Not in Minnesota Anymoreby TroyponyChaptersIntroductionAn Unexpected End to My NightNew Land, New Friends, New ProblemsPonyfy Code Page 1Being a Hero Never Seemed to Cause Mental Sickness Before...The Oddest Form of Identification ReclamationThe Couch of NightmaresIntroductionIt was just another normal day for me. I had decided to go for a late night walk through the city park, walking down the street I resided towards my destination. I had a lot going through my mind then, involving a mix of emotions, thoughts, and how absolutely frigid it was outside even with three layers on. As I slowly braved my way through below freezing temperatures, I started to shut out most of my thoughts for now, and concentrated on a mental scrapbook of memories from my past, that have been bothering me to this very day, and maybe will for the rest of my life. I needed to get these memories to stop haunting me, and instead turn into the faint memories that they should be, not the mini nightmares that they are now. As I reached closer and closer to the park, I wondered where my life could possibly go from here, with everything I've had to put up against... Before I go further, I feel it would be appropriate to explain myself a little. My name is Camoran Parker, an 21-year old male living in the tundra known as Minnesota. Winter here can be just dreadful, or perfectly nice. Most of the time, it's as cold as if the Earth was drifting away from the sun. I don't pay much attention to the cold outside, since I spend most of my day inside. Whether it be school, home, or a library, I'm always someplace warm. I've never been able to get used to feeling cold, and just hate the sensation. Being inside all the time would sound boring to most, and it would be, if not for the invention of my favorite pastime. Reading. It doesn't matter what I may be reading, whether it be magazines, novels, even stories only found on the Internet (the only reason I even bought myself a laptop). No matter what it was, I just always lost myself in it. I've always loved books ever since I was a baby. My parents introduced me at a young age, and I refused to play with any of my other toys until I had read (or my parents read to me) a few stories, or so they told me. They never told me much else about my younger years, and I never really asked them about it either. I assumed I must have been a boring baby otherwise. A baby obsessed with books. As if that's interesting at all! I'm really glad my parents had me hooked into books, though. My addiction to reading has really helped me succeed in school. I've created normal research and studying time for myself, I can comprehend better than most of the students in my grade (and some in higher grades than me), and constantly complete homework without a sweat. In other words, I'm what most of you would call a nerd. I don't take that as an insult at all, more of a compliment actually. It just shows that I am dedicated to doing what I should do to the best of my ability. Nothing wrong with that, right? I mean, it helped me keep my grades up, and my parents were always pleased with great grades, and expected me to learn from bad ones. They would be so proud of me right now... Speaking of which, I have yet to introduce my parents, named Joey and Stacy Parker. My father, Joey, worked in a bank managing credit. He was a pretty laid back guy and always found ways to make our family laugh. Some of the laughing fits he gave us came from outrageous stories that happened at work. Those always cracked us up, and gave us all side-aches afterwards. It never helped that he told his stories over dinner, sometimes making us almost choke to death. Now, my mother had some stories of her own, but they weren't all that funny sometimes. You see, she was a science teacher at a school that had a few not-so-great mannered kids in it. Since she was a teacher, she had higher expectations for me and I usually lived up to those. She could be pretty strict sometimes, but I loved her all the same. I loved both my parents so very much, which only made their disappearance that much harder to deal with... You see, it all happened when I was 18. I was walking home from the bus one day, and as I approached my house, I noticed the front door slightly cracked open. Immediately getting a bad feeling from this, I approached carefully and quietly, and peeked through the crack. Inside, was a small pool of blood, starting in the kitchen, trailing out to and stopping quite suddenly right in front of the front door. The trail of blood looked smeared, and I worried at what could have taken place. Fear overcoming me, I immediately called 911, and police arrived before long. Nothing else was found at the scene, and a blood sample was taken of the pool. The police were puzzled that no other evidence could be found, and asked if they could have the house for the day for further investigation. I agreed, entered through the back door, packed up whatever I needed, and headed to a nearby friend's house for the night. After explaining my situation, they gladly offered me in with open arms, and offered me the guest bedroom, which I put to use immediately. I didn't sleep much, and when I did, it was filled with nightmares that woke me up a half-hour later. I stayed in my bed most of that day, too tired, mentally and physically, to do anything but. I eventually made it out of bed around 4pm, still tired, but forcing myself to not be a sloth. Around 6 or 7, the house received a call, my friend's mother answered, and explained that the call was for me. It was a police station, with results for the blood found in my home. They had found a match. It was my mother's. I dont remember much, but I believed I had fainted from the news. I awoke to myself on the couch, covered with a blanket, head resting on a pillow. As soon as I remembered where I was, everything flooded back into me. I immediately tensed up, and started quietly sobbing to myself. I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't. Now, both of my parents are suddenly missing, and my mother could be dead as well. As my sobbing slowed, a small glimmer of hope appeared. My mother could have badly injured herself, and my dad, being the wimp he was, tried to drag her out the door to the hospital, as we lived almost right next to it. If that was the case, why did the blood trail stop inside the home? I was puzzled, but had no intent at trying to discover what happened myself and possibly run into the person responsible. Even though the forensics team was finished investigating our home, I was not allowed to move in alone. I decided to move in with my friend, named Brian Russel, since I seemed to have no other choice. Even with all of the attempted uplifting from Brian's parents, I still could not seem to be happy anymore. Everything started to slip: school, friends, social skills, it was all affected. I was forever changed, and slowly slipped into a deeply depressing state. Nothing given to me seemed to do the trick. The Russels tried multiple tactics. There were medications, all kinds of therapy, and many others, but nothing worked. When all hope seemed lost, Brian pulled out one last card to play. He tried to make me watch this TV show called, "My Little Pony; Friendship is Magic". I thought he was crazy! If therapy didn't work, how could a TV show? I couldn't have been anymore wrong. Within the first four episodes, I was hooked. I watched a few episodes every day, trying to absorb as much of the happiness as possible. I couldn't look away for even a second, thinking that if I did, I would miss something that could bring back all of the happiness again. While the show couldn't grant me the happiness I used to feel, it at least brought me out of my depressive state. I was finally able to enjoy things I loved again, the first being reading. I was slowly coming back. I would never be the same again, but I could definitely get better. And I did. My grades became normal, I started gaining my friends back plus some, and I became much better with people. Once I turned 20, I felt as though I could deal with the loss (to an extent) and moved back into my old home, bringing everything with me. As I became familiar with the surroundings again, I started dreading for what I had found here, and felt fear that the person responsible would return for me. My fear never came true, and the dread slowly began to drift away. Friends and neighbors visited often to keep me company while I was alone here, and listened when I needed to talk about what horrible things that could have happened to my mother and father. They were always reassuring and could always raise my spirits back up. As time passed by, I started reminiscing about the great times I had with my parents, and felt a hole in my heart that only they could fill. I did not let it get the best of me again, but it stuck with me all the same. I started taking walks through town, which would help take my mind off things. Since fall was approaching, I had to start bundling up a couple months before everyone else did. I just hated the cold that much. That brings me back to this original day, now that we're all caught up. As I started to near my destination, I was forced to walk from the street onto the snowless ground. The crunching of every step on dead grass started to put my mind into a trance. I looked for a place to rest myself and noticed one bench inside the large park. I walked up to the lone park bench and sat myself down on one end, my brain still reminiscing about the memories I still had of my parents. I remembered my first book I had ever read without their help. I'd felt very proud of myself that day, believing that my reading skill far surpassed my parents'. If you couldn't tell, I was pretty foolish when I was young. Now, however, I was probably the least foolish person I knew, besides my teachers, who were obviously teaching me for a reason, and not the other way around. I was the fool, though. I believed that this walk was just going to clear my mind of some memories. By the time this day would be over, I would realize how much more this walk is going to do for me, and how much my life could change in the blink of an eye. An Unexpected End to My NightIt was starting to get cold out, and I was starting to run low on memories to reminisce about. I decided that it was time to head home. As I started to get up to start my walk home, I caught a glace of a shadow slipping behind a tree. It was definitely not human, but I couldn't make out any details. I thought nothing of it, and continued on my way. As I continued on my walk, I started catching more and more "shadows", for lack of a better description. I just knew my eyes were playing tricks on me, and I cursed myself for reading a mass amount of horror stories for the past week. Even though they were not real, I couldn't help but become frightened by them. I started to pick up my pace slowly, then gradually faster. By the time I reached my house, I swear I was running so fast that Rainbow Dash would've been jealous. I quickly entered, slammed the door shut, and locked the gateway between me and the cold, creepy night. I'm not sure Luna would have really liked her night to be talked about like that, but the truth sometimes hurts, and I'm not one to lie much. In order to calm my nerves, of course, I started reading. Not just any book, though. There was one genre of book I wanted to try out today that I haven't read before. I walked past my bookshelf and kneeled down to pick up the plastic bag, heavy and full with books of varying genres. I brought the bag over to the bookshelf, placing the bag down with care just far enough away from me and the bookshelf. I started to grab the books inside and organize them into the many book-stuffed shelves that stood before me. Since there were already so many books, I had to start removing the ones I had already read and placed them into a pile all their own. Later, I would plan on storing them away, but for now, I leave them as is. I start sorting based on genre, then author, then important term, achieving maximum organization. As soon as all desired books are found new homes on my shelf, I reached into the bag to find the one book I've been saving to read tonight. Not an adventure, horror, or any other genre. This is one genre that I am surprised I'm even going to read. A sappy, trashy, romance novel. I KNOW, right? Not saying that they're bad or anything, just that I never would've thought I would ever find myself reading one. I've always been kinda into more adventurous stories, especially if there is some romance involved. I couldn't ever imagine myself reading a story based solely on romance; I feel that there needs to be something else happening. Thanks to this show and the multiple fanfics online, I've started taking a liking to them. Today was the day that I moved away from the romantic pony fanfics and into the romantic novels written about my own kind. With the book in my possession, I moved into my bedroom, placing the book onto my bed. I then moved into the nearby bathroom, cleaned myself up, and almost had a heart attack when I turned around to return to my bedroom. Standing in the doorway to my room, was yet another shadow. I swear, I might have had a minor heart attack right then and there. If I did, I never knew it. I was so shocked about this, this thing, standing in my doorway. I couldn't call it a shadow anymore, that would be lying. As far as I could tell, this was no shadow. This was a being all it's own, though what it looked like, I could not describe very well. To me, it almost seemed like a pitch-black mist, taking no definite shape, but kept loosely together. As I was trying to document as much of this as possible into my brain, the thing just evaporated into thin air. I stood there, staring right where it had been seconds before. I couldn't think of any explanation, and I couldn't think in general. I decided to just go to bed, read my book, fall asleep, and worry about it tomorrow. I clambered into bed, pulled the sheets over my legs, and lit a candle to enjoy my reading. I always preferred reading by candlelight instead of a lamp. It seems to create a better atmosphere. The atmosphere, however, couldn't have felt worse. The whole room felt as if a thousand dark presences had entered, tensing up my entire body and causing the exact opposite of relaxation. With this sudden shift of atmosphere, I couldn't even force myself into the book, and had to stop after the second page. Feeling cheated out, I decided to skip directly to sleeping the night away. For an entire half hour, I sat, listening to all the sounds inside my house. There were none. That spooked me worse of all, as there was always a slight creaking noise every now and then that the house gave off. This night, the house had suddenly decided to change its natural ways, and gave off no sound. Now, the house felt strangely eerie, forcing me to throw the blanket over my head. It reminded me of the time I would always do that as a youngling, but I hadn't felt the need to do that since I had been 16. This night changed everything, and I had never felt so creeped out in my life. Suddenly, a combination of a bright flash and thundering boom caused my heart to race a little. Just my luck, I thought. First this whole house goes abnormally silent on me, now a storm? How am I ever going to get sleep now? As if answering my question, a howling wind started picking up just outside my window. I guess Mother Nature didn't plan on me getting sleep tonight, with all this noise she's making. I didn't think too much about it, and instead tried to read my novel. Nature then tried to one-up on me once again, forcing my bedroom window open with its winter wind and blowing out my candle in the process. Cursing Mother Nature for her competitive spirit, I rose myself from my bed to shut the window. As soon as my foot touched the ground, the horrid atmosphere returned, after I had forgotten it had even existed. Every step to the window sent a shiver up my spine, but the wind wasn't causing any of it. After what felt like an eternity, I was finally at the window. Before I closed it, I wanted to take a look at nature in action. As I looked out, I almost gasped in surprise. There was not a single cloud in the whole sky. Stunned, I wondered if I was going insane, imagining storms that somehow happen in the middle of winter with no clouds around. I shifted my gaze downward to see if there were any signs of a storm down below. I just saw more evidence to prove I was going insane. There, standing on the side walk, had to be at least 5 more "shadows". I was getting the feeling that, although I could not see any sort of face or eyes, their attention was focused on me and me alone. It was too much, and I backed out of the window immediately. I slammed the window shut, and started turning around to dive right back under the covers. I didn't get that far. As soon as I had turned 180 degrees back to my bed, a blunt object was slammed against my skull. I fell to the floor in a heap I blacked out... As I started coming to, I could feel a slight breeze, and I could tell I was outside. The next thing I noticed was that I was being dragged off somewhere. In the distance, I could see the cul de sac I lived, and it was slowly losing size as I was dragged further along. I tried craning my neck around to see what was dragging me from my home, but to no avail. Whatever it was, it continued to drag me by my shirt collar, quietly grunting the entire time. Eventually, the dragging stopped, only for my head to slam against the ground. On impulse, I attempted to get up and run. I didn't even get as far as adjusting my hands before they turned immobile, along with my feet. I glanced at my hands and feet, expecting hands, grasping at them. I saw no hands, ropes, anything. Just this immense black that seemed to surround both my feet and hands. If I didn't know better, it almost looked as if it was unico- "Hey, human! Can you understand me?" I scanned about, searching for the source of the voice. After a few moments, and a sore neck, I found the source of the voice calling to me. Immediately after finding it, I wished I hadn't. The voice was coming from yet another "shadow", with multiple others clustered around it. My lungs seemed to collapse upon themselves, and I felt as if I couldn't breathe. Although I was still frightened by these beings, the sound of them didn't seem threatening, and my body relaxed a little, allowing me to think to an extent. I still couldn't believe that this thing, which didn't even look solid, had just dragged me far from my house, maybe even being responsible for knocking me out. Realizing this, I felt my head where I had been hit. I couldn't feel a thing, no swelling, blood, nothing. Before I could even begin to think of how that could be possible, the shadow spoke again. "Human, I will not ask again. Can you understand me?!" As I continued to recover my senses, I was able to choke out a small, "Yes." The shadow showed no emotion, but continued to speak. "It seems we will have to ask you to aid us in your own kidnapping, I'm afraid. Your weight is past our capacity of strength, and we cannot continue to carry or drag you anymore. I will ask you to follow us and to not try anything funny. Do you understand?" I thought it humorous to have to aid in my own kidnapping, but I felt I had no other choice. I nodded my head. No words were spoken in response, but the shadows seemed to start moving in one direction. As I followed, I started running situations into my head, most of them ending up with my death or imprisonment. I felt tremendously helpless as I continued walking towards what could be my doom. Eventually, the group came to a clearing. Inside, scattered about, were a mass amount of shadows, with numbers maybe close to a hundred. I didn't really feel like focusing on the sheer numbers, so I decided to try and examine the clearing itself. The whole place seemed to be just recently cleared out, and many of the stumps were not removed from the ground, as if the clearing of the ground had been rushed. That wasn't what caught my attention at the moment. On the ground, throughout the whole clearing, were lines and symbols of sorts. Not knowing what these could possibly mean, I do know that it meant one thing for me: I had just been captured by a cult of sorts,and I was most likely a sacrifice to their god or something. I started to sweat at the thought. One of the shadows must've noticed my nervousness, and approached me. "Please, sir, we do not offer harm and do not wish for you to be frightened. I didn't enjoy the thought of having to take you from your home, let alone having you knocked out, but it was felt that it was necessary in order to cause the least amount of trouble. I am unable to explain everything that is going to happen here at the moment, but once we are finished, I plan on telling you everything." This voice had a sense of deep caring, but still spoke with a high-and-mighty tone, and I assumed that moment that this might be the leader. Something about the tone of voice made me want to trust it, but I just couldn't find the heart to. They DID kidnap me, after all. "Please follow me, so we can get you situated for the ritual." That scared me to a whole new level, and I almost started trembling as I felt a few more beads of sweat roll down my brow. Immediately seeing this, the presumed leader quickly changed her tone. "Oh, please dont be so scared! Nothing will happen, I promise. This will be absolutely pain-free, so you have nothing to worry about at all! That is, if pain is what you are worried about." Strangely, the shadows seemed like they cared about me overall. That's usually not a factor for any sort of kidnappers, and thoroughly surprised me, to say the least. I started calming down and followed this shadow to the center of the clearing. As we did so, I started noticing some of the shadows moving as well, starting to moving towards the circle I was located in. Some of which took places inside the circle, near the strange symbols, and others just outside the edges of the ritual grounds. It seemed that the ritual was close to taking place, causing my nervousness to return. It wasn't as extreme as when I had first stepped in the clearing, and I prevented my nervousness from revealing itself to the outside world. We had finally reached the center of the circle, the one point where all the lines eventually met. Before I could even start to ask what I should be doing, I felt my feet swept out from under me, and prepared for impact with the ground. Of course, I never did. I was floating in midair, not even a foot above the ground. I couldn't feel anything that could be lifting me up, only this weird tingling feeling all over my body. That's when I realized that this was the same exact thing as what happened when I tried to run. I was being held here by some unknown force, and it seemed that I would stay that way. As I floated, a shadow came forward, and spoke with the same voice as the leader's. "Please, just try to lie still. Any sort of movement might cause a loss in concentration, and if any of us lose our concentration, the results could be disastrous. Are you ready to start?" That last sentence surprised me. They were obviously the ones in control, and knew what they were doing here. Yet, they were asking ME if I was ready. Honestly, I dont think I was ready for any of this to occur, but I didn't think I could ever get more ready. I turned to them and said, "Well, I dont think I'll be going anywhere like this. As for being ready, I'm not really sure why you're asking me, since I have no idea what's about to happen. I really should be the one asking YOU that question!" As I finished, the shadow gave no response to emotion, until I heard what sounded like a stifled laugh. With that, the shadow started shimmering, the mists slowly condensing together as a shape started to form. I wasn't very surprised that the shadow wasn't a true form, as I don't think that a gas being had the ability to do everything it had done to me so far. Once the shape finished forming, and the shimmering dispersed, I realized that I was no closer to discovering what my kidnappers really were. It's entire body was covered, head to toe (unless it had none, I couldn't tell), by a black cloak. A large hood was placed over what I presumed to be the head, not letting enough light into it to see any details of whatever inside. The only conclusion I could make was based on it's size. It was much smaller than I expected, guessing it didn't even reach 5 feet in height. How something so small could have dragged me from my home, I had no idea. Before I started to think of some ways how it could be possible, the creature spoke. "Brothers and sisters, the first step to our goal is almost completed! Camoran is finally in our possession, and our ritual almost prepared. All that is left to do is to send him back with us, so he may fight for our cause and achieve our ultimate goal!" I suddenly stopped paying attention to the speech, and more at a detail of the speech. They knew EXACTLY who I was! I dont really think I have any friends who were shorter than 5 feet, nor did I know anyone who was. As I pondered how my name had somehow been know to my captors, the leader continued with it's speech. "I ask of you, every single one of you, to place your strongest effort into ensuring that this ritual is a success. If either of you fails to put forth your strongest effort, it could cause results that you would rather wish not happen. " As the speech continued, more and more of the shadows began shimmering and took forms of their own. Almost every single one looked exactly the same, only because they wore the same cloaks as their leader and no parts of their body could be seen. Every other pony seemed to be much smaller than the leader even, maybe around 3-4 feet tall. I DEFINITELY didn't have any friends THAT short, so I guessed I would have to wait and see. While everyone kept changing back into their true forms, the leader's speech was coming to a close: "Now, Children of the Shadows, prepare yourselves, start channeling your magic, and aid in the fulfillment of our Order!" Everyone cheered, besides me, as I lie here confused as ever. I couldn't really