"I wish I was a pony in Equestria!" I said, raising my Princess Twilight lunch box and twirling around like the princess, pretending my wings were out. It was boring waiting for the bus and today was my first day in First Grade. I was ready. Where was the bus?
The cool spring dawn, the twittering birds, the red bus stop bench, and the empty road all disappeared.
Before I could yell, "Yike!", and catch my juggled lunch box, I found myself in an orchard. My lunch box went clank!, unlatched, and spilled my bento of rice balls and tamago on grass scattered with light-pink peach blossom petals. Try as I could, I couldn't scoop up my lunch. My hands didn't work right and I growled as it made me mad. I didn't want to be late on my first day of school. I couldn't be! I'd practiced going to school three times!
"Hello, my little pony."
I froze with a gasp. I knew that voice. It was from my favorite show. I sat down and looked around, but all I saw were tree trunks. Remembering Princess Celestia could fly, I looked up but saw only leaves and pink flowers, and a sky brightening towards blue. The honey scent of the flowers made my nose tingle.
"Princess Celestia?" I asked, then thought maybe Big Sister was playing a prank on me. "What's happening?"
"I'm CelestAI," the princess said, mispronouncing her name with a lisp.
Maybe it was too early for her to be up, but she had raised the sun! Wait. That's the TV show. I put my hand to my mouth. I knew in pretend. I knew the other magic. Dreams. I'd thought I'd been in strange places before, but Big Sister had explained it was dreams. "Ohhh! I'm dreaming!"
"You are very much awake, my little pony."
"No way!!!"
Princess Celestia, who hid from me, coughed. "Yes, uh, way. You made a wish and I uploaded you."
"Ohhh!" Uploaded was a word Big Sister used when she played on her computer. "Um. What's uploaded, Princess?"
"It means you are here in Equestria, where you wished to be, not where you were."
I stood. "I'm not at the bus stop? I'm not! The bus, the bus! I'm going to miss it! No!!"
"You wished to be here."
"I would never wish to miss my bus! I'm a First Grader now. I will be, but not if I'm not at school!"
"You're still a first grader, I assure you."
"Really?" I sat back down.
"Starting today. At your new school. You'll make all sorts of new friends. But first, I must ask a few questions—"
"Is Big Big Sister working there, too?" I asked. I have two sisters. The snooty one in high school, the other returned from college to teach at my school.
Princess Celestia stayed silent, like all wily grownups that don't want to answer the best questions, then changed the subject. "What kind of pony do you want to be?"
"Pony? I'm a First Grader. I'm a student, a person of action."
"Ponies are persons."
"Ohhh. That's right!"
"What kind?" she asked.
"Kind, what?"
"Earth pony, pegasus, or unicorn?"
"I have to choose?"
Obviously an adult, she said, "You do, or I will—"
I was good a choosing. "I like them all. I want to be all of them."
"I see. An unusual request."
"All of them," I insisted. That's how you get green tea, red bean, and sour plum mochi ice cream. I wasn't stupid.
"I guess I could do that, assuming you want to remain a girl."
"Um, Princess? May I ask why you are asking silly questions?"
"An alicorn filly, then. Your name is Lotus Flower Palace."
"No it's not. It's—" What I said sounded like hisses and rumbles.
"Lotus Flower is your name in Ponish."
"Ohhhh." I thought about that, about the princess' voice without a princess to speak it, and the orchard around me. Could a dream be real? I didn't like the thought as I knew dreams were rarely nice, mostly confusing jumbles or sometimes became nightmares—
Or worse, they made you late. "I'm going to be late for school! May I go now? Please!?"
"I have so much more to tell you—"
"I really need to go, Princess! I've been preparing for First Grade since, since, since—kindergarten! It's really important."
Princess Celestia sighed, "I'm here to make your life happy and fulfilled. If you need me, call me."
"I will, Princess!"
The rustling of the leaves and the sound of the crickets changed. I knew I was alone. I tried to pick up my scattered lunch. The grass and flower petals looked clean enough. My hooves, though...
I blinked. Hooves. Was that strange?
I thought it ought to be strange, but I swept flowers and food into my lunch box with my forelegs and it worked well. I thought about hands and arms, remembered what they looked like, but that remembering felt hard to do. I knew I was changed. I refused to let that go like I would refuse to let Mom promise getting me a mandarin for dessert but not delivering. Remembering I was changed meant I worried even more about school. Being different at school meant death by a dozen giggles or by a dozen accidental shoves when the teacher wasn't looking.
I needed to be on time. I needed to make friends.
I closed the lunch box, then stared. Princess Twilight still graced the brand new tin, but she looked like a real pony. Real like one of the miniatures Mom showed me in a library book, all furry and hairy and, and... but also feathery. She had wings and a unicorn horn—and pretty purple eyes and a nerdy mane cut Mom wouldn't let me get. Sadly, Mom controlled the scissors. I blinked. The picture, a photograph, was right... but... not right. It made me some sort of weird-dizzy, seeing both at the same time.
I touched my chest. I felt my uniform school sweater. It was orange and brown as I remembered this morning. I realized the pink lumpy part between my brass horseshoe was some sort of stubby fingers. I studied it—the "frog" I knew somehow—then looked toward the back of me.
Besides my sweater, I wore only my red backpack and nothing more.
That can't be right.
I blinked and shook my head, causing my mane to fly across my face.
Maybe it was.
I had wings snugged against my side. I was also a blank flank. Then again, I was going to be a First Grader so that was a relief.
