean Magic on earth would have to exist in some form or another.” I spoke aloud to nobody but myself while going into Cheerilees kitchen, turned out they have refrigeration units here as well, “On another note, If magic did in fact bring me here it would mean that somepony or some being brought me here on purpose. Or, maybe, some form of aberrant magic caused me to be pulled here; though that’s just grasping at air as far as I know.” I mused while pulling out what looked to be half a flower sandwich; a closer look showed what looked like to be a daisy in it along with pepper and a assortment of other spices I didn’t recognize.

Consumption proved it was surprisingly spicy.

Question three was going to have to wait for now until I had a better direction to sent myself in, aimlessly wandering around town wouldn’t be in my best interest since I would more then likely just find myself getting lost.

I heard the door open just as I sat myself down on the living room couch, “Good to see you’re settling in alright.” Cheerilee said while putting down a pair of saddle bags that looked filled to the brim with assorted food products among other items. “Yeah, I helped myself to your leftover daisy sandwich.” I mentioned.

It was mostly small talk after that, mainly covering what she taught in school. She was rather well rounded in all aside magic, not that that was surprising considering she was an earth pony. I did however eventually ask if there was a library in town; evidently from what Cheerilee told me the last one got blown up in a battle with an Alicorn princess named Twilight Sparkle and a Centaur named Tirek. An honest pity that so many books got destroyed, though on the bright side what did survive the blast got moved into a conveniently new made castle that just happened to appear right after the fight with Tirek was finished. “Magic is all I can chalk that up to, though I honestly have no idea where it came from aside from what's been said around town,“ Mused Cheerilee, “They said It came out of some magic box or something. Right after everypony's magic essence got restored.”

It was still moderately early enough in the day for me to convince Cheerilee to take me to the new castle's library; I had plenty of things I wanted to figure out and I planned to use all the time I had to do so.

I was honestly surprised that I had missed a giant crystalline castle on the way to Cheerilees house. It was huge! Cheerilee knocked firmly on the massive front door, the resounding noise echoing out loudly around us. “Door’s open, come on inside!” a young male voice said from inside the castle, we invited ourselves inside.

The inside of the castle was massive and awe inspiring. Crystal pillars lined the walls with banners running down the sides while luminescent crystals lit up most the area with the occasional candle flickering on the wall; artistry of crystalline trees looked as if grown into the walls of the castle. Truly a sight to behold.

A small dragon greeted us, “Hey Cheerilee, I don’t see you around the castle too often.” He looked at the both of us. “Who’s the filly?” He eventually asked. It seemed like he had been busy with something when we arrived, he was wearing a chefs hat and was slightly covered in flower while we was idly stirring a held bowl of batter.

“Spike, This is Wispy. Wispy, this is Spike.” Cheerilee said looking over to me and then back to him,” At the moment she’s staying with me until she can find housing and a job here in Ponyville.” She left out a lot of details, though I wasn’t going to complain about it. “She wanted to use the library.” She added.

“Ah, up the stairs on the right, first door on the right. Twilight is in there reading something that Princess Celestia sent her this morning. Though I’m sure she wouldn’t mind some reading company.” Spike then left us both as he walked through a room on our left; more than likely the kitchen.

“Wispy, as much as I wish I could stay with you at the library I do have work I need to be doing back home. Will you be alright on the way back?” Cheerilee asked.

“Sure, though don’t blame me if I end up staying the night in the library. I tend to get caught up in reading rather easy.” I stated; It was an understatement, when I start reading everything and anything gets tuned out. Cheerilee eyed me for a moment at the mention of staying the night, though it didn’t seem she was opposed to it.

”I suppose that’s alright, seeing as a lot of ponies do the same. And it’s better then walking back to my house in the dark.” She said, “Just try not to bother to much Twilight while she’s reading whatever the Princess sent her.” I nodded and parted ways with her, making my way up the long stairs on the right.

I followed Spikes wording and made my way to the cracked open door on the right, I decided to be polite and knock on the door before entering. “Come on in Spike, the door’s open.” One assumed to be Princess Twilight Sparkle answered thinking that I was somebody else. I made my way inside to the large library to see one purple Alicorn laying next to a table covered in papers. She looked up at me, “Oh! I wasn’t expecting somepony else aside Spike.” She looked semi wide eyed at me. She looked a bit winded, as if she had just finished a particularly hard riddle. “Is there anything I can help you find? I’m pretty much finished here.”

I nodded. “Quite a few things actually.” I smirk while scanning up and down the long bookcases. “I’m looking for books on the basics of magic, a book on the origins of magic, the history of Equis, aberrant magic….” My list goes on for a long while while Twilight is giving me a rather bemused look, “ And a book on multidimensional theorem.” I state, ending my list.

Twilight gives me a bewildered look at the last couple. “Are you sure about those? Those are rather advanced for somebody of your….” She stops for a moment and gives me a look over before asking, “Sorry to ask but with your coloration and height it’s really hard to tell just how old you are. If you don’t mind my asking that is.” She pauses her question. I may as well be honest with her, she is a Princess after all.