understand what most of the speech was supposed to be about. The only thing I got out of it was a name, and it wasn't so different as what I was already calling them. As soon as all cheering was finished, the bodies seemed to lower themselves closer to the ground. Soon after, their bodies began to start glowing, faintly at first, then much more clearly, surrounding themselves with an all to familiar black field. Once everyone else had begun the ritual, the leader walked towards me and spoke. "Remember, dont try to move, and this will all be over as quickly as possible, okay?" I could only nod, still enveloped by whatever held me still. As soon as it noticed my nod, the leader also lowered itself, and a dark glow began forming. This glow darkened much faster, and became much darker with time. Every time I looked, it seemed as if I was staring into a black hole that threatened to engulf me whole. Luckily, I was held tight and would not move in case that started to happen. Something did start happening though. All around the clearing, the symbols I had noticed earlier started to glow the same color as everything else here, but they did something else than glow. They started raising themselves out of the ground. As my lungs slowly shrunk as all of my breath left me, the symbols continued rising out of the ground, one by one, and floating over to where I lay. They floated until the stood in front of me, floating no higher than I. As soon as the last one reached me, the shapes started spinning around me. It started slowly, like a carousel, but sped up faster and faster, until my eyes couldn't keep up anymore. I was forced to stare straight ahead in order to not sicken myself from the spinning symbols. As they spun faster and faster, I noticed that they started forming an image. The image was of a human, but it wasn't for long. It eventually collapsed into what looked like a large, black blob. the blob started swirling, compacting, stretching, almost as if it was made of clay. Eventually, the blob stopped and began taking shape. Soon after, the blob was starting to look of a familiar form, but I never did get to see if it was being molded into what I believed it was. Instead, the darnedest thing happened. My cell phone started ringing, quite loudly, inside my left pocket. It was the pocket closest to the huge black mass that had gotten this whole ritual going; the leader. Almost immediately, every trace of black dispersed from its body, and a annoyed voice came from its direction. "Can you please stop all of that noise, wherever it is coming from?! Otherwise, you will cause some of us to lose-" As soon as the mistake was noticed, it was far too late. The symbols, which had started spinning so quickly that they seemed like a blur to the eyes, shot out from the middle, knocking anything in their way into the air. They stopped right at the treeline, and continued spinning at the same rate as before. By now, everyone had lost their concentration and watched in horror as the events unfolded. The symbols spun faster and faster, and began rising up into the air. At the speed the symbols were spinning, a tornado-like gust of wind had begun forming, threatening to blow everyone away. I was still being held against my will, so I wasn't so worried myself. I started worrying as soon as I noticed what was happening above me. All of the dispersed black, smoke-like substance that had surrounded everyone was collecting into one large cloud of pure blackness high above me, thanks to the howling winds the still-spinning symbols were creating. I wasn't the only one who noticed the same cloud. Everyone else did too, and reacted out of pure fear scattering into one direction: away. The only one that stayed was their leader, who had stayed behind and tried to free me from whatever was binding me here. I was really hoping it would be a fast job, as the symbols had started shooting purple lightning-like bolts into the dark mass that has started to grow exponentially. I truly hoped that I was dreaming this whole scenario, but this just felt all to real. Looking back, I noticed that my lone captor had given up on freeing me. Instead, over the roaring of the wind, it spoke to me. "Quick! Give me something of yours!" I stared, dumbfounded. "What?! Why?" A quick response was given. "In case this accident DOESN'T kill you, we can find you!" Couldn't argue with that. "Reach into my pocket! Take what ever you can grab!" It immediately dug into my pockets, and pulled out my phone. It wasn't using hands, but its mouth, as far as I could tell. One question kept gnawing at me though. "Wait, one last thing! Who are you?" "Oh, me? I'm-" That was the last word I heard at the time. All this time, the cloud hanging above us both had kept draining energy from the symbols by way of the purple "lightning". The amount of energy the cloud was picking up was too much for it, and had to get rid of it somehow. If it received the energy by lightning, why not release it by lightning? And that is just what it did. Suddenly, the once somewhat calm clearing became the sight for the weirdest lightning storm I had ever seen. Seeing that its luck was being pushed by staying too long, the lone captor began to rush off, stopped itself, turned around, and gave me one last look before escaping into the forest. I almost felt betrayed, but I had never fully trusted them from the beginning. I mean, they DID kid- My thought never got farther, as my brain was then flooded with signals from all over my body, explaining that everything in my body was being stricken with a bolt of lightning, forcing me into complete shock and blinding me with the light being expelled. Everything was burning with the force of 1,000 suns (or so it felt), and my brain felt as if it was overloading and about to permanently shut down. Luckily, the burning sensation disappeared, only to be replaced with the feeling of falling at great speed. I opened my eyes, hoping I was just feeling things. I really wished I could hope for something that WAS happening, instead of being proved wrong all of the time. Once open, my eyes betrayed my hopes and showed me that I was high, very high. I was still above a forest, but I was falling way to fast to even hope to survive. As I was nearing my end, I said my last prayer to Celestia, and awaited my fate, eyes shut so I didn't see it coming. After many sounds of snapping, cracking, breaking, and enough pain to last me a life-time, everything was finally quiet. I slightly opened my eyes, and saw trees everywhere, but I had no care for that now. I wanted some rest. So, in the middle of the forest, with no protection whatsoever, I had the best sleep I think I've ever had. New Land, New Friends, New Problems(Hope everyone had a happy New Year's!) I woke up the next day, sore as I have ever felt in my life. Even if that was the best night's sleep I've ever had, it didn't beat the worst morning soreness I've ever had. I woke up to very new surroundings, and it took me a while to put all of the pieces together. I was in the middle of a forest now, with no idea which way led home. I thought of finding the tallest tree, and possibly finding my way home from there. As soon as I tried to stand, blinding pain surged through my body, and I was forced to stop immediately. I didn't remember what caused the pain, but I remembered that quickly as well. I looked over my entire body, and saw plenty of cuts, bruises, and scratches, but I knew the real damage couldn't be seen. Figuring that both of my legs could possibly be broken, I started dragging my self along, hoping to find a vantage point of sorts. As I dragged myself along, I couldn't help but notice a strange feeling throughout my entire body. It felt like like I was being tickled, except it didn't make me laugh or anything. I tried to shrug it off, but the feeling pursued me, and wasn't going to be lost easily. I gave up trying, and continued to pull myself along, inch by inch. I was pretty surprised that no wolves or other predators had appeared, with all of the pained groans I was making. It could be a sound that the didn't recognize, and fled from it. I had much worse problems than that right now, like if I'll ever get out of here. Then, a thought hit me like a rock. My phone! I reached for my pocket, dug inside, and found it... ...empty. Another forgotten memory had returned. I had given my phone away, to my mysterious captors. Maybe they could find me in time, like they said, and help me out a little. I could use some help right about now. Pulling yourself will only get you so far so fast. And now, I felt as if I couldn't go any farther. I let my body flatten onto the ground, absolutely hating myself for my bad luck. I never really get myself into crazy predicaments before, why did I have to start now? I decided to just lie around, and hope my captors return before I'm eaten, or die of lack of necessities. As I took one last look around, I noticed one tree standing much higher among the rest. This could be the break I was looking for! I continued my crawling, finding new strength in hope. As I approached the tree, I started noticing that it stood at the base of a cliff, one that would surly injure me further, and possibly cause my death. Gulping, I continued forward. I eventually reached the base of the trunk, and praised Celestia that there were branches low to the ground. I grabbed the closest branch, and started pulling my self up, careful to not put any weight onto my legs. I climbed branch after branch, determined to reach the top. As I climbed, the feeling reoccurred, much stronger this time, causing me to almost lose my grip. I clutched the branch for dear life, as the sensation dissipated from my body, except for my legs. The feeling became so strong there, I couldn't feel any part of my legs, feet, or toes. It didn't matter, I couldn't use either one of them anyway. I restarted my climb and didn't stop for anything until I had reached the top. As I hung above the rest of the treeline, all of my hopes vanished. There wasn't anything visible except for trees, trees, and more trees. As I continued my scan, I discovered a plume of smoke rising above the trees, higher than I was. It was my best bet, and tried to remembered the direction it was in before I started heading down. Another wave of sensations struck, focused on my hands this time. I panicked, and quickly started to climb down. I wasn't quite fast enough. I lost all sensation in my hands, and was forced to let go. As I fell, I smacked into every possible branch, forcing more pain into my system. I slammed into the ground right next to the edge of the cliff. I breathed a sigh of relief, and was feeling quite happy it didn't turn out worse. Then, I started hearing cracking noises. I had forgotten to check of thin the rock was overlooking the cliff, because if I did, I would've noticed that it was very, very thin. The rock eventually broke off, and I tried to hold on and screamed for dear life. The rock broke apart, unfortunately for me, and I started tumbling headfirst down the slope. Every impact sent jolts of pain right up my spine, until I had almost passed out from it. I had finally reached the bottom, in horrible condition, with pain coursing through every vessel of me. As I started to pass out, I noticed a figure running at me, but was gone by the time it reached me. I eventually came back to consciousness, and I could feel my body moving without any effort at all. I scanned about, and made the assumption that I was being carried, to where, I wasn't sure. As for whatever was carrying me, I had no clue. Whatever it was, though, had the softest texture I had probably ever felt. It also expelled an awful lot of heat, just the perfect amount to relax my body and keep me comfortable. Feeling as tired as ever, I started drifting off to sleep, ushering one last groan of pain. My carrier seemed to respond, speeding up it's pace until my hair felt like it was blowing through the wind. Smiling at the feeling, I finally faded out. I awoke again to still new surroundings, except this time, I was inside. My whole body seemed to be aching, as if there were boulders resting on top of me. Any sort of movement caused much discomfort, and so I was forced to move sparingly. I felt as if there were a thousand little electrical shocks throughout my skin, and it felt really relaxing. Forcing myself to not fall back asleep, I shook my head around until I felt certain I would stay awake. My eyes were hazy, and everything seemed to be a blur around me anyways, so shaking my head around like that almost made me sick. I checked my sleeping area, looking for the source of the shocks, which I believed was to be found somewhere close to where I had slept. Shifting my aching body to get a better look, I checked everywhere I could. Under the couch, behind it, everywhere something could be hidden. I had one last place to look, and that was under my covers. As I lifted them up, I could see a massive amount of things wrong with what I was seeing, but there was only a few that were definitely not expected. Only one of those really stood out for me though. I. Was. Naked. I wasn't wearing a single piece of clothing. I couldn't really find out how that could be possible, since I believed I was wearing clothes when I was being brought here. If that was the case, the only way my clothes would be gone, would be my host/hostess. I blushed a little at the idea of a hostess being forced to do that, but shook the idea out of my mind and continued to play "Find the Difference" with my legs. That is, if they could still be called legs. What I had seen were not legs. There were no feet, no toes, no anything, really. There was, however, A LOT of hair, all over them. And not just any hair. BLUE hair. Completely covered in blue hair! I couldn't even see my own skin anymore. I couldn't believe this sudden transformation. Had I suddenly become a monster? I checked over the rest of my body, and found nothing unchanged. My face, my hands (which weren't hands anymore), my whole body was completely new. I didn't look new, since I had managed to cover it with all sorts of injuries.I could only faintly remember how I had received them, but shrugged it of as lack of sleep. My body was starting to wake up more, and my eyes could now see much more clearly as the haze was lifted. Looking around, I started to get excited. Of all the places to have been brought I was brought to a house filled with books. The whole floor I was located seemed to be just for the purpose of containing books. That's when this whole place looked so very familiar. I wracked my brain, hoping I could remember just where I had seen this place. Then, I had it. I was in Twilight Sparkle's home, the library. Everything about My Little Pony flooded back to me, and I almost squealed with joy from this discovery. I couldn't believe it! Could I actually be in the show? These few days have been really strange, so I shouldn't be too surprised. If this was Twilight's house however, where is every- My question had an answer before I finished it. Above me, I heard a door slamming, along with a patter of footsteps. My heart started racing. I was going to meet Twilight Sparkle face-to-face! The footsteps grew closer and closer, reaching the stairs, then slowed down until it sounded like light steps coming down. I assumed that Twi thought I was still asleep, and wasn't trying to wake me up. As I started thinking of what I was going to say to her, a head peeked out from the stairs. It wasn't Twi, but her assistant, Spike. "Oh good, you're awake. I was afraid that you were going to sleep all day. Cant be stealing the roles of dragons, you know." I tried responding, but my voice just barely squeaked out from being underused. "What..." Spike cut me off with a wave of his hand. "Dont be asking me any questions now, I don't know about anything before Twilight brought you home. Man, you were a mess. I was starting to get worried that Twi couldn't save you, but she seems to have bandaged you up like a pro. Must've been that book she was reading while she was fixing you up." I wasn't startled at all by that last statement. It's been shown all over that Twilight is always reading up on how to do something as she is doing it. It's just a comedic addition to her love of books. I tried speaking again, and found my voice to have improved. "Do...do you know when she'll be back?" "Oh, not to long I believe. She was just heading out to retrieve some more medicine." Spike pointed to a coffee table not far from where I was laying. Placed all around were multiple first aid items, all with familiar names that had been changed to fit Equestria. Most of them weren't even opened yet, which confused me. "Why does she need more? At least half of these are not even opened yet!" Spike rubbed the back of his scaly head. "Yeah, that's Twilight for ya. I think she just felt the need to be over-prepared. Most likely, she's buying everything as a way to double-check herself. There was this one time where she made me write three different-" I knew exactly what he was talking about, and finished the sentence for him. "-checklists, right? She had also forgotten to write a letter to Princess Celestia that week." He was taken back, mouth wide open. Once he got over the shock, his eyes accusingly squinted at me. "Yeah, that's right. How'd you know? Been following us around? I bet you have. No one could possibly know exactly what happened, especially a pony whom no one's ever seen before. I mean, there's NO WAY some random pony can be dragged into my house, gravely injured, and somehow know everything about everyone." I gave a sly smirk and whispered, "Wanna bet?" Spike gave a nervous expression, but gave a determined stare and exclaimed, "You're on!" I grinned, and motioned him over. Once he got close, I whispered his deepest, darkest secret straight from his ear to his brain. His face heated up to the point where I thought it would melt right off. He jumped back, stammering every word out of his mouth. "B-b-but...h-how!? I merely laughed. Seeing as I could just destroyed any hope of privacy, I stopped laughing and tried to calm him down. "Spike! Calm down, no one else knows your secret! I just merely happen to know, that's all!" That didn't seem to help. It worsened the situation, if anything. "How do you know then? Who told you!? I swear when I find them I'll-" "SPIKE!! Calm down!!" He snapped out of his rant, and spun around to face me. I had to calm him down, because if he didn't, he might never trust me. And if Spike didn't, Twilight wouldn't either. "Look, I may know about your darkest secret and all, but I'm not the one to start going off and telling everyone about it. Believe me when I say this, I swear to Celestia that WILL NOT tell a single person about this, EVER. I'll even Pinkie Pie Swear if you want me too!" Spike's face eventually drained of nervousness, and he took a deep breath. Once finished, he suspiciously stared at me, as if looking into my soul. After what felt like an eternity, he finally spoke. "How do I know I can trust you with something so...fragile?" "How about a nice Fire Ruby?" His eyes lit up like stars at the request. "How could you possibly-" "Trust me, I'll find a way." Spike looked satisfied, but had one more thing to say before he was quiet about this. "Alright, I'll trust you, but dont expect me to go jump off a bridge for you or something. That is, until I get my Fire Ruby." I chuckled a little at this. Spike was actually a good guy, and it feels much different talking to him in person than listening to him talk on the show. I can actually get a real personality from him. Once I had stopped chuckling, I looked back at Spike. He had pulled up a chair next to the couch, and had a quizzical look on his face. Something seemed to be bothering him. "What is it, Spike? Why are you just staring at me?" He thought a moment, then spoke. "The way you talk, it's much different than anypony I heard. You dont use the same words as everyone I've heard. You aren't from around here, are you?" I tried to think of an answer to his question, but ultimately failed. I just couldn't seem to remember anything before waking up in the forest. I had no idea where I was from, what I was doing here in the first place, and even who I was. I skulked at my lack of memory, and Spike could see that. "What? Cant remember?" I raised my eyes to meet his. "Honestly, no I cant. I cant remember much of anything, not even who I am. All I can remember is everything I know about here." Spike raised an eyebrow. "You still haven't told me how you know all of this about Equestria." "That might be something I'll share later. It could be quite life-changing for everyone." Spike began to pout. "Oh, alright, but I'm not forgetting about it so easily. I'll find out sooner than later!" I snickered. "I'm sure you will." But right now, I need something to drink. What do you have?" Spike got up off his chair. "Hold up, I'll go check." Spike walked behind the couch, and in a few moments, I could hear the rattling of bottles. After a while of this, I heard Spike call out, "Looks like we only have carrot juice. That okay?" Carrot juice? Oh, right. Ponies are vegetarians. Seeing as there was nothing else, I couldn't see why not. "Uh, sure, that's fine" Spike brought the whole bottle in, along with two glasses. I raised my eyebrow at him. He looked and said, "This juice is my favorite brand. You'll see soon enough. " He unscrewed the cap, a poured us both a drink, and screwed the cap back on. We both grabbed our drinks, clinked them together, and drank. The taste of the carrot juice was astounding, and made my spine shiver as it journeyed down my throat. Once I had finished my drink, I had the shivering feeling for a while longer, but I felt it was worth it. I had to watch Spike continue drinking, since I was much larger than him and could drink more at a time. Once he had finally finished, he looked at me and immediately noticed my shivering. "You've never had carrot juice, have you?" I could only shake my head. Any sort of speech would just come out choppy. "Man, this stuff sucks on the first try. You shouldv'e told me, I would've given you a smaller amount! With as much as you drank you might..." I never really heard the rest, as I was stricken with huge chills all over me. Spike wasn't kidding! This stuff did horrible things to you on your first drink. I'm sure it wasn't usually this bad, since I was given a large amount. It wasn't long before the chills had stopped, and I was left breathing heavily, eyes almost popping out of my skull. Spike was leaning over me, watching me with hopeful eyes. I guessing he was hoping that he didn't just kill me. I started slowing my breathing down to normal, and my eyes started retracting. As I started calming down, Spike started blurting out an apology. He must've been nervous too, as he was speaking at a mile a minute. I just put a hand, or hoof, over his mouth, quieting him down. "Spike, I know you didn't mean it. Sure, you could've just about killed me, but I'm not dead. So please, dont go hating yourself for something that didn't happen, as I'm not going to hate you for it either." I swear, Spike almost shed a tear as he suddenly gave me a bear hug. After a few moments of being stunned, I returned the hug. Spike didn't make it last too long, lest it start feeling creepy. As he pulled away, I KNOW I saw a tear being flicked away as he started to speak. "S-sorry, it's just that...I dont think I can remember the last time someone has ever spoken to me like that. I just kinda got filled with emotions, ya know?" I smiled at him. "I understand. Mind pouring me another drink?" He smiled back, and poured us both another drink. I took mine and almost started to take a sip, but stopped myself and asked, "This wont almost kill me again, will it?" He just chuckled, "No, it's the first time that gets everyone." I eyed him, and he continued. "Trust me." I laughed to myself, and took a sip. My tongue was flooded with the same enjoyable taste, but the were no chills afterwards. I downed this drink faster than my first, but Spike just kept a normal pace. As soon as he finished his drink, I asked him a question that I planned on asking him one last time: "Could I have just one more glass?" I couldn't remember how many drinks we had. We had to have gone through a few bottles, as I've noticed Spike just disappear at points and then reappear with a new bottle in hand. As we drank, we became more and more open to each other. The conversation kept drifting around, but the topic was usually about the many adventures Spike and the Mane 6 had together. I mostly enjoyed teasing him about the time when the Diamond Dogs stole Rarity, and how he tried to act like a hero, only for Rarity to free herself. He blushed a little in embarrassment every time I brought it up, but I told him not to worry about it. I was pretty sure that no one remembered too much about that day anyway. We continued talking through the day into the night, for maybe 5-6 hours. All of the drinks I had caught up to me, and nature started calling on a phone that wouldn't stop ringing. I tried holding the feeling back as long as possible, but there was only one thing I could do now. "Hey Spike, uh, where is the restroom?" He gave me a confused look. "It's on the second floor, but I doubt you'll be able to make it up there, with your broken hooves and all." I had completely forgotten about my injuries. Still even if my "hooves" were broken, I still had a way around. "It'll be fine. I tried doing this before, and it worked last time." Spike said nothing, but shrugged his shoulders. Trying to cause as little amount of pain possible, I tried to slide myself off of the couch and onto the floor. It was much harder than it sounded, since I had only two finger-less hooves to work with. As I continued to struggle toward the edge of the couch, Spike shook his head and sighed. He jumped off his chair, and waled over to me. Before I even knew what was going on, Spike had pulled me off the couch with a solid thud. For just a small baby dragon, Spike had a lot of strength in him. He wasn't just trying to pull me off the couch, though. He continued to drag me across the floor, towards the stairs. "Um, Spike? You dont need to-" He grunted