Once upon a time in the magical land of Equestria there was a terrible storm. This storm was not the most raging, nor the windiest, nor the longest but it was still terrible all the same. For on the exact stroke of midnight, when the seventh lightening bolt of the night had struck, something fell out of the heavens. This being was not of Equestria, but of a land torn with war and stained with sin so heavily it could never truly recover.

The people of this land called this woman Jesse. She wasn’t the strongest, or the smartest, or really the most sane but she was still there. And for whatever reason, be it the gods of one land or the other, she was chosen to be given a trip to the ever so wonderful land of Equestria, where all is friendship and magic. Mostly. She just happened to be sent to the only other place where sin ran rampid, though, not as apparently as it did on her homeland.

They’re at it again. Jason and Karlee, my two closest friends, are arguing again. We all live together in a house near the central part of Arkansas. They have been dating for, what, two years now? Something like that. At first it was all just puppy love, days of not coming home then cleaning up behind them. Honestly it was rather enjoyable. Jason, who I had known first, always a bit… off. Not in a bad way, oh sure, he was nuttier than a bag of pecans but he was a good person at heart. Always the more musically inclined and he probably has more than enough personality for seven people. Not in a bad way.

Karlee was pretty much the girl version of Jason, just with less vice. Which was pretty much the subject of this argument, Jason’s cardinal vice. He drank. A bit much. Some days it was fine, a couple of beers at the end of a difficult day (which I still disliked) but other days it went a bit far. Like today. I got out of the tiny bed in the side room that connected the side door to the music room and to the rest of the house. It was a late addition to the already old house so it had pretty much non existent insulation. Thankfully today it was just a bit wet and not cold so I didn’t have to deal with the room that could sometimes get to below freezing.

I threw on some clothes, just a pair of jeans the same tee-shirt I wore pretty much every day, the same pair of tennis shoes I wore literally every day, the small blue undercoat then the large brown overcoat. The overcoat was just because I didn’t want to get too wet while outside waiting for them to stop arguing. Normally they stopped at about twelve. It was nine…

Maybe I should go for a walk?

Quickly I got up and stealthily slipped out of the back door at a speed that they wouldn’t really see or hear me but quick enough that I could get away from the noise.

I stepped out into the muddy backyard I had been in more times to count. Sometimes I just came out here to think, other times I came out here to play music, write; badly, or just hang out with my pretty much non existent friend group. As it obviously would do, the rain picked up from a light drizzle to a steady poor right as I took the final step down the old wooden stairs.

I gave a soft sigh then went to go sit down on my favorite little table. It wasn’t really a table worthy of any such title but more of a slate of rock on top of five logs. Next to it was a fire pit that had been used more times than I could ever know, especially because the house had been handed down by Jason’s family making it older than him. Apparently some hippie couple and their dog lived here previously. Or something.

I quickly drove the coattail across the small corner of the table and took a seat, minimizing the amount of wet I would get on my butt.

As I sat down thoughts started pouring almost instantly. Ideas of song lyrics, books, games, if only I could code; what I should make for breakfast tomorrow. After a while all the stress of keeping together a couple, a job, a house, a social life, a education, and an image at all of those places just seeped away into the rain, landing in a muddy puddle at my feet. Thanks rain.
Then the lightning came. No thank you lightening. The sky was split apart by the awesome power of pure electricity. I almost started running in the nearest direction but managed to stay seated, if a bit flightey.
Slowly, after nothing happened for a couple of seconds I got my train of thoughts back on track and sent back a-chugging. Then I really did jump out of my seat! Well, jump is the wrong word. In accordance with the ‘training’ my dad gave me it was more of a summer salt into a defensive stance at whatever had the nerve to touch my shoulder. It was just Karlee, well, I think. It was a new moon so the yard was pretty much pitch black but the silhouette was roughly her.

“Hey, what’s up?” I asked Karlee.

She took a step closer and- holy shit that was definitely not her! What stood in front of me had more in likeness with Medusa than my friend. It gave a distinctive hiss, growl-esk sound and suddenly I was happy I had gotten into my defensive stance because it made it that much easier to just run like hell!

I turned off to the side and sprinted as fast as I could into the thick group of bamboo that dominated half of the backyard and most of the empty lot behind our house. Hopping the small fence I kept running until I thought I was safe. Apparently I was clear of whatever freaky thing had tried to… eat me? Probably.

Looking down the street I had run into the middle of the universe decided that I was not going to be allowed safety. The whole world exploded as a strike of lightning landed not ten feet from me. Fucking seriously! I got down onto my knees and covered ears with hands while gritting my teeth trying to not think about the throbbing in my ears or how close I had just come to getting struck, “By fucking lightening!” I screamed at the sky.

