Author's Note
This chapter was kindly proofread by 0_0
Chapter One
Long fingers of light drew sharp lines across the cityscape as the daylight slowly faded away. There was a crisp chill in the air as the season began to turn from summer into autumn. The oncoming darkness of the night heralded the end of a work day for adults and children alike. Escaping office buildings and school grounds, they filtered into the streets, with children happy over a few hours of freedom before bedtime, and adults looking forward to dinner and perhaps some quality time in front of the TV.
Standing in solitude among the throngs of somber and tired people, with the occasional group of giggling teenage girls and shouting children, was Ann Winters. Measuring five feet and six inches above the ground, she was a slender-built woman with short cut, reddish-blond hair.
Ann drew her simple, beige coat tighter around herself as a shelter against the cold. The young woman loathed the cold. She much preferred the warmth offered by the summer as opposed to the cold and rainy weather that the oncoming autumn so readily displayed.
Moving bodies flowed around her like streaming water as she lingered on the curbside. Unwittingly she ran a hand through her hair while scanning the dense traffic for a certain type of vehicle. With a yell and a wave of her hand she managed to attract the attention of one of the many ubiquitous taxis that roamed the city streets.
The yellow colored cab swung towards the curb and Ann found herself inside the taxi with her apartment as the destination soon after. She found herself staring blankly at the city as it passed outside the car window. People and buildings merged into a mass of shadows that danced and played over the scuffed vehicle glass.
Her late afternoon shopping squared away she felt tired and was in a somewhat despondent state of mind. She felt her life was stuck in a rut, that she was doing nothing more than eat, sleep and work.
“Ma’am? Ma’am?!”
The deep and slightly wheezy voice cut like a knife through her internal musings. Looking up, she saw the cab driver looking at her through the marred safety glass with concern painted on his face.
“We’re here. Are you alright, ma’am?”
“Ma’am.” A polite way to address her, yet it made her feel old.
“No, I’m fine, thank you.” Her curt answer followed by a thin smile was enough to deflect any concern on the driver’s behalf. A set of bills exchanged hands, and with that Ann stood on the curb in front of the house where she lived.
A deep, distant rumble drew her attention skyward where ink black clouds leisurely rolled across the dark blue sky, stealing away the final rays of light that lingered. The wind had begun to pick up and carried a distinct smell of water and ozone with it. A shiver ran up Ann’s spine and she made for the green colored door that led to her apartment.
An uneasy feeling began to manifest itself within her stomach and a flicker of pain surged up through her body. An involuntary shaking cut through her thin frame, leaving her keys rattling in her hand as she feverishly fought with the door lock. Ann was acutely aware of what was about to transpire and wanted nothing else but to get indoors as quickly as she could.
With a soft click the lock finally gave way to her frantic turning motions and she was able to enter. A narrow stairwell led up from the small entrance to the apartment proper. Each step became heavier and heavier as she navigated the stairs upwards. The world began to shrink away around her as she staggered up the final step.
Ann woke up with a jolt and a gasp. Eyes snapped opened and she violently drew her breath as if breaching the surface after a long dive underwater. Her body trembled slightly where she lay on the cold, naked floor.
She blinked several times as she was unable to parse what her eyes were telling her. Strange, deep blue colored shadows drew long lines across the oddly shaped room she was in. A pale but bright white light, emanating from somewhere behind her, shone an alien pattern that crept over the floor and up the high walls before joining with the cream colored ceiling.
She couldn’t quite make out where she was as the perspective was all wrong. Ann retrieved her head from the floor, an action that was immediately followed by a smashing headache. She winced as she immediately came to regret moving. Her body had seen fit to join the pain train and protested vigorously over her slightest movements.
Hazarding a glance down at herself, reality came screeching through her mind like a runaway car. Her normal female body was no more. Instead what met her gaze was a mockery of nature, a horrid twist of reality, something out of a poorly written horror story.
Ann averted her eyes from her estranged body and once more took in her surroundings. As her eyes adjusted to the odd light scheme she realized that she was lying on top of stairs that led from her front door. The prone position, change in body, and the evening darkness had skewed the perspective so that she barely recognized her own hallway.
A set of odd lumps lingered in the shadows, strewn around her like mounds around a mountain. It took a moment until she recognized the items as part of her discarded clothing. The obviousness of her situation was that she had, once again, transformed into the horrible thing she loathed, and per usual the effect of her transformation had been her fainting.