out, "You're not going to get anywhere in your condition, just thought I would help you out a bit." "But-" "No, it's fine." He continued to drag me until we got to the stairs. He stopped in front of them and said, "Sorry if this starts to hurt, but I cant really do much else to bring you upstairs." I nodded, and braced myself for any pain that was to be brought from the stairs. It was a pretty bumpy ride, and my rump was pretty sore as we reached the top stair. It wasn't as sore as it could've been; Spike had to take a few breaks on the way up. Once the top stair had been overcome, Spike fell onto his back and started panting heavily. Like I had said before, Spike had a lot of strength in him, and I was amazed he did what he did with so few breaks in between. In between his gasps for air, Spike said,"I...cant carry...you anymore. I...think you can...get there by...yourself now." I nodded, and began to make my way to the bathroom. I inched closer and closer, hoping to Celestia I would make it in time. After one final effort I reached the bathroom, and shut the door as I entered. After I had finished up in the bathroom, I dragged myself back through the doorway. The bathroom had felt...different in some way. I couldn't quite explain it, but it was as if it was a new experience. I had no idea where that feeling could've come from. I'll have to see if I can possibly remember my past, as I cant remember a single thing about it. Just as I was nearing the stairs, I heard a conversation going on. Based on the tone of voice's I was hearing, it sounded like a heated argument. I could hear Spike somewhere in there, but there was another voice too. It wasn't one I've heard before, but I had the same feeling as when I was in the bathroom. Somehow, I already knew that voice, but I didn't. I decided to not worry about it now, and tried to eavesdrop on the conversation. The first voice I heard was Spike's. "Look, I told you once and I'll say it again. I HAVE NOT seen a human around here. There hasn't been a human in Equestria in thousands of years, so why would there be one now?" "I'm not trying to cause trouble, but using this item, I have tracked the human here. If you are hiding him, I would suggest that you can bring him out please." Human? That sounded familiar. Where have I heard that before... Suddenly, I had remembered something. I...I think I was a human. Yes, that's right. A human! Aren't they looking for a human? Who were they even? What would they want with a human? Even if they did know I was once a human, would I even be useful as a pony? Better to not find out, wait to see what their motives were for said human. They continued their conversation as I thought about this, so I missed most of it. "Well, if you do see a human out anywhere, please just let me know. I do believe his name's Camoran. So if you do find him, use that name. He should respond." "Well, what would I do then?" "Just bring him to me. I'll be staying with a friend in a cottage at the edge of town, I'm sure you've heard of Fluttershy, right?" "Of course I have. Who hasn't?" I heard a light giggle before the mysterious pony continued. "Well, that should make it easier to find me then. Just come and find me if you hear about something." Pause. "Oh, and by the way, my name's Eclipse. Nice to meet you!" "And I'm Spike." "Oh, I know that. You are the only dragon here, remember?" Slight laugh. "Oh, right. Forgot for a moment." "Well, I have to get going. Hope to hear from you!" I heard the door close shut. As soon as I heard that. I peeked around the corner. Spike was sitting on the couch, head in his hands. Seeing that the pony was for sure gone, I slid from behind the corner and started down the stairs. Spike looked up, and walked over to help, but I just waved for him to stay. Watching as I slowly slid my way down, Spike asked, "Did you hear any of that conversation?" Trying to do two things at once, I replied, "Mostly towards the end, I think. Name's Eclipse, right?" Spike nodded. "Yeah, weirdest mare I ever saw. Seems to be good acquaintances with Fluttershy though. Still dont know what a human would be doing here. We haven't seen one in over a thousand years! What would one be doing here anyway?" "Not so sure myself, should we ask Twi?" "Probably. Where is she anyway? She told me she would be back hours ago! I hope she didn't get herself into trouble." "I dont think Twi would do that, she's smarter than that." "I wouldn't be so sure. She's gotten herself into some nasty trouble sometimes." "Yeah, I hope she's ok..." I lost my footing, and slid down a few steps before crashing onto my back in a heap. Wanting to get something off my chest, I asked, "Hey Spike?" He snapped out of deep thought. "Yeah?" "What if I told you...that I was-" Suddenly, a shriek tore through the night, filling the air with an eerie sensation. "What in the hay was that?" "Come on, we gotta check it out!" Spike looked appalled. "Wha...what?! You dont plan on going out there, do you?" He gave me a frightened look; he must've seen the immense determination in my eyes. "That's exactly what I was planning." Ponyfy Code Page 1This page is meant to show you just exactly what every original character looks like. There will be multiple, since some characters come later in the story. Use the website and codes below! (I do not own the Pony Creator nor do I take credit for it.) Website to view these on: http://generalzoi.deviantart.com/art/Pony-Creator-Full-Version-254295904 Camoran: 402N104000062463FE9696000002F7755SJ1837000200002505529849D80FE0S107F3FCC004CB2 Being a Hero Never Seemed to Cause Mental Sickness Before...Honestly, I cant tell you exactly what happened after I got out of that library. Everything was a blur; I was just so focused on reaching the source of the scream, I didn't care what ponies I ran into, or who yelled after me. I rounded a corner and found an alleyway, and I could see movement from inside. There were about 4 ponies, as far as I could see. There were three ponies surrounding one, presumably the one who had screamed. The three ponies had created a semi-circle around the one, who had been backed into a corner. Obviously, the single pony was in some trouble, and I felt inclined to help. Quickly, I rushed forward, trying to put myself between the one in trouble and the ones causing trouble. With a flying leap, I jumped over one of the troublemakers and planted my hooves into the ground in front of the lone pony. I stared down the three ponies, attempting to intimidate them to leave. If my intimidation tactic failed, then I would have a tough fight ahead of me. It might be a fight I wont walk away from either.They were like any stereotypical group of ruffians. They wore dirty, ragged clothes. Most of them were covered in dirt, scratches, or both. All three of them were stallions, and two of them looked pretty burly. One of them, however, looked young. I wouldn't be surprised if he was the son of one of the other two. As I continued to stare, the middle stallion took a step towards me. "Well well well. What do we have here? Somepony trying to be a hero? How heroic! If only there was somepony to show this pony how much of a hero he actually was...Oh, right, there's three ponies willing." The other two ponies took a step forward, closing the distance between me and them. I could feel my heart start to race. I wanted so badly to keep this unfortunate pony safe, even if it meant severely hurting myself (again). With every step taken towards me, my heart rate increased a few bpms. As they began to close in on me, I turned my head to the pony, not facing it, but enough that it could hear me. "You might want to leave." A feminine voice responded. "But, I cant just let you-" "NOW." After some hesitation, the pony galloped away, and it's hoofsteps began to echo through the alley. As the echos diminished, I turned my attention back to the ruffians. They had moved much closer without me knowing, so I tried to take a couple steps back to even out the distance. Bad news was, I couldn't. I was already pressed up into a wall, no where to go. With the ruffians closing in, I started to look around for options. Unless I could climb the wall like a spider, it seemed that the only way out was to fight. Now I started to become afraid. More than afraid, really. Terrified. I had just entered this world that many would be awestruck from, and I was about to die in it. Not exactly something I had planned on doing, but then again, I dont think anyone would. At least, if I do die, I should die fighting. Cant change the world without sacrifice, right? Sacrifice didn't really have to mean death, though. I could weaken them, and save my life in the process. Or, perhaps I could- I wasn't allowed to continue my rambling thought. I rediscovered myself laying face first in the dirt, pain seeping through my muzzle. Trying to recover from the cheap shot, I started to get up onto my forehooves. That attempt was quickly ended, as my face was forced back into the dirt. I heard a snicker from one of the stallions, then the same stallion from before started talking to me again. "Look at you. Cant even get yourself off the ground! Did you even think you could take all of us? Or were you just trying to save your marefriend over there? Some useless marefriend, just running away while you're stuck here, hopefully despising yourself for even bothering to help at all. You couldn't possibly-" Just like when I couldn't finish my thought, I didn't let him finish his sentence. As he ranted, I took the liberty of placing both my forehooves right above his hoof and throwing him backwards. He landed onto his back with a thud, and struggled to get to his feet. As he lay helpless, his two lackeys moved in towards me. Staying on the defensive, I decided to allow them to make the first move. I didn't have to wait long. The bulkier of the two took a swing with a forehoof, barely grazing my fur. Regaining my balance from the dodge, I pulled a right hook and landed a hit square in the jaw. He staggered back, trying to regain his balance. Making use of opportunity, I rushed forward and uppercut him. His body didn't seem to want to handle anymore, and he went out cold. I spun around to face the other lackey, who seemed to be having second thoughts about picking fights. He seemed to not want to be here, fighting others who did no wrong. If he didn't want this anymore, so be it. I had to make sure to scare that thought into him, to make sure he would never forget. I charged at him, head lowered, and tackled him as he stood paralyzed with fear. I held him down, and stuck my face right up to his, staring him down as if I could see his soul. "I'm letting you off with a warning, since you look pretty young to be involved with these groups. But I swear, if I see you doing anything like this again, you are going to end up much worse than your friend over there. Are we clear?" He was trembling as I spoke, and could barely get words out as he tried to speak. "Y-y-yes s-sir! You w-wont see me anytime soon! I p-p-promise." With that, I got off him, and he proceeded to get up and gallop off at full speed down the alley. I started to trot out after him, until I reached a familiar pony still flailing around on his back. As I walked up to him, he turned his head, and locked eyes with mine. I could almost see his pupils shrink in fear. I leaned in towards him, so he was just within hearing range. "I believe you should start think about the consequences of your words before they come out of your mouth. They seem quite hypocritical." I trotted off, and I swear I heard him faint at that moment. As I excited the alleyway, I caught a breath of cool night air. Scanning about, I found that I was inside the Ponyville square. With a location pinpointed, I headed in the direction I hoped was the Ponyville Library. I had no intention of going exploring now, maybe tomorrow. While I trotted down the streets, I couldn't help but try to sort out the events that had happened. I had just won a three-to-one fight. Me, a measly stallion who almost got his flanked kicked by three stallions. How I managed to defeat said three stallions, I had no idea. Well, two stallions. I didn't really fight the youngest one, he seemed to have learned his mistake without help. He seemed like a good-hearted pony though, so I hope he can get his life straightened out. All some ponies need are a good scare. That had a sort of ring to it. Where have I used that phrase before? It seems so familiar to me...I cursed my brain for forcing me to forget everything I had known, as that I could've mastered some fighting techniques or something. That would've been REALLY helpful about 5 minutes ago. The fight would've ended a lot faster, that's for sure. Maybe I could've also seen who that mare was, instead of letting her get away. I could've had a chance with her...wait, really? I'm thinking about love at a time like this? Not something that ponies think about after a fight they might've DIED participating in. They usually thank their lucky stars that they aren't dead yet. I already did that though. So, would it be appropriate to think about love at a time like this? I mean, that mare- I couldn't stand the war my brain was in with itself. I felt so tempted to just smash my face into the nearest wall. This shouldn't seem right at all! But, why did it? Oh, Celestia, I just wanted to go to bed. After I cleaned myself up first. That fight completely caked my fur in dirt, and it felt pretty uncomfortable. Still, it was just a small price to pay for my life, and for that mare to be safe. I dont know what I would've done to myself if she... That time, I did smash my head against a wall, opening up a few wounds. I just couldn't STAND it! Why was I having all of these sudden feelings?! It just doesn't make any sense! How could I possibly have feelings for somepony I had just met? I couldn't even be love at first sight, since I didn't even know what she looked like! Just what was it about her? I never felt her, saw her, smelt her, dont even get me started on tasting her. If none of those four, then... Wait. I heard her. Was that it? Could I possibly have fallen in love with her voice? Is that even possible? She only said one word to me, but I felt as if I heard so much in it. I heard a thanks, an apology, and a deep caring I haven't heard before. A complete stranger had appeared before her, to save her, and she had immediately cared for him. Me. That would take extreme amounts of character to trust and care about a random stranger you've never heard of. I dont think I've ever seen that much character in anypony, especially... Wait, what was that place called again? Where I came from, where is that? Is it...Earth? Does that sound right? Am I still there? Or someplace different? I dont think this is Earth, it just...doesn't seem... I tripped and fell over a curb. The whole time, my mind had been wandering everywhere, and so was I. As my mind jumped from topic to topic, I jumped from street to street. Now I had no idea where I was. it didn't help that my vision was blurred either. I had no idea why it could've been blurred, until I felt my face. There was blood everywhere. I was surprised I could've even thought straight, with all the blood I lost and was still losing. I told my self to get to Twilight's house, and fast. Even though a hospital could've suited my needs, I came across Twilight's house first. Just barely standing, I slammed the door open, and took only a few steps inside until I collapsed to the floor. I felt too weak to move, and just felt so tired. My eyelids started to become heavy, and began to droop. Right before I fell into what would be a fantastic night of sleeping, I heard loud hoofsteps, and a voice cry out, "SPIKE! Get my first aid kit and book back out!" I woke up to a beautiful afternoon. The sun was shining, and I could hear the birds singing. It felt as if I died and ended up in Fluttershy's heaven. Only problem was, I wasn't dead. I had my face scrunched up into the floor instead. I started to push myself off the floor, took a look at my hooves, and surprised myself into dropping my face right into the floor again. Tilting my head, I got a look at my hooves again. I was like this yesterday, yet why did it surprise me now? Was it because I used to be a human? It would make sense, since they might've been pretty different. I didn't know for sure, maybe I could ask Twilight today about humans. As I started to get up, I heard a laugh behind me. "Wow, you really keep getting yourself into trouble, dont you?" Getting to my hooves, Spike wandered into my view and looked me over. "Well, you definitely got yourself busted up again. What happened to you?" I began to tell my whole story to him, even what I had thought about on my way back. He had only one expression on his face the whole time, which started to unnerve me a bit. After I finished, he just shook his head. "Well, you sounded like you had a horrible night. Worse than Twi's even!" My ears perked up. "Why? What happened to her?" "Well, after you sprinted out the door, I knew I couldn't have kept up with you, so I stayed here. A few minutes later, Twilight came back home. She had tears flowing down her face, and kept talking at a speed I'm sure nopony could understand. After about fifteen minutes, I had finally calmed her down, but then you burst back through the door. She got worked up again, and we had to fix you back up. She was dead tired after, so I sent her off to bed, saying that I could keep an eye on you. She hasn't woken up since." "What time is it now?" "Almost 6 in the afternoon. It's been well over sixteen hours of sleep for both of you!" "Twelve hours? Doesn't Twi sleep for half of that usually?" "Yeah, it's unlike her to sleep late. Do...you think we should check up on her?" "Think so. Something could be up." I got up off my hooves, and we both walked quietly up the stairs to Twilight's bedroom. There was no sound coming from up there as far as I could hear, which could be either good or bad. Spike cleared his throat and called up, "Hey, Twilight? Are you ok up there?" Some shuffling was heard, and hoofsteps started approaching the edge of her bedroom. Once they reached the edge, I saw them fling themselves over the edge and hang there. Then, Twilight's head hung over the edge too, looking over the dragon and the pony standing below her bedroom. She looked as if she had just gotten out of bed. Her hair was disheveled, sticking out in every direction that could've been thought of. Her eyes were half-opened, barely keeping her in the world of consciousness. Sleepers dotted themselves all over her eyes. The worst part was her eyes themselves. They were blood red, a combination of soreness and bloodshot. Obviously, she hadn't had much sleep recently, no surprise there, and she had been crying about something, a whole lot too. The mix of red and purple forced my eyes away, hoping that this situation couldn't get worse. Once again, fate turned against my hopes. I looked back up to find those eyes locked onto mine. I became paralyzed, wanting to look away but afraid to. Her eyes seemed to swallow me up, and I fell through a terrifying spectrum of red and purple until my eyes felt as if they were about to cave in on themselves. I finally felt my gaze shift away, and almost broke down right there. Instead, I took a few steps back and lowered my head, attempting a retreat. I took one last look into her eyes, and I experienced something completely different. The once counteracting colors seemed to flow and mix together, creating this scene of serenity. I felt as if I was standing on a beach, watching the sun go down in a array of colors that couldn't be matched. Standing next to me were two people, one male, the other female. They both had one hand on my shoulder, and were staring at the sunset along with me. Suddenly, they were gone. Just, gone. I felt so helpless, so scared. The sunset began to disappear, leaving me alone in a darkened world. I started running, the one thing I could do. I ran and ran and ran... ...right into a bookshelf. I staggered back, dazed. I was back in the library, away from the sunset and whoever those two people were. I felt utter sadness, like suffering the worst mental pain you could think of. Whoever they were, they must've been a huge part of my past. Not anymore though. They're gone now, along with my past. If I actually remembered my past, I'm sure I would've broken down right then and there. I forced myself not to, in order to not make this situation anymore awkward that it currently is. I tried looking back up to where Twilight was, only to find the area vacant. Glancing around, I couldn't even find Spike anywhere. Did everyone just abandon me? I was just about ready to buck something until I heard sobbing. I followed it to the bathroom, where I found Spike standing right outside. He gave me a hopeful look, expecting me to do something to fix the situation. I could only sigh. "Spike, can you tell what's wrong?" "N-no, she just keeps sobbing and...I dont have any idea. She's never been like this before. Can you do something?" "I dont have any idea. I can try to talk to her, I guess..." He nodded, and stepped away from the door. I stepped up to the door, and the sobbing became louder than before. It started to become more of a wailing now, sending chills through me. I tried to open the door, which turned out to be locked. I knocked, trying to gain her attention. It seemed to work, as her wailing quieted down, as if waiting for someone to speak. I sighed once more, and said, "Twilight, what's gotten into you? You've never acted like this before. Can you at least tell Spike and I what's the matter?" Some more crying ensued before a response. "What...do you know...about how I act?" "Quite a bit, actually. I know a lot about your history, too. You were thrown into a very hard position when you were younger, being Celestia's star pupil and all. Most of the ponies expected you to be great, raising expectations far higher than reachable. Greatness takes time, but time is not what was given to you. You couldn't keep up, and everypony began to see that and lose faith. Soon, everypony began to believe that Celestia's attention was misplaced, giving it to a pony who could not live up to expectations. You started losing faith too, secluding yourself from everyone, afraid that you would keep failing to meet expectations. What they didn't see, though, was the potential you had. All they saw was what you were, not what you could become. That's why Celestia chose you as her star pupil. You showed her magic that was supposed to be incapable at your age. She saw what you could be, and chose you without question. I paused for a moment, thinking of anything else to say. "Look, you may feel alone and seclude yourself, but it doesn't have to be that way. Everyone has gone through their own problems, and most likely feel as alone as you do. And I'm sure that-" I heard the handle turn, and the door slightly cracked open. She didn't look out, but she spoke, sounding much clearer without anything but sniffles. "It's...It's not that. I dont worry about my past anymore; I've gotten over that quite a while ago. Thanks, though. It always feels better to know somepony who knows how they felt." "If that's not it, then what is?" "It's...It's you. What I did back there, with my eyes, was an attempt to look into your past, just to make sure that you weren't somepony involved in an...incident last night. I must've gone too far, and instead gone a few years back. What I felt was just beyond what my mind could've comprehended, and I broke into a heap of sadness. I'm...sorry if I worried you two." She finally poked her head out and opened the door all of the way, sniffling, but an improvement from just a few minutes ago. Spike immediately rushed forward and gave her foreleg a hug, grasping with the strength of a few stallions. Twilight giggled, and tried to brush him off, and ultimately failed. She giggled again, and waited patiently for Spike to let go. Once he finally did, Twilight took another look at me. "Hey, you're pretty familiar looking. Weren't you just here?" I laughed. "Yeah, I believe I'm the one you've saved twice so far." Her eyes widened. "You're the same pony? That cant be right...How are you even walking? Your hooves were broken beyond belief!" We both took a look at my back hooves. They were still wrapped up in their binds, the same ones used yesterday. They didn't feel as if anything was wrong. How hadn't I noticed that my broken limbs had just fixed themselves within 24 hours? I hadn't ever given much thought about my sudden ability to walk, since I've had a lot on my mind. Now that I think about it, it just seems all the more impossible. "Well, I've been running around a lot, especially last night too...which reminds me, what happened last night? Spike said you were pretty fear-stricken when you came home." She trotted downstairs, and took a seat on the couch. She motioned me over, and I took a seat on the opposite side, and made myself comfortable. "Now, what was that about last night?" "Oh, right. Well, as Spike probably told you, I was out retrieving some more medicine for you, and had just finished shopping when Rarity ran up to me with an emergency. Well, an emergency for her. Sweetie Belle and her friends had managed to steal her mannequins, and needed somepony to model her dresses. I just happened to be the first one she caught. It took many hours, and was finally finished after night had arrived. I started my trek back home, the only ponies being out were me and a few others. As I continued, I noticed that the same ponies had started to follow me. Trying to lose them, I turned into an alley near Ponyville Square. What I didn't realize, was that the alley was a dead end. Soon, after realizing my mistake, I turned around, but it was too late. I was cornered by the three ponies who were following me. I screamed for help, even though I didn't expect anyone to come. Truly, I had no idea what they wanted, but I was afraid to ask. Before they could get much closer, there was somepony else standing in front of me. A stallion, by the look of it. He just appeared as if out of nowhere, even though I know that's impossible. Without much distance between him and them, he told me to escape. I