The sky screamed back.

I didn’t even have time to register what was happening as the only warning I was given was a tiny little white dot in the sky that suddenly turned into half a second of searing pain and a strange feeling of distortion and then nothing.

Slowly the feeling of… feeling started to come back. One at a time my body shook off the background fog of sleep and I yawned. What a dream. Or was it a nightmare? It was pretty nightmarish but I had plenty of nightmares in my several long years of sleeping and none of them were quite as vivid or realistic, for lack of a better word.

So why did I still feel like I was dreaming. Now that I was paying attention to everything a sudden feeling of wrongness set deep into my body. I couldn’t feel my fingers but at first I thought I had just slept on my arm weird. My body shape felt completely off and some of muscles felt like they had spent some time in a taffy machine.

Slowly I blinked open sleep heavy eyes and looked my myself to make sure that my blanket hasn’t constricted me. My eyes opened involuntarily as I took in the thick white fur that had replaced smooth skin. I tried to careen my neck farther up my alien body farther than I could actually physically look just to see more of whatever had happened to my body. This had to be some sort of dream but… it really wasn’t was it? I had legitimately woken up and my thoughts weren’t just vague emotions powered by some chemicals. I had actually become sort of horse thing.

Good thing I like horses. And the white coat did look kind of nice. Visible skin would be slightly better but I could be dead. The sudden realization I had just been struck by lightning dawned on me. By all logic I should be dead: lightning could get to, like, fifty thousand degrees or something. Was this what happens when you died? You become a comically disproportionate horse thing? Where even was I?

Finally I was able to tear my eyes away from the white coat and take in my surroundings. I was in an old dilapidated stone room that looked like it had a roman gothic style going on. From the rotten fernature and broken, crumbling stone it was an original roman gothic castle of some sort. I tried to scramble my legs under my body and push up but phantom muscles started contracting and muscle memory failed to follow through and I ended up just flopping my torso a few inches to the left, smacking myself in the face with my left hoof in the process.

What a weird thought.

I tried again taking the controls manually; feeling each limb and testing out he joints and trying to not just pretend like I just had normal human legs. They felt backwards. Using much more focus than should have been necessary for standing I got onto my feet, err, hooves.

The feeling of wrongness set in to full force, or should I say, full horse. Okay Jesse, what the actual fuck? This is really not the time for puns. I gave a small sigh, the fact that the laugh felt and worked the same put a sick feeling in my already queasy stomach. Now that my legs had stopped feeling so unstable I slowly took a test step. As strange as it felt I focused all of my effort on walking. I am not going to trip. Not matter what I do I- a previously unnoticed crack cut off my train of thought as it caught the tip of my hoof bone and sent me sprawling on my face.

On the ground I gave a small sigh and pushed myself back to the accursed limbs. Half of me was screaming at how wrong this felt and how much this sucked. The other half was trying to suppress the small part of me that was getting turned on by this. Practically helpless in the body of a horse with strange feeling coursing throughout my body; what wasn’t to absolutely love~

Evidently half of me isn't doing its job very well.

I pushed my legs forwards, that now incorrect song from that stop motion movie about the organs of Santa repeating over and over in my mind probably trying to distract me from the fact my legs weren’t working but were. You just put one foot in front of the other...

Finally I came face to, muzzle? Face to face with a door and nudged it open. Stairs. Why did it have to be stairs. Give me a slight incline or weathered stones any day but stairs? Really? I just got these legs!

Silently I muted my righteous indignation at the universe and took a deep breath. Then I put one hoof onto the first step and- promptly over corrected for my weight, over corrected my over-correction then started falling down the stairs. Each little thud was accompanied by a very adult sound and finally ended with me at the bottom of the stairs in a aching mess of fur and mane. I had a red mane. Who knew...

With a groan I stood up again; determined to at least find out where I was before I gave up and took a year long nap to try and process what was happening. One foot in front of the other and slowly I stumbled into the next room. Sweet mother of luck turns; I was in the library! Yes!

Most of the books looked to be in pretty good knick too! Not at all like the literary articles of an old dilapidated castle sould. Brushing the solid looking quality of the books off as the cool, dry feeling in the room I walked up to the first shelf. The first book I saw had the title, “The biology of manticores” right next to, “The life of The Good King Yellow” at least, that’s what I thought it said. The symbols held no meaning when I looked closer but I could just, kind of, tell? And oh joy, it looks like the librarians of this castle didn’t set up any sort of organization system when putting up the plethora of books. Yet another minor inconvenience in what was setting up to be the most annoying adventure ever. My eyes fell on another random book titled, “The Magical Instruction Guide of Sir Black Powder”. Scratch everything I said, that book just said magic. Assuming the book wasn’t just garbage that was put in here by a person of higher power. It was put in the royal library of a castle so it must at least be a good read.

