The whole world lacked meaning. That was what Gold Vine thought as she stood outside the front gates of what had once been her family manor. The disgraced noble should've been furious. A pony of her station robbed of her place in the world for simply maintaining the natural order of the world. She should've been screaming in righteous fury to the heavens, carefully plotting how she would make the Cloud Trotter's whore pay for knocking her so far down.

Instead, she felt nothing. The exact thing she had to her name and personal worth. Now she was no longer a brilliant and perfect Unicorn. Instead, she was worse then the Cloud Trotter. Nothing but a worthless Mud Pony. She was barely aware of her hoof drifting towards where her horn used to be, the magic that used to travel through it simply circulating through her body. The feeling was so alien to her, so wrong on too many levels for her to count. Stiffly, she stood up and wandered away into the city streets, no destination in mind beyond anywhere away from her old ancestral home.

She was numb to everything around her, barely aware of whatever passing ponies she bumped up against. The whole world was in a fog as she walked. Everything about her felt wrong, unnatural. She felt heavy, like the ground itself was anchoring her to it against her will. It scared her. She had to move. She had to get away.

In time, she stumbled into a nearby alley, the smell of trash snapping her out of her fog. The cold and dark den crawled with rats and filth, a side mostly hidden in the shadows of the bright and clean city. Gold sighed as she went deeper in, she had no home to call her own or bits to pay for lodging. Besides, this was were a pony of her tribe belonged in this city. If she was nothing else, Gold Vine was a pony that recognized the natural order of the world.

She sifted through the waste, fighting back her gag reflex as she tried to find anything she could make use of. Her search wasn't completely in vain as she pulled six bruised apples and a tattered blanket from a trashcan. In another, she pulled a half empty bottle of cheep booze along with a broken kitchen knife. It wasn't much, but she could make it work for the moment.

At first, she reflexively tried to use her magic to levitate the knife, only to let out a sigh as she picked it up with her hoof. Her grip was clumsy, the stronger hooves as alien to her has everything else linked to her inferior new form. As a result, what had once been an apple was now a clump of butchered pulp. A frustrated growl came out of her as she leaned down and devoured the pulp like a rabid dog. She tried again with the next apple, the end result being mismatched fruit slices, but progress all the same. Eventually, she managed to cut the fruits into smaller and easier to ration pieces for later.

Her gaze shifted back and forth between the knife and the apple slices, a sense of disgust growing in her with each iteration as a realization grew in her. She was beginning to adapt to her new body. She didn't want to adapt. This wasn't her body! This wasn't what she was meant to be! SHE WASN'T A FILTHY MUD PONY!!!

She let out a furious scream as she threw the knife, frustrated tears she had been holding back sliding down her face as it clattered to the ground. Rage, shame, and disgust ran through her like a vile cocktail from where she sat, her jaw clenched so tight she almost broke her teeth. She didn't deserve this. She did nothing wrong! So what if she tried to kill a Pegasus? The filthy Cloud Trotter had no right being with a nobel Unicorn, let alone a Unicorn of Sunset Shimmer's standing. She could accept her loss to the High Royal as it was foolish of her to think she could match her to begin with. To be reduced to such a lowly creature? That was beyond the pale!

The bottle of booze caught her attention and with a furious snarl, she grabbed it off of the ground and took a swig. The swill was vile, tasting like a mix of urine and arsenic on her more refined tongue, but she didn't care. She wiped some stray drops off of her muzzle with a foreleg, the act adding to her growing rage as she slammed he bottle down next to her without breaking it. It seemed the barbaric actions of her new tribe were setting in the more she breathed, a "fact" that made her blood boil further.

"DAMN ME TO THE TAKER THEN!!!" she roared, grabbing the bottle to take another long pull.

For untold hours she fumed, her actions becoming more erratic as she drank. She screamed and cursed as she lashed out at her surroundings, her newly acquired strength giving her hooves enough power to crush a few empty trashcans. Some of the cans she knocked over revealed more bottles of booze, which she greedily guzzled on sight. By the time she had run out of drink, Luna's night sky greeted her with a blanket of twinkling stars. She barely noticed, the world spinning and body numb to the touch. A pile of vomit sat next to her head, a consequence of her actions that her spiraling mind ignored. Without her rage to distract her, a deep feeling of fear washed over her so deeply that even the cheep drinks running through her system couldn't numb. What would she do with herself? How could she live? She didn't know how to be a Mud Pony! She couldn't! She would be better off dead than to live with that kind of shame!

No sooner had that thought crossed her mind did she see the knife from before, the broken tool just within hoofs reach from where she laid. Clumsily, she reached over and dragged it towards herself. When she managed to get a firm grip on its handle, she stared at it with dull interest. Even without her training, she knew that even a chipped and damaged blade such as this could get the job done. It wouldn't be clean, but a quick slice to the jugular would make that a moot point. A relieved smile spread across her muzzle as she brought the blade to her neck, but before she could do the deed, a familiar female voice made her freeze.

"Why, if it isn't Gold Vine. Funny finding you here."

Slowly, Gold turned her head towards the voice's source and what she saw turned her blood into ice. About ten feet away from her stood a silver Unicorn mare. Her elegantly groomed golden mane and tail shined beautifully in the moonlight like liquid metal. The mare's red eyes gleamed with a predatory shine as she stared down at the laying former Unicorn. Even without seeing it, she knew the mare's Cutie Mark, a knife behind a moonstone cut into an oval.

Gold let out a panicked breath as she spoke the mare's name.

"Moonstone Dagger."

Gold gasped in pain as she was slammed to the back of the alley, a red glow enveloping her that matched he one surrounding Moonstone's horn.

"Silence, dirt," Moonstone scoffed, her eyes slowly trailing across the mares body as she was held against the wall. "It would seem that my intel was correct. Tell me, how did the Heiress of the Nobel Vine Family become a filthy Mud Pony?"

Gold Vine could only muster a pained groan, the alcohol in her system combined with pain from Moonstone's assault clouding her mind.

"Not talking?" Moonstone frowned, then smiled wickedly as she said, "That's fine. Gathering information is what my family is know for after all."

Moonstone's smile grew more twisted as she added, "And I love to learn knew things from ponies."

A sharp pain shot through the back of Gold's head, a part of her processing that Moonstone's magic rammed her head into the wall behind her before the world faded into black.

Author's Note

And so it begins...