couldn't just let him take them all on by himself, but he didn't want to hear it. Right before I got out of there.I looked for a cutie mark so I could find him tomorrow and properly thank him. Well, he didn't have one, which surprised me, since what stallion doesn't have their cutie mark by now? Most likely none, making it that much easier to find him. I hope I do find him quickly. I wouldn't want to find a friend like that dying in a hospital. That is, if I dont find him in a graveyard first..." She wiped a few tears away as she said that last part. She was under a lot of guilt from this, which was what must've been tormenting her this entire time. Her guilt was not misplaced, as anypony would probably be wracked with guilt in her situation. I cut myself of there and continued to listen to her. "Anyway, I had only gotten out of the alley when I started hearing struggling inside. I couldn't look back to see what was going on, afraid of seeing something that would be burned into my memory. I came straight here, almost having a mental breakdown as I burst through the door. I tried to tell Spike everything that happened, but from what I gather, it came out as nothing but useless sounds. I felt really out of it, and Spike could tell too. He recommended that I rest myself, to which I would have obliged. But, then you burst through the door, just as injured as before. Of course I had to help again, not like I had to ask you. Then, well, Spike went to check up on you today, you came to check up on me, and here we are. Now, what the hay did you DO last night to get yourself hurt again?" I didn't answer. I couldn't. Not for the life of me. If the mare I had saved was Twilight, then that means... I took a look at Spike, who looked back in return. I had told him about the mare I had saved, how I felt about her. We were both thinking the same thing. I knew I had to tell her that it was me, but I would have to leave out some choice details. Specifically, the war my brain had with itself. As I was contemplating, Twilight sat impatiently, and finally had to say something. "Well?" "Huh?" "Aren't you going to say something, instead of staring into my face all day?" I blushed a bit. I hadn't noticed where my gaze had shifted, as my attention was in my thoughts. I coughed awkwardly, and began to speak. Oh, it's really not that exciting. Besides, it's not very much different than yours!" Twilight eyed me from across the couch. "What? That doesn't make any sense at all..." I waved her sentence away. "Well, if you dont believe me, check my flank." Her eyes grew wide with disgust. "Why would I ever look at-" Her eyes lied to her words, as she took a look anyway. This time, her eyes grew wide with surprise. I could almost see the gears turning in her head as she struggled to put the pieces together. Finally, with a sharp intake of breath, I could tell that she had figured it out. Her mouth flew open, and I could've sworn that her jaw hit the floor. I didn't bother to look, though. I was too focused on Twilight. She had put a hoof over her mouth, trying to cover up how wide it had opened. After what felt like an eternity, she was finally recapable of speech. "That...that was you?" "Well, unless you were getting attacked in the next alley over, then yes, that must've been me." "I...I dont really know what to say. I dont really know if I have to say anything, though." "Oh? And why is that?" "Well, actions speak louder than words, of course!" She began to scoot across the couch towards me, inch-by-inch. Once she finally reached me, she wrapped her forehooves around my neck and gave me a tight hug. I was a bit shocked by the sudden contact at first, but eventually I was able to return the hug. We hugged for a while, much longer than I expected. Eventually, I spoke up, even though I secretly didn't want to. "Uh, Twi?" "Oh, right! Umm...sorry. Just kinda...forgot where I was." She pulled away, and was blushing pretty heavily. I was pretty sure I was blushing too, I just couldn't feel it. After a long awkward silence, Twilight got up off the couch and spoke. "Well, these last couple of days have been...hectic for both of us. I was thinking that I should give you give you a tour of Ponyville tomorrow, since you're new here. That sound fine to you?" "Yeah, that sounds fine. I was planning on seeing the town tomorrow anyways, but I'm sure you can introduce most of the ponies to me if you come along." "Sure, I wouldn't mind. I think that my friends will enjoy seeing a new face around here. Oh, and I'm sure Spike has already introduced me?" "He has, but he wouldn't have needed to. Also, it will be pretty awesome to meet your other 5 friends." Her eyes narrowed, reminding me of my first encounter with Spike. "What would make you say that? Plus, what makes you think that I have only five friends?" "Well, five main friends. One for every Element of Harmony!" She was giving me the same look Spike did when I started revealing information. She was about to say something, when said baby dragon walked down the steps and up to us. He had caught wind of our argument, and decided to help end it much faster. "Twi, there was something I had forgotten to tell you about him. For some reason, he seems to know most of everything about this place. The Princesses, the 6 of you, even my, ahem, little secret." Twilight rolled her eyes. "No, I'm serious! He hasn't learned this from anywhere, and he's never been seen here before. It's just too strange..." Twilight wasn't satisfied. "Well, he had to learn it from somepony or another. Either way, I'm going to see how much you really know tomorrow." As she began to trot off, she stopped and turned around. "If you dont have anywhere to stay, feel free to sleep here for the night. As long as you dont mind the couch, that is..." I laughed quietly. "No, the couch and I are pretty well acquainted, so it should be fine with me sleeping here another night." She giggled to herself. "Well, alright then. Goodnight!" "Goodnight." She trotted her way up the stairs, towards her bedroom. As soon as she was out of view, I brought my back hooves onto the couch and pulled up the blanket onto the couch, which had been resting on the floor from this afternoon. I thought about the past few days, and how much I had experienced those days. I couldn't help but feel as if I had a reason for being here, experiencing things so unknown to me, but I couldn't think of anything. I shrugged it off, and instead imagining Twilight's face when she realizes that I know almost as much about her world than she does. I smiled from the mental image I received, and closed my eyes, letting myself drift out of consciousness. The Oddest Form of Identification ReclamationI woke up early in the morning, feeling quite eager about today's tour of Ponyville. Even though I already knew what it looked like, it would still be quite amazing to see it with myself. I stretched my limbs out, and got up off the couch. I slowly started becoming awake, and began to notice a smell wafting throughout the room. It smelt like somepony was cooking. Oh, right! Spike always gets up early to make breakfast. I began to sleepily walk into the kitchen. I noticed a dining table, and took my seat. Spike immediately noticed my presence. "Oh, wow, you're up much earlier than I expected. How'd you sleep on the couch?" My brain was still tired, and I had some trouble thinking of a good answer. "Meh...it was ok, I guess..." "Still a little tired, are we? You have any nightmares?" "I don’t think so...why?" Spike had just finished making breakfast and was beginning to set the table. "That couch always seems to do that. Well, it did for Twi. She's sometimes been so tired that she sleeps on the nearest comfy object nearby. She'd always have nightmares while she slept on it, but they weren't so bad as to wake her up. They seemed to shake her up a bit though, and she's avoided sleeping on it since." "That's quite interesting, to say the least. What does Twilight think?" "Oh, she just thinks that it's just coincidence. I'm not so sure myself; they’re her only nightmares in a very long time. I think it's the couch that causes them." "That sure does pose a few questions. Do you know what they're about?" Spike shook his head. "She'll never tell me. She just ignores me now whenever I bring it up. I should expect as much, she has never been very open with anypony, even me." Spike sighed. "Still, you can’t blame her. You seem to know why, so I don’t have to explain it to you." I nodded, and thought back to when I had to coax her out of the bathroom. It was quite depressing, knowing somepony whose fillyhood was filled with over-expectations and failures. That's definitely not what fillies and colts should have to deal with at that age. The fact that Twilight had survived all of that, without losing her mind or worse, made me have more respect for her. I couldn't possibly imagine going through that, even if I did go through that. Not like I would know if I did or not back when I was...human. If only there was some way to get it all back... Two different thoughts went through my head at that moment. One was a question for Twilight, so I would save that for later. The other one, also a question, was for Spike to answer. "Hey, Spike?" Spike had begun to place food onto the table. "What is it?" "Well, do you remember that one pony that visited, Eclipse? What she wanted?" Spike thought for a moment, and then had a light bulb moment. "Oh, right! She was after some human who had made their way into Equestria. Quite unusual, don’t you think?" "Yeah, about that human...I know where he is, and who he is as well." Spike didn't look as surprised as I thought he would. "Really? We can go find him and give him to Eclipse! Maybe she'll give us a reward..." Spike started to daydream, most likely about receiving a delectable jewel as a reward. "I don’t really think that's going to happen..." That snapped the dragon out of his fantasies. "What? Are you trying to protect him or something? He some sort of ruler, or maybe has some sort of unusual power, or-" "No, that's not it at all. The truth is that...well, I'm the human." Now he became as surprised as I thought he would. "WHAT!? How can that be? You're a pony, obviously! There's no way you can be human!" "Look, I have as much of any idea than you at how I'm a pony. All I know, I was a human before, I'm a pony now. I don’t remember much else. I've only been remembering bits and pieces these last days, but I need to find out the rest. And I was hoping that-" "-that Twilight could help you, right? I'm sure she could do something. She does have that memory spell....and you're absolutely sure that this human, the one Eclipse is looking for, is you?" "Guaranteed sure. I just have to somehow explain everything to Twi. I'm definitely going to need her help..." "Help with what?" I spun around, only to find that Twilight was standing right in the doorway. She looked almost exactly the same as when I first met her yesterday, except her eyes were much less threatening. Her mane was quite in need for a good brushing, along with some patches of her coat. Although she stays up late almost every night with research, she didn't look any sort of tired at all. Could be that her body is just used to the lack of sleep. I noticed that Twilight was still staring at me, expecting an answer. I quickly tried to think of something to say. "Oh, um, nothing. I don’t need help with anything. Nothing at all!" She squinted suspiciously, knowing that something was up. "Just so you know, I was standing right here the whole time you mentioned that." Well, that explains why she could tell I was lying. "Wait, how much did you hear?" "Oh, just the end of it. Also, who's Eclipse?" This time, it was Spike's turn to speak. "She was just some mare who came along looking for a human. Apparently, he somehow got into Equestria. She didn't really fill us in on any details, including what they planned to do with him." "A human? Here? Doesn't that seem a little odd to you? What would a human be doing here anyway?" Spike perked up. "Well, if you want to find out, why not ask him yourself?" "Spike, what are you talking about? That human could be dead for all we know, maybe filling the stomach of a hydra. We couldn't possibly try looking for him, where would we start?" "I know exactly where to start, Twi. Why don’t you ask our-" I placed a hoof over the dragon's mouth, afraid he was going to give me away. "Uh, Spike? Can we talk...in private please?" I removed my hoof, and was met with sputtering sounds. Once he had finished, Spike replied, "Uh, sure, I guess." I turned to Twilight, who was standing with a confused look on her face, "Please, excuse us." I led Spike out of the room, then turned on him. "What are you doing in there?" "What? Can’t I tell her? She deserves to know!" "Yes, I know, but won’t she freak out? She's been going through a lot lately, so I don’t think now is the best time to tell her something as big as this." Spike was pondering as I said this. "Yeah, maybe you're right. We'll keep it between us." He pauses. "Maybe we should go back into the kitchen, before Twi gets suspicious." I nodded. "Right. Let's go." We walked back inside the kitchen, but couldn't find Twilight anywhere inside. The space where she stood was empty, with no sign of her ever being there. Spike and I gave each other confused looks, neither of us knowing where she went. We both heard a shuffle behind us, turned to face it, and saw Twilight reappearing from an invisibility spell. She was giving us both dirty looks. She first looked at Spike. "Spike, you KNOW I hate secrets being kept from me. Especially if they are going to be revealed to me anyway!" Then she turned to me. "And YOU! Why do you suddenly start keeping secrets? Are you part of some sort of rebellion against Celestia, and gaining the trust of her star student is your first step? Well, I've finally figured you out!" I tried to butt in. "Twilight-" She didn't hear a syllable, and continued to "rat me out". "You won’t be able to catch Celestia off guard now, not while I still live! I'm going to write to her RIGHT NOW, and she'll take care of you, ohhhh yes she will!" I tried again. "Twilight! Listen to me!" She heard me this time, but refused to listen, and began to walk upstairs. "Why should I listen to you? You've obviously poisoned Spike with your talk, so I won’t fall for it! You better say your goodbyes to your fellow traitors, while you’re not on the moon!" With that, she galloped upstairs. I didn't want to start attracting attention to myself, especially not from the Princess herself! So, I did what I had to. I galloped up the stairs myself and reached Twilight Sparkle. Still galloping, I made a diving tackle towards her, and forced her into the ground. She immediately began to struggle, but I was able to keep her on the ground, immobile. She began to scream out words. "Get OFF me you traitor! You have NO IDEA-" Suddenly, a voice roared out, one that didn't originate from either of us. "TWILIGHT SPARKLE!" I immediately could tell who that voice came from, but had no time to react. A blinding light filled the library, and I lifted up my hooves to shield my eyes away. Twilight took the opportunity and escaped my grasp. She threw me off her and ran towards the blinding light. By the time she had reached it, the light had solidified into a shape. It was none other than Princess Celestia herself! Twilight bowed to the Princess, but immediately raised herself and began talking a mile a minute. "Princess! You have to help me! There's a rebellion being raised against you, and their agents are trying to foalnap me! You have to do something before they succeed in overthrowing you! Increase the number of patrols, send out search parties, and do something, ANYTHING! If you-" Celestia raised her hoof to silence Twilight. "Twilight, please! Calm down! Now, what's happening? You said something about a rebellion?" Twilight nodded furiously. "Yes! Right there, that stallion is trying to foalnap me! He's part of the rebellion!" Celestia glanced at me, with a fury in her eyes I have never seen before. She began advancing towards me, horn beginning to glow faintly. I began to cower, hoping that my end would be swift and painless. She stood over me like a giant, horn glowing more fiercely now. Her head started lowering down towards me, and angled her horn in my direction. I shut my eyes, expecting her to run me through with her horn. What I felt was much different. It was just a slight tap, followed what sounded by a gasp, then the feeling of my body being whisked away. After flying through air for a short time, I felt solid ground beneath me. It was grainy, but solid all the same. I looked, and found myself at a familiar beach. Once again, to my right and left were a male and female. Their features were more distinguished, and I felt I was looking at two friends who I hadn't met in many years. They both turned and smiled at me before vanishing into smoke, just like last time. Instead of feeling endless amounts of sadness and despair, I felt...nothing. It was a numbing sensation, and I couldn't move an inch. Suddenly, it was gone. I glanced around, unable to see much beyond where I stood. I attempted a step, and a feeling of warmth flooded over me. I took step after step, the intense feeling growing stronger as I reached one of the darkened sides of the beach. As soon as I tried to pass into the dark area, intense cold and pain flooded in as many quantities as walking along the beach did. I pulled back into the visible part of the beach, and the pain and cold ended immediately. Unable to continue, I tried to see into the darkness, but to no avail. I was just about to attempt another try at entering the darkness, until a very bright light appeared next to me. I stared at it, not feeling any pain from the blinding capabilities. I felt entranced by it, almost as it was calling to me. It began to move towards the darkness, lighting its surroundings as it went. I followed it, almost in a trance. The darkness lit up as we continued, any darkness touched by the light was cleared up, and became visible to me. As more and more darkness was cleared, I began to notice shapes and objects were the darkness had been. There were baby products, child toys, and multiple other things. I couldn't imagine what these could possibly be, or who they belonged to. I noticed the orb stop up ahead. I walked up to it, and it seemed to motion me to something. I looked where it seemed my attention was supposed to be, and found a letter. I reached down to pick it up, grasped it, and brought it up to my face. It was addressed from someone named "Grandpa", but I knew it was just a title. As I opened the envelope, I found a single piece of paper inside. I skimmed through it, and found just small talk of nothing important. As I reached the end, I saw the name of who the letter was for. At the conclusion, there wasn't any 'sincerely' or 'love' or anything, just a name. A name I hadn't heard in a while now. Camoran Parker. My name. All of those belongings, those were mine! But, what were they doing here? Where was "here" anyway? What was my purpose here? Nothing seemed to make sense, and my new friend didn't have any answers either. Well, it might've, but I never got the chance. I had looked up to ask it these questions, but it was long gone. I scanned around, but say nothing but black. The field of black began to close in around me, blocking off my exit to the beach and surrounding me. I was eventually sucked into the pitch blackness, and immense cold and pain washed over me again. There was no escape, my only option was to suffer the pain and hope it ends soon. For once, my hopes were answered. The pain ended, and I found myself lying on the ground. I snapped my head up, gasping for air. I was back in the library, right where I had been. I caught sight of Celestia in front of me. She was slumped over, breathing heavily, and wasn't responding to Twilight's questions, who was standing right over her. Twilight looked over at me, and gave me a disgusted look as she saw I was conscious. She trotted over and started screaming words at me. "What the BUCK did you do?! You just injured our PRINCESS!! How could you sabotage her like this? You have NO IDEA what you're in for now. I swear in Celestia's name I will DESTROY YOU for this! You're rebellion will fall, along with every single one of your friends. I can guarantee you that-" "TWILIGHT! Enough!" Celestia had heard every word that came out of her mouth. She had regained enough strength to stand, and enough energy to finally speak out. She continued her lecture to her favorite student. "Don't blame this pony for my condition. In fact, please do me a favor and don't blame him for anything! There is no rebellion, he wasn't foalnapping you, and he definitely didn't try and sabotage me." Twilight attempted to argue. "But, Princess! I saw him, he-" "No, Twilight. He wasn't attempting anything of that sort. It was all just a misunderstanding! Trust me on this, Twilight. He means no harm." "How can you be so sure, Princess?" "I-I saw the same thing you told me about Twilight. When you had experimented with your spell on him. You had sent me a letter describing the spell, and I got to learning it right away. I had decided to try it on him for myself, to see if you were correct in your letter. I saw the same, if not more. His mind is truly broken, and there is nothing to be done about it. His whole mind is clouded, and there doesn't seem to be a way to help. I'm sorry, but it just seems that he-" They were obviously talking about me, and I had to know what they were talking about exactly. "Um, I don't understand. What about my mind?" Celestia swiveled her head. "Oh, I'm sorry! I had forgotten you had awoken. As to answer your question, everything you heard is quite accurate. It seems as though your mind is clouded, filled with a "smoke", for lack of a better word. It's been blocking you of all of your memories. It's not a natural thing, like amnesia, but magical in every sense. Until a remedy can be found, your memory will be the same as it is now." "That's the thing though! There IS a way, I know it. I had experienced it while I was lying here." Celestia's eyes went wide. "Tell me, what happened?" So, I told her about the beach, the darkness, the blinding light, everything I could remember. Celestia kept a focused eye on me, as if focusing on every single word that passed my lips. Twilight, who still hadn't fixed herself from breakfast, stood behind Celestia, watching my every move, still worried that I would attack her. "...and I think that the light might've been you searching inside my mind." Once I had finished, Celestia kept staring, her mind processing this information. Finally, she spoke. "So, did you remember anything?" "Just one thing. My name." Celestia looked aghast. "Even your name was gone? That is some powerful magic that is tampering with your memory. Anyways, what is your name? I don’t think I've seen you before." I scratched behind my head. "Yeah, I'm kinda new here..." "Oh, well why didn't you say so? I'm-" "Princess Celestia, I know." I realized how rude that sounded, and tried making up for it. "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. I'm having a tendency to do that now..." Celestia looked puzzled. "Why is that?" Twilight answered before I did. "He believes he already knows everyone here, yet he knows nothing about himself! It doesn't make any sense." "That is quite strange. But, I want to put that knowledge to the test. I want to see how much you really know!" Celestia gave me a competitive smile, and took a seat next to Twilight, who also sat down. The situation had suddenly turned into a game show. Celestia cleared her throat and spoke. "Now, I'm going to ask one thing and one thing only. What do you know, if anything, about me?" That question shocked me, as I expected her to ask about one of her fellow subjects. Either way, I knew exactly what to say to her question. "Well, I can definitely tell you about your relationship with Discord, and your past history with him too." The princess frowned at what I had said, not of sadness, but of defeat. Twilight looked up at her teacher with a quizzical look on her face. "P-princess? You have a history with Discord?" She didn't answer. She instead stared at me, waiting for me to continue. I didn't keep her waiting for long. I talked about how they first met, and how badly Celestia had broken Discord's heart. I moved on to his transformation of which he is now, the chaotic monster that enjoyed the unhappiness of other ponies. I referenced the battle between the alicorns, how he had utterly destroyed them. Well, all but two. Celestia and Luna had survived, and began to bring back order to Equestria. Discord was beaten at every turn, and was forced to fight the two princesses head-on. He horribly underestimated them, and was incarcerated into stone. The last thing he had ever seen was the face of the one he loved, the one who had destroyed him and made him into the monster that he is. All the while I was telling this story, I observed Celestia's reactions. I saw only one. Guilt. The entire story, she had hung her head, unable to look at anything but her hooves. I saw a few tears come forth down her muzzle, and she made no attempt to hide it. Twilight had started to notice, and began to comfort the alicorn. Finally, I had finished the story, eliciting more than a few tears out of Celestia. I felt horrible for bringing up that memory, as it's obviously haunted her since then. I approached her, preparing my apology, but she spoke first. "No, please don’t apologize. It's my fault. All of it is my fault. I was just so naive back then. I couldn't see anypony past their appearance, and it really affected some ponies. Discord was the worst case I had seen. Most would just never talk to me anymore or just avoid me, but Discord took it to a new level. I just had to stop him, but there was no other way than entrapment in stone. It just killed me do have to do that to him...I-I don’t think I'll ever be able to forgive myself for it..." I saw a glint in her eye, one filed with determination. Suddenly, she got up and said, "I'm sorry, but I really need to go. I have to...take care of something..." Her