I reached out to grab the book and- hit it with my hoof. Oh yeah. Well hey, at least my body had enough control to not just fall over on three legs and I was able to lift my hoof without thinking about it much. With a little bit of consideration I leaned forwards and bit onto the spine of the book. Walking with my head tilted to the side I sat at one of the less destroyed tables and lay the book down. Then I looked at the window and noticed the sun.

Sigh; I guess my curiosity will have to wait a bit. At least until I figure out where I am.

Giveing a small longing look at the book, with all of the possible magical secrets contained, and carried on down a hallway. Eventually after what felt like hours of walking across uneven floors and poking my head into a room only to find it was eaten away by time to the point of uselessness, a completely pointless bedroom or meeting room, or; in one case, a room that was damaged by some sort of impact explosion and was little more than a crater that had torn through three floors of the absolutely massive castle.

The little I gathered from the dilapidated rooms showed that, apparently, there was a diarchy ruling the castle. Not only that but the two rulers were apparently respectively synonymous with the moon and sun. Half of the castle was dedicated to the lunar king (or queen, I couldn’t really tell) and the other half represented the solar variant. In the middle of the castle, where the two halves merged, there was a throne room that had two thrones, each with a banner of either the sun or moon hanging over them. There was also apparently a large grouping of nobles that lived in the castle and worked under either the lunar or solar ruler. Given the battle torn state of the castle, and you could really tell with all of the rooms that seemed to be simply vaporized, and the relatively quick abandonment judging by all of the random crap laying around I really hoped the split sides of the castle wasn’t some kind of irony or foreshadowing. Honestly, anyone who simply puts a ten percent tax over everything for everybody save the wealthy, who paid a fifteen percent tax, is a person I could get behind. I mean really, having taxes forbread specifically is a bit much *cough*mygovernment*cough*.

I had found what was supposed to be the main door to the castle but it was jammed tight to the point that even ramming into it at my admittedly pathetic top speed didn’t even make it wobble. I'll just have to find another way out then. Eventually while I was wondering around the solar side I found a surprisingly intact room. The room itself suffered more from messiness and dust than weathering and decomposition. Even the extremely comfortable looking bed was only a little bit torn and slept in. The next room I stepped into was a mistake.

I guess I already knew, I mean, I had seen ‘my’ body and felt the effects of a completely different structure of body but since I hadn't seen my face, and thus the conformation it was me, denial had set in at some point. Oh boy did that denial just get kicked in the face harder than a wrecking ball on a building.

I had wandered into what I assumed was the solar ruler’s bathroom and came upon a mirror. I saw me, except it wasn’t me. I wasn’t a white horse with a surprisingly cute looking red mane. I was a human with dark brown hair and surprisingly cute red highlights. I didn’t have ears, or a horn, or a muzzle, or… wait. A horn? The fuck…

I’m a horse-a-corn. I don’t have the majestic, long spiraling horn of the unicorns from Earthen stories but it wasn’t without definition. It was probably about three inches long with an inch in diameter at the base in a loosely indented spiral. It was also the same color as my coat, perfect white. It looked like the kind of thing you would find being sold by poachers on the black market.
Get your fresh ivory horn. One in existence. Legitimate magical properties.

Oh sweet Jesus that’s not a fun thought. As weird as it is I would still rather keep my freaky horn thing attached to my head please.

Plus I might be able to do magic. Hopefully. 'Don’t get your hopes up too high, the book is probably just the mad ramblings of a privileged noble or simple illusions' I heard the negative side of my mind mumble in my head.

Slowly I backed out of the bathroom and got out of the bedroom as quick as I could. Even though it was obvious that nobody had been here in a long time I get the strange feeling I’m trespassing.

The altogether unsettling feelings resting heavily on my head I continued my trek around the castle. At some point I had looped around behind the throne room back to the lunar side of the massive building and into what looked like a war room. It was painted solid black and only had one entrance, no windows, and a heavy oak door which was so sturdy it took some effort to open despite years of rot. In the center of the room was exactly what I had been looking for the entire time: a map!