She slowly took to her feet, all four of them. Her newly transformed body painfully protested. Her joints popped and snapped in response to her stretching her limbs. The splitting headache receded into a dull pain pressing down on her head.
Ann gently shook her head in a failed attempt to rid herself of the effects of the unwanted transformation. She let out a tired sigh and stole a glance towards the hallway window behind her. It was clearly illuminated by the outside street light, the source of the pale white light.
She briefly pondered how long she had been out but with no access to a timepiece there was no obvious way of telling. She loudly smacked her mouth. The palate was bone dry and her tongue adhered unpleasantly to it. Ann steered her path towards the kitchen in order to remedy her thirst.
Circular shaped feet clopped against the naked floor tiles of the apartment kitchen. Her movements were slow and deliberate as she navigated past the kitchen table and towards a stainless bowl that stood on the floor by the sink. Her current affliction was scarcely the first time it had brought itself upon her. The bowl was the product of foresight on the young woman’s behalf.
She dipped her head towards it and drank heartily. The taste was metallic and stale, yet she didn’t care. She paused briefly and stared at the blurry image reflected in the small pool of water that remained in the bottom of the bowl. A roundish face with freakishly large eyes stared back at her.
She turned her head quickly to rid herself of the horrible image. She had no wish to dwell on her affliction but rather the remedy for it.
A blinding white light suddenly flared up, momentarily ridding the young woman of all sight. Panic stabbed her heart and froze her transformed body into an unmoving statue.
The light faded between heartbeats only to be followed by deep rolling thunder that rattled the windows. Heavy droplets of rain began to burst against her kitchen window at a slow, almost lazy pace only to vigorously increase in fervor almost instantly.
Ann remained still, eyes transfixed on the window, where the raw display of nature played out. A second blinding flash followed by deafening thunder sent the young woman stumbling through her apartment. She almost tripped over her discarded pair of jeans that she had so carelessly tossed on the worn linoleum floor in the corridor.
She kicked it away with an irritated sigh and continued to trace her route to the living room. The pale light from the neighborhood, filtered through windows painted with streaks of rain, gave the room an eerily ethereal ambiance that was broken every now and then by fresh stabs of jagged lightning. Ann wished that she could pull the curtains but her current diminutive form would make such an endeavor arduous if not impossible.
With a grunt she jumped up onto the sofa. There she pulled a familiar blanket over her body. The steady percussion of rain against her windows, interspersed by heavy thunder, served as a perfect overture to the nightmares that were to come. Ann didn’t wish to experience them but if she was to become human again she had to sleep, and as such endure the horrors of the night.
-*-
“Why would you do this to me? I thought you were my friend!”
The dream scape swirled and danced around her. Barely tangible forms appeared, briefly solidifying into shapes before dissolving immediately. Ann knew that she had done something wrong, something terribly, horribly wrong. A persistent wind roared in her ears and tore at her hair where she stood. A rotating, swirling mass of clouds began to form in front of her. Within moments it turned into a maw of rotating black clouds, the inside lined with jagged forks of lightning.
Naked fear gripped her. She wanted nothing more than to flee in terror but she found that she couldn’t. Despite her desperate efforts she was frozen in place as if held by an unseen force.
“Help me!” a female voice desperately pleaded. The voice sounded familiar. Ann was certain that she knew it from somewhere, though she couldn’t readily recall who it belonged to. Whoever it was crying for help had been caught in the maw and was drawn into it.
Ann twisted and turned in her sleep. A part of her knew that it was all a dream, that she wasn’t in any immediate danger nor was the other female, yet she was terrified of what was transpiring and the horrifying part was that she knew it was all her fault.
Somehow she managed to finally force herself to move forward towards the nightmarish surge of dark sinister clouds and the other female in distress.
“No! Don’t!” This was a new voice, male in nature, who protested Ann’s attempt at a rescue. She knew that she didn’t have time to consider any protests nor the idea of personal danger whatever her own or others’ feelings.
Whatever she had intended in terms of rescue was quickly dashed as she was drawn into the rotating gap by the howling wind. Pain and darkness swallowed her up. A heart wrenching scream, filled with terror, tore through the blackness and with a gasp Ann awoke from her nightmare. Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer in her chest.
The scene that met her was one of tranquility. Bright sunlight filtered through her windows together with the soft chirping from a group of house sparrows. Her heart rate slowed as she drank in the serenity presented before her, only to have her drowsy mind snap to attention when a piercing, ringing tone sang through the apartment.