horn flashed, and she was gone. I still felt horrible for doing that to her, even if she had asked for me to do so. I just couldn't bear to stand it, and I felt like a nap was in order. I turned to start trotting away, but Twilight stopped me. "How...how did you do that?" "Do what?" "You just...made her cry. I've never seen her cry before. I almost cried myself too...how did you know that?" I sighed. "Honestly, I'm not sure, nor will I be sure. Not with this brain at least." "I-I can help you with that, you know..." I shook my head. "I don’t think your remembrance spell will work on something of this magnitude..." She shook her head too, improving the style of her hair. "No, I mean the spell Celestia performed. I taught her how to do it, technically. I could try to get into your mind and help improve your memory too!" I smiled. "Well, I would appreciate that, but that will take everything out of you. It almost knocked out Celestia even!" "I'll be sure to be careful." She was quiet for a while, staring down at her hooves. She finally spoke up. "Hey, thinking about earlier this morning, what were you two hiding from me? If I'm going to find out about it later, I'd rather find out sooner." I sighed again. Might as well! "Fine, you heard about Eclipse, right? How she's looking for a human?" "Yeah, still don’t know what she'd want with one, but yes, I remember." "Well...I think that...I'm the one she's looking for..." I braced for an outburst from her, but heard nothing. I cracked open my eyes, and found her staring back, eyes wide open and pupils filling most of the space in her eyes. It reminded me of an episode, although I couldn't recall it this moment. She kept staring at me with those eyes, until I was certain her face had frozen like that. Finally, she spoke. "You're...not kidding?" "Not in the slightest!" Her eyes, somehow, got even larger. "That's...just...wow. There hasn't been a human here in pony history! We can finally perform experiments, do tests-" "Um, Twi? I'm obviously not a human anymore..." Disappointment fell across her face. "Oh, right...well, least we can do is try to get your memory back, I guess." "Yeah, sure. Anyway, it's only morning still. I'm planning on taking a much needed nap, but maybe you can show me around today like we planned?" "Sure! I'm not going to try and quiz you now, since you seemed to have proved yourself. My friends, however, might test you themselves. Just a warning." I waved it off. "Don’t worry, I got something for them all. They'll believe before long!" She giggled. "Well, ok. Enjoy your rest!" I smirked. "I'll try to enjoy it, if I don’t get nightmares from your couch." She facehoofed. "Don’t even get me started on that..." I laughed, and climbed onto the couch and attempted to drown out everything but my thoughts. If I had this, this "smog" floating around in my mind, how come I still remembered everything from the show? A mystery better left for when I wake up later, I thought. I fell into a dreamless sleep, but not exactly nightmareless... The Couch of NightmaresMy head snapped off the pillow, eyes as wide open as they could. I stared off into the surrounding night, attempting and failing to see into it. I had no idea what had woken me up, but it surely wasn't anypony doing so. As my vision became used to Luna's night, I could see nopony around me, and heard no sounds as I lie on the couch. My entire body was tense, as if startled by an unknown force. Eventually, seeing as there was nothing around me, I eased up and began to lie back down. Sleep just didn't come to me, so I decided to just stay up for a little while longer until I felt tired again. I immediately got up and went into the kitchen, looking for any sort of night time snack. Not many of foods there looked too appealing, until I noticed one package that, oddly enough, had my name on it. With no idea what it could be, I began to open it. As I did, something started to squirm around in the package. Frightened, I tossed the package back, and the whole bag ripped open. Inside, was a horrifying creature, shaped as a misshapen foal. It was utterly void of any hair. No tail, no mane, just skin. It's hooves were mangled in every direction possible, and were quite longer than a normal foal's should. The worst part was the face, but I couldn't say that. That's because there wasn't a face. Not a single feature was placed; eyes, mouth, ears, nothing. Almost not even a muzzle. It was just barely seen sticking out from blank face, pointing straight at me. I was stunned beyond hope. The only sort of movement I could of made was backwards, away from this creature, this....monster. Every step taken back was proved fruitless, as the "foal" moved closer every time. It didn't use its over-sized legs, however. Instead, it seemed to break into a static-like state, then appear closer without disappearing. This honestly began to creep me the buck out, but there was no escape. I was trapped in the kitchen, with no way out but through the foal pursuing me. After too many steps, I found myself up against a wall, the foal not too far away. Guessing that I was now helpless, it saved some time and appeared right before me, and not savoring the moment like I thought it would. Sitting almost on top of my feet, it began to stand upon its long, slender legs. Higher and higher it went, reaching the top of my legs, then my torso, neck, head, and beyond. Finally it stopped, and this once small foal now stood taller than me, with the same foalish body as before. There was just now way this could exist, yet here it stood. I glanced up at it, and found its blank slate of a face already staring back. Then, like a predator finished toying with its prey, it attacked. Excruciating pain flowed throughout me as unseeable damage was being done to my body. I screamed and screamed, but they had no effect on the situation at hand (or hoof). No help came, and this unimaginable creature did not stop from destroying me wholly. I screamed for what felt like an eternity, even as I felt myself fading out... My head snapped off the pillow, still screaming. Heavily breathing, I realized I was back on the couch, now soaked with sweat. It was still the middle of the night, just as in my dream. Luckily, I wasn't feeling hungry, so I didn't make a move towards the kitchen. Instead, I stayed right on the couch, hoping that there was no squirming package with my name on it in the fridge. I took one final glance around the room, and noticed a shape not far from me. Freaking out, I dove under the covers and began shaking,but was instead greeted by a voice. "What? Not happy to see me?" I looked out, and saw the face of Twilight Sparkle in the dark. She was standing almost right next to the couch when I peeked out, wearing a sly smile. She had a certain air about her, one that I felt she shouldn't have. She leaned in closer to me, her face just inches from mine. "I know how you think about me; you don't have to hide it." "Uh...what?" "Spike already told me about how you feel about me. It took some pressure, but I finally got it out of him. Enough about him, I'm more focused about you." As she said the last part, she climbed up onto the couch and layed on top of me. There was truly something different about her, I just couldn't tell if it was good or bad. She began to nuzzle her head against my chest, almost making a purring sound if I didn't know better. I decided to go with it, and began running my hooves through her mane, She scooted up higher, placing her head under mine and holding me in her forehooves. I returned the embrace, eliciting a sigh from Twilight. Not seeming to waste any time, she gave me a look with her beautiful violet eyes, followed by a deep kiss. Surprised, it took me a few moments to return the kiss , but finally did with as much strength as her. Seeing as I was playing along with her, she began to start prodding my lips with her tongue, to which I cautiously accepted. If I had tried to tell you how this whole experience had felt right now, I wouldn't have words for it. I felt a surge of happiness, one that I was sure couldn't be anything besides magic-induced. Either that, or I had never felt real happiness before in my past. I guessed it was the first option. The feeling of kissing Twilight was unreal, feeling her tongue slide deeper and deeper into my mouth, finally reaching the back of....my throat? I snapped out of my trance and shot my eyes wide open, staring into a pair of unfamiliar, gray eyes. Her mouth had stopped making contact with mine, and had pulled back an inch or two. Aghast, I was helpless as her tongue continued its journey, stopping for a moment at my throat before continuing down. At this point, I found it very difficult to breath. I began choking, gagging, and even slightly throwing up from the presence of the throat intruder. The tongue didn't stop, reaching the fork between my windpipe and esophagus. I had no idea which path it took,; I was more concentrated on the lack of air in my body. I had just started feeling light-headed, and felt everything shutting down, hoping to compensate for the lack of air. I had wished to have blacked out sooner. Her tongue had stopped finally, right next to my heart. It began poking at the edge of my innards closest to my heart. After a few pokes, a sense-shattering pain jolted through my nerves as the invader burst through and grasped my heart. After wrapping around it a few times, my heart was disconnected in one swift motion, and I finally left consciousness as I felt it being escorted back through my limp, dying form. For the third time, my head snapped off my pillow, except that I was flailing about in fear as well. The force of my flailing, plus the fact that I was on the edge of the couch, sent me spiraling towards the floor. I landed head-first with a load thump, and frantically searched the area for Twilight. Luckily, she was no where to be found. I pulled myself off the floor, and shook off any dust that might've collected on my coat. Of course there wasn't much at all, since Spike cleaned the library every day. "Hey! Are you alright?" Speak of the devil. That is, if the devil exists in pony form in this universe. I swiveled my head towards Spike's voice near the kitchen. Spike was sticking his head out of the doorway, a look of worry on his face. "Oh, yeah! I'm...um...fine. Never better!" I attempted to put on a fake smile, trying to not to get him worried. Long story short, he saw through my ruse. "The couch worked it's magic, didn't it?" I sighed. "Yeah, you have no idea." "Well, come inside and tell me all about it!" I sighed again. I didn't want to lay my mental burden on him, but I felt that it was ok if he really wanted me to. I trudged my way into the kitchen, but I didn't stay long. Already inside, waiting for breakfast, was Twilight Sparkle. Almost immediately, I paused mid-step and bulged my eyes out, reacting out of sheer terror. Obviously, I hadn't recovered from my nightmare. Could you blame me? I used a maneuver I learned watching Twilight handle those snakes during Winter Wrap-Up. I reared back, and quickly began to backpedal out. Twilight could sense my fear, and became as worried as Spike was. She began to speak, but I didn't stay to hear. I was too afraid that she was about to try and steal my heart, literally. As soon as I had reached the doorway, I spun around and bolted for the door, but was blocked by a flash of light, followed by Twilight. She had cut off my only escape, and now I was doomed to die. Of course I wasn't dying without a fight. And by fight, I meant running away. Quickly, I tried bolting up the stairs, only to be tackled from behind without getting far. We both fell to the floor, struggling against each other for our own reasons. Finally, seeing this as an unavoidable failure, I gave up, suddenly changing tactics. I literally went from fighting for my life in one second to pleading for it the next. I was almost sobbing, begging her to do anything but kill me. I tried anything, even offering to give sacrifices to her, or worshiping her as a goddess. I was ready, willing, and able to do anything possible if it meant sparing my life. I looked up, searching her face for some sort of answer to my pleas. All I saw was a face as surprised as mine when I saw her in the kitchen. It took her some time, but she finally gave a quick answer to everything I said. I, for one, didn't waste any time responding. "Does that mean you're not going to rip my heart out of my body?" "What in Celestia could you possibly mean by that? That is the oddest question I could have possibly heard in my existence!" At that moment, I felt as if I got slapped right back into my mind. Noticing the kind of situation I had put myself into, I began to try and patch it up. "Sorry about that...I do have a reasonable explanation for my actions, trust me!" "Well, you better. Anypony knows that I don’t usually believe in anything but a reasonable explanation!" "You wont be disappointed, I promise. Shall we talk over breakfast?" She rose off of me and extended a helping hoof. "Sounds fine by me." I looked dumbfounded at her hoof, not exactly knowing what to do with it. I couldn't grab it with either of my hooves, so what else is there to use? Twilight must have noticed my dumb look, and quickly said, "You're supposed to bite it." "Huh? "Bite it. I can pull you up that way." "Wont that...you know, hurt?" "Well, yes, but it's more polite than leaving you sit on the floor all day!" "If you say so..." Slowly and carefully, I reached my mouth over and gently bit down on her hoof, she not flinching in the slightest. I shouldn't have been surprised, but since everything was quite new to me, I couldn't help but be surprised. As soon as I was back onto my own two hooves, Twilight motioned towards the kitchen and said, "C'mon. I'm sure Spike's got breakfast waiting, and both of us will be wanting an explanation too." I nodded in agreement, and we walked side-by-side back into the kitchen. Spike was setting the table, not looking very concerned at all for what had taken place. He seemed to know what had taken place though. "So, did you guys finally get it sorted out?" Twilight looked a little insulted. "Do you not care about either of us? There could have been a serious problem!" Spike took no notice. "Oh, I know. I could hear the commotion. It's just that you guys seem to get into fights that sort themselves out, so I choose not to get too involved. It's not like I could do much anyways. But honestly, to the best of my knowledge in this topic, you guys fight like an old couple!" Spike began snickering at his awkward moment-causing joke. While Twilight was busy not trying to look embarrassed and hiding her blushing face, I tried to destroy the moment. "WE WERE ABOUT TO HAVE BREAKFAST YES? RIGHT! LET'S DO THAT!" While it didn't seem like a good idea at first, it actually seemed to work. Twilight and I took our respective seats, exchanging quick glances as we did. As soon as Spike placed the food on the table, he took his seat and we began to eat. The meal consisted of hay bacon and scrambled eggs, among other things. The meal was delectable, and I finished much faster than either of my two table-mates. I got up to put my dishes away, happy that there was only one plate to bring up. I turned around from the sink, and noticed two pairs of huge eyes staring back. I became a little nervous, as most would. "Um, what? Is there something on my face?" Twilight was the only who could respond. "I'm more concerned about what went INTO your face! What, are you excited that I get to finally that you get to go on that tour I promised you?" "Well, that could be part of it, but it was mostly how scrumptious that meal was!" Spike finally regained the ability to talk. "Well, at least SOMEPONY appreciates my cooking..." Twilight looked aghast. "You said that like I don't, Spike!" Spike raised his hands in defense. "I'm just kidding, Twi! Don't need to get so upset." Twilight sighed. "Oh, sorry." She looked back at me with waiting eyes. "Now, don't you have a story to tell us?" I had almost forgotten. "Oh, right, of course. Just don't blame me if you become mentally scared, because I know I am..." "Spike, I want you to leave. Now." "What? Can't I even finish breakfast?" "Bring it outside. I don't want you to be hearing this." Spike was reluctant, but eventually left the room with his plate, grumbling to himself about still being treated as a baby. That left me alone with Twilight. I was a little worried about how she would react to my nightmare, hoping she didn't think I was some sort of pervert. Unfortunately, I had no choice. I took the seat across from where Twilight sat, and began to recall last night, which wasn't difficult, since it was burned into my mind. I recalled every feeling, emotion, and painful moment that I could remember. I found it much easier to explain as "story time" continued, and I started speaking at a rapid pace, but not so fast that it couldn't be understood. It all poured out, feeling more and more relieved as the flow of speech increased. I couldn't bear to look at her, afraid of what I would see in her face. The best I could hope for was to at least keep the couch as a bed, either inside or outside. Maybe she'll enroll me in a therapeutic class? It could help, since I feel like I might be going insane with everything happening recently. No, I'm a goner. She'll throw me outside, and never let me back in. Worse, she'll also spread rumors around town about me, so nopony would help me out. Then I would have to move to the nearest town, possibly out of Equestria even! What could I do then? Fade away without a care in the world for me? That wouldn't be the greatest way to leave, knowing that everypony is disgusted by you. In fact, it would be the worst way to go. I'm pretty sure nopony would even go to my funeral, maybe not even the priest. Would there even be a funeral? Would anypony even bother reporting my death, or would I just be meat for the animals? I could already feel the various animals pawing at my shoulder...but, if that wasn't real, why did it feel so? I finally opened my eyes, and found out why. Twilight had put one of her hooves on my shoulder, and had begun patting it. It was then that I noticed how sore my eyes felt, and how wet my face felt. I must have been crying the entire time I told the story! Now I just felt more embarrassed, but more hopeless than that. There was no way I wasn't going to live in a box in the next couple hours now. I was going to be cast out, alone against possibly the worst thing to battle against: nature itself. But...why did I feel like that's not going to happen? I lifted my head out of my hooves, and found Twilight looking back with a deep, solemn look across her muzzle. Just one look into those violet eyes of hers reassured me, but they also let me know something else, maybe about her nightmares. There was only one way to find out. "Something about your nightmares you would like to share, too?" "How...oh, of course Spike told you about those. It's no surprise to me he would. But yes, it is about those nightmares, and how they tie into my past history. You see, I've been getting nightmares ever since I started sleeping on that old thing. They used to be very basic, not lasting much longer than what seemed like ten seconds. Then, as I grew older, they became longer, and much more fearful." "I started becoming paranoid, thinking my nightmares were predicting what was going to happen. It started becoming my image to the other ponies, and I became despised and lost connections. Research became difficult, since I didn't have many useful resources, and life became stressful. The usual vacation from the stress became worse than the stress itself, and I failed to find any relaxation, awake or asleep. Sleeping anywhere else other than the couch didn't work either, as the nightmares just followed me everywhere. Life itself became a nightmare all it's own." She gave herself a chance of reconciliation before continuing. "I couldn't find any happiness anywhere. Not even Princess Celestia could affect me in any way, and became worried for me, afraid I would do something I would end up regretting. She placed a royal guard to follow me around, making sure to keep me safe from myself. His name was Captain Stalwart. Like his name suggested, he remained loyal. To the Princess, that is. He had no cares for me, and only did his job when the Princess was around. To me, he belonged in my nightmares. He mistreated me, spoke badly of me around other guards, and didn't hesitate to beat me if I didn't listen to his suggestions. He was a monster in every form of the word." Twilight had become a different pony in the time we had been talking. Now, her eyes seemed to be glazed over, as if she were not here mentally and was reliving those horrible moments. Her voice had become lifeless, without any emotion or feel. It was almost torture to watch a pony full of life seem to die right in front of me. She continued her story after a moment of silence. "Stalwart stayed with me for many years, all the way up past the time I officially became a mare. That only somehow became an even worse time for me. Now that I was a mare, there was a whole wide new range of "punishments" he could give me. It...was unspeakable, what he did to me on a daily basis. I just..." A single tear rolled down her muzzle, unable to keep it back. She was close to cracking, possibly sending her into a mental breakdown. That big brain of her's had finally reached its limit. In an attempt to comfort her, I moved my chair right next to her and put a forehoof around her shoulder. She seemed to slightly relax in my arms, and she began to calm down a bit. After she was in control again, she continued. "I'm sorry...it's just that, this has always been a touchy topic for me." "Oh, don't be. Everyone goes through tough times, some more than others. You, however, have gone through the worst kind of life I have ever seen. I'm surprised you actually didn't do something to hurt yourself!" She shook her head. "Of course not! I believed my life couldn't get any worse, so I thought that if I could survive through this, everything would start improving. And it did! Not while Stalwart still hung around, though..." "What happened to him?" "He was caught having...'unacceptable contact' with another guard. With my help." "I'm guessing he wasn't very happy with you." "Just some empty threats. Nothing I cared about." "You know what he was punished with?" "He wasn't. He escaped before any sort of punishment could be decided. Nothing has been heard of him since, so he hasn't been worried about from anyone." That Stalwart sounded like a real threat, even if he hadn't caused any trouble in many years. He isn't someone I wanted to meet anytime soon, that's for sure. Quite a card, with a pretty bad-sounding nature. Definitely somepony to avoid. That is, if he was still alive. "By the way, thanks again." I brought my attention back to her, surprised that she was thanking me a second time since we met. "What for?" "Well, you were the first pony to have ever gotten that out of my system. Not even Spike knows the whole story, and I've known him ever since I was a filly. It felt pretty good to finally expel all of those pent up feelings. That's the second time you've been a fake therapist, right?" "Well, yeah, I think so, if those can even be called therapy sessions..." Suddenly, a huge crash came from upstairs, followed by a cry. "Oh COME ON! That's the third time today!" Twilight and I gave each other a confused glance before Spike barged in. "Did you guys hear that? Sounds like Rainbow Dash got herself into another accident." Twilight sighed. "Well, we might want to see how she's doing..." I nodded. "Yeah, good idea." Both of us quickly ran upstairs to the source of the crash, and found an enormous hole in Twilight's bedroom. Among the rubble, was a cyan colored pony with a rainbow mane and tail. Obviously, Rainbow Dash! She was in the process of brushing of every trace of dust off her fur. After shaking herself off, she turned towards us. "I thought you would come check up on me." She suddenly realized I was there. "Hey, who's this? New coltfriend? I knew you would eventually find somepony!" I could only groan. "Twilight, if every one of your friends call me your coltfriend..." Rainbow laughed at the embarrassing situation she created for both of us. "Oh, come on! I'm just teasing you! You know I love to do that, Twilight. But seriously, who is he?" The pink across Twilight's face slowly faded. "Oh, he's...new to town. I was just about to take him on a tour!" "Well, might as well start with me, right? Now hold on, I need to begin my introduction..." "Oh, that won't be necessary Rainbow. He knows a lot about this town and it's inhabitants. He'll have no need for an introduction." Rainbow puffed out her chest. "Well, I guess my reputation precedes me." I laughed. "Rainbow Dash, this has nothing to do with your reputation, although you have made quite a name for yourself. Gaining approval from the Wonderbolts, being the only pony to perform a Sonic Rainboom, even being named the Hero of Ponyville. You've been quite a busy pony, but you've also needed to learn a few things along the way, including how to hold back the need to gloat about your abilities. But I haven't learned any of these in a bar or from some rumor spreader, not at all. But if I tried to explain to you how I did, I couldn't. That's because I honestly don't know myself, but that's beside the point. The point is to prove to you that I know you just as well as well as your friends, and I hope that I have succeeded." Rainbow Dash had a look on her face of perplexity on her face. "Well, that's cool, I guess. Shame that my reputation hasn't spread very far, but I guess that will have to wait. But, you're saying you know a lot about me without even knowing me personally? Things that my friends might not even know?" "That is exactly what I'm saying." She eyed me with suspicion, and stuck her face a few inches from mine, glaring with eyes that could burn a hole into mine. My eyes kept darting around, unsure of what action to take. Thankfully, Twilight took action for me, separating us both. "Rainbow, he isn't a spy, stalker, or anything like that. I honestly don't understand how, but I can't question it. I learned that lesson a long time ago." "When you guys rescued Fluttershy from the hydras." "Yeah, exactly. He knows way too much to NOT be suspicious, but I trust him, and I think you should too." Rainbow wasn't fully convinced, but was satisfied. "Well, I wont fully trust him. Not yet. But I'll keep an eye on him for you, just in case he tries to challenge the element of loyalty." With that, she flew out her newly created hole. Unsurprised, I said, "Well, I should've expected that from her." Twilight could only look after her. "Well, she does try to keep her friends safe. I'm sure she's just looking out for me." "You want to get ready for that tour you promised me? We still have four more of your friends to meet." "I don't see why not. Let me just get ready, and we can get going. Honestly though, I don't see the point in this tour anymore, since you seem to be the more informed of us two." I laughed. "Well, I don't have a map of the town, so I don't know where everything is in the town, just what they are." "If you say so." She left to get ready for the tour, but I didn't really know what she needed to do for what was literally a walk through town. Maybe she was prettying herself up for me? I could only laugh. Of course not, she wouldn't go for a pony like me. Might as well go clean myself up too, I guess. Need to be looking good, or at least not like I just got out of bed. I decided to follow Twilight so I could ask her where another bathroom was located, if there was one.