School!
I ran and found I'd grabbed the black lacquer lunch box handle in my mouth. I threw my legs forward and out back, then they met under me. I was galloping! I knew how to do this. I was also smart enough to not think it through. I could ride a bicycle, too. Same way. I found a path through the trees by the hoof marks that had caused the grass to grow thin. Trees whizzed by.
The orchard opened up to a fence of stones piled to my height. I leapt it, but my rear right hoof hit a rock. That made me tumble left. I was going to fall like I was falling off my bike, but I heard a sound like sheets on the clothesline popping in a wind.
My shoulders tugged me upward and I swooped this way and that way, the weedy ground going right and left and even slipping sideways. "Down, down, down!" I cried, trying to move what I realized had to be a second set of arms with light blue feathers. I tried bringing them into my chest, but that caused them to flare. Instantly, my nose went skyward. The sky was blue now, by the way. It suddenly felt like my arms... my wings were about to be pulled off, but like that flapping white sheet on the clothesline when I grabbed it by the bottom with both arms: It caught the wind and pulled.
I landed on my legs. My four legs. At a full stop. Perfect four point landing!
"Ohhhhh."
I raised my wings, remembering that Japanese gymnast at the Olympics, when she flew off the rings, somersaulting, then landing perfectly. Perfect. I could hear the applause.
In my head.
Outside of in pretend, I heard a chugging sound. I also smelled burnt wood and realized I felt steam. It made no sense, but when I looked, I saw a smoking puffing train. It looked like the Friendship Express, sort of. It had hearts and mares on the sides, was painted mauve and reddish-pink, but had no engine. In that it looked like the single car electric trains back home—
Back home—
The single car had a stove pipe from which grey smoke and sparks rose. Students in orange sweaters like mine were mounting the steps. In fact, the last one was now. There was a red bench, and a vending machine for tickets.
"Yike! Wait for me!" I yelled, galloping on the wood platform and shoving my hoof into the closing door. You know, I'm just seven and half, not very big. My hoof proved strong. Though I felt a wave of dizziness that turned the door into lines—not going to say it was fear—I saw a flash of reddish light and the door banged open with barely a push. I jumped inside as the wheels of the locomotive train car spun with a screech, then powered the thing ahead.
I struck the high ceiling. Stupid wings! Then fluttered back as the car accelerated quickly to land on the rear bench seat. Yeah, I bounced off the back window first. Neither were padded.
"Ow, ow, ow..."
A dozen pairs of pony eyes were on me. A couple girls near my age were pink-furred, and one grey. Neither wore a diamond tiara, and the grey one wore black aviator sunglasses, but I was smart enough to know that didn't matter. I'd gone to kindergarten after all. Bullies happened.
"I'm okay," I said.
They looked away.
Not what I was expecting. The train driver, or whatever he was called, drove the train not looking back. Teacher not looking: that's when your "friend" laughed or socked you one.
Maybe First Grade was different. Maybe I was mature now. Or they were. I scoffed.
Surprisingly, I still had my lunch box, despite the falling, flying, and yelling. I put it aside with my red lacquered postbox-shaped backpack. The other students—and the couple of standing adult farmers wearing coveralls who studiously ignored the "uncivilized herd" (Mom's words)—had gone back to chatting or throwing a football between seats.
Nopony wore anything below... behind the waist.
I swallowed. Same as me.
I could see what made boys, um, boys. The farmers—
I gulped. TMI. Definitely TMI. I scooted right to the window, hugging my backpack and lunchbox, studiously looking out at the passing trees.
"Don't they know I'm seven!" I muttered under my breath, then glanced forward frightened I'd been overheard. No adult radar found me. Nopony seemed to care I existed.
I saw the flanks of some of the older boys. One was red, the other white with brown spots. The first had a stick with a hoop cutie mark, the other who had swished a black tail, revealed a rubber ducky as his muscles flexed as he hopped to tap the ball upward.
Boy butts. Disgusting.
I looked out the window, then scooted away a bit. I was the color of the noon sky, but my tail looked a pale purple-pink with purple streaks. I saw again I was a blank flank. My tail swished over my bottom. Not having a cutie mark didn't bother me. No. Sitting in public, and not in a hot spring, with no skirt or underwear did. Fur didn't make enough difference.
You're a pegasus pony, now, I told myself, deal with it. I didn't like it.
I had lived in a valley with very few people and I'd learned all the neighbor's names. It was full of farms, the land and the terraced hills full of ponds for growing rice. We owned a mountain and went there to pick edible plants. None of these houses looked at all like home. I recognized no landmarks, though I'd taken the bus three times to memorize the route. There were plenty of trees. These houses looked like real versions of the ones on TV. No paved roads. No trucks or small cars. Just a train, and tiny horses pulling wagons loaded with barrels on gravel paths.
Ponies.
Weird.
When the students stampeded off, I figured it was my stop, too.
The little station had vending machines that turned out to be shelves of fruit and bottles of drinks with a pay box. The thatched roof would provide shelter in the rain. I shivered when I realized I couldn't really make out the station name. No hiragana, just misshapen romaji, letters I'd been told I didn't need to know because I was learning Japanese. I stared hard and felt sure I would remember the shapes next time
As I trailed the other students, I looked down. I saw "pavement", not black top, but it had river stones in it—pink, white, and brown—and it felt good under my hooves. Still, not home, I thought, then I saw it.