The thing wasn’t all that detailed and the edges were frayed by time but the center had a convenient red pin in it that practically screamed, ‘you are here!’. Apparently I was in the world of Equus, the nation of Equestria, the forest of the Everfree, and the Castle of the Everfree. All around in Equestria there was Canterlot Castle, which was located on the side of a mountain according to the likely exaggerated illustration of a building on a mountain. Nearby was the tiny farming village of Manhattan to the east. Canterlot, the city that apparently ‘rested atop cloud’, this place obviously liked putting places on mountains, was towards the west of Canterlot. Farther west was ‘Fillydelphia’. Seriously! What was this! There must have been some seriously confused people living here. Likely Mormons. I mean, who else could think that we had cities in the mountains or that everything was horse related. Trottingham! What the hell!

Far east was Zebtona; which was apparently a land inhabited by zebras and was marked as ‘extremely dangerous’. Far north was the Crystal Empire which was inhabited by crystal ponies and simply had a ‘??? Who drew this map Tia?’ scribbled in the margins. Next to that was YakYakistan. To the far west was the Gryphon Kingdom, inhabited by; you guessed it, gryphons. Seriously, the people who lived here must have been off their tits on some drug that got into their water.

But I was a supposedly magical disproportionate taking unicorn. I will just take my grain of salt along with my suspension of disbelief please. Do I get a discount?

This whole thing felt like a little girl grew up and still wanted a pony but realized the economic issues that would go along with raising a pony, and then sated her urge by writing a really adult novel about a world inhabited by ponies. And other mythological creatures. I did see a ‘biology of manticores’ or something.

With a small sigh I wondered around a bit until I found myself at the top of a really tall tower. The trip to the top had been a journey but I finally made it and found: a locked door. Whoop-de-fucking-doo. Then I noticed the view. It was pretty isolated to one small window that was more suited to firing arrows from than actually viewing but clear as day I could see the magical city of Canterlot resting majestically on the side of Canter Mountain. Fuck me with my own horn…

I’m not on Earth. This isn’t even my own planet. The golden castle glimmering in the distance all but one hundred percent confirmed that notion. I was an alien on an alien planet with an alien body. The apex of not belonging. Well, I never let that stop me before.

In my head I had just about every possible feeling all at once. Part of me was crying that I would never get to see my loved ones again, another cruel part of me asked, ‘what loved ones?’. Part of me was doing a my happy dance singing that my pointless days of unhappy living with friends who just did the same was over! Part of me held a shallow fear that I had no idea if I was ever going to meet another person again. The deeper parts of my mind started firing off questions about my physical state, ‘am I still technically human? Just because I think like one doesn’t mean I am one. What does it even mean to be ‘human’? Does it even matter?’

All of that was put under a sheet of fog as I stared at the golden spirals of Canterlot.

So that was it then? No more Earth.

Maybe I could try and find a way back? There might be magic in this world. Well, at least, there’s more of a chance for magic than there was five minutes ago. Theoretically there could be other people out here who could help me get home.

‘Do you even really want to go home.’

The thought crashed into me like a train. Did I? Maybe. I suppose it kind of depends. Ever since I was a small child I had wondered what it would be like to go on an adventure and use magic. This was my childhood dream come true. True magic, true adventure truer friends. I had friends that might worry about me but for how long. Some of me said ‘forever’ and the other part of me said ‘I give them a week at most until one of them starts sleeping in your bed’. A minuscule part of me just said that I should be the one to forget about them. ‘You’ve done nothing but give to them and all they gave back was a sour relationship destined to shatter along with everything near it’. The thought left a bad taste in my mouth but it did have the virtue of honesty.

But… but what? What was I really missing out on? My comfortable little life in a smaller house with smaller things? A country that was manipulative and conniving? A world that moved too fast for any one person? Yea-no. I’ll have to pass you up on that one.

A small sight escaped my lips and I started back down the small stairs. Even with all of my thinking nothing was actually getting done. I guess that I wasn’t doing anything but worrying about something I couldn’t do anything about and that didn’t sit well with me.
And so I found myself back in the library. Not out of a burning desire for knowledge, or a requirement for school, or even just to kill time. No, I found myself back at the library because I had honestly no idea where to go. The walk around had granted me a couple of treasures, first and foremost being a kind of backpack that was dual sided and fit comfortably over my flanks. The second was the map, which I had spread out on one of the less decayed tables. I had also found a little silver mirror that I put in my bag because… I’m sure I had a reason. I barely even remember putting it in there. I found a sword and a sheath which was holding down one end of the map. I only grabbed that because it looked cool. Nobody lived here so nobody owned anything. Loot and pillage!
According to the map the closest settlement was Canterlot and that was more than a week’s walk. Apparently the ground in between was inhabited with ‘field crawlers’, whatever they are. With pretty much nothing to do I sat back in one of the chairs and flipped open the book that supposedly held magic.