IntroductionIt was just another normal day for me. I had decided to go for a late night walk through the city park, walking down the street I resided towards my destination. I had a lot going through my mind then, involving a mix of emotions, thoughts, and how absolutely frigid it was outside even with three layers on. As I slowly braved my way through below freezing temperatures, I started to shut out most of my thoughts for now, and concentrated on a mental scrapbook of memories from my past, that have been bothering me to this very day, and maybe will for the rest of my life. I needed to get these memories to stop haunting me, and instead turn into the faint memories that they should be, not the mini nightmares that they are now. As I reached closer and closer to the park, I wondered where my life could possibly go from here, with everything I've had to put up against... Before I go further, I feel it would be appropriate to explain myself a little. My name is Camoran Parker, an 21-year old male living in the tundra known as Minnesota. Winter here can be just dreadful, or perfectly nice. Most of the time, it's as cold as if the Earth was drifting away from the sun. I don't pay much attention to the cold outside, since I spend most of my day inside. Whether it be school, home, or a library, I'm always someplace warm. I've never been able to get used to feeling cold, and just hate the sensation. Being inside all the time would sound boring to most, and it would be, if not for the invention of my favorite pastime. Reading. It doesn't matter what I may be reading, whether it be magazines, novels, even stories only found on the Internet (the only reason I even bought myself a laptop). No matter what it was, I just always lost myself in it. I've always loved books ever since I was a baby. My parents introduced me at a young age, and I refused to play with any of my other toys until I had read (or my parents read to me) a few stories, or so they told me. They never told me much else about my younger years, and I never really asked them about it either. I assumed I must have been a boring baby otherwise. A baby obsessed with books. As if that's interesting at all! I'm really glad my parents had me hooked into books, though. My addiction to reading has really helped me succeed in school. I've created normal research and studying time for myself, I can comprehend better than most of the students in my grade (and some in higher grades than me), and constantly complete homework without a sweat. In other words, I'm what most of you would call a nerd. I don't take that as an insult at all, more of a compliment actually. It just shows that I am dedicated to doing what I should do to the best of my ability. Nothing wrong with that, right? I mean, it helped me keep my grades up, and my parents were always pleased with great grades, and expected me to learn from bad ones. They would be so proud of me right now... Speaking of which, I have yet to introduce my parents, named Joey and Stacy Parker. My father, Joey, worked in a bank managing credit. He was a pretty laid back guy and always found ways to make our family laugh. Some of the laughing fits he gave us came from outrageous stories that happened at work. Those always cracked us up, and gave us all side-aches afterwards. It never helped that he told his stories over dinner, sometimes making us almost choke to death. Now, my mother had some stories of her own, but they weren't all that funny sometimes. You see, she was a science teacher at a school that had a few not-so-great mannered kids in it. Since she was a teacher, she had higher expectations for me and I usually lived up to those. She could be pretty strict sometimes, but I loved her all the same. I loved both my parents so very much, which only made their disappearance that much harder to deal with... You see, it all happened when I was 18. I was walking home from the bus one day, and as I approached my house, I noticed the front door slightly cracked open. Immediately getting a bad feeling from this, I approached carefully and quietly, and peeked through the crack. Inside, was a small pool of blood, starting in the kitchen, trailing out to and stopping quite suddenly right in front of the front door. The trail of blood looked smeared, and I worried at what could have taken place. Fear overcoming me, I immediately called 911, and police arrived before long. Nothing else was found at the scene, and a blood sample was taken of the pool. The police were puzzled that no other evidence could be found, and asked if they could have the house for the day for further investigation. I agreed, entered through the back door, packed up whatever I needed, and headed to a nearby friend's house for the night. After explaining my situation, they gladly offered me in with open arms, and offered me the guest bedroom, which I put to use immediately. I didn't sleep much, and when I did, it was filled with nightmares that woke me up a half-hour later. I stayed in my bed most of that day, too tired, mentally and physically, to do anything but. I eventually made it out of bed around 4pm, still tired, but forcing myself to not be a sloth. Around 6 or 7, the house received a call, my friend's mother answered, and explained that the call was for me. It was a police station, with results for the blood found in my home. They had found a match. It was my mother's. I dont remember much, but I believed I had fainted from the news. I awoke to myself on the couch, covered with a blanket, head resting on a pillow. As soon as I remembered where I was, everything flooded back into me. I immediately tensed up, and started quietly sobbing to myself. I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't. Now, both of my parents are suddenly missing, and my mother could be dead as well. As my sobbing slowed, a small glimmer of hope appeared. My mother could have badly injured herself, and my dad, being the wimp he was, tried to drag her out the door to the hospital, as we lived almost right next to it. If that was the case, why did the blood trail stop inside the home? I was puzzled, but had no intent at trying to discover what happened myself and possibly run into the person responsible. Even though the forensics team was finished investigating our home, I was not allowed to move in alone. I decided to move in with my friend, named Brian Russel, since I seemed to have no other choice. Even with all of the attempted uplifting from Brian's parents, I still could not seem to be happy anymore. Everything started to slip: school, friends, social skills, it was all affected. I was forever changed, and slowly slipped into a deeply depressing state. Nothing given to me seemed to do the trick. The Russels tried multiple tactics. There were medications, all kinds of therapy, and many others, but nothing worked. When all hope seemed lost, Brian pulled out one last card to play. He tried to make me watch this TV show called, "My Little Pony; Friendship is Magic". I thought he was crazy! If therapy didn't work, how could a TV show? I couldn't have been anymore wrong. Within the first four episodes, I was hooked. I watched a few episodes every day, trying to absorb as much of the happiness as possible. I couldn't look away for even a second, thinking that if I did, I would miss something that could bring back all of the happiness again. While the show couldn't grant me the happiness I used to feel, it at least brought me out of my depressive state. I was finally able to enjoy things I loved again, the first being reading. I was slowly coming back. I would never be the same again, but I could definitely get better. And I did. My grades became normal, I started gaining my friends back plus some, and I became much better with people. Once I turned 20, I felt as though I could deal with the loss (to an extent) and moved back into my old home, bringing everything with me. As I became familiar with the surroundings again, I started dreading for what I had found here, and felt fear that the person responsible would return for me. My fear never came true, and the dread slowly began to drift away. Friends and neighbors visited often to keep me company while I was alone here, and listened when I needed to talk about what horrible things that could have happened to my mother and father. They were always reassuring and could always raise my spirits back up. As time passed by, I started reminiscing about the great times I had with my parents, and felt a hole in my heart that only they could fill. I did not let it get the best of me again, but it stuck with me all the same. I started taking walks through town, which would help take my mind off things. Since fall was approaching, I had to start bundling up a couple months before everyone else did. I just hated the cold that much. That brings me back to this original day, now that we're all caught up. As I started to near my destination, I was forced to walk from the street onto the snowless ground. The crunching of every step on dead grass started to put my mind into a trance. I looked for a place to rest myself and noticed one bench inside the large park. I walked up to the lone park bench and sat myself down on one end, my brain still reminiscing about the memories I still had of my parents. I remembered my first book I had ever read without their help. I'd felt very proud of myself that day, believing that my reading skill far surpassed my parents'. If you couldn't tell, I was pretty foolish when I was young. Now, however, I was probably the least foolish person I knew, besides my teachers, who were obviously teaching me for a reason, and not the other way around. I was the fool, though. I believed that this walk was just going to clear my mind of some memories. By the time this day would be over, I would realize how much more this walk is going to do for me, and how much my life could change in the blink of an eye.
An Unexpected End to My NightIt was starting to get cold out, and I was starting to run low on memories to reminisce about. I decided that it was time to head home. As I started to get up to start my walk home, I caught a glace of a shadow slipping behind a tree. It was definitely not human, but I couldn't make out any details. I thought nothing of it, and continued on my way. As I continued on my walk, I started catching more and more "shadows", for lack of a better description. I just knew my eyes were playing tricks on me, and I cursed myself for reading a mass amount of horror stories for the past week. Even though they were not real, I couldn't help but become frightened by them. I started to pick up my pace slowly, then gradually faster. By the time I reached my house, I swear I was running so fast that Rainbow Dash would've been jealous. I quickly entered, slammed the door shut, and locked the gateway between me and the cold, creepy night. I'm not sure Luna would have really liked her night to be talked about like that, but the truth sometimes hurts, and I'm not one to lie much. In order to calm my nerves, of course, I started reading. Not just any book, though. There was one genre of book I wanted to try out today that I haven't read before. I walked past my bookshelf and kneeled down to pick up the plastic bag, heavy and full with books of varying genres. I brought the bag over to the bookshelf, placing the bag down with care just far enough away from me and the bookshelf. I started to grab the books inside and organize them into the many book-stuffed shelves that stood before me. Since there were already so many books, I had to start removing the ones I had already read and placed them into a pile all their own. Later, I would plan on storing them away, but for now, I leave them as is. I start sorting based on genre, then author, then important term, achieving maximum organization. As soon as all desired books are found new homes on my shelf, I reached into the bag to find the one book I've been saving to read tonight. Not an adventure, horror, or any other genre. This is one genre that I am surprised I'm even going to read. A sappy, trashy, romance novel. I KNOW, right? Not saying that they're bad or anything, just that I never would've thought I would ever find myself reading one. I've always been kinda into more adventurous stories, especially if there is some romance involved. I couldn't ever imagine myself reading a story based solely on romance; I feel that there needs to be something else happening. Thanks to this show and the multiple fanfics online, I've started taking a liking to them. Today was the day that I moved away from the romantic pony fanfics and into the romantic novels written about my own kind. With the book in my possession, I moved into my bedroom, placing the book onto my bed. I then moved into the nearby bathroom, cleaned myself up, and almost had a heart attack when I turned around to return to my bedroom. Standing in the doorway to my room, was yet another shadow. I swear, I might have had a minor heart attack right then and there. If I did, I never knew it. I was so shocked about this, this thing, standing in my doorway. I couldn't call it a shadow anymore, that would be lying. As far as I could tell, this was no shadow. This was a being all it's own, though what it looked like, I could not describe very well. To me, it almost seemed like a pitch-black mist, taking no definite shape, but kept loosely together. As I was trying to document as much of this as possible into my brain, the thing just evaporated into thin air. I stood there, staring right where it had been seconds before. I couldn't think of any explanation, and I couldn't think in general. I decided to just go to bed, read my book, fall asleep, and worry about it tomorrow. I clambered into bed, pulled the sheets over my legs, and lit a candle to enjoy my reading. I always preferred reading by candlelight instead of a lamp. It seems to create a better atmosphere. The atmosphere, however, couldn't have felt worse. The whole room felt as if a thousand dark presences had entered, tensing up my entire body and causing the exact opposite of relaxation. With this sudden shift of atmosphere, I couldn't even force myself into the book, and had to stop after the second page. Feeling cheated out, I decided to skip directly to sleeping the night away. For an entire half hour, I sat, listening to all the sounds inside my house. There were none. That spooked me worse of all, as there was always a slight creaking noise every now and then that the house gave off. This night, the house had suddenly decided to change its natural ways, and gave off no sound. Now, the house felt strangely eerie, forcing me to throw the blanket over my head. It reminded me of the time I would always do that as a youngling, but I hadn't felt the need to do that since I had been 16. This night changed everything, and I had never felt so creeped out in my life. Suddenly, a combination of a bright flash and thundering boom caused my heart to race a little. Just my luck, I thought. First this whole house goes abnormally silent on me, now a storm? How am I ever going to get sleep now? As if answering my question, a howling wind started picking up just outside my window. I guess Mother Nature didn't plan on me getting sleep tonight, with all this noise she's making. I didn't think too much about it, and instead tried to read my novel. Nature then tried to one-up on me once again, forcing my bedroom window open with its winter wind and blowing out my candle in the process. Cursing Mother Nature for her competitive spirit, I rose myself from my bed to shut the window. As soon as my foot touched the ground, the horrid atmosphere returned, after I had forgotten it had even existed. Every step to the window sent a shiver up my spine, but the wind wasn't causing any of it. After what felt like an eternity, I was finally at the window. Before I closed it, I wanted to take a look at nature in action. As I looked out, I almost gasped in surprise. There was not a single cloud in the whole sky. Stunned, I wondered if I was going insane, imagining storms that somehow happen in the middle of winter with no clouds around. I shifted my gaze downward to see if there were any signs of a storm down below. I just saw more evidence to prove I was going insane. There, standing on the side walk, had to be at least 5 more "shadows". I was getting the feeling that, although I could not see any sort of face or eyes, their attention was focused on me and me alone. It was too much, and I backed out of the window immediately. I slammed the window shut, and started turning around to dive right back under the covers. I didn't get that far. As soon as I had turned 180 degrees back to my bed, a blunt object was slammed against my skull. I fell to the floor in a heap I blacked out... As I started coming to, I could feel a slight breeze, and I could tell I was outside. The next thing I noticed was that I was being dragged off somewhere. In the distance, I could see the cul de sac I lived, and it was slowly losing size as I was dragged further along. I tried craning my neck around to see what was dragging me from my home, but to no avail. Whatever it was, it continued to drag me by my shirt collar, quietly grunting the entire time. Eventually, the dragging stopped, only for my head to slam against the ground. On impulse, I attempted to get up and run. I didn't even get as far as adjusting my hands before they turned immobile, along with my feet. I glanced at my hands and feet, expecting hands, grasping at them. I saw no hands, ropes, anything. Just this immense black that seemed to surround both my feet and hands. If I didn't know better, it almost looked as if it was unico- "Hey, human! Can you understand me?" I scanned about, searching for the source of the voice. After a few moments, and a sore neck, I found the source of the voice calling to me. Immediately after finding it, I wished I hadn't. The voice was coming from yet another "shadow", with multiple others clustered around it. My lungs seemed to collapse upon themselves, and I felt as if I couldn't breathe. Although I was still frightened by these beings, the sound of them didn't seem threatening, and my body relaxed a little, allowing me to think to an extent. I still couldn't believe that this thing, which didn't even look solid, had just dragged me far from my house, maybe even being responsible for knocking me out. Realizing this, I felt my head where I had been hit. I couldn't feel a thing, no swelling, blood, nothing. Before I could even begin to think of how that could be possible, the shadow spoke again. "Human, I will not ask again. Can you understand me?!" As I continued to recover my senses, I was able to choke out a small, "Yes." The shadow showed no emotion, but continued to speak. "It seems we will have to ask you to aid us in your own kidnapping, I'm afraid. Your weight is past our capacity of strength, and we cannot continue to carry or drag you anymore. I will ask you to follow us and to not try anything funny. Do you understand?" I thought it humorous to have to aid in my own kidnapping, but I felt I had no other choice. I nodded my head. No words were spoken in response, but the shadows seemed to start moving in one direction. As I followed, I started running situations into my head, most of them ending up with my death or imprisonment. I felt tremendously helpless as I continued walking towards what could be my doom. Eventually, the group came to a clearing. Inside, scattered about, were a mass amount of shadows, with numbers maybe close to a hundred. I didn't really feel like focusing on the sheer numbers, so I decided to try and examine the clearing itself. The whole place seemed to be just recently cleared out, and many of the stumps were not removed from the ground, as if the clearing of the ground had been rushed. That wasn't what caught my attention at the moment. On the ground, throughout the whole clearing, were lines and symbols of sorts. Not knowing what these could possibly mean, I do know that it meant one thing for me: I had just been captured by a cult of sorts,and I was most likely a sacrifice to their god or something. I started to sweat at the thought. One of the shadows must've noticed my nervousness, and approached me. "Please, sir, we do not offer harm and do not wish for you to be frightened. I didn't enjoy the thought of having to take you from your home, let alone having you knocked out, but it was felt that it was necessary in order to cause the least amount of trouble. I am unable to explain everything that is going to happen here at the moment, but once we are finished, I plan on telling you everything." This voice had a sense of deep caring, but still spoke with a high-and-mighty tone, and I assumed that moment that this might be the leader. Something about the tone of voice made me want to trust it, but I just couldn't find the heart to. They DID kidnap me, after all. "Please follow me, so we can get you situated for the ritual." That scared me to a whole new level, and I almost started trembling as I felt a few more beads of sweat roll down my brow. Immediately seeing this, the presumed leader quickly changed her tone. "Oh, please dont be so scared! Nothing will happen, I promise. This will be absolutely pain-free, so you have nothing to worry about at all! That is, if pain is what you are worried about." Strangely, the shadows seemed like they cared about me overall. That's usually not a factor for any sort of kidnappers, and thoroughly surprised me, to say the least. I started calming down and followed this shadow to the center of the clearing. As we did so, I started noticing some of the shadows moving as well, starting to moving towards the circle I was located in. Some of which took places inside the circle, near the strange symbols, and others just outside the edges of the ritual grounds. It seemed that the ritual was close to taking place, causing my nervousness to return. It wasn't as extreme as when I had first stepped in the clearing, and I prevented my nervousness from revealing itself to the outside world. We had finally reached the center of the circle, the one point where all the lines eventually met. Before I could even start to ask what I should be doing, I felt my feet swept out from under me, and prepared for impact with the ground. Of course, I never did. I was floating in midair, not even a foot above the ground. I couldn't feel anything that could be lifting me up, only this weird tingling feeling all over my body. That's when I realized that this was the same exact thing as what happened when I tried to run. I was being held here by some unknown force, and it seemed that I would stay that way. As I floated, a shadow came forward, and spoke with the same voice as the leader's. "Please, just try to lie still. Any sort of movement might cause a loss in concentration, and if any of us lose our concentration, the results could be disastrous. Are you ready to start?" That last sentence surprised me. They were obviously the ones in control, and knew what they were doing here. Yet, they were asking ME if I was ready. Honestly, I dont think I was ready for any of this to occur, but I didn't think I could ever get more ready. I turned to them and said, "Well, I dont think I'll be going anywhere like this. As for being ready, I'm not really sure why you're asking me, since I have no idea what's about to happen. I really should be the one asking YOU that question!" As I finished, the shadow gave no response to emotion, until I heard what sounded like a stifled laugh. With that, the shadow started shimmering, the mists slowly condensing together as a shape started to form. I wasn't very surprised that the shadow wasn't a true form, as I don't think that a gas being had the ability to do everything it had done to me so far. Once the shape finished forming, and the shimmering dispersed, I realized that I was no closer to discovering what my kidnappers really were. It's entire body was covered, head to toe (unless it had none, I couldn't tell), by a black cloak. A large hood was placed over what I presumed to be the head, not letting enough light into it to see any details of whatever inside. The only conclusion I could make was based on it's size. It was much smaller than I expected, guessing it didn't even reach 5 feet in height. How something so small could have dragged me from my home, I had no idea. Before I started to think of some ways how it could be possible, the creature spoke. "Brothers and sisters, the first step to our goal is almost completed! Camoran is finally in our possession, and our ritual almost prepared. All that is left to do is to send him back with us, so he may fight for our cause and achieve our ultimate goal!" I suddenly stopped