Ann stumbled to her feet when she paused and shot a glance down her naked body. Two slender legs protruded beneath her. She moved her arms through the air; everything was back to normal. No more short, stubby legs, fur, or other odd appendages were present any longer. The tone sang yet again, prompting her to fetch the blanket with her right hand. With it draped over her shoulders she moved through the apartment towards the kitchen, her naked feet slapping against the floor.
Arriving in the kitchen she grabbed the yellow handset from her wall-mounted phone and croaked out a dry ‘hello’ into the receiver.
“Ann? Why are you still at home?”
It was her manager; hard nosed, no-nonsense Christine. Ann was hard-pressed to believe that Christine would buy her explanation for being tardy for work that she had turned into alien-looking creature last night. Again.
“I…” Ann began only to starting to cough, her throat bone dry.
“Ann? Are you sick?” There seemed to be a flicker of genuine concern in Christine’s voice. Something that actually surprised Ann who, from experience, knew that concern usually was the last thing Christine expressed, especially towards members of the staff.
“Yeah, I don’t feel too good.” It wasn’t an outright lie, she was feeling slightly under the weather, though she wasn’t sick per se.
“Well, I would have appreciated if you had seen fit to let me know that this morning.” Ann swore that she could hear over the phone how Christine was knitting her brow into deep furrows while pursing her lips in irritation. “Honestly Ann, perhaps you should reconsider your aversion to smart phones. You are rather difficult to get hold of.”
Ann shuddered at the thought of a smartphone; for some odd reason she couldn’t stand the feeling of her fingers pushing against the smooth, plastic touch screen surface of a smartphone. It just seemed weird compared to the tactile feeling of buttons on a handset.
“Sorry. I overslept.” Ann offered as an explanation, neatly sidestepping the last remark from Christine. “I’ll be in tomorrow, I promise.” She bit her lower lip in hope that her placating offer would hold up.
“If you are well enough, then you are welcome back. I won’t have you infecting the rest of the staff.”
“I understand.”
“It’s good that you do.” And with that the conversation was over. Christine hung up the phone with nary a word more offered.
“I promise,” Ann whispered into the handset with no-one to answer. She slowly hung up. Ann lingered in her kitchen for while staring idly at her right hand. She wiggled her fingers tentatively before letting out a frustrated sigh.
She was in dire need of a shower, clothing, and fresh, hot coffee, preferably in that order. Gingerly she picked up her garments from the hall floor where they had rested since last night and set forth towards the bathroom.
A long, warm, and life-giving shower later, Ann wiped her bathroom mirror clean of mist and stared at her face. It was a plain face with thin lips, a long, slightly crooked nose, and underneath a pair of emerald green eyes were a set of pale freckles.
Ann pushed an errant strand of hair to the side and took a good look at the state of her face. It featured a pallid complexion with black bags underneath each eye. When was the last time she had a good night’s sleep? The nightmare that had plagued her last night was not unique for when she had been transformed. It was a recurring nocturnal horror that visited her every other night.
With a fresh sigh she abandoned her reflection and made for her bedroom where she dumped her clothing from the previous day and picked up a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt to wear instead. Having gotten dressed she found herself sitting on the edge of her bed, feeling tired as the effect from the hot shower wore off. The notion of having a few more minutes of rest burned in her mind. She could have breakfast later. It didn’t take long for her to make up her mind; she stretched out on her bed and within seconds she had drifted off into a deep, dream-free sleep.
When she awoke again it was past the lunch hour. Her eyes felt gravelly and it took a moment for her to parse what the clock on her bedside table was telling her. An insistent growl from her stomach reminded her that she had not only managed to miss breakfast but lunch as well.
She rose to her feet and stretched out in her full length with her arms up towards the ceiling, a series of soft pops emanating from her back followed suit. With a wide yawn she lazily traced a path to the kitchen, her mind still a bit blurry from sleep.
She paused and considered what to eat in order to alleviate her hunger. A brief look in the refrigerator yielded nothing that interested her. Instead she turned to a kitchen drawer where she knew she had a couple of fast food fliers. Ann was certain she had one from her favorite restaurant.
It was when she retrieved the leaflets she saw it. Like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car she froze in place, staring at the object that had lay hidden beneath the fliers. It was an ornate necklace, intricate in its nature, with uneven parts of different colors held together with thin white strands. In the center part of it there was a large, yellow colored jewel in the shape of an eye staring back at her.