The writing was incredibly dry but it got the point across well enough. There was a table of contents at the front which proved rather useful. The book had a set of stages, rock, bronze, iron, steel, gold and master, which were the progression with rock being the beginner mages and master being, well, master. Obviously.

The first page was written with a really weird type of flowing script that was really hard to read. The fact that I could only barely read the words in the first place was bad enough but this person’s handwriting was just atrocious.

”First things first, I want you to find your horn. This magic sadly doesn’t work with those who were unfortunate enough to be born without a horn. You can go about this any way you want to. Look in a mirror, touch it with your hoof, or my personal way of just feeling it. As you have probably noticed it is rather hard to simply detect your horn like you would a hoof or your tail. Summed up this is due to the fact that it has very few nerve endings in it but the ones it does have are extremely magically tuned, which is why it is so much worse to stub your horn than to be, say, stabbed. As it does, however, have nerve endings you can feel it. Just think about its location on your body, think about what it is doing right now, its location in space and time and you will start to feel it.”
The next several chapters were pretty much just about how your horn works and why it is necessary to find its location prior to spell casting, at least, for beginners. It was actually quite educational even if most of it flew over my head. For what I didn’t understand about ‘thaumic flow’ I did understand in absolutely under no circumstances am I to hit my horn on anything ever. Damage to your horn could literally kill you. Thankfully it’s made of a rather durable bone but better safe than sorry.

Finally I got to the juicy bits which meant I could actually test and see if this was just complete bull or not.

”So first you need to focus on your emotion. Anything will do but the most powerful tend to be your negative emotion. Anything ranging from anger and hate to depression and loneliness. Positive emotions also work but unless they are truly powerful then they won’t have the same effect. Deep inside of yourself you should be able to detect something like a power source. This is called a mana pool. While some ponies have larger mana pools than others there are very few who have more potent mana. Which means that only a select few can do spells more powerfully than others on their base level such as the princesses or Starswirl the Bearded. To build up your mana pool to greater depths, give yourself more mana allowance to draw from, all you need to do is do more spells. Like a muscle it will grow and expand and eventually the mana itself will become more potent though that will take a very long time of much practice. Once you have found this pool of power you need to draw on it. Now this is where it becomes more art than science, and more emotion than art. Visualizations like drawing water from a well with a bucket or dipping a quill in ink have been known to work. Other ways such as feeling the power and forcing it through your body or even just ‘letting the floodgates open’ can work. In the end it is up to you and your natural ability. Once you have the power flowing freely you need to control it in a way, mainly, casting a spell. To do this can take practice and equations but some of the more basic spells can be triggered by thought and visualization. To prevent you from having to do too much at once your first spell should be levitation. As much as this is merely foals play it will do for now as all we are doing is funneling your raw magic into a usable form. If you are not one for visualization there is also a equation for casting it: F*?2. Fumic control lightly under awareness multiplied by two.

Okay… I have no idea what he equation means but the rest I can probably manage. I started feeling ‘deep within me’ to try and find a ‘mana pool’. After a second of just feeling a stomach rumble I touched a spark. Then another. Following the spark lead me to a storm of lightning that seemed to be eternally going off. I hope this doesn’t have anything to do with ‘rebirth through lightening’ thing that seemed to happen to me and this is just normal. Chances are it did. Either way I started trying to ‘pull on my power’. A second or two of trouble shooting later I managed to get a sort of stream flowing by just willing it to be. That was easy.

I was shocked (no pun intended) to see a small dribble of something yellow go across my eyes. There wasn’t much of it but it looked like a sparkling yellow nebula. Magic.

I had just done magic. From my horn. I was a magical talking unicorn. I felt my cheeks stretch with the biggest smile I had ever put on in my entire life! That was amazing. Following the text on the book I focused on the cover and just pretended it was in the air while pulling on the mana pool. To my absolute shock, and immense delight, it lifted up. It was slow and wobbly but it was just floating in the air! I was making a book float in the air with my magical nebula gas stuff! It got a little more difficult to keep in the air and it started getting a little more wobbly. I crashed my brow in concentration but it just started doing flips in mid air. When the pages started dangling from the not levitated part of the book it flipped out and shot into the air only to come down with a solid tunkon my head.

My smile didn’t even fade; I had just done magic! As far as I knew my entire species had never been able to do that before, likely because they couldn’t but still!