“I’m twenty four.” I state flat out.

She hacks out with a cough of disbelief and surprise. “I’m sorry, how old?” I say my age again in confirmation. “I find that hard to believe that you would be my age without a cutie mark yet….” She stammers, looking me over again. “I know this may sound a bit invasive of privacy but you wouldn’t mind if I cast a simple spell on you to confirm it?” She asked looking at me in the eyes. Not thinking it could harm anything, I nod my head.

I saw Twilight's horn set itself aglow with magic as she began her spell, the sight of magic being used in front of me made my own horn tingle slightly in response. I felt something tingley touch my body all over, it was a strange and alien feeling, like I was being probed with whiskers from a cat. But before I even knew it the feeling ended and I saw a piece of paper on the table set itself alight with Twilight's purple magic glow. Numbers and other symbols appeared onto it, most of them I could read with ease aside one that looked like a glowing horn; easy to assume what it meant regardless.

Twilight and myself looked over the paper reading it top to bottom;

Magical analysis of Wispy Spirits

Mental age: Error

Physical age: 24

Gender: Mare

Height: 3ft 6in

Cutie mark: None

Magical Aptitude: Error

Time until full grown: 7 days

Full height estimate: 4ft 5in

Time until first “in” season: 1 month. Estimated length of time in season: 4 days

Birth date: Solar Year 1992 on Winter Solstice

Spell Matrix Error Noted In Multiple Fields

“Well then.” Twilight gawked while looking at me. “I guess one can’t judge a pony by looks alone.” she states while looking back down at the paper a second time. I can tell exactly what she’s about to ask. “Why is your mental age and magical aptitude an error though?” Bingo.

I wasn’t entirely paying attention to the later parts of her questioning. I saw something on that paper I was honestly hoping I wouldn’t have to deal with; this body was old enough for intercourse after all and I was due for my first heat in only a single month. “Hey! Are you listening to me?” Twilight said loudly, knocking me out of my train of thought.

“Sorry, just thinking on that third to last part.” I lamely stated, blinking at the paper a few more times to take it in. Twilight looked at me for a few moments then looked back at the papers lower half, then did a double take at me and the paper.

“Oh.” She stammered out. “I suppose that would cause some worry wouldn’t it.” She said, “First one to boot.” She added after a moment, biting her lower lip. “Try not to worry about it Wispy, just keep yourself indoors those four days and make sure you have somepony to keep an eye on you, the first one is the worst of them but after that it's not too much to worry about.” She said looking back to me, “If it helps, you can stay here in the castle for those days if you want, there’s so much extra room in here that I’ve been tempted to rent rooms out to ponies a good few times.”

Part of me was glad that she offered me a place to take care of myself, another was glad that she forgot the questions she had been asking me while I was thinking about the upcoming month. Either way I ended up in that library with Twilight for a long while, for some reason she felt like helping me with every single book that I had asked for.

Magic seemed simple enough on its own but proved that I was inexperienced with it without any doubt, Twilight gave me one of her personal copies of ‘Magic - A History’ to look through. It was rather enlightening and perplexing at the same time. Nopony really knew where magic came from to begin with, most figured they always had it while others say it had something to do with the princesses moving the sun and moon around Equis.

Another book labeled ‘Rogue Magic’ caught my attention rather hard. Evidently in certain places around Equis magic flowed differently in and out of the air, sometimes even making a physical fluid that the ponies here called ‘Rogue Mana’ and disappears almost as soon at a pony sees it. Evidently the findings of that said mana are extremely rare, so much so that it’s called one of the nine wonders of Equis. Who knows, maybe if I ever go exploring I’ll see if I can track it down.

The ‘Almanac of Equis’ had a lot more than my dreams had let me in on, the planet of Equis was almost two times the size of Earth and many of its regions have yet to be explored or even mapped out. The book also showed a pony named Daring Do holding what looked to be a fossil of some kind. Other knowledge in the book told me how long Celestia and her sister Luna have also been in power as well as Luna's banishment to the moon for a thousand years; astoundingly it seemed that Celestia had to be over a thousand five hundred years old at least!

‘Multidimensional Theorem and You’ told me just about nothing of what I wanted to know or how I could have gotten here. Though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised about it considering what it could entail for all of pony and other kind. Other worlds could be good or bad. And much like my own world of Earth, I could easily say that a lot of them are bad.

Unfortunately that last book look a lot more of attention then I had hoped, before I knew it I found myself snoozing away on top of one last book that I saved; something Twilight almost refused me outright much to my own surprise, she explained that it was a book that Celestia and Luna gave her on the day she became an Alicorn. It took a lot of time to talk her into letting me read it but she eventually caved in, not wanting to deny another avid reader a book.

“The Legend Of The First Alicorn”

Author's Note

Hope people will like this one, I've got some definite plans this time around rather then my last flop.