-*-
A pair of pegasus ponies lingered on the crest of a hill overlooking Ponyville, both a picture perfect silhouette against the rose red fire of the setting sun. In the village residents were milling about, children wearily returning home after a day of school and afternoon play, shopkeepers closing shutters and pulling carts from the market.
They barely noticed the slow pace at which the town was closing for the day. Weary and dusty from a long flight they took a moment to compose themselves.
“So, where are we?” the pale green female of the two asked, leisurely stretching out her wings at full length while attempting to stifle a wide yawn.
The second pegasus, a brown stallion, stared dreamily at the bodily display that his female companion, Dewdrop, was putting on. After a few seconds of silence had idled by, punctuated only by a group of pigeons cooing nearby, the stallion suddenly realized that the object of his admiration was staring back at him with a smirk.
“Let me check,” he hastily noted and buried his muzzle in one of his saddle bags, and after some rummaging managed to procure a map. His teal eyes flew over the lines, marks, and names while quietly mumbling to himself as he tried to get his bearings.
“Well, Stormbringer?” the female queried with a bemused look and a raised eyebrow as the increasingly flustered stallion struggled with the map.
“Ponyville… I think,” he managed after trying to make sense of what the map was telling him about the surrounding landmarks.
“Ponyville? Why does that sound familiar?” Dewdrop replied with a ponderous look on her visage.
“Wasn’t it here that whole business with princess Celestia being kidnapped at the Summer Sun celebration happened?” he replied, his voice betraying some uncertainty as if he wasn’t quite sure.
“No, wait, I know!” she blurted out with excitement. “Cupcakes!”
The stallion dropped the map and stared flabbergasted at his female companion.
“Cupcakes?!” he replied, giving vocal weight to his bewilderment over her apparent non-sequitur.
Oblivious to Stormbringer’s bewilderment, Dewdrop had a distant, almost dreamy look on her face. “Yes, delicious, moist cupcakes.”
Before he had a chance to further inquire as to why Ponyville would be known foremost for its delicious cupcakes, a soft gurgle escaped from the female pegasus.
Dewdrop let out a chuckle while flashing an embarrassed grin. “Sorry?”
“I think it’s time to get something to eat. Say… cupcakes?” he suggested with a sly smile.
The mare beamed back at him with an even larger grin. “I bet there is a place still open.”
The wayward map was quickly retrieved and together, side by side, the two pegasus ponies made their way towards Ponyville in search of a place to eat and rest.
What neither of the two pegasi knew was that a certain pink party pony had a tail shake and a double twitch in her left hind leg. A broad smile split her visage, growing so wide that it threatened to engulf her entire face. For her this meant that there were not one but two new ponies in Ponyville this early evening, and new ponies meant a welcome-to-Ponyville party!
-*-
Princess Celestia slowly navigated the spacious hallways of the Canterlot castle. They lay largely empty as most of the castle staff was busy finishing up for the day. Dusk was drawing near and it was time for her to lower the sun. However, the moon needed to be raised as well, a task which was within the purview of her sister’s responsibility.
Yet her dusk-colored alicorn sister was nowhere to be found, and Celestia had looked in all the places where she usually could be found. Having exhausted all alternatives where her sister could be there was only one option left; her bedroom.
Moments later the solar princess paused briefly outside Luna’s residence. A soft knock on the ornately carved wooden door yielded no answer. With a slight tinge of worry manifesting within her, Celestia opened the door and slowly strode into the chamber. “Sister? Are you unwell?”
Again there was no reply. This time however, Celestia saw why her sister chose not to answer. Luna lay on her spacious bed with her head gently placed on her front legs. Her horn had a bright band of white colored magic wrapped in thin strands around it.
Celestia recognized the form of magic that was so brightly illuminating her sister’s horn. She was visiting the dreamscape, a place where the solar princess could not follow. Though Celestia was at a loss as to why her sister had decided to go there before ponies generally went to sleep, she didn’t have to wait long as her sister awoke with a wide yawn.
Luna shook her head, trying to clear her mind from the last cobwebs of sleep that lingered. She was surprised to find her older sister waiting by her bedside.
“Celestia? What has brought you to my chamber?”
Her older sister smiled warmly at her. “It is time for us to perform our duty.”
Luna blinked a couple of times while trying to parse what her sister was referring to. Her confused demeanor made Celestia let a soft laughter escape her. “Lowering the sun and raising the moon?”