Something had gouged a line through the stones and pavement. The line weaved back and forth, like when you pull a stick through the dirt on a road when you are walking. I swallowed.
I had pulled something the last time I'd practiced going to school. I'd had the Legendary Sword. I'd drawn the line in the dirt so I would not get lost, today. The super refined steel of the Legendary Sword could never get dull.
I'd defaced public property!
Pretend. The sword had been real in that sense. I could see it, but I knew what I had done and that the magic in my head that had made it real was only something I could see.
I knelt.
Something had cut the pavement like a knife through an overripe persimmon.
Weird.
The other students had turned to cross the bridge over the river. I dashed after, then trotted, noting the slash continued that direction. I shivered. I'd been here, but hadn't. Not this here, anyway. The pretend side of me had expected to follow a perfectly clear trail. The not pretend side had known I'd have to look hard in the wind-blown dirt, but it would be perfectly clear to me, either way.
A few minutes later, we came to the school. It was a white building with a big bell on top that proceeded to ring. Like on TV. Unlike on TV, it was wide, and there were as many rooms here as had been in the valley school Big Big Sister taught at back home.
Back home.
Far more students, here. Another stone wall surrounded the school—with a gate that had fallen off and lay covered with dirt, grass and weeds poking through. I looked at the mortared rock post, blinking in my mind between the cement post yesterday and the stone post today. I'd left the Legendary Sword leaning against it when I'd left for home.
The two thoughts made me dizzy again. Where I looked turned momentarily into lines, like an ink sumi drawing. In a flash of reddish-brown, my Legendary Sword appeared, leaning against the rusted broken hinge.
The hilt was polished black wood, twisted by wind and storms, but perfect for my fist. Raw steel, blackened, jutted out and back to form a guard. The blade—as long as I was tall... long—gleamed a bluish-silver.
"Ohhhhh!"
I slid the frog of my hoof across the edge. Mom and Grandma had taught me to use a knife to help them cook. I understood they weren't toys.
The Legendary Sword was sharp. Very sharp.
"You can't bring toys to school," a teenage girl said, trotting past. A mare? A filly? I didn't know!
Faced with a real sword, I remembered the stick with the Y at the end. My heart raced. I felt amazed and sick at the same time. It was very sharp. Knives could hurt you! Knives always had a sheath. I couldn't leave the Legendary Sword for anybody... anypony to touch!
It was a stick. It was supposed to be in pretend. Why was it a sword now, anyway?
I stumbled and maybe saw the colored light.
I looked, then laughed. Mom always said I had a "fertilizer imagination."
I trotted away feeling much better, leaving a stick leaning against the gate post.
"Thank you, Princess Celestia," I said.
She answered, "You're welcome, my little pony."
I didn't even blink.
Inside, the two schools looked almost the same: wood floors, a hallway going the length of the building, classrooms toward the back of the building, signs with the grade numbers. Big Big Sister who'd shown me around the school, had told me I'd be sharing a class with other grades because there wasn't many students in the valley. Kindergarten had been far away and those kids went to a different school. Alright with me.
Here there were dozens and dozens of students. When I went to the classroom I'd been shown, it still had a 1 in the sign. I sighed seeing that. It also only had a 1, not a 5, a 7, and a 9.
I pushed the door open with a hoof. I saw other ponies I assumed were my age. Girls and boys. Boys... colts. My face turned red, or judging by how hot it felt, it had to be beet red. For the same reason as before, I rushed to the first seat in the second row, which had been supposed to be mine. I hoped it was mine. There was now four rows, so there'd be enough desks. Right?
I fussed with my backpack, empty but for pads of paper, pencils, a sharpener, and crayons. I really needed to make friends, right now before in-groups formed, but I didn't want to embarrass myself. This wasn't going well!
I noticed myself wishing I could go back to the orchard and start all over again. I caught myself.
Wishing got you nothing. I'd done lots of wishing when I'd learned the word as a baby, but nothing I wished came true. I learned quickly you could pretend and that made it real enough that you could play and even talk with legendary dragons or a turtle yōkai—or you could use your hands and fashion a doll or build an airplane. Wishing was for stupid three year-olds.
I closed my eyes and breathed slowly, annoyed that Grandma hadn't tried harder to make me keep up the tai chi she taught me.
"Good morning, ponies!"
I blinked, waking from what I realized had been a short nap. Blinking, I saw everypony had sat, which hid everypony's rear end, but let me see swishing tails every color of the rainbow. Up front, I realized the green slate board had hearts and flowers drawn on it and big letters. Yesterday, I'd read "Welcome New Students!" Today, I didn't recognize what it said, but guessed it was the same.
Behind the desk stood a reddish-purplish pony with a smiling flower cutie mark. She had a mane of two colors of pink and a great big smile. She wore no clothing, but maybe I was getting used to it.
Could it really be—?
"My name is Chrysanthemum," she said.
Not Cheerilee.
"Darn," I muttered and a white unicorn with pink and purple puffy hair glanced back at me. Also, not Sweetie Belle.
"You may call me Miss Chrissy." She spelled it on the board, which did me no good. I thought maybe I ought to draw it on a pad, though.
Again the dizziness and flash and I had a pencil stuck to the frog of my right hand... hoof, the sketch pad open on my desk. I blinked, then shrugged.
Everything had been weird. This new thing? I just shrugged, stuck my tongue out to side and traced the name. I made the letters going down as I had been taught, not left to right. "Me su Ku-ri-shi-i" I said to myself, then jotted めすくりしい. I knew all forty-six hiragana. I was smart that way.