paying attention to the speech, and more at a detail of the speech. They knew EXACTLY who I was! I dont really think I have any friends who were shorter than 5 feet, nor did I know anyone who was. As I pondered how my name had somehow been know to my captors, the leader continued with it's speech. "I ask of you, every single one of you, to place your strongest effort into ensuring that this ritual is a success. If either of you fails to put forth your strongest effort, it could cause results that you would rather wish not happen. " As the speech continued, more and more of the shadows began shimmering and took forms of their own. Almost every single one looked exactly the same, only because they wore the same cloaks as their leader and no parts of their body could be seen. Every other pony seemed to be much smaller than the leader even, maybe around 3-4 feet tall. I DEFINITELY didn't have any friends THAT short, so I guessed I would have to wait and see. While everyone kept changing back into their true forms, the leader's speech was coming to a close: "Now, Children of the Shadows, prepare yourselves, start channeling your magic, and aid in the fulfillment of our Order!" Everyone cheered, besides me, as I lie here confused as ever. I couldn't really understand what most of the speech was supposed to be about. The only thing I got out of it was a name, and it wasn't so different as what I was already calling them. As soon as all cheering was finished, the bodies seemed to lower themselves closer to the ground. Soon after, their bodies began to start glowing, faintly at first, then much more clearly, surrounding themselves with an all to familiar black field. Once everyone else had begun the ritual, the leader walked towards me and spoke. "Remember, dont try to move, and this will all be over as quickly as possible, okay?" I could only nod, still enveloped by whatever held me still. As soon as it noticed my nod, the leader also lowered itself, and a dark glow began forming. This glow darkened much faster, and became much darker with time. Every time I looked, it seemed as if I was staring into a black hole that threatened to engulf me whole. Luckily, I was held tight and would not move in case that started to happen. Something did start happening though. All around the clearing, the symbols I had noticed earlier started to glow the same color as everything else here, but they did something else than glow. They started raising themselves out of the ground. As my lungs slowly shrunk as all of my breath left me, the symbols continued rising out of the ground, one by one, and floating over to where I lay. They floated until the stood in front of me, floating no higher than I. As soon as the last one reached me, the shapes started spinning around me. It started slowly, like a carousel, but sped up faster and faster, until my eyes couldn't keep up anymore. I was forced to stare straight ahead in order to not sicken myself from the spinning symbols. As they spun faster and faster, I noticed that they started forming an image. The image was of a human, but it wasn't for long. It eventually collapsed into what looked like a large, black blob. the blob started swirling, compacting, stretching, almost as if it was made of clay. Eventually, the blob stopped and began taking shape. Soon after, the blob was starting to look of a familiar form, but I never did get to see if it was being molded into what I believed it was. Instead, the darnedest thing happened. My cell phone started ringing, quite loudly, inside my left pocket. It was the pocket closest to the huge black mass that had gotten this whole ritual going; the leader. Almost immediately, every trace of black dispersed from its body, and a annoyed voice came from its direction. "Can you please stop all of that noise, wherever it is coming from?! Otherwise, you will cause some of us to lose-" As soon as the mistake was noticed, it was far too late. The symbols, which had started spinning so quickly that they seemed like a blur to the eyes, shot out from the middle, knocking anything in their way into the air. They stopped right at the treeline, and continued spinning at the same rate as before. By now, everyone had lost their concentration and watched in horror as the events unfolded. The symbols spun faster and faster, and began rising up into the air. At the speed the symbols were spinning, a tornado-like gust of wind had begun forming, threatening to blow everyone away. I was still being held against my will, so I wasn't so worried myself. I started worrying as soon as I noticed what was happening above me. All of the dispersed black, smoke-like substance that had surrounded everyone was collecting into one large cloud of pure blackness high above me, thanks to the howling winds the still-spinning symbols were creating. I wasn't the only one who noticed the same cloud. Everyone else did too, and reacted out of pure fear scattering into one direction: away. The only one that stayed was their leader, who had stayed behind and tried to free me from whatever was binding me here. I was really hoping it would be a fast job, as the symbols had started shooting purple lightning-like bolts into the dark mass that has started to grow exponentially. I truly hoped that I was dreaming this whole scenario, but this just felt all to real. Looking back, I noticed that my lone captor had given up on freeing me. Instead, over the roaring of the wind, it spoke to me. "Quick! Give me something of yours!" I stared, dumbfounded. "What?! Why?" A quick response was given. "In case this accident DOESN'T kill you, we can find you!" Couldn't argue with that. "Reach into my pocket! Take what ever you can grab!" It immediately dug into my pockets, and pulled out my phone. It wasn't using hands, but its mouth, as far as I could tell. One question kept gnawing at me though. "Wait, one last thing! Who are you?" "Oh, me? I'm-" That was the last word I heard at the time. All this time, the cloud hanging above us both had kept draining energy from the symbols by way of the purple "lightning". The amount of energy the cloud was picking up was too much for it, and had to get rid of it somehow. If it received the energy by lightning, why not release it by lightning? And that is just what it did. Suddenly, the once somewhat calm clearing became the sight for the weirdest lightning storm I had ever seen. Seeing that its luck was being pushed by staying too long, the lone captor began to rush off, stopped itself, turned around, and gave me one last look before escaping into the forest. I almost felt betrayed, but I had never fully trusted them from the beginning. I mean, they DID kid- My thought never got farther, as my brain was then flooded with signals from all over my body, explaining that everything in my body was being stricken with a bolt of lightning, forcing me into complete shock and blinding me with the light being expelled. Everything was burning with the force of 1,000 suns (or so it felt), and my brain felt as if it was overloading and about to permanently shut down. Luckily, the burning sensation disappeared, only to be replaced with the feeling of falling at great speed. I opened my eyes, hoping I was just feeling things. I really wished I could hope for something that WAS happening, instead of being proved wrong all of the time. Once open, my eyes betrayed my hopes and showed me that I was high, very high. I was still above a forest, but I was falling way to fast to even hope to survive. As I was nearing my end, I said my last prayer to Celestia, and awaited my fate, eyes shut so I didn't see it coming. After many sounds of snapping, cracking, breaking, and enough pain to last me a life-time, everything was finally quiet. I slightly opened my eyes, and saw trees everywhere, but I had no care for that now. I wanted some rest. So, in the middle of the forest, with no protection whatsoever, I had the best sleep I think I've ever had.
New Land, New Friends, New Problems(Hope everyone had a happy New Year's!) I woke up the next day, sore as I have ever felt in my life. Even if that was the best night's sleep I've ever had, it didn't beat the worst morning soreness I've ever had. I woke up to very new surroundings, and it took me a while to put all of the pieces together. I was in the middle of a forest now, with no idea which way led home. I thought of finding the tallest tree, and possibly finding my way home from there. As soon as I tried to stand, blinding pain surged through my body, and I was forced to stop immediately. I didn't remember what caused the pain, but I remembered that quickly as well. I looked over my entire body, and saw plenty of cuts, bruises, and scratches, but I knew the real damage couldn't be seen. Figuring that both of my legs could possibly be broken, I started dragging my self along, hoping to find a vantage point of sorts. As I dragged myself along, I couldn't help but notice a strange feeling throughout my entire body. It felt like like I was being tickled, except it didn't make me laugh or anything. I tried to shrug it off, but the feeling pursued me, and wasn't going to be lost easily. I gave up trying, and continued to pull myself along, inch by inch. I was pretty surprised that no wolves or other predators had appeared, with all of the pained groans I was making. It could be a sound that the didn't recognize, and fled from it. I had much worse problems than that right now, like if I'll ever get out of here. Then, a thought hit me like a rock. My phone! I reached for my pocket, dug inside, and found it... ...empty. Another forgotten memory had returned. I had given my phone away, to my mysterious captors. Maybe they could find me in time, like they said, and help me out a little. I could use some help right about now. Pulling yourself will only get you so far so fast. And now, I felt as if I couldn't go any farther. I let my body flatten onto the ground, absolutely hating myself for my bad luck. I never really get myself into crazy predicaments before, why did I have to start now? I decided to just lie around, and hope my captors return before I'm eaten, or die of lack of necessities. As I took one last look around, I noticed one tree standing much higher among the rest. This could be the break I was looking for! I continued my crawling, finding new strength in hope. As I approached the tree, I started noticing that it stood at the base of a cliff, one that would surly injure me further, and possibly cause my death. Gulping, I continued forward. I eventually reached the base of the trunk, and praised Celestia that there were branches low to the ground. I grabbed the closest branch, and started pulling my self up, careful to not put any weight onto my legs. I climbed branch after branch, determined to reach the top. As I climbed, the feeling reoccurred, much stronger this time, causing me to almost lose my grip. I clutched the branch for dear life, as the sensation dissipated from my body, except for my legs. The feeling became so strong there, I couldn't feel any part of my legs, feet, or toes. It didn't matter, I couldn't use either one of them anyway. I restarted my climb and didn't stop for anything until I had reached the top. As I hung above the rest of the treeline, all of my hopes vanished. There wasn't anything visible except for trees, trees, and more trees. As I continued my scan, I discovered a plume of smoke rising above the trees, higher than I was. It was my best bet, and tried to remembered the direction it was in before I started heading down. Another wave of sensations struck, focused on my hands this time. I panicked, and quickly started to climb down. I wasn't quite fast enough. I lost all sensation in my hands, and was forced to let go. As I fell, I smacked into every possible branch, forcing more pain into my system. I slammed into the ground right next to the edge of the cliff. I breathed a sigh of relief, and was feeling quite happy it didn't turn out worse. Then, I started hearing cracking noises. I had forgotten to check of thin the rock was overlooking the cliff, because if I did, I would've noticed that it was very, very thin. The rock eventually broke off, and I tried to hold on and screamed for dear life. The rock broke apart, unfortunately for me, and I started tumbling headfirst down the slope. Every impact sent jolts of pain right up my spine, until I had almost passed out from it. I had finally reached the bottom, in horrible condition, with pain coursing through every vessel of me. As I started to pass out, I noticed a figure running at me, but was gone by the time it reached me. I eventually came back to consciousness, and I could feel my body moving without any effort at all. I scanned about, and made the assumption that I was being carried, to where, I wasn't sure. As for whatever was carrying me, I had no clue. Whatever it was, though, had the softest texture I had probably ever felt. It also expelled an awful lot of heat, just the perfect amount to relax my body and keep me comfortable. Feeling as tired as ever, I started drifting off to sleep, ushering one last groan of pain. My carrier seemed to respond, speeding up it's pace until my hair felt like it was blowing through the wind. Smiling at the feeling, I finally faded out. I awoke again to still new surroundings, except this time, I was inside. My whole body seemed to be aching, as if there were boulders resting on top of me. Any sort of movement caused much discomfort, and so I was forced to move sparingly. I felt as if there were a thousand little electrical shocks throughout my skin, and it felt really relaxing. Forcing myself to not fall back asleep, I shook my head around until I felt certain I would stay awake. My eyes were hazy, and everything seemed to be a blur around me anyways, so shaking my head around like that almost made me sick. I checked my sleeping area, looking for the source of the shocks, which I believed was to be found somewhere close to where I had slept. Shifting my aching body to get a better look, I checked everywhere I could. Under the couch, behind it, everywhere something could be hidden. I had one last place to look, and that was under my covers. As I lifted them up, I could see a massive amount of things wrong with what I was seeing, but there was only a few that were definitely not expected. Only one of those really stood out for me though. I. Was. Naked. I wasn't wearing a single piece of clothing. I couldn't really find out how that could be possible, since I believed I was wearing clothes when I was being brought here. If that was the case, the only way my clothes would be gone, would be my host/hostess. I blushed a little at the idea of a hostess being forced to do that, but shook the idea out of my mind and continued to play "Find the Difference" with my legs. That is, if they could still be called legs. What I had seen were not legs. There were no feet, no toes, no anything, really. There was, however, A LOT of hair, all over them. And not just any hair. BLUE hair. Completely covered in blue hair! I couldn't even see my own skin anymore. I couldn't believe this sudden transformation. Had I suddenly become a monster? I checked over the rest of my body, and found nothing unchanged. My face, my hands (which weren't hands anymore), my whole body was completely new. I didn't look new, since I had managed to cover it with all sorts of injuries.I could only faintly remember how I had received them, but shrugged it of as lack of sleep. My body was starting to wake up more, and my eyes could now see much more clearly as the haze was lifted. Looking around, I started to get excited. Of all the places to have been brought I was brought to a house filled with books. The whole floor I was located seemed to be just for the purpose of containing books. That's when this whole place looked so very familiar. I wracked my brain, hoping I could remember just where I had seen this place. Then, I had it. I was in Twilight Sparkle's home, the library. Everything about My Little Pony flooded back to me, and I almost squealed with joy from this discovery. I couldn't believe it! Could I actually be in the show? These few days have been really strange, so I shouldn't be too surprised. If this was Twilight's house however, where is every- My question had an answer before I finished it. Above me, I heard a door slamming, along with a patter of footsteps. My heart started racing. I was going to meet Twilight Sparkle face-to-face! The footsteps grew closer and closer, reaching the stairs, then slowed down until it sounded like light steps coming down. I assumed that Twi thought I was still asleep, and wasn't trying to wake me up. As I started thinking of what I was going to say to her, a head peeked out from the stairs. It wasn't Twi, but her assistant, Spike. "Oh good, you're awake. I was afraid that you were going to sleep all day. Cant be stealing the roles of dragons, you know." I tried responding, but my voice just barely squeaked out from being underused. "What..." Spike cut me off with a wave of his hand. "Dont be asking me any questions now, I don't know about anything before Twilight brought you home. Man, you were a mess. I was starting to get worried that Twi couldn't save you, but she seems to have bandaged you up like a pro. Must've been that book she was reading while she was fixing you up." I wasn't startled at all by that last statement. It's been shown all over that Twilight is always reading up on how to do something as she is doing it. It's just a comedic addition to her love of books. I tried speaking again, and found my voice to have improved. "Do...do you know when she'll be back?" "Oh, not to long I believe. She was just heading out to retrieve some more medicine." Spike pointed to a coffee table not far from where I was laying. Placed all around were multiple first aid items, all with familiar names that had been changed to fit Equestria. Most of them weren't even opened yet, which confused me. "Why does she need more? At least half of these are not even opened yet!" Spike rubbed the back of his scaly head. "Yeah, that's Twilight for ya. I think she just felt the need to be over-prepared. Most likely, she's buying everything as a way to double-check herself. There was this one time where she made me write three different-" I knew exactly what he was talking about, and finished the sentence for him. "-checklists, right? She had also forgotten to write a letter to Princess Celestia that week." He was taken back, mouth wide open. Once he got over the shock, his eyes accusingly squinted at me. "Yeah, that's right. How'd you know? Been following us around? I bet you have. No one could possibly know exactly what happened, especially a pony whom no one's ever seen before. I mean, there's NO WAY some random pony can be dragged into my house, gravely injured, and somehow know everything about everyone." I gave a sly smirk and whispered, "Wanna bet?" Spike gave a nervous expression, but gave a determined stare and exclaimed, "You're on!" I grinned, and motioned him over. Once he got close, I whispered his deepest, darkest secret straight from his ear to his brain. His face heated up to the point where I thought it would melt right off. He jumped back, stammering every word out of his mouth. "B-b-but...h-how!? I merely laughed. Seeing as I could just destroyed any hope of privacy, I stopped laughing and tried to calm him down. "Spike! Calm down, no one else knows your secret! I just merely happen to know, that's all!" That didn't seem to help. It worsened the situation, if anything. "How do you know then? Who told you!? I swear when I find them I'll-" "SPIKE!! Calm down!!" He snapped out of his rant, and spun around to face me. I had to calm him down, because if he didn't, he might never trust me. And if Spike didn't, Twilight wouldn't either. "Look, I may know about your darkest secret and all, but I'm not the one to start going off and telling everyone about it. Believe me when I say this, I swear to Celestia that WILL NOT tell a single person about this, EVER. I'll even Pinkie Pie Swear if you want me too!" Spike's face eventually drained of nervousness, and he took a deep breath. Once finished, he suspiciously stared at me, as if looking into my soul. After what felt like an eternity, he finally spoke. "How do I know I can trust you with something so...fragile?" "How about a nice Fire Ruby?" His eyes lit up like stars at the request. "How could you possibly-" "Trust me, I'll find a way." Spike looked satisfied, but had one more thing to say before he was quiet about this. "Alright, I'll trust you, but dont expect me to go jump off a bridge for you or something. That is, until I get my Fire Ruby." I chuckled a little at this. Spike was actually a good guy, and it feels much different talking to him in person than listening to him talk on the show. I can actually get a real personality from him. Once I had stopped chuckling, I looked back at Spike. He had pulled up a chair next to the couch, and had a quizzical look on his face. Something seemed to be bothering him. "What is it, Spike? Why are you just staring at me?" He thought a moment, then spoke. "The way you talk, it's much different than anypony I heard. You dont use the same words as everyone I've heard. You aren't from around here, are you?" I tried to think of an answer to his question, but ultimately failed. I just couldn't seem to remember anything before waking up in the forest. I had no idea where I was from, what I was doing here in the first place, and even who I was. I skulked at my lack of memory, and Spike could see that. "What? Cant remember?" I raised my eyes to meet his. "Honestly, no I cant. I cant remember much of anything, not even who I am. All I can remember is everything I know about here." Spike raised an eyebrow. "You still haven't told me how you know all of this about Equestria." "That might be something I'll share later. It could be quite life-changing for everyone." Spike began to pout. "Oh, alright, but I'm not forgetting about it so easily. I'll find out sooner than later!" I snickered. "I'm sure you will." But right now, I need something to drink. What do you have?" Spike got up off his chair. "Hold up, I'll go check." Spike walked behind the couch, and in a few moments, I could hear the rattling of bottles. After a while of this, I heard Spike call out, "Looks like we only have carrot juice. That okay?" Carrot juice? Oh, right. Ponies are vegetarians. Seeing as there was nothing else, I couldn't see why not. "Uh, sure, that's fine" Spike brought the whole bottle in, along with two glasses. I raised my eyebrow at him. He looked and said, "This juice is my favorite brand. You'll see soon enough. " He unscrewed the cap, a poured us both a drink, and screwed the cap back on. We both grabbed our drinks, clinked them together, and drank. The taste of the carrot juice was astounding, and made my spine shiver as it journeyed down my throat. Once I had finished my drink, I had the shivering feeling for a while longer, but I felt it was worth it. I had to watch Spike continue drinking, since I was much larger than him and could drink more at a time. Once he had finally finished, he looked at me and immediately noticed my shivering. "You've never had carrot juice, have you?" I could only shake my head. Any sort of speech would just come out choppy. "Man, this stuff sucks on the first try. You shouldv'e told me, I would've given you a smaller amount! With as much as you drank you might..." I never really heard the rest, as I was stricken with huge chills all over me. Spike wasn't kidding! This stuff did horrible things to you on your first drink. I'm sure it wasn't usually this bad, since I was given a large amount. It wasn't long before the chills had stopped, and I was left breathing heavily, eyes almost popping out of my skull. Spike was leaning over me, watching me with hopeful eyes. I guessing he was hoping that he didn't just kill me. I started slowing my breathing down to normal, and my eyes started retracting. As I started calming down, Spike started blurting out an apology. He must've been nervous too, as he was speaking at a mile a minute. I just put a hand, or hoof, over his mouth, quieting him down. "Spike, I know you didn't mean it. Sure, you could've just about killed me, but I'm not dead. So please, dont go hating yourself for something that didn't happen, as I'm not going to hate you for it either." I swear, Spike almost shed a tear as he suddenly gave me a bear hug. After a few moments of being stunned, I returned the hug. Spike didn't make it last too long, lest it start feeling creepy. As he pulled away, I KNOW I saw a tear being flicked away as he started to speak. "S-sorry, it's just that...I dont think I can remember the last time someone has ever spoken to me like that. I just kinda got filled with emotions, ya know?" I smiled at him. "I understand. Mind pouring me another drink?" He smiled back, and poured us both another drink. I took mine and almost started to take a sip, but stopped myself and asked, "This wont almost kill me again, will it?" He just chuckled, "No, it's the first time that gets everyone." I eyed him, and he continued. "Trust me." I laughed to myself, and took a sip. My tongue was flooded with the same enjoyable taste, but the were no chills afterwards. I downed this drink faster than my first, but Spike just kept a normal pace. As soon as he finished his drink, I asked him a question that I planned on asking him one last time: "Could I have just one more glass?" I couldn't remember how many drinks we had. We had to have gone through a few bottles, as I've noticed Spike just disappear at points and then reappear with a new bottle in hand. As we drank, we became more and more open to each other. The conversation kept drifting around, but the topic was usually about the many adventures Spike and the Mane 6 had together. I mostly enjoyed teasing him about the time when the Diamond Dogs stole Rarity, and how he tried to act like a hero, only for Rarity to free herself. He blushed a little in embarrassment every time I brought it up, but I told him not to worry about it. I was pretty sure that no one remembered too much about that day anyway. We continued talking through the day into the night, for maybe 5-6 hours. All