Act 1 Prologue: ...But I live in a Pony World

I want to be a human.

Just saying it right now instead of wasting two chapters of my journal telling you about my daily life before finally say it at the very last page.

I have been into humans ever since I was just a little filly. I actually met a human here in Equestria but nopony, even my own friends, believed me and some even made fun of or bullied me for that belief. However, that didn’t stop me from remembering that day like it was just eight years ago.

It was during Hearth’s Warming Day in Canterlot; My friends & I were playing snowball fights outside the Canterlot walls.

Twilight Sparkle was too busy reading her books than play with us like always and Moon Dancer got sick for a whole week & missed the snow when she got better. However, we felt bad that Moondancer didn’t get to play, so we gave her a “we’re happy you’re better now” party and showered her with lots of presents. That’s what all that mattered.

Anyway, we were playing near a small frozen lake, everypony were building their own snow castle and snow ponies and skating at the frozen lake.

It was a typical fillyhood moment except I had a wonderful encounter with fate… or whatever an event of meeting a real, breathing human for the first time is called.

I met my first human after my friends decided to go home early and I was left behind at the lake. I was too occupied to even notice that everyone left me alone. I just didn’t want to go home so soon.

I was making an army of snow ponies for my snow castle until I discovered I was alone; I decided to keep building the army to distract myself from the cold and the very next day.

I was really happy to be playing in the snow; however, my life was about to change forever.

Sweet Celestia, that was really lame to say.

Anyway, there was this huge ball of flashing white light that suddenly appeared out of nowhere, then this weird bipedal creature came out from the light.

I thought at first she was some sort of Diamond Dog or Minotaur species but she had no tail, her muzzle was small & flat, her ears were… weird looking and basically everything about her looked wrong at first. She had a weird fur coat that had pouches on her stomach, which I thought were used to carry her offspring.

I was really scared and speechless when I first saw that human; I almost puked when it got close to me. I thought she was gonna hurt me but, instead, she hugged me and stroked my mane a little rough.

She was giggling with amusement and saying things like “Oh my gosh, you are so cute” and “I want you to be my pony” to me as if I was a pet to her.

“Oh my gosh, I want you to come home with me” She happily said to me. She was beginning to stroke my mane a little too rough that it was irritating me.

“... Ouch!” I yelled in annoyance “Knock it off, you’re gonna tear off my mane”

She stopped stroking my mane after I finally said something. I looked at her face to properly speak to her, but as soon as I did that, she had a shocked expression on her face.

She started to shriek at me in fear as if she saw a monster or something scary. She pushed me down and ran behind a rock.

I tried to get up from the snow-covered ground but then I heard a cracking noise. Unfortunately, I got shoved towards the lake that had a thin layer of ice.

I wanted to jump away from the lake but it was already too late; the frozen lake floor gave in, it shattered open a large hole and I collapsed into the freezing water.

I was crying for help but there was nopony around to assist me, except for the creature who pushed me into the lake. I was flailing my hooves all over the place. It was too cold to swim properly and there was no solid ground to hold on to.

I shouted at the strange creature for help; she looked hesitant to even get out of her rock. I yelled louder as I desperately struggled to stay afloat on the lake.

It took about a third time of screaming for her help that she actually started to do it. She tried to reach out to me and she grabbed my hooves with her… fingers? I think they're called fingers.

After I got out of the icy lake, I was shivering because of the weather and the chilling water, which meant that I got hypothermia. I was beginning to pass out from the cold but the creature suddenly opened up her fur, which freaked me out, and she proceeded to place me in her stomach.

I was panicking from that situation but my cold was keeping me distracted to even care. I fell unconscious; however not before feeling a strange but comforting warmth from her stomach.

When I regained consciousness, I was in a dark, damp hollow cave and the creature was huddling alone in the center of the cave, trying to do something with a bundle of sticks and… hay?

It appeared that she was trying to light up a fire but all I see was her bashing a bunch of rocks against each other. I thought that the cold was getting to her, but then I saw sparks coming out of the rocks which landed on the hay, there was smoke coming out and she proceeded to blow on it.

To my surprise, she started a fire; I was amazed to see her make fire without the use of magic. I thought what she did was impossible for anypony who's not a unicorn or a creature capable of performing magic.

It took me a few years to see that anypony can start fires with a flint and steel or that there were many methods to ignite one. I live in a city filled with magic using unicorns, leave me alone okay.

“Wow,” I said to myself quietly as I don’t want the creature to noticed I woke up and scare her.

But it was pointless, my soft voice echoed throughout the cave that any pony could hear it. The creature approached towards me and touched my forehead.

I flinched as I thought she was gonna eat me just like the dragons used to do in Equestria before the princesses came into power. However, she was actually checking my temperature.

She was reaching something from her… stomach pouch, I think? It was a carrot.

“Here you go” she politely said. She placed the carrot on the ground front of me “You must be hungry, huh?”

“Yes,” I weakly replied as the cold was taking an effect on my throat.

“I was saving this for my snowman but you can have it”

Snowman? Does she mean a “snowpony”? What’s a man? I had so many questions about that statement but I was really hungry at that moment and I need the food for energy to fight off the cold.

My horn started to glow, used my magic to clumsy levitate the carrot into my mouth. Before I could take a bite, I heard the creature gasp again and I dropped my carrot.

“What was that?” she gleefully asked me. Her face was getting closer to mine that it made me uncomfortable. “Was that magic?”

“Yes?” I replied nonchalantly as if she never saw magic before. She did come out from a mysterious light; why should she be impressed with a simple levitation if she can start fires with a bunch of rocks (again leave me alone). Doesn't she have magic where she came from?