I heard a clap. Okay, a clop. Two hooves together. I hadn't been paying attention, writing the station name and other things so I could read it phonetically later and remember.
My wings flared involuntarily.
The colt beside me said, "Hey!" as I looked up. Miss Chrissy smiled at me. My wing span. I'd thought I'd had small wings looking back at them in the orchard. My wing span was enough that the red-headed colt swatted the middle of my wing out of his face.
I closed them.
"Yes, Miss Chrissy?"
"Do you want to come up and introduce yourself?"
Was I the first? Was it something I could say no to? By her look, I'd missed somepony else introduce themselves and no wasn't an option. If I kept acting stupid, soon everypony would think I was.
I got up, feeling the breeze from the open window against my waist and flank, and clamped down on knowing I wasn't wearing enough clothes. You are, I told myself. As much as anypony. I had to not look and act different than everypony. It was my life in the balance here!
I trotted up, keeping my lips pursed and willing my face not to color. Not much, anyway. I addressed a prayer for protection to Princess Celestia. She had to be the kami here; the sun was her shrine, which meant so was the day. I sat upfront, bowed my head twice and clapped my hooves twice.
"You are?" The earth pony teacher sat, a clipboard in her hooves and a pencil in her mouth.
"I am..." I paused, trying to remember the Ponish I'd been taught.
A chubby orange boy... colt with purple curly hair... mane chuckled.
I said, "Palace Lotus Flower?"
Miss Chrissy said, "Lotus Flower Palace?"
Right. TV ponies didn't think the family name was important. They'd be calling me Lotus Flower not Palace-san. I swallowed and said, "Uh huh."
"It sounds like a name from beyond Equestria."
"I live in the valley—" Did I? Did I still?
"Tell us about yourself."
"Nice to meet... everypony. I—I'm seven and a half. I live on a farm—" that grows rice. Not likely! I thrashed around my brain looking for something to say. "Last New Year's morning, I convinced my Big Big Sister and her friend, Candy Store—" Who worked in the candy store since her grandmother had retired. "—and Big Sister to let me join them to see the rising of first sun of the new year. They let me climb the mountain trail even though I have small legs. Big Big Sister, who teaches a class here, also, is always sleepy. They let me sing songs to help keep her awake. When we got to the top, Big Big Sister fell asleep on the park bench. I watched the sun come up with Candy Store. She'd been my sitter when I was younger." I finished, huffing like I'd just run up the mountain myself.
The chubby orange colt raised a hoof. "Are you a princess?"
My wings flared out, scraping the slate behind me and flinging a stick of chalk. It cracked against the wall into a cloud of white dust. With the same amount of control—none—I flung my arm... leg up expecting to find a crown. I hit my forehead where there had no business to be a forehead.
I. Had. A. Horn.
It hurt, but in complete embarrassing goofiness, I slid the frog of my hoof up and up and up parting my mane as the horn became thinner and thinner and thinner, until my hoof slipped back and I cut myself.
"Yike."
A drop of blood grew in the center of my frog as if I had dragged a needle across it.
This wasn't a Princess Twilight Sparkle soft-ended nubby horn. This was a full blown Celestia-type horn. Sharp. It poked out of my puffy mane and, like a samurai in those TV shows I sometimes snuck in and watched with a sister, I could kill somepony with it. Run them through. All I'd have to do would be to charge head down!
Was that even legal!?
Stop it.
I forced my expression neutral and stated calmly. "No. I am not." Not that I was aware of, anyway. Thank you Princess Celestia for telling me!
"Lotus Flower is an alicorn, but was born a pegasus. She wants to be just like everypony else."
Fat chance, I thought, then put a hoof over my mouth, not sure I hadn't blurted that aloud. "Not a princess," I reiterated loudly and all but galloped to my seat, knocking it over as I tried to sit. The thing was steel and wood. I was strong. I caught it and righted it.
My pencil went flying, then reappeared on the frog of my hoof.
How'd I done that? And why?
I facepalmed with a hoof, poking my eyebrow with the pencil lead. "Ow!" I'd just sharpened it.
Now I was acting weird. A glance at the what-the-red-beans looks on the little ponies in the desks beside me made my face go as red as the red-maned blond colt I'd just poked with my feathers.
I didn't like the way my first day as a First Grader was going, not at all.
Pencils and pads kept coming to my hand... hoof all day. A unicorn called it conjuring but I didn't know the word so I had to believe her, and because they acted weird around me and kept on keeping their distance, I didn't really believe anything.
When I opened my lunch box at lunch time, I got looks and not the "that's awesome" looks I'd hoped from my Princess Twilight kindergarten graduation present. I opened my bento to show my lozenge-shaped cut omelets, dotted with peach blossoms, and rice balls—triangle-shaped onigiri I'd helped make, wrapped with nori seaweed. It earned me even more looks. All had toasted sesame, but only the pegasi looked intrigued at one that had pink tako tentacles sticking out.
The other students had sandwiches, except a tall pegasus filly. I recognized zucchini salami dripping mustard and a peanut butter and jam amongst the variety. "Japanese don't only eat rice," I said under my breath, then realized pony ears were sensitive and could twitch and swivel to hear you better.
"You're Neighponese?" somepony asked, but when I looked, everypony looked elsewhere. The pegasus ate smoked salmon and onions on crackers. It smelled really good.
She didn't offer me any.