of the drinks I had caught up to me, and nature started calling on a phone that wouldn't stop ringing. I tried holding the feeling back as long as possible, but there was only one thing I could do now. "Hey Spike, uh, where is the restroom?" He gave me a confused look. "It's on the second floor, but I doubt you'll be able to make it up there, with your broken hooves and all." I had completely forgotten about my injuries. Still even if my "hooves" were broken, I still had a way around. "It'll be fine. I tried doing this before, and it worked last time." Spike said nothing, but shrugged his shoulders. Trying to cause as little amount of pain possible, I tried to slide myself off of the couch and onto the floor. It was much harder than it sounded, since I had only two finger-less hooves to work with. As I continued to struggle toward the edge of the couch, Spike shook his head and sighed. He jumped off his chair, and waled over to me. Before I even knew what was going on, Spike had pulled me off the couch with a solid thud. For just a small baby dragon, Spike had a lot of strength in him. He wasn't just trying to pull me off the couch, though. He continued to drag me across the floor, towards the stairs. "Um, Spike? You dont need to-" He grunted out, "You're not going to get anywhere in your condition, just thought I would help you out a bit." "But-" "No, it's fine." He continued to drag me until we got to the stairs. He stopped in front of them and said, "Sorry if this starts to hurt, but I cant really do much else to bring you upstairs." I nodded, and braced myself for any pain that was to be brought from the stairs. It was a pretty bumpy ride, and my rump was pretty sore as we reached the top stair. It wasn't as sore as it could've been; Spike had to take a few breaks on the way up. Once the top stair had been overcome, Spike fell onto his back and started panting heavily. Like I had said before, Spike had a lot of strength in him, and I was amazed he did what he did with so few breaks in between. In between his gasps for air, Spike said,"I...cant carry...you anymore. I...think you can...get there by...yourself now." I nodded, and began to make my way to the bathroom. I inched closer and closer, hoping to Celestia I would make it in time. After one final effort I reached the bathroom, and shut the door as I entered. After I had finished up in the bathroom, I dragged myself back through the doorway. The bathroom had felt...different in some way. I couldn't quite explain it, but it was as if it was a new experience. I had no idea where that feeling could've come from. I'll have to see if I can possibly remember my past, as I cant remember a single thing about it. Just as I was nearing the stairs, I heard a conversation going on. Based on the tone of voice's I was hearing, it sounded like a heated argument. I could hear Spike somewhere in there, but there was another voice too. It wasn't one I've heard before, but I had the same feeling as when I was in the bathroom. Somehow, I already knew that voice, but I didn't. I decided to not worry about it now, and tried to eavesdrop on the conversation. The first voice I heard was Spike's. "Look, I told you once and I'll say it again. I HAVE NOT seen a human around here. There hasn't been a human in Equestria in thousands of years, so why would there be one now?" "I'm not trying to cause trouble, but using this item, I have tracked the human here. If you are hiding him, I would suggest that you can bring him out please." Human? That sounded familiar. Where have I heard that before... Suddenly, I had remembered something. I...I think I was a human. Yes, that's right. A human! Aren't they looking for a human? Who were they even? What would they want with a human? Even if they did know I was once a human, would I even be useful as a pony? Better to not find out, wait to see what their motives were for said human. They continued their conversation as I thought about this, so I missed most of it. "Well, if you do see a human out anywhere, please just let me know. I do believe his name's Camoran. So if you do find him, use that name. He should respond." "Well, what would I do then?" "Just bring him to me. I'll be staying with a friend in a cottage at the edge of town, I'm sure you've heard of Fluttershy, right?" "Of course I have. Who hasn't?" I heard a light giggle before the mysterious pony continued. "Well, that should make it easier to find me then. Just come and find me if you hear about something." Pause. "Oh, and by the way, my name's Eclipse. Nice to meet you!" "And I'm Spike." "Oh, I know that. You are the only dragon here, remember?" Slight laugh. "Oh, right. Forgot for a moment." "Well, I have to get going. Hope to hear from you!" I heard the door close shut. As soon as I heard that. I peeked around the corner. Spike was sitting on the couch, head in his hands. Seeing that the pony was for sure gone, I slid from behind the corner and started down the stairs. Spike looked up, and walked over to help, but I just waved for him to stay. Watching as I slowly slid my way down, Spike asked, "Did you hear any of that conversation?" Trying to do two things at once, I replied, "Mostly towards the end, I think. Name's Eclipse, right?" Spike nodded. "Yeah, weirdest mare I ever saw. Seems to be good acquaintances with Fluttershy though. Still dont know what a human would be doing here. We haven't seen one in over a thousand years! What would one be doing here anyway?" "Not so sure myself, should we ask Twi?" "Probably. Where is she anyway? She told me she would be back hours ago! I hope she didn't get herself into trouble." "I dont think Twi would do that, she's smarter than that." "I wouldn't be so sure. She's gotten herself into some nasty trouble sometimes." "Yeah, I hope she's ok..." I lost my footing, and slid down a few steps before crashing onto my back in a heap. Wanting to get something off my chest, I asked, "Hey Spike?" He snapped out of deep thought. "Yeah?" "What if I told you...that I was-" Suddenly, a shriek tore through the night, filling the air with an eerie sensation. "What in the hay was that?" "Come on, we gotta check it out!" Spike looked appalled. "Wha...what?! You dont plan on going out there, do you?" He gave me a frightened look; he must've seen the immense determination in my eyes. "That's exactly what I was planning."
Ponyfy Code Page 1This page is meant to show you just exactly what every original character looks like. There will be multiple, since some characters come later in the story. Use the website and codes below! (I do not own the Pony Creator nor do I take credit for it.) Website to view these on: http://generalzoi.deviantart.com/art/Pony-Creator-Full-Version-254295904 Camoran: 402N104000062463FE9696000002F7755SJ1837000200002505529849D80FE0S107F3FCC004CB2
Being a Hero Never Seemed to Cause Mental Sickness Before...Honestly, I cant tell you exactly what happened after I got out of that library. Everything was a blur; I was just so focused on reaching the source of the scream, I didn't care what ponies I ran into, or who yelled after me. I rounded a corner and found an alleyway, and I could see movement from inside. There were about 4 ponies, as far as I could see. There were three ponies surrounding one, presumably the one who had screamed. The three ponies had created a semi-circle around the one, who had been backed into a corner. Obviously, the single pony was in some trouble, and I felt inclined to help. Quickly, I rushed forward, trying to put myself between the one in trouble and the ones causing trouble. With a flying leap, I jumped over one of the troublemakers and planted my hooves into the ground in front of the lone pony. I stared down the three ponies, attempting to intimidate them to leave. If my intimidation tactic failed, then I would have a tough fight ahead of me. It might be a fight I wont walk away from either.They were like any stereotypical group of ruffians. They wore dirty, ragged clothes. Most of them were covered in dirt, scratches, or both. All three of them were stallions, and two of them looked pretty burly. One of them, however, looked young. I wouldn't be surprised if he was the son of one of the other two. As I continued to stare, the middle stallion took a step towards me. "Well well well. What do we have here? Somepony trying to be a hero? How heroic! If only there was somepony to show this pony how much of a hero he actually was...Oh, right, there's three ponies willing." The other two ponies took a step forward, closing the distance between me and them. I could feel my heart start to race. I wanted so badly to keep this unfortunate pony safe, even if it meant severely hurting myself (again). With every step taken towards me, my heart rate increased a few bpms. As they began to close in on me, I turned my head to the pony, not facing it, but enough that it could hear me. "You might want to leave." A feminine voice responded. "But, I cant just let you-" "NOW." After some hesitation, the pony galloped away, and it's hoofsteps began to echo through the alley. As the echos diminished, I turned my attention back to the ruffians. They had moved much closer without me knowing, so I tried to take a couple steps back to even out the distance. Bad news was, I couldn't. I was already pressed up into a wall, no where to go. With the ruffians closing in, I started to look around for options. Unless I could climb the wall like a spider, it seemed that the only way out was to fight. Now I started to become afraid. More than afraid, really. Terrified. I had just entered this world that many would be awestruck from, and I was about to die in it. Not exactly something I had planned on doing, but then again, I dont think anyone would. At least, if I do die, I should die fighting. Cant change the world without sacrifice, right? Sacrifice didn't really have to mean death, though. I could weaken them, and save my life in the process. Or, perhaps I could- I wasn't allowed to continue my rambling thought. I rediscovered myself laying face first in the dirt, pain seeping through my muzzle. Trying to recover from the cheap shot, I started to get up onto my forehooves. That attempt was quickly ended, as my face was forced back into the dirt. I heard a snicker from one of the stallions, then the same stallion from before started talking to me again. "Look at you. Cant even get yourself off the ground! Did you even think you could take all of us? Or were you just trying to save your marefriend over there? Some useless marefriend, just running away while you're stuck here, hopefully despising yourself for even bothering to help at all. You couldn't possibly-" Just like when I couldn't finish my thought, I didn't let him finish his sentence. As he ranted, I took the liberty of placing both my forehooves right above his hoof and throwing him backwards. He landed onto his back with a thud, and struggled to get to his feet. As he lay helpless, his two lackeys moved in towards me. Staying on the defensive, I decided to allow them to make the first move. I didn't have to wait long. The bulkier of the two took a swing with a forehoof, barely grazing my fur. Regaining my balance from the dodge, I pulled a right hook and landed a hit square in the jaw. He staggered back, trying to regain his balance. Making use of opportunity, I rushed forward and uppercut him. His body didn't seem to want to handle anymore, and he went out cold. I spun around to face the other lackey, who seemed to be having second thoughts about picking fights. He seemed to not want to be here, fighting others who did no wrong. If he didn't want this anymore, so be it. I had to make sure to scare that thought into him, to make sure he would never forget. I charged at him, head lowered, and tackled him as he stood paralyzed with fear. I held him down, and stuck my face right up to his, staring him down as if I could see his soul. "I'm letting you off with a warning, since you look pretty young to be involved with these groups. But I swear, if I see you doing anything like this again, you are going to end up much worse than your friend over there. Are we clear?" He was trembling as I spoke, and could barely get words out as he tried to speak. "Y-y-yes s-sir! You w-wont see me anytime soon! I p-p-promise." With that, I got off him, and he proceeded to get up and gallop off at full speed down the alley. I started to trot out after him, until I reached a familiar pony still flailing around on his back. As I walked up to him, he turned his head, and locked eyes with mine. I could almost see his pupils shrink in fear. I leaned in towards him, so he was just within hearing range. "I believe you should start think about the consequences of your words before they come out of your mouth. They seem quite hypocritical." I trotted off, and I swear I heard him faint at that moment. As I excited the alleyway, I caught a breath of cool night air. Scanning about, I found that I was inside the Ponyville square. With a location pinpointed, I headed in the direction I hoped was the Ponyville Library. I had no intention of going exploring now, maybe tomorrow. While I trotted down the streets, I couldn't help but try to sort out the events that had happened. I had just won a three-to-one fight. Me, a measly stallion who almost got his flanked kicked by three stallions. How I managed to defeat said three stallions, I had no idea. Well, two stallions. I didn't really fight the youngest one, he seemed to have learned his mistake without help. He seemed like a good-hearted pony though, so I hope he can get his life straightened out. All some ponies need are a good scare. That had a sort of ring to it. Where have I used that phrase before? It seems so familiar to me...I cursed my brain for forcing me to forget everything I had known, as that I could've mastered some fighting techniques or something. That would've been REALLY helpful about 5 minutes ago. The fight would've ended a lot faster, that's for sure. Maybe I could've also seen who that mare was, instead of letting her get away. I could've had a chance with her...wait, really? I'm thinking about love at a time like this? Not something that ponies think about after a fight they might've DIED participating in. They usually thank their lucky stars that they aren't dead yet. I already did that though. So, would it be appropriate to think about love at a time like this? I mean, that mare- I couldn't stand the war my brain was in with itself. I felt so tempted to just smash my face into the nearest wall. This shouldn't seem right at all! But, why did it? Oh, Celestia, I just wanted to go to bed. After I cleaned myself up first. That fight completely caked my fur in dirt, and it felt pretty uncomfortable. Still, it was just a small price to pay for my life, and for that mare to be safe. I dont know what I would've done to myself if she... That time, I did smash my head against a wall, opening up a few wounds. I just couldn't STAND it! Why was I having all of these sudden feelings?! It just doesn't make any sense! How could I possibly have feelings for somepony I had just met? I couldn't even be love at first sight, since I didn't even know what she looked like! Just what was it about her? I never felt her, saw her, smelt her, dont even get me started on tasting her. If none of those four, then... Wait. I heard her. Was that it? Could I possibly have fallen in love with her voice? Is that even possible? She only said one word to me, but I felt as if I heard so much in it. I heard a thanks, an apology, and a deep caring I haven't heard before. A complete stranger had appeared before her, to save her, and she had immediately cared for him. Me. That would take extreme amounts of character to trust and care about a random stranger you've never heard of. I dont think I've ever seen that much character in anypony, especially... Wait, what was that place called again? Where I came from, where is that? Is it...Earth? Does that sound right? Am I still there? Or someplace different? I dont think this is Earth, it just...doesn't seem... I tripped and fell over a curb. The whole time, my mind had been wandering everywhere, and so was I. As my mind jumped from topic to topic, I jumped from street to street. Now I had no idea where I was. it didn't help that my vision was blurred either. I had no idea why it could've been blurred, until I felt my face. There was blood everywhere. I was surprised I could've even thought straight, with all the blood I lost and was still losing. I told my self to get to Twilight's house, and fast. Even though a hospital could've suited my needs, I came across Twilight's house first. Just barely standing, I slammed the door open, and took only a few steps inside until I collapsed to the floor. I felt too weak to move, and just felt so tired. My eyelids started to become heavy, and began to droop. Right before I fell into what would be a fantastic night of sleeping, I heard loud hoofsteps, and a voice cry out, "SPIKE! Get my first aid kit and book back out!" I woke up to a beautiful afternoon. The sun was shining, and I could hear the birds singing. It felt as if I died and ended up in Fluttershy's heaven. Only problem was, I wasn't dead. I had my face scrunched up into the floor instead. I started to push myself off the floor, took a look at my hooves, and surprised myself into dropping my face right into the floor again. Tilting my head, I got a look at my hooves again. I was like this yesterday, yet why did it surprise me now? Was it because I used to be a human? It would make sense, since they might've been pretty different. I didn't know for sure, maybe I could ask Twilight today about humans. As I started to get up, I heard a laugh behind me. "Wow, you really keep getting yourself into trouble, dont you?" Getting to my hooves, Spike wandered into my view and looked me over. "Well, you definitely got yourself busted up again. What happened to you?" I began to tell my whole story to him, even what I had thought about on my way back. He had only one expression on his face the whole time, which started to unnerve me a bit. After I finished, he just shook his head. "Well, you sounded like you had a horrible night. Worse than Twi's even!" My ears perked up. "Why? What happened to her?" "Well, after you sprinted out the door, I knew I couldn't have kept up with you, so I stayed here. A few minutes later, Twilight came back home. She had tears flowing down her face, and kept talking at a speed I'm sure nopony could understand. After about fifteen minutes, I had finally calmed her down, but then you burst back through the door. She got worked up again, and we had to fix you back up. She was dead tired after, so I sent her off to bed, saying that I could keep an eye on you. She hasn't woken up since." "What time is it now?" "Almost 6 in the afternoon. It's been well over sixteen hours of sleep for both of you!" "Twelve hours? Doesn't Twi sleep for half of that usually?" "Yeah, it's unlike her to sleep late. Do...you think we should check up on her?" "Think so. Something could be up." I got up off my hooves, and we both walked quietly up the stairs to Twilight's bedroom. There was no sound coming from up there as far as I could hear, which could be either good or bad. Spike cleared his throat and called up, "Hey, Twilight? Are you ok up there?" Some shuffling was heard, and hoofsteps started approaching the edge of her bedroom. Once they reached the edge, I saw them fling themselves over the edge and hang there. Then, Twilight's head hung over the edge too, looking over the dragon and the pony standing below her bedroom. She looked as if she had just gotten out of bed. Her hair was disheveled, sticking out in every direction that could've been thought of. Her eyes were half-opened, barely keeping her in the world of consciousness. Sleepers dotted themselves all over her eyes. The worst part was her eyes themselves. They were blood red, a combination of soreness and bloodshot. Obviously, she hadn't had much sleep recently, no surprise there, and she had been crying about something, a whole lot too. The mix of red and purple forced my eyes away, hoping that this situation couldn't get worse. Once again, fate turned against my hopes. I looked back up to find those eyes locked onto mine. I became paralyzed, wanting to look away but afraid to. Her eyes seemed to swallow me up, and I fell through a terrifying spectrum of red and purple until my eyes felt as if they were about to cave in on themselves. I finally felt my gaze shift away, and almost broke down right there. Instead, I took a few steps back and lowered my head, attempting a retreat. I took one last look into her eyes, and I experienced something completely different. The once counteracting colors seemed to flow and mix together, creating this scene of serenity. I felt as if I was standing on a beach, watching the sun go down in a array of colors that couldn't be matched. Standing next to me were two people, one male, the other female. They both had one hand on my shoulder, and were staring at the sunset along with me. Suddenly, they were gone. Just, gone. I felt so helpless, so scared. The sunset began to disappear, leaving me alone in a darkened world. I started running, the one thing I could do. I ran and ran and ran... ...right into a bookshelf. I staggered back, dazed. I was back in the library, away from the sunset and whoever those two people were. I felt utter sadness, like suffering the worst mental pain you could think of. Whoever they were, they must've been a huge part of my past. Not anymore though. They're gone now, along with my past. If I actually remembered my past, I'm sure I would've broken down right then and there. I forced myself not to, in order to not make this situation anymore awkward that it currently is. I tried looking back up to where Twilight was, only to find the area vacant. Glancing around, I couldn't even find Spike anywhere. Did everyone just abandon me? I was just about ready to buck something until I heard sobbing. I followed it to the bathroom, where I found Spike standing right outside. He gave me a hopeful look, expecting me to do something to fix the situation. I could only sigh. "Spike, can you tell what's wrong?" "N-no, she just keeps sobbing and...I dont have any idea. She's never been like this before. Can you do something?" "I dont have any idea. I can try to talk to her, I guess..." He nodded, and stepped away from the door. I stepped up to the door, and the sobbing became louder than before. It started to become more of a wailing now, sending chills through me. I tried to open the door, which turned out to be locked. I knocked, trying to gain her attention. It seemed to work, as her wailing quieted down, as if waiting for someone to speak. I sighed once more, and said, "Twilight, what's gotten into you? You've never acted like this before. Can you at least tell Spike and I what's the matter?" Some more crying ensued before a response. "What...do you know...about how I act?" "Quite a bit, actually. I know a lot about your history, too. You were thrown into a very hard position when you were younger, being Celestia's star pupil and all. Most of the ponies expected you to be great, raising expectations far higher than reachable. Greatness takes time, but time is not what was given to you. You couldn't keep up, and everypony began to see that and lose faith. Soon, everypony began to believe that Celestia's attention was misplaced, giving it to a pony who could not live up to expectations. You started losing faith too, secluding yourself from everyone, afraid that you would keep failing to meet expectations. What they didn't see, though, was the potential you had. All they saw was what you were, not what you could become. That's why Celestia chose you as her star pupil. You showed her magic that was supposed to be incapable at your age. She saw what you could be, and chose you without question. I paused for a moment, thinking of anything else to say. "Look, you may feel alone and seclude yourself, but it doesn't have to be that way. Everyone has gone through their own problems, and most likely feel as alone as you do. And I'm sure that-" I heard the handle turn, and the door slightly cracked open. She didn't look out, but she spoke, sounding much clearer without anything but sniffles. "It's...It's not that. I dont worry about my past anymore; I've gotten over that quite a while ago. Thanks, though. It always feels better to know somepony who knows how they felt." "If that's not it, then what is?" "It's...It's you. What I did back there, with my eyes, was an attempt to look into your past, just to make sure that you weren't somepony involved in an...incident last night. I must've gone too far, and instead gone a few years back. What I felt was just beyond what my mind could've comprehended, and I broke into a heap of sadness. I'm...sorry if I worried you two." She finally poked her head out and opened the door all of the way, sniffling, but an improvement from just a few minutes ago. Spike immediately rushed forward and gave her foreleg a hug, grasping with the strength of a few stallions. Twilight giggled, and tried to brush him off, and ultimately failed. She giggled again, and waited patiently for Spike to let go. Once he finally did, Twilight took another look at me. "Hey, you're pretty familiar looking. Weren't you just here?" I laughed. "Yeah, I believe I'm the one you've saved twice so far." Her eyes widened. "You're the same pony? That cant be right...How are you even walking? Your hooves were broken beyond belief!" We both took a look at my back hooves. They were still wrapped up in their binds, the same ones used yesterday. They didn't feel as if anything was wrong. How hadn't I noticed that my broken limbs had just fixed themselves within 24 hours? I hadn't ever given much thought about my sudden ability to walk, since I've had a lot on my mind. Now that I think about it, it just seems all the more impossible. "Well, I've been running around a lot, especially last night too...which reminds me, what happened last night? Spike said you were pretty fear-stricken when you came home." She trotted downstairs, and took a seat on the couch. She motioned me over, and I took a seat on the opposite side, and made myself comfