I slowly opened my eyes. I felt groggy and weak with some moisture on my lips. As I slowly regained my awareness, I noticed I was not alone. Instead of the green pony, there was a group of ponies in my room.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the blinding light of the white crystal. Once they did, I noticed many of these ponies had what looked like armor on.

I also noticed there were 5 of them in total with a larger one among them. Two of them had golden armor on and a third had purple armor and a horn glued to its forehead. The fourth had a purple coat, a multi-colored mane and also had a horn glued to its head. The last one was the tallest one. It had dark blue fur and a lighter blue mane that flowed in the wind. A wind that was noticeably lacking in this stone box. Had to be my eyes playing tricks on me.

The two golden clad ponies had their rears to me, instead, looking toward the purple pony that was looking at a floating piece of... paper, what? The pony in purple armor had its side to me, also looking at the purple pony, and the large one was looking right at me.

Our eyes locked and I froze. A shiver traveled up my spine and slightly shook my upper body. The look I recieved was terrifying and calming. I felt like I was safe yet, at the same time, had the feeling that my life would come to a swift end if I made a move.

The tall blue one looked at the purple clad pony and gave a slight nod in my direction. The purple clad pony looked at me and stomped the ground. Immediately, the golden clad ponies spun around to face me.

I didn’t move a muscle, why would I? I had no idea what was going on and every I could come up with just confused me more. Of course, my thoughts died as the large blue pony actually spoke.

“Hello creature, can you speak?” It asked in a feninine voice.

I was in complete shock. An animal just spoke to me. I laid there like a moron with my brain mal-functioning, staring at the large blue pony.

How can it talk? I wondered. Maybe this is just a dream. A hallucination? Or I could be dead. Forever cursed to wander limbo, but why ponies?

Is it because the green pony was the last thing on my mind before I died?

The blue one leaned over to the purple one and whispered, “Are you sure it is intelligent?”

“I’m certain of it Princess Luna. The way it eats suggests some form of civility and it mumbles in it sleep” the purple one replied, also in a feminine voice.

The tall blue one, apparently named Luna, glanced over to me for a second before looking back to the purple one. “And you are certain it speaks equish?”

The purple one opened her mouth to reply before hesitating, then closing it. Opened it again, took and audible breath, then closed it, lowered her head and splayed her ears. “I’m not princess, it was hard to hear what it was saying but I could swear I heard it say some equish words.”

Although they were whispering to each other, I could hear it all. The small room acted as an echo chamber, turning their whispers into a conversation that I could hear without much difficulty. But while they were talking to each other, my mind was trying to make sense of what’s happening.

Animals in clothes would be pretty easy to reason but talking was a different story. Robotics would explain everything the best, by syncing up the mouth to someone speaking through a speaker but their movements were too fluid to be anything mechanical.

Using my weakened arms, I managed to sit up and lean against the wall. I looked to Luna.

“How are you talking?” I asked.

Lunas’ ears perked up in my direction as she turned her head to look at me.

“Excellent! So you do speak equish,” she turned her head back to the purple one, “It looks like you were correct Twilight Sparkle.” She turned to look at me again, “What are you?”

I stared at her for a moment before continuing with my original thoughts.

“You... you shouldn’t be able to talk.” I placed my head in my hands and rubbed my temples while mumbling to myself. “What’s Going on?”

The last thing I remember was blacking out when my meals stopped appearing... so either I’m delusional or I died. Both would explain what was happening in front of me. Talking ponies that exhibit intelligence and the floating paper as a manifestation of my imagination.

While I was trying to reason my situation, I realized I was spacing out, and returned to the present. Apparently I had missed something because Luna was looking at me expectantly as the purple one named Twilight looked at me with a raised brow.

But I wasn’t concerned with what they were saying. If I was dead or delusional and these animals were fake, then talking to them would only waste my time. I need to know.

I slowly stood up while keeping contact with the wall behind me. All of their eyes rose as I did. Once I was standing upright, I slowly started to walk toward them.

A quarter of the way to them, my head grew dizzy. I reached out to them, determined to prove myself right, but that would not come to be.

Stars appeared in my vision as I began to fall. As my face made intimate contact with the stone floor, I felt two points of pressure on my neck and back. When I looked up to see what was going on, they were gone.

“I guess that answers that,” I mumbled.

*Pop*

I looked to my left to see a plate piled with food and three glasses of water.

Mashed potatoes, peas, cut chicken, rice, and buttered toast. I was so excited to see food, I didn’t mind that it was all piled together.

I tore through that mushy mountain of food like Gordon Ramsay tears through incompetent chefs, though, I slowed down when I choked on a less than chewed piece of chicken. In just a few minutes, all my food and nearly all my water was gone.

My time awake was short, but I was exhausted. That aided by the feeling of a full stomach made me drowsy. I left my plate and crawled over to the spot on the ground I’ve come to call my bed.

Despite the crystal being so bright, sleep came to me easily.

Author's Note

I hope this is a good chapter. I had to heavily edit it from it’s original draft to feel less cringey.