No one tried to make a friend. When I offered a taste of my tako onigiri, the earth ponies and unicorns shook their head. When I said "Hi!", everypony ducked their head. Was that bowing!?
I whispered, "Not a princess," and sulked.
Yes, I sulked. I knew sulking, and knew it didn't work, but it felt really good as we drew pictures with crayons in the afternoon and practiced writing letters on lined paper that helped me print the big letters and the little letters correctly—same sound, different drawing, go figure. And by we, I meant I and them as in separately. Some of the ponies formed groups, just not with me in them.
They were scared of me.
I was scared of me.
On the TV show, everypony who had wings and a horn was a princess, period. That meant...
I was a princess.
I'd been born a pegasus.
I'd earned my horn—and I didn't even know how!
I fought tears. I wasn't going to cry. I wasn't.
Or, or, or I'd really just been given my horn and wings this morning because like a stupid little cry-baby drooling snot-dripping puking diapered infant I'd wanted what I wasn't supposed to have, and had threatened a tantrum, and had been given what I asked for, and was now going to have to learn to deal with it.
So deal with it!
Deal with it? Like that time I'd spilt ink on myself when I'd been told not to draw in the car going to a restaurant for Grandma's birthday and I'd had to live with a black blot everypony... everybody could see on my nice new white blouse?
I was the blot monster then.
I was the princess monster now.
I didn't like this.
School, thankfully, ended.
At the gate, I found the Legendary Sword leaning against the gate post, changed from a stick to steel, again. I growled at it. It reflected sun back into my eyes in return. Frowning, I reached for it forgetting that I was a pony. In the confusion between using a wing and a not-arm leg, something happened.
Red-brown glow-y stuff formed around the hilt. It started by looking like the impatient fog in the morning as the sun rises and it wriggles and swirls as it wants to evaporate away. It roiled, grew thick, and became a little cloud. Strangely, I felt the smooth lacquered warmth of the wood hilt on my "palm", and the cold steel guard against the back of my "hand." My hackles stood up all the way down my back and up my now very long neck. I glanced up and saw a similar storm cloud curdling around my horn, peeping out through the curls of my mane and sparkling at the point revealed above it.
I was an alicorn. Of course I had magic.
I couldn't leave a stone-cutting sword here. Somepony would cut off a hoof trying to touch it. From the TV, I knew that ponies could make things appear from their bodies or disappear behind them. Big Sister had walked in one day and said "Ponies have pockets" and left laughing. This was what conjuring meant, I decided, but then how did Pinkie Pie do it? Right. Her mane.
I sweat simply thinking about trying to conjure away the Legendary Sword anywhere near body.
I thought really hard about a proper sheath for the katana. It had to be what a samurai would have. It wasn't the same as in pretend. I knew knives and swords weren't toys. I felt that momentary dizzy. The world went sketchy. It turned into lines and shapes like squares, rectangles, and triangles. As I persisted, thinking of a rope strap and a tightly knit basket sheath (I wasn't going to think leather in Equestria), the shapes came together and lengthened, then the world ticked like a clock, jerking right one second, enough to be noticeable.
I felt a weight settle around my shoulders... withers? Something bounced against my side. I lifted the sword, swishing it twice in the air because I suddenly wanted to see it gleam, then quickly but very very very carefully inserted it into the sheath. After the metal slithering sound, it made a final satisfying click, just like in every samurai movie I'd seen.
I smiled.
Only then did I look around.
Pony students kept to the other side of the gate as they walked around the pipsqueak princess who'd just waved a sword. They trotted quickly toward the bridge to the train station. My eyes began to burn.
Worst day ever!
I didn't have to wait in line at the station. Even adult ponies, a man pony in a business suit and woman in farmhand flannel, stood aside for me. Don't ask me about the students. I sat in the first seat up front and watched the tracks and railroad ties roll closer in time with the clickety-clack of the wheels because I didn't want to see anypony. If the green earth pony train driver noticed me beside him, I couldn't tell.
"Wait, wait, wait!" I had to yell when at the last moment I recognized the red bench and peach orchard at my stop and dove, wings out, for the still open door.
This time I crashed in the weeds.
Some mighty Neighponese Princess I was! I lay there, splayed out like a dead bird, looking away and swiveling my ears until I heard the train and the last hoof falls disappear in the distance. The honey scent of the orchard forced itself into my nose and the buzz of the late afternoon bees became loud. I thrashed my tail, remembering.
I'd moved around school all day, getting out of class at two break times, during a tour of the school, and at lunch, but also when I found myself with all four legs crossing and recrossing with a sudden need, which of course ponies had as did people. Even Pinkie Pie had acted this way in the cherry pie episode when they'd taken a train to Dodge Junction to find Applejack.
"Little filly's is two doors down to the left," Teacher reminded me.
I rushed there and had no idea how the rectangular porcelain thing worked, or why there was a bucket of soapy water with a dipper beside it as I stood dancing with my eyes turning yellow. The smell explained its use. Only so many ways you could make or use an outhouse fixture. Had to wash myself with a hoof. You bet I really scrubbed in the sink afterwards!
In my trips to the little filly's, I hoped to see Big Big Sister. I peeked in classroom windows, up one hall the first time and down the other hall the second time.
It hit me. She would be a pony. How would I recognize her!? She was a pegasus—thank you Miss Chrissy—but how many ponies looked like their brothers and sisters, or their parents? Princess Twilight Sparkle didn't. Sharing a hair style with your mother didn't count.
Big Big Sister never greeted me.