“Oh man, you can use magic. I wish I can use magic… wait, are you a unicorn?”

“Yes,” I repeated my first answer. “I am a unicorn and I can use magic”

“Well, I’m a human and I want to learn how to use magic just like you” Her eyes were sparkling with delight that it outshines the darkness of the cave.

“What’s a human?”

“Well, a human is what I am. Two legs, two arms, two hands and ten fingers & toes.” She responded while she was fiddling her “fingers” close to my face. "And also I'm a girl."

“Well then, I’m a unicorn pony. Four legs & hooves, one horn and no fingers or toes” I replied back jokingly and waved her back with my left forehoof. " and I'm a filly."

Both of us were laughing out loud, which echoed throughout the cave, which calmed us down and warmed up the area.

After that icebreaker (no pun intended), the human and I began to talk more about what we were, where we came from and what our worlds have to offer.

She told me she came from a place called Manehattan but she says that her family was moving to the suburbs of Ponyville Street. These locations she mentions sounded familiar to me; I realized later that I’ve seen those names on the maps of Equestria.

I visited Manehattan as my first location for my journey on the humans' location... and I did not care for that place. Terrible city noises, disgusting food, rude ponies and the hotel that I stayed in scammed me out of thirty bits for "special room service", which I never got by the way. I should've gone to Ponyville first and I could have saved a lot of time and ~~Father's~~ "borrowed" bits.

Wait, where was I going with this?

Oh yeah, I told her that I live in a capital city called Canterlot and I was studying magic & music with my friends/classmates at The School for Gifted Unicorns. The human then asked me what my Cutie Mark in my flanks are for, in actuality, she called it "my tattoos on my butt". I told her it was a mark that tells me what my destiny and identity are.

She called it out as "stupid", it kind of made me furious at first for insult my mark but she explained that a mark or symbol doesn't tell me what can do with my life, it's my actions that she thinks determines my future.

She both amazed me for telling me that I can be anypony I want to be without ~~Father~~ or others ordering me around. And annoyed me because now I think my Cutie Mark is useless as a destiny symbol, I only see it now as my brand to tell everyone what I own. Which is cool, I guess?

We exchange every information that we could think of about our world. Her world is called Earth while mine is Equestria. The main inhabitants of her homeworld are humans like her and for mine were magical ponies (with the exception of other creatures). She says that their world's magic is really, really rare to have and I told her Equestria provides infinite amounts of magic to everyone.

There were some weird ones that the human mentioned, like when she said that wearing clothes was mandatory and they have no fur, apart from the tiny strands of hair in their skin. My reply was that we can go around naked because we have thick fur covering our... inner layer or whatever perverted things you want to describe it.

You pervert.

Another was this thing called the internet, she described it as "tiny invisible numbers in the air that fly around everywhere and carry information such as messages... and cat videos?" And that they go inside big metal boxes called a monitor to see these cat videos.

I got lost when she said "tiny invisible numbers." But now every time I wake up in the morning and breath the air, I think of math and I suck at math.

Basically, breathing tiny invisible numbers made me bad at math. Yeah, I don't get the logic either but I got a D on my last test. Is it a coincidence?

Nope, I'm just a procrastinator.

Back to the point, I returned that confusion to the girl when I gave her a specific description of what kinds of magic we have in Equestria. I told her there were three tribes of ponies that have their own unique abilities and physical features. She was most interested in this one as she stared me with her unblinking eyes.

"Taking mental notes," she told me, I picked up on that habit whenever I get new information on humans. It creeped everypony out, especially Bon-Bon, but tells me that's one of the reasons why she loves me.

First were my tribe, the Unicorns. They have horns like mine but come in different shapes and sizes. Some unicorns focus their lives on studying and learning many spells, in hopes that they can make new ones on their own. Some decide to join in on luxury careers such as fashion and stage performances. The rest were already rich and can do whatever they want in life, ~~unlike my family~~.

Next was the fast and headstrong Pegasi. They have wings, laid back manes and they can manipulate the weather anytime they want. They can make any section of Equestria have any weather they scheduled. Yeah, I never know and cared much about Pegasi for my thoughts on them are that they are arrogant and show-offs.

What they lack in horns and wings, Earth ponies' magic makes up for it with their strength and intuition to perform everyday tasks such as gardening, construction, solve problems with efficiency & convenience, and any other manual labors. They were innovators on technology, agriculture, culinary and knowledge, that most of their career roles are teachers, chefs, farmers, and some special cases, party ponies such as this Pinkie Pie filly that I met during her visit to Canterlot.

She was a great instant best friend when we first met. She was the one who suggested me to come to Ponyville and stay there as a permanent resident. She's also the one who introduced me to Bon Bon. I always come to her parties whenever I have free time from my job as a musical instruments shop owner and human research.

I liked Earth ponies the most as they come with big families who are close and rely on each other. I was always jealous of Earth ponies because they get to come home, see their families & relatives smiling at them and helping them with your homework or other things. ~~All I have is Father~~.

Anyway, that night in the cave was the best day of our lives as we continue telling stories about ourselves and the world we live in. As we hugged each other near the fire inside the cave on that night, we felt like we could've been best friends who can visit each other's worlds and try new things together.

Too bad it was the only night we get to hang out with each other as the next day, the human disappeared and everypony was searching for me that night.

~~Father~~ was outraged when I got back home. He called me a disgrace to the "Heartstrings" title and I should be-

You know what, forget about it. I don't want to write any more of ~~"that next day"~~. It's not like anypony is going to see this journal anyway.

Goodbye, for now, Journal and sorry for ruining a good page with my... issues.

Oh, by the way, this is Lyra Heartstrings writing to you. Sorry again, I forgot to tell you my name. Goodbye again.