We set up camp in the living room after cleaning out the kitchen of anything edible. I got another fire going as Ashaa created makeshift beds for us to sleep in. Though I doubted I was going to get any sleep at all. I was sure there was something or someone else here with us, there had to be! I had heard hoofsteps earlier, and the wind couldn't have blown out my fire the way it did. Even though the house was old, there was no way I was just hearing things.

Shadow nudged me slightly, bringing me out of my thoughts.

"Are you going to make a fire or what? It's getting cold in here."

I nodded and got back to the substantially larger lean-to I was building.

When I finally got the fire up to a reasonable size, I stood up and backed into a beanbag, falling into it with a drawn-out sigh. Ashaa had wanted to go see a library Shadow had found in his earlier search of the house, so the two of them left me to tend the fire.

“h͚̖̜̍̃͐e̮̟͈̣̖̰̩̹͈̾ͨ̑͑l͕͖͉̭̰ͬ̍ͤ͆̊ͨl͕͖͉̭̰ͬ̍ͤ͆̊ͨo͎̜̓̇ͫ̉͊ͨ͊?“

I jumped out of the beanbag and spun around as quickly as possible. I had very clearly heard a child’s voice, though it had been muffled by radio static. I checked the room again and found no radios of any sort, however, and Shadow had unplugged the television. I fought back the urge to run screaming in the direction I thought the others had gone and cautiously walked back towards the fire.

A sparkle caught my eye as I passed a bookshelf, backtracking a little, I found a large silvery orb laying on a small blue pillow. Intrigued, I picked it up with one talon. The second I did so bolts of white magic shot out of the ball and began travelling up my arm.

I yelled in surprise and tried to drop the thing, but my talon wouldn’t obey me. The magic wasn’t painful, but quite uncomfortable, as if it wasn’t intended for me. It slowly began working up towards my head, a numbing sensation affecting my limbs as it drew closer to its target. As it clawed up my neck I began to lose consciousness, the world slowly going black.

When I woke up, I knew immediately something was wrong. I couldn’t feel my talons! I tried to look down, but my eyes wouldn’t move for me. None of my limbs were under my control.

After this realization, I took a look at my surroundings. It appeared I had Gone back in time. I recognized the houses around me, I was only a few blocks away from the small castle. The difference between then and now was that the Sun was out, there was a multitude of well-dressed ponies out and about, and all of the nearby buildings were spotless. Not even one shingle was out of place.

The ponies who walked by me seemed to dislike my presence, as if I had offended them somehow. I then came to another realization, that I was at least a head taller than everyone around me. Shadow was slightly taller than an average unicorn, and I only stood a couple of centimetres taller than him.

Whatever was going on, My theory was that I wasn’t in my body anymore, but in Someone else’s. Panicking was pointless, so I decided to mentally sit back and see what happened.

The pony sighed and fidgeted her wings underneath what I could only guess was a dress, and began walking towards the castle, adjusting a pair of glasses I hadn’t noticed with her magic.

Wait, wings and magic!? I must’ve been in the mind of an alicorn! Or body, to be exact. I could feel the ground beneath her hooves, and the muggy Neigh Orleans air that threatened to suffocate us both in the heavy dress she was wearing. I could also feel the lack of certain body parts that should be left unnamed. I forcefully ignored that though, if I thought too hard about that I doubted I would get through this with my sanity.

From what I remembered from my history classes, none of the princesses had ever worn glasses, but it could be a disguise.

Before I could deduce whose body I was in, she reached the wooden gate, a beautiful white unicorn mare with a blue two-tone mane and tail waved at me. She had a cutie mark of a shield made of three colours and a small musical note in the centre. She gave a brilliant smile as I approached.

“So glad you could make it! The girls and I have been dying to show you this!”

I felt myself give the mare a small smile.

“Thank you so much for doing this Sweetie Belle, I don’t think I could have stayed with mom a day longer.”

Mom? None of the princesses had mothers that I knew of.

I then began to look around, as if she expected there to be more people here.

“Where are the others? Shouldn’t they be here too?”

The unicorn sighed, shaking her head.

Well, you know. Twist just got deployed in Hoofington, and Apple Bloom and Scoots are really busy.”

As if on cue, a small buzzing noise emanated from the business collar she was wearing.

“Miss Belle, you have a staff meeting to attend in twenty minutes.”

Sweetie Belle groaned softly before responding.

“Push the meeting back a couple of hours Skye, I’m in the middle of something quite important”

“Are you sure Ma’am? This will disrupt all of next week’s schedule.”

“I don’t give a damn about next week! Right now is what’s important! Do whatever you have to do, I’ll deal with whatever mess is left when I get back, okay?”

“Alright Ma’am, but please remember this is the third time this month we’ve had a scheduling error this big.“

“Yes yes, thank you, Skye, I’ll figure it out later. Goodbye.”

Sweetie Belle then turned back towards me with a nervous smile.

“Sorry about that, shall we?” She said, gesturing with her hoof towards the gate. I shook my head reluctantly, making Sweetie’s smile dropped a little.