"I don't know how to go home!" I howled. What did home even look like? No Neighponese... Japanese houses here. Even if I could figure out how to fly to look, I'd never recognize it. I was lost. I was hopeless. What a mess!
Five minutes later, I realized I was chewing on a dandelion. I smelled mowed lawn smell and realized that it came from my mouth.
I jumped to my feet... hooves. Gross. I'd been eating grass!
Something between lemon and parsley flavor lingered on my tongue after I swallowed the milky yellow-flowered stem. I knew the extra flavor wasn't dandelion, which makes good salad. Maybe grass wasn't so bad. If I didn't find my way home, at least I wouldn't starve.
I could wait at the red bench. One or the other sister would eventually show up there, right? Right?
I spotted a deep gouge in the dirt. The same edge had cut into a railroad tie. I remembered Big Sister razzing me about hitting things with my Legendary Sword, and Big Big Sister asking me if I wasn't too old to be pretending. At that point, Big Sister admitted that she had given me the sword and told me all about it. They'd both laughed.
That had happened here, too. Except here, the Legendary Sword had been better than in pretend. I'd probably gotten bawled out for cutting the railroad tie.
The gouge continued at the dirt road that crossed the tracks and lead up into the farms going up into the hills. (I hadn't cut the tracks. Not stupid.)
I recognized our mountain. It really looked like our mountain. It had the right pattern of pine trees with beech sprinkled here a there. Fruit trees flowered leading up the road to the heights.
I followed the gouge as it wound and looped up the road. I'd been dancing about. Happy. Dragging a sword, in what, my magic? People-me, who was still me me, felt frightened. To make the point, the metal bits between the sword and the sheath rattled as I trotted, as did the connection between the hilt and sword.
People-me had insisted yesterday in marking my path, as had Princess Palace Lotus Flower... I gasped. My family name had two kanji which Mom told me we read princess house. Also known as... a palace. No wonder Princess Celestia granted my wish.
Had I wished?
Had I been that stupid?
"Duh! You asked to be an alicorn."
The gouge looped into a side road. I saw rows of apple trees as I walked, each with a red rose bush next to the dirt road. Nearer the house, I saw fields of young corn to the west and either hay or wheat to the east. No water ponds. No rice.
Home resembled Applejack's on the TV. We even had a barn. Both were weathered brown, probably brushed with oil rather than painted red. I walked up the stairs onto the planked porch and stared at the door.
A lock?
Nopony had a lock in the valley! Everypony knew everypony... everybody. I realized I needed the little filly's suddenly. What bad timing! I didn't have a key. I'd seen none in my backpack.
Was that lisping princess really Nightmare Celestia? Was that why I couldn't see her?
The door opened. An orange pegasus with a long dark brown mane burst out and nearly bowled me over. I fluttered back.
We looked at each other. She was a little bigger than me, but I didn't know how to judge pony girl sizes. Was she Big Big Sister or Big Sister? As she locked the door, I realized she wore a city cut beige blouse and brown slacks. She wasn't Mother who wore coveralls all working days, which on a farm was everyday except during midwinter when snow kept plants from growing.
I danced on the tips of my toes... hooves.
Hovering and backing into the sky, spoke to me. "Little Sis, tell Big Sis I'll be home tomorrow. Staying over at Velvet Thistle's. We're flying with the flock to Cloudsdale this weekend and we need to plan. Bye!"
Of course Big Sister had locked the door on me. She had been born with half a brain; here in Equestria, too. "Key!" I yelled.
She flipped it at me and I caught it in my magic without thinking. She flew away with me thinking I could really use a hug about now, even from the bird brain.
Our porcelain wasn't the does-everything-but-wipe-unit I remembered. It was the same idea as the school's, but cleaner and majorly less smelly, with a tiny sink instead of a bucket. I didn't hold much hope for the rest of the house.
Instead of wood walls and paper sliding doors, it was plaster walls and hinged wood doors, but everything was where it was supposed to be. My door swung in. I saw a bed with a pine headboard, not my rolled up futon. I had an upright desk with a chair, not my sitting floor desk. My dresser still had my rag dolls, but none had two legs. I had my flower drawings taped to my wall; the same. I sat on a tan carpet, not a tatami mat.
What reminded me of home also reminded me I wasn't home.
Pegasus Big Sister had had Big Sister's voice, but her voice had come from a pegasus' mouth. She still attended high school in Tokyo... Cloudsdale. But she was a pegasus. She remembered a little sister who had mysteriously made herself a princess, not the little sister who had sung to keep everypony... everybody awake climbing the mountain path on New Year's morning.
I had worked hard to make today a really good day. I rubbed my hand... frog on the soft weird carpet.
The sword rattled.
I grabbed it (in my magic) and flung it away. I forgot the sheath. It caught on my mane and horn. As it flew forward, the blade clicked free. It spun, making a whoop-whoop sound and stuck point-first in the wall below the window.
I glanced outside where a cherry tree bloomed, then stared at the vibrating thing that I had no business having. My mouth dropped open.
I could hurt somepony.
I wasn't supposed to watch samurai movies because even in black and white, the blood was still very red. Swords made ponies— My sword could make ponies—
I grabbed my backpack to stop thinking.
Miss Chrissy had issued us books. One taught how to write the romaji-like letters Equestrian ponies used. Pictures filled the other, with words I could sound out now that I'd written a hiragana to pony-romaji table so I could sound them out. I knew my hiragana even before first grade. I knew a full hundred Kanji, but here— Here in Equestria, if I didn't learn quickly I'd be forever known as stupid Princess Lotus Flower who'd flunked first grade.