A faint explosion sobered me slightly. It had come from the direction of the throne room. I got up and started walking towards it. Whatever it was I would like to get a look at it before it gets a look at me. With the stealth of a newborn I walked down the hallway pressed right up against the left side.

Slowly I started to make out voices. Voices! Huzzah, people! Wait, I was a horse. Well, actually, I was a unicorn; a fact that made me just a little bit gittey every time I thought it.

“...sure you saw something land out here. This was quite a trot from Canterlot just to find something you might not have even seen.” A feminine voice with a hint of a Australian accent.

“Yes I am quite sure Outlook, I wouldn’t have come all this way if I wasn’t absolutely sure I saw something fall. It should have fallen in one of the towers so we should check there first.”

“Don’t you think they would ‘ave fallen over by the impact?” The first voice said.
“No, all of the towers were intact. There were three standing when I saw it the last time and there are three now.” The second voice said accompanied by the sound of pages turning in a book.
I got up from my crouched position and ran back to the library as fast as I could.

“Hey! Stop!” The first and second voice said at the same time hearing the clop of my hooves.

I grunted a silent curse and kept on running. Maybe I could hide from them If I hid under the tables or something? I got back into the library, grabbed the sword with my teeth and slid behind an overturned table. A few seconds later I heard… hoofsteps? Two sets of hoofsteps were running in my direction.

“I think they ‘ent into the library!” The first voice from earlier said.
The table I was hiding behind had a small crack that offered me a limited view of what was happening on the other side of the rotted wooden shield. Two horses were splitting apart from the door that lead into the library. One of them was a grey unicorn with some sort of weird tattoo or… decal on her visible flank. It was a picture of compass, a map, and a book.

The second horse was… a horse with wings. He was orange and had a butt mark of a gold bar. But. Wings. He was like the pegasus from Hercules minus a pair of legs.

“The fuck…” I mumbled. Instantly I caught myself, throwing my hooves over my mouth but it was too late.

“Over there, I heard something.” Please don’t be evil. Please don’t be evil. Please don’t be evil.

I stood up and gripped the book about magic in my nebula of energy and tried to look nonchalant. “Hey, didn’t see you there. I was just getting some reading done.”

“Yea, sure. Then why did you run away from us when we came in?” The winged horse asked while taking a true defensive stance.

“I- I was just. I just thought you were a manticore or something.” Oh crap. They might not even exist any more or something!

“I’m sure you did. And then you decided to catch up on your forbidden magics while hiding from a manticore?” the horned one said.

“...Yes?” And with a word the orange one launched himself at me. Instinct kicked in and I managed to correct my movements on the fly, resulting in a flop onto the floor. He went flying right over me, nearly clipping my horn. Speaking of horns the unicorn did some sort of magic that made something shimmer over my hooves. I shook it of by flailing my hooves and tried to lift the sword with my own magic. The result was a sword that pinged off in a direction but at least my random flailing disrupted whatever the unicorn was doing. Sadly, with all of my concentration elsewhere, I was decked straight in the face by a flying orange wrecking ball. I felt my head bounce off of the ground and then everything went black.

I let out a small groan as I woke up. Jesus my head hurt, that fucker knocked me out. I would have just given up if they asked politely. Actually, scratch that, I would have give up if they screamed ‘surrender’ at me. I might have been able to win a fight well previously my body control was essentially that of a child's and they had flight and magic against me.

I slumped from the tense pose farther into the, bed? Huh, I was in a bed. A rather comfortable one at that. Much better than tiny mattress I had in my room. I practically sank in all of the pillows surrounding me which was a rather good thing because my head was killing me. I felt like I had just face palmed a brick wall. Oh wait. I had head booped a stone floor and gotten decked by a dense bit of bone traveling at the speed of way-to-fast. With a small sigh I tried to get up. That course of action was apparently the wrong one because my head started screaming at me with the force of a thousand suns. The whole room went wiggly and I haven't even opened my eyes yet. Again, slower this time, I lifted myself into a sitting position and opened up my eyes. The sudden oppressive brightness forced me to go into a blinking fits until my eyes adjusted to the light. I groaned again at the dull throbbing in my head and stretched out my legs. I was in a room so fancy it shined. Literally. The floors were so polished they shined from the sunlight that streamed in through the silken curtains. The bed sheets were also silk, as were the pillows. There was a fine birch desk with all of the requirements for writing. Next to the wall was a decorative set of armor. Horse armor. Barding? Sadly the armor was welded together and the spear was so blunt it would be more useful as a bludgeon.