You don’t have to make your life hard just for me Sweetie Belle, I can navigate a new house by myself just fine. You can come to check on me when you’re not busy.”

“Nonsense!” She replied, moving to open the gate. “I always find time for my friends, especially you! Now come on inside.”

I followed her into the small courtyard, now filled with living plants and working fountains. The mare took in her surroundings before continuing towards Sweetie Belle and the front door.

“I know you wanted something small, but the girls all agreed this would suit you a lot better, don’t you think? Besides, how we’re we supposed to build you a big enough library if we put you in a small cottage?”

For the first time, the mare perked up considerably. Apparently, she liked reading.

“A whole library for me? How did you pay for all this anyway?”

The white unicorn scoffed lightly, waving a hoof dismissively.

“This barely put a dent in the StableTec’s wallet, and even if it had, I bet the other two co-owners wouldn’t have minded in the slightest. Why don’t you take that stuffy dress off and change into something lighter? There’s no reason to wear that disguise in your own home!”

I nodded again as I removed the dress and hung it unceremoniously on a familiar dragon coatrack, letting my midnight black wings stretch out beside me.

“Again, thank you so much for all this. It’s way more than I deserve.”

“Hey! I thought you were past the whole ‘blaming myself’ stuff! None of what happened to you was your fault. Yeah, you did make some mistakes, but you’ve more than made up for them!

What you don’t deserve is an ignorant mother. If she won’t take care of you then we will, because you matter, okay? There’s a phone in the kitchen, living room, and your bedroom. You can call us any time, and we’ll come running if you need us. Because even if your mom doesn’t think friendship is important anymore, we do.”

I could tell the alicorn was visibly crying as she removed her glasses and set them near her dress.

“Th-, Thank you. I, I can’t express how much this means to me.”

Sweetie Belle jumped up to give the mare a warm hug, she seemed to by crying as well.

“You don’t have to, we already know. Besides, we kinda owe you our lives, Miss ‘protector of the night’. The least I can do is give you a place to live.”

Before I could respond, the world slowly went black once again.

When I came to this time I was laying on the beanbags. In front of me was a worried Ashaa and an irritated Shadow. As the orb’s influence faded I began to regain control of my limbs, this time with a lot less magical lighting.

“Oh! You’re awake! Sweet Novo did you give us a scare. We came down to show you some books I thought you’d like, and you were passed out on the floor! What happened?”

“He activated a memory orb,” Shadow said, pointing with a hoof towards the object still in my talon.

“Don’t pick it up, that’s how he got it to work, wrap it in a blanket first and put it back on a shelf.”

Ashaa nodded as she followed the instructions, though I could move, I still hadn’t regained feeling in my limbs. So I elected to remain stuck in the beanbags.

“I knew hippogryphs had magic, but I didn’t think you could use those. Otherwise, I would’ve warned you not to touch it.”

Shadow paused for a moment as he began to thoughtfully pace around the room.

“What did you see? Anything?”

“Yeah, I think I saw her," I said, shakily pointing a talon at the stained glass window across the room. "And a mare named Sweetie Belle was there."

"Hmm, Interesting. I didn't know she had a house here."

"Who?" I asked quizzically, "Do you know who lived here?"

Shadow made a sound of confirmation as he continued to pace.

"I think I do. But if I'm right, then she's probably still here. It doesn’t matter, the storm should lessen by tomorrow morning, we'll leave then. I'll go cash in a few favours while you two warn the town."

"If we're leaving in the morning, we should get some sleep then, right?" Ashaa inquired as she returned from the bookcase. Shadow shrugged, turning to trot out into the hallway.

"I'll be patrolling the grounds. And yes, you two should get some sleep."

Ashaa and I both nodded as we finished setting up our makeshift beds. I hobbled over to mine and collapsed with a sigh, exhausted. As I fell into unconsciousness I felt Ashaa pull a blanket over me.

"𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉𝓂𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉, 𝓌𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝒶 𝒻𝓇𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉, 𝑔𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝓊𝓈 𝓈𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓈𝓌𝑒𝑒𝓉 𝓉𝑜 𝒷𝒾𝓉𝑒"

I opened my eyes and looked around. Something had woken me up, but what? The fire had gone out, and it was freezing. Ashaa was still sound asleep, which was odd. She was a light sleeper, like me, so whatever woke me up should have awoken her too. I checked my pipbuck, it was still a couple of hours until dawn. Unable to return to sleep, I decided to take a walk around the house, I hoped that would relieve the mild headache I had. I could hear what I guessed were Shadow's hoofsteps down the hall, I quietly trotted through the door to find no one out in the hallway. The hoofsteps had faded away.

I was extremely creeped out by now, and slowly backpedalled into the living room. Ashaa was awake now, and staring at me quizzically.

"Where'd you go? We've already searched the house."

I shook my head, trying to clear it.

"I-, I don't know."

Footnote:

Author's Note

Sorry, this one took a while, I had a couple of unseens events and unplanned trips happen recently.

Again I hope ya'll are enjoying this story and that you stick around for more!

-A Bloodthirsty Unicorn56