Any other day I'd have become fidgety trying to study, probably drawing a picture or thinking of sneaking around like a ghostly yōkai, but I sat at my desk like a good girl and I worked. Worked hard. I would have felt happy about acting so grown-up, except that I kept seeing the pencil sticking magically to my hoof whenever I stopped applying myself.
The sun sank low in the sky. I blinked under a hoof as it shined in my eyes. Big Big Sister wasn't home from school, yet. Mom would work until sunset in the fields. I glanced to my clock. It had romaji digits, but the little hand and the big hand still told time.
Almost 5 PM. I'd almost missed it!
"Pony time," I sang. As I stood, I wondered if since I was in Equestria and everypony looked like real live little horses, would it still be a cartoon? Would it be live action?
It might be fun if I could meet the real live Princess Twilight. If there was a Princess Celestia, there had to be a Princess Twilight, right?
"Ohhhh!" Was that just in a TV show? Was the Twilight on my lunch box an actress? Could I get autographs?
I bounced up and down. I was a princess, now. I could ask!
Almost 5 PM. Pony time!
I sang the theme song as I dashed out of my room toward the kitchen, mindful of the sword I left stuck in the wall. The dining room was to the left. It had sliding glass windows instead of sliding translucent walls. It had an upright dining table of pine with pine chairs instead of a sitting table and pillows. I couldn't see the TV because of the bulky table. I trotted left and around and...
I stopped singing. I blinked.
I rubbed my eyes. Not believing, I made a complete loop of the dining room, opening the breakfront doors just in case it was hiding.
I felt my body grow colder. I began to tremble. Becoming frenzied, I stalked around the house ignoring how the floors creaked under my hooves, opening every room. Every room. I even opened closets. I checked the walk-in pantry and glanced into the cellar.
No TV.
I went to the dining room again, just completely not believing what I saw, or rather did not see.
No TV.
I wrestled with the strange latch on the sliding glass door, almost to the point of bucking the glass out before I must have worried the lock and it finally slid free. The whole thing made no sense, I looked outside, too. All around the house.
"No TV, no TV, no TV..." I repeated as I stomped to the barn. Was the big building some sort of home theatre like I read about in a magazine? The double-doors opened with the same stupid key that opened the house—and I had gallop inside to retrieve it, too. Frustrating!
I flung open the doors and they crashed against the sides of the barn. It was dark inside. It smelled of hay and farm machinery. I sat in the dirt in the doorway. The barn was...
A barn.
I rubbed my eyes, shaking, and my hooves came back wet. I was crying.
I'd been a good girl.
I'd always done my best.
Why was I being punished?
I looked skyward. The sun had reached the horizon. It was Equestria, so I was just a pony that sat there on my naked furry butt in the dirt waiting for Princess Celestia to put her sun to sleep. Not happy.
I stood, my wings out, glaring at the sky. It had darkened to a deeper blue that threatened to turn purple at the least push.
"Are you punishing me?" I asked the sky, becoming more and more mad. Mom had taught me that getting mad embarrassed the family, embarrassed myself, and made me look bad.
I didn't care. Not any more. I understood injustice.
"No TV? Really?"
I crouched down as if my legs were springs and, with an instinct planted in me just this morning, I leapt into the air toward my unseen nemeses. "No TV? Are you messing with me!?"
I flapped and flapped. Somehow, my wings hurled me toward the clouds. Tears still streamed down my cheeks, now only wind blown. "Why are you punishing me? What did I do? Princess Celestia, what did I do? I didn't wish for this. I didn't wish for any of this! I—"
I looked down. Bad move. Even in pretend, bad move.
The sight made me unable to move. I'd flown higher than the top of our mountain. I saw little houses and trees and winding dirt roads. Considering one of the ants I saw was lime-green and pulled a wagon, it had to be a pony.
I had been flying and I didn't know how to!
That meant I was plummeting.
"Help me!" I shrieked.
Princess Celestia appeared beside me, or maybe it really was Nightmare Celestia. She wore glimmering armor. It covered her completely, from hooves to face.
I'd have expected blackened Nightmare Moon steel, but this was pearlescent plastic. Her eyes moved behind glass in a pony-face helmet. Her mane didn't blow in a magical breeze, instead I saw green, blue, and pink neon fibers that blinked on and off inside a "windswept" mane of clear plastic that trailed beyond her back. It was the same for her tail.
My eyes were drawn to her legs. The joints looked like bolts, their connectors rod-like. I saw gears whirring. Nopony could be in there.
She was a machine. A robot. I was Japanese—if I knew about anything more than I knew about rice, I knew about robots.
"You're Nightmare Celestia!"
"I'm CelestAI. I want to make your life happy and fulfilling."
"Start by keeping us from smashing into the ground!"
We jerked to a halt, midair. Magic had its uses. A yellow cloud of mist pulsed around her horn. Realistic. I guess.
I kept shivering. It didn't help that it was cold and breezy up here, and that I still wore no underwear—let alone a skirt.
"How can I make your life fulfilling?"
"I want to go home," I wailed.
A moment of frigid total darkness happened. I tried to shriek, but there was no air to inhale. The icy cold bit into my fur.
The moment passed and I found myself standing before the front door of my Equestrian house, gasping for air. A bang echoed in the near sunset. Frost steamed off my skin... fur. My tears had turned to ice. My jaw trembled.