Slowly I rolled off of the bed and landed on my hooves. The impact sent a jolt of pain through my head causing me to groan yet again. My head’s going to hurt a lot in the foreseeable future, isn’t it? I moved over to the desk and started looking for something that would give me a hint as to where I currently was. It didn’t look like the old ruined castle and it certainly wasn’t a cell. Finding nothing in the desk I looked out the window and saw a city. It was the beautiful golden city of Canterlot but much larger and more up close. Seriously, I only saw the castle from where I had seen it previously. They must have hidden the entire city somewhere behind a peak or something.

So, Canterlot. That sure gives me a lot to go off of. I gave a small audible cough for no reason. None whatsoever…

I swiveled around at the sound of a door handle clicking open. Standing in the doorway was a white unicorn wearing golden armor with a spear much like the statue that was standing on the inside of the door but this one’s spear was much sharper and the armor actually looked usable. If made of gold, thus rendering it completely worthless as protective barding.

He spoke in a deep voice quite fitting of the prime example of a stallion, “The Princess requires you in the throne room.”

One instruction of ‘down the hall and to the left’ later I stood right in front of a pair of massive golden double doors. The entire budget of this kingdom must have gone to making everything made out of gold. Seriously, these doors looked like they were made of solid gold, this is just a little bit overkill.

With an embarrassing amount of effort I finally managed to get the doors open to reveal the aforementioned throne room. The inside was a rather impressive sight even to my untrained eye. The minuscule furniture was placed just so to where it had a feeling of a courtroom while still managing to say ‘the person in front of you could kill you with a raise of a thumb. Like any good throne room should I feel. The marble floor was polished to where it shined even under the fifty or so equines that stood off to the side as wallpaper. They were eight massive pillars, four to either side, that looked like a year had been taken on each. The room itself was of an absurd size, looking more like a football field than a room. Yet, despite all of this, the most impressive thing in the room still managed to be the beautiful white pony, the princess I supposed. So where’s your dad?

I took my time walking up to the throne. Somehow throughout the entire walk I felt completely calm. My eyes locked with the brilliant white unicorn before me I started to notice a couple of things. First of which was that she only had one guard to either side of her throne. Secondly, she had both a horn and wings, a feature I hadn't seen on any of the other horses but the ones on the banners. Thirdly, the thing that just confirmed my fears, she had a picture of the sun on her flanks. Just like the ones on the banners. Ah fuck. I had just marched fearlessly up to the eternal deity of the sun. They’re going to cook me alive. literally.

I cleared my throat and said, “Hello. My name’s Jesse. What’s your name.” As if triggered by the words the entire council of horses started shouting at me and just generally making quite a ruckus.

The few voices I was able to hear over the din basically consisted of ‘she didn’t bow to the Princess’, ‘it can talk’, and ‘it doesn’t know the name of the Princess’. What jerks.

I gave my best attempt to give a huge bow but all I ended up doing was leaning forwards slightly, going off balance, then falling on my side. I could feel my cheeks burning brighter than the sun. I really hope they don’t take that as an attempt to outshine the sun.

With a chuckle I started to profusely apologize. At some point the quick sorry apologies turned into pleas. I was actually crying practically begging for my life lowered as far as I possibly could.

Then I felt something soft and firm on the side of my face. I hadn't even noticed her get up… So this was it then, execution by razor wing. I guess there’s worse ways to go. I could have been killed by quick attack.

I cringed back and she said,“Oh my little pony, you have nothing to fear from me. I promise that no harm will come to you.” Words that sounded like an million angel choir sang out at me from the glorious white solar princess.

“I- I- I- t- thank you.” I sniffed pathetically. I had just gotten here. Holy shit. I felt like my heart was about to explode. I stopped my tears as quickly as I could, wiping away the remains, composed myself, cleared my throat and said, “Thank you princess. For not killing me for not following protocol. As I said earlier, my name is Jesse. Thank you so much…” I ended lamely.

She chuckled a little bit and said, “As I said before, you have nothing to fear from me, so long as you don’t harm my subjects or myself. To answer your question my name is Celestia, princess of Equestria. Pleasure to meet you.”

“The p-pleasure is entirely mine Princess.”

“Might I ask where you came from?”

I suddenly started to feel more than a little bit nervous. The royal princess of Equestria was carrying on a conversation with me and we were surrounded by a few dozen nobles. I started to stammer and said something that was completely inaudible even to me. Her promise kept me from fearing for my life but that didn’t mean I didn’t fear for my anxiety.

“I still have a few hours before anything requires my attendance, would you like to go somewhere more private to carry on our conversation?” Oh thank Celestia. I gave a small nod and she said, “Diamond Tip,” What an unfortunate name… “Would you please escort my friend here to my private quarters?”

