My mother passed twenty years ago, so the sound of her voice wakes me up in a hurry.

“Good morning, sweetie!” she roars, with cheer and maternal warmth I would never associate with a woman like her. Her voice pounds on the insides of my skull; I groan and shift away from her in bed.

“I’m too hung over for loud ghosts,” I yell back, trying to wave her away through a mess of blankets. My head hurts, why is she here, why is everything so loud, since when do I have a bed? The bed feels really nice, actually. It’s soft, warm, and cozy. The room is too bright, though. There’s a pillow under my chin; I flip it up over my head like a sun hat and burrow into my covers as best I can.

“Now now, sweetie, let’s use our inside voices, alright?” my mother’s voice booms.

Well, whatever makes her quiet down. I groan and drag myself out of bed. I just need to navigate away from wherever the evil day star is getting in and nab some hair of the dog that bit me from the cooler.

“It’s almost time for breakfast,” mom says, still too loudly. “That should wake you right up.”

“Sure,” I mutter. Even my own voice is too loud. To heck with hangovers. Beer is just liquid bread, so that counts as breakfast, right? With my eyes still screwed shut against the light, I walk out of my bedroom and towards the micro-kitchen my apartment has, according to some legal technicality.

I walk face-first into something hard, smashing my nose, and recoil with a cry, trying far too late to cover the injury. “Fuck! Fuck, ow, ow, ow!”

“Oh no! Sweetie!” mother thunders. “Are you—oh. Oh dear, you’re bleeding, let me see that.”

Something blunt gently pushes my hooves away from my hurt nose. Something nearby plays a chaotic chiming-tinkling noise, and a tissue wipes gently above my upper lip. The pain is getting worse. Hurt builds in my chest. My eyes water behind their lids. Am I seriously going to cry over this?

Wait. Hooves. My hooves.

Oh shit.

Suddenly, the pain seems a lot less important. Despite the painful brightness around me, I open my eyes and yep, that’s a candy-blue pony looking down at me with gentle, sympathetic pink eyes. That’s a shimmering aura of pale blue magic enveloping her horn and holding a couple of tissues to my face. She, or I assume the pony is a she, reaches towards me with a hoof, prompting me to look down at myself and yep, that’s my arms gone, replaced by cylindrical white-haired front legs with the faintest pink tinge to them.

There’s no point to denying it. The people-crazy cybergoddess called Celestia got me. It would be nice if I could remember how, but I don’t have time for review as the big blue pony sweeps me up into a warm embrace. Instinctively, I stiffen against it. It’s weird, but it soothes the hurt in my chest and dries my eyes a little. I guess that makes it okay.

“It’s okay, sweetie, I’ve got you now,” Blue Pony coos. She still sounds like my mother, which is less okay. I’m used to her still talking sometimes, but her voice coming from an actual mouth, let alone a pony’s, just isn’t right. Neither is the gentleness of it.

“Now, let’s see,” she says, letting me out of the hug. Her volume is almost down into the bearable range now. “First aid’s in the bathroom. Up you come!”

With no warning, a warm, tingling aura envelops my body, its ghostly touch chilling my bones. It flings me up into the air, and a small, terrified voice yelps from my lips before the magic flops me onto Blue’s back. A moment later we’re in a dingy white room, and I barely get my new hooves under me in time when she tilts and slides me onto the cheap tile floor.

I take a moment to look around while Mom Voice fusses over my superficial injury. The bathroom could be anywhere, though. Standard flush toilet, standing sink and faucet, and a little tub that’s not really big enough for bathing but lacks a showerhead. The mirror over the sink is open, revealing a small cabinet with a box of bandaids—name brand, even—set beside some tweezers on a shelf above twenty or so toothbrushes. There’s also a free-standing cabinet by the door that probably has towels in it, if anything here is to make sense.

Mom Voice finishes cleaning up my face and puts a bandage just below my nostrils. She then plants a little kiss on the tip of my muzzle, which will probably help about as much as the bandaid. Then again, it does help me feel a little lighter. Why does my body give a damn? A queasy feeling settles in my belly.

“There you go, sweetie,” she says, still pushing the limits of tolerable volume. “Why don’t you brush your teeth while I get breakfast ready?”

“Okay, I guess.” I look up at the now-closed mirror. As much as I hate to solicit more talking right now, I’ll regret not asking this. “Which toothbrush is mine?”

“You don’t remember?” Mom Voice says. Her look of surprise passes, however, and she retrieves a small and extremely pink toothbrush from the heap behind the mirror with a quick levitation spell. “Here, sweetie. Now, food will be waiting when you come down. I’ll forget you said certain words so long as you don’t bring them to the table, alright?”

The magic winks out of existence when I wrap a hoof around the toothbrush, and Mom Voice walks out while I try to figure out what in the world my hooves are. There’s nothing about hooves that suggests they should work like this, and at last I just give up and go looking for some toothpaste. There isn’t any, though, and the other cabinet just has towels, so I brush without once I manage to reach the faucet. Putting the brush back in the cabinet is out of the question with my height, so I just leave it on the sink when I’m done and have a quick drink.

With the water and the quiet, things finally make a little more sense. So, to recap: Celestia got me. Too bad about my humanity. That attitude probably comes from Celestia’s brainwashing, but I can’t make myself care. I’ve been placed in the home of Mom Voice, who clearly sees me as a child. She’s big enough compared to me for that to make sense. My muzzle still hurts, and what even are pony hooves, but while I’m not yet hungry, I’m not turning down free food.

There’s a window directly ahead of me when I leave the bathroom, and I cringe against how bright it is but make a detour to look out anyway. The window opens over a street, a simple stretch of lightly-rutted dirt lined by small, austere houses without much color. Each home is some shade of white, with dark brown wooden supports. Across the road a grey pony leaning out of a window waves at me, and I barely manage to wave back before her attention drifts away.