The proverbial light bulb went off in Luna’s mind as she realized what her alabaster colored sister was referring to. She glanced over to an ornate clock set beside her bed with befuddlement brimming in her voice. “Is it time already?”
Celestia nodded, still smiling, and turned to leave the room. Luna was surprised that the afternoon had passed into nightfall. The lunar princess descended from her bed with a swift jump and followed her sister into the corridor.
During their walk towards the tower balcony, Luna described why she had been deep into the dream scape even though it was late afternoon. It had begun quite some time ago. There was a nightmare emanating from a pegasus pony, which wasn’t unusual in itself, but the nature of the dream was anything but normal.
The pegasus mare seemed to be far beyond the borders of Equestria, the distance almost impossible, leaving the nightmares she dreamed to be faint, almost intangible. The intensity of the nightmares the poor pegasus dreamed was anything but, however. She could feel the pegasus suffer greatly in the dreams that the mare dreamed.
To Luna’s great consternation all her attempts at entering the dream and manipulating it had been for naught. The princess of the night could only feel the outline of the nature of the nightmare. Yet she was drawn to it every time the pony dreamed it.
Celestia had patiently listened to Luna explain the nightmare as the pair approached the balcony. She offered no rebuttal until after she had lowered the sun and Luna had raised the moon. Walking back towards their chambers her older sister mused on the story about the dreaming pegasus pony.
Luna studied her sister intently, hoping for a deep insight or advice. “A magical storm? Something about that sounds quite familiar,” Celestia noted with a quizzical expression before continuing. “I recall receiving a missive some time ago that might be of aid to us.”
Luna perked up. If Celestia knew something that could help her with the nightmare she would be elated.
Before Celestia had a chance to further dwell on what she might know an earth pony mare from the castle staff approached the sisters and with a deep bow addressed them with a problem she wished some assistance with. Her alabaster white sister stepped forward and gave some advice, which saw the young mare almost dance away as if a great weight had been lifted from her body.
This was not the first time Luna had seen this happen. It seemed that everypony went to her sister for any problems they may have.
“Sister?”
“Yes, Luna?”
“To whom do you go when you seek assistance?”
“Why Luna, I ask you, of course,” Celestia replied with a soft smile.
The midnight-colored alicorn pondered her older sister’s reply. A thought occurred to her regarding this notion.
“Sister, I turn to you for the very same.”
“How astute, for where else would you turn?” The princess of the sun was now wearing a mischievous smile.
Luna opened and closed her mouth before giving her older sister a frank stare. “Are you playing me for a foal?”
“Dear sister, I would never,” Celestia replied with a barely contained laughter as she made for her chamber with a brisk trot.
Luna followed her older sister with a conflicted mind. She remembered her sister to be generous, kind, and protective, traits that Celestia still exhibited, yet somewhere along the millennium between them, her sister had been imparted with an impish streak to her personality.
The solar princess abode was, just as its inhabitant, warm and welcoming in its nature, and Luna felt a sense of care and kindness swell in her chest as she entered.
“Now, where did I leave that letter?” Celestia consider a pile of tightly rolled up letters neatly stacked on her desk while wearing a ponderous expression. Luna in turn planted her plot on a soft pillow and watched her big sister rummage through her correspondence in search for the specific letter she had previously mentioned.
Luna studied Celestia, attempting to discern further differences in her personality. After a while her attention began to wane and her gaze began to drift to minute details of Celestia’s chamber.
A sliver of brown, almost hidden behind a dresser, drew her attention and without a word she retrieved her plot from the pillow before making her way to the dresser.
There she inspected the sliver, only to find that what she had seen was the edge of a tightly rolled up letter. With a flick of her horn she retrieved it and called her sister’s attention to the missive.
“Sister? Is this the letter you seek?” The alabaster alicorn nodded as she laid her eyes on the seal.
“How on Equestria did it end up there?” Celestia voiced her surprise over finding the missing letter hidden in a place she had not readily considered. With her magic she grabbed it from Luna and let it unfurl in front of her. A quick glance at the neatly written text confirmed that it was the letter she had been referring to previously. She let it float over Luna.
The princess of the moon let her blue eyes wander over the parchment presented. Unease began to burn within her as she took in the details within the missive. “Sister… this is…” Luna found that she couldn’t put her feelings into proper words.
Celestia in turn was knitting her brow into a deep furrow, giving her a stern expression. “Discord.”