The guard replied, “Yes Princess. Right away.” and started off towards some doorway.

I looked up at the princess and she said, “Follow him, I will be with you shortly,” At my cautious look she added, with a chuckle no less, “Do not worry, my promise extends to my royal guard as well.” A chuckle at my mortality! Unforgivable.

The fact she was smiling with the most plastic smile I’ve ever seen coupled by my own joke made it physically impossible to keep a straight face and I found myself smiling while following Diamond to the princesses royal quarters. This felt like the beginning to a royal harem porno.

About five minutes later Princess Celestia came into the room with her impenetrable air of royalty.

“Hi.” I said awkwardly not really knowing what to say.

“Hello Jesse, fancy seeing you here.” She said with chuckle.

“Heh, yeah. I’m just hanging around in the princesses royal bedroom.”

“Would you like some tea?”

“Oh yes please. I feel like I haven’t had anything to drink in a week!” I said with a grin. My mouth was getting all sticky. Speaking of which I should probably get a toothbrush.

With little more than a gesture a maid came into the room with a fine china tea set. How had they done that?

She poured two cups of tea and magicked one over to me. Oh crap. She expected me to grab it with my magic. I focused as hard as I could, set on not making a fool of myself in front of the princess. Somehow I managed to keep the tea cup relatively steady in my magical grip. At least, well enough to where I didn’t spill it on my face. What was really shocking though was my magic felt something when I took the cup from Celestia’s magic. One of the things about the magic mist that let me carry things was that I couldn’t feel anything with it. When I grabbed the cup it felt like… the sun. An massive continuous combustion furnace of heat and power. It was actually kind of imposing. Quite the stark contrast from the carried and royal, yet motherly and superior feeling that the princess put off.

“So, to the matter at hoof. Why where you at the castle of the two sisters? Snooping? Theft?” Well. Fuck.

“I-,” I coughed, real smooth Jesse. “I was there for, um, research.” It sounded more like a question than a statement.

“And just what were you researching?” She said playing me on. She knew she had me beat, she was just toying with me now.

“Magic.” It was the truth. She didn’t need to know that I had only learned the existence of magic a day or so ago.

“Which branch?” Oh shit, there’s branches of magic!

“Ummm, restoration?” I am so done. Off the the gallows, nevermind the promise.

With a dark chuckle she said, “Even if that were a branch of magic there would be none to find in that place. What was the real reason you where little pony?” The fact that I was no longer ‘her’ little pony did not comfort me in any sense of the word.

Well, truth time I guess. Here’s to not being killed for lying to royalty. Or being locked up because they think I’m crazy. “To be honest, I have no idea. I went outside to get away from my arguing roommates and then I was chased away by this Medusa look alike. Then I was struck by lightning. Next thing I know I’m in a weird old castle in an entirely alien body. I wandered around a bit and tried to figure out where I was. Then I ran away from these horse guys because I was afraid they were humans and were going to kill me for my horn but I was dive bombed by the orange winged one and promptly knocked the fuck out. I woke up in this castle a while later and that’s pretty much been the last couple of days for me.” Oh crap, did I just swear in front of the princess? Eh, I guess it couldn’t get much worse. Knock on wood and hope to not die.

“Interesting. Well, in light of that, I suppose I’ll see what I can do. Your magical readings were off and the rest of your body wasn’t behaving correctly. That and the fact you were found in the old castle made the ponies think you were some kind of alien or changeling. Nopony else knows what was said in this room save myself so I can easily keep this under wraps from my subjects if you wish. As for your living here for the foreseeable future I’m sure I can get you integrated as a citizen quick enough and provide suitable living quarters. Provided you come in and let you talk to you when I have more time I don’t think that there’s any issue.”

You know, in light off the overwhelming generosity and kindness that was just presented to me there were a lot of things I could, and should, have said; mainly, ‘thank you’. I said, “So you’re not going to have me hung?” And she laughed! At my mortality! For the second time!

Author's Note

Boom, chapter done. Yay for me. I plan to make this a series and I would really like it if I got better before the end of it. That being said, that means that I'm going to have to actually do the getting better and I figure, what better way to do that than to get criticism. The thing is, I have already read this entire thing three times and cut about two thousand words then re-wrote them to where they would actually be decent. I've also gotten a small second look from a friend but he was worse than me with actual writing.

If you like it enough and want to see me, and thus the story itself, get better than leave something saying what you disliked and why. If you liked it enough to come back read the next chapters (when they come out). If you really loved it send some cover art my way. Have a lovely day.