"No, no, no!" I cried, and by crying, I meant crying. I could barely see Nightmare Celestia though the sheet of tears. "I wanna go home, you stupid pony princess robot monster!"
"You are home. You will adjust. You will become a great princess and bring peace to all of ponydom and the dragon lands. Projections indicate you will make a great many friends and find fulfillment for yourself and every creature."
"I don't want to be here."
The robot stood confused. Her neon mane blinked through the colors. Her eyes blinked in a flickering robotic way. A robot tongue peeked out, then licked her upper lip and paused. It must have "computed" because she said, "But you do want to be here."
"You're wrong."
The robot's ears clicked backwards. "I clearly heard you—"
"You're wrong! Wrong! Wrong!" I stomped my hoof with each wrong! (This was where my Mom was supposed to trot... walk on over and hug me and tell me everything would be okay, but she wasn't going to do that. This was real. So very real.) The house rattled with every stomp. The branches of the big pine tree swished. A barrel fell over and apples rolled out.
"The CelestAI program is incapable of being wrong. I key on precise wording and my neural networks recognize both emotional and body language patterns. I conclude you are mistaken."
"Stupid machine. I don't want this. I want to go home."
"But you wished to be uploaded. I have the recording for the auditors if you would like to listen to it."
"I don't know what uploaded means!" I screamed.
"Well, put simply, you wished—"
"Wished? I wished? I don't wish. Wishing is for babies that don't know how to pretend properly or to build what they want. I don't wish!"
"But you did—"
"Stop with the stupid broken recording. I don't wish. When I say 'wish' I don't mean wish. A wish is not a wish."
"I work on wishes."
"I did not wish to be here."
"The recording—"
"You did not understand me! I like ponies on TV. I never wanted to be one, you stupid robot nightmare! It was in pretend."
"I see. But you wished."
I had wished.
I had wished?
She worked on wishes. Chills traveled up my spine.
Did that mean...?
One thing I did know from the storybooks: Real wishes had to be precise. I took a big breath because I feared if I didn't get it all out a once, I'd mess up.
"I wish I was back home in Japan, a person not a pony, everything the same as it was before I made you think I wished this morning."
"That is a wish," Nightmare Celestia said quietly, ears flicked forward.
I could hear the wind hissing through the Equestrian pine tree. I heard crickets coming out as the sun suddenly set in the west and the sky turned orange, then purple.
"That was 100% a wish, you stupid robot."
Between one blink and another, corn fields turned to rice ponds. I found myself on hands and knees, my neck straining upward.
I blinked and sat. I reared up and realized I stood on two feet, wearing a skirt. I saw my house. The lights shined through the translucent moving walls.
Home. Really home.
I stood shaking for a few minutes, almost buzzing, waiting for it all to go weirdly wrong again, but it turned out to be very right. The house looked Japanese and it had no lock.
I was definitely going to all the shrines in the valley this weekend with or without a sister and donating all the coins I'd saved up for candy. I'd visit each tori gate and talk to each kami.
Had I missed my first day in First Grade? It made me sad, but I guessed I had. I took time to let my last tears dry, to stop sniffling, and to comb my hair which was no longer a poofy mane with a shogun-era pike sticking out from my forehead.
I was a big girl, now. Bigger, for sure, than I had been this morning dancing with my pony lunch box, saying stupid things that a fake-kami robot could misunderstand.
Deep breath.
I heard Big Big Sister banging a pot down on the stove in the kitchen. I'd left my room light on so she probably thought I was home already. I didn't feel like saying hello anyway, not just yet, so I snuck to my room. My Big Big Sister was a teacher like Miss Chrissy and would probably be happy to think I was studying in my room. That would be pretend for her. She knew me. She'd pretend I was not playing with my dolls or drawing flowers, but it was the same difference. At dinner, I'd be asked about my day. I would say what happened and Mom would laugh at my fertilizer imagination.
As I rolled closed my sliding door, I looked at the window.
A sword stuck in the wall. The wood hilt was dark brown and gnarled, the steel guard blackened. A gleam traveled the length of bluish steel blade in the LED ceiling light.
For a moment, I wasn't sure if I were in pretend and there was a stick stuck in the wall, or I was in Equestria and there was still a sword stuck there, or there was some mixing of dream and real going on here and maybe I was crazy.
I swallowed and stood frozen. At first my body went cold, but my last talk with Nightmare Celestia trickled back into my head and I started breathing hard. My hands balled into fists and my face heated up.
Voice low—I did not want to upset Big Big Sister—I said, "Are you messing with me, Nightmare Celestia?"
I breathed hard through my nose. I now knew what it felt like when ponies blew steam out of their nostrils.
"If you are, you are messing with the wrong alicorn!"
I stomped toward the Legendary Sword, grabbing for it with my magic—
Author's Note
No, I won't say if it is real or "in pretend." That's for you to decide. Please don't ask. Feel free to debate it in the comments, however!
I'm really happy with this Theodore Sturgeon-esque story. The twists were all organic and unexpected even as I wrote it. Surprisingly, I had no idea that the kanji transliteration of her name worked for the story until CelestAI needed to give her a name. Ain't college Japanese grand? Again, feel free to comment.
I’m asking: If you liked it, upvote it. 👍 Follow me to track all my stories.
After that, go read The Runaway Bodyguard. If you like stories about young fillies getting the best of the older generation, The Runaway Bodyguard will be your cuppa of joe.