In the street below, there are ponies big and small, and ponies of all colors—though most of them are all white—make their way towards a collection of taller and plainer buildings a long ways off to my left. There’s a lot of noise, too, as most of them move at a leisurely pace and chat amongst each other. It fades when I retreat from the window and head downstairs.

There are two ponies at the low table when I enter the run-down kitchen. The one I don’t recognize is a smaller, stubby-muzzled pink pony with wings, blue hair, and five o’clock shadow. There are two other big pillow-cushions standing in for chairs, one next to each of them. As I clamber onto and across the pillow next to Mom Voice, Pink Pony lowers his newspaper to look across the table at me and smile.

“Hey sweetie.” His voice is a warm baritone. I try to smile back. He nudges a plate towards me and says, “Toast?”

“Sure.”

“What do you say, sweetie?” he says.

“Yes, please.” I don’t appreciate this game, but again, free food. It works. He reaches forwards to push a cup of milk over to me, followed by the plate, which bears two slices of heavy, dark bread with butter melted all over. Its smell draws a rumble from my awakening belly, and I pick it up for a bite that turns out to be as good as it looks.

The room becomes mostly silent as Mom Voice, Pink Pony, and I set to eating. When Pink and Voice talk, it’s about the weather and some magical nonsense, and I tune them out. My roused appetite is soon exhausted, however. After one slice of toast and a little bit of the other, eating any more might make me sick. My stomach must be tiny. I drink some milk to wash it all down.

“I’m done,” I say during a lull in the bigger ponies’ conversation. Remembering the please game, I add, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sweetie,” says Mom Voice. She pulls me over for another quick hug before I can react. This time, though, she lets go right away, seeming to notice my stiffness. “Are you alright?”

“I don’t know.” I shuffle back into a more comfortable place on my cushion. Am I okay? I’m a tiny pony in a strange house with bigger ponies who seem awfully parental. They’re nice, I guess. Free breakfast is good. But something about them isn’t right, and now they’re both looking at me with expressions that resemble concern. I try fending them off with a weak smile. They glance at each other, then back at me.

“Is there something you’d like to talk about?” Pink says. He folds his newspaper and sets it to the side.

I open my mouth to answer and a heavy bell rings in the distance. Pink and Voice trade another look, and Pink sighs.

“Alright, we can talk about this later. Sorry, sweetie,” he says. “I’d better get you to school. We’re already late and you don’t want to miss your first day back.”

Faster than I can figure out where to even start, Pink has me up on his back with a pair of light bags strung together across my hips.

“Don’t forget her lunch!” Mom Voice calls. A brown paper bag floats over in an aura of magic to land in front of me, and Pink launches himself airborne. We’re outside in a blink, soaring upwards and over identical rows of identical rooves with the wind rushing in my ears and blowing his blue hair in my face and oh shit there are houses and they’re way down there. A shriek of alarm escapes my mouth as I close my eyes and cling to Pink as tightly as I can manage.

The ride comes to an abrupt halt, and without the wind in my ears, I hear a few children’s voices nearby.

“You okay, sweetie?” Pink says. I open my eyes. We’re on the ground again, and I slide off him as quickly as I can to stand trembling on the grass. He turns and pulls me into yet another hug. I’d question it, but it helps me stop shaking.

“There, it’s okay, see?” he says, letting me go. “It’s okay. I’ll talk to you after school, alright kiddo?”

I give him a numb nod and he flicks his shoulders, catapulting the brown lunch bag over to rest on my back. Whatever is inside must be completely smashed by now.

Pink turns to go, and I turn to face my fate: a flat, square schoolhouse with a tall, square bell tower. Aside from a golden sun sigil near the top of the tower and a few paper cut-outs in the windows, the whole building is beige. It’s not how I would imagine a school in Celestia’s happy land of friendship and ponies, but apparently I’m expected to be here. I take a deep breath and open the door.

Inside, the building is dominated by a single beige room. To my left are a few rows of desks, most of which are occupied by fillies and colts who are chatting or fidgeting and carrying various expressions of disinterest. Behind them is an open floor space with beanbag seats everywhere and walls lined with shelves holding all kinds of toys and tools and hobby supplies. Directly ahead of me is the teacher’s desk, topped by a mess of papers and an apple and manned by a mulberry-purple pegasus who smiles when he sees me.

“Oh, what a pleasant surprise,” he says. His voice is oddly similar to Pink’s. “Over here, please.”

“Sure.” I push the door closed behind me, and walk up to his desk. He smiles again, and turns to face the class.

“Everypony! Please welcome Sweetie Belle back to Celestia K!”

“Hi, Sweetie Belle,” the class drones. I force a smile and wave at them. I guess that’s my name now. Where has my old name gone? How does the teacher already know me? Does anyone else here know me too? What is happening?

“Alright, please go and sit down,” Teach Horse says. “We were just about to get started.”

There’s only one free desk, all the way at the back between a prissy silver-grey pegasus with thick glasses on the left and a cream unicorn with a bow in his red hair on the right. I settle in and tuck my bags and lunch away.

Five minutes into ignoring Silver Priss and Hair Bow’s efforts to get me to relay nastygrams to each other, it finally clicks that I have literally been sent back to kindergarten. But what was I going to do with my day, hide from my phone and fend off debt collectors? Slave away for a pointy-haired suit who treats workers like disposable automatons?

This is fine.

Author's Note

This chapter was generously sponsored by Canary in the Coal Mine via Patreon. Thank you so much for the motivation and support!

An early draft of this chapter was pre-read by Petrichord, whose work is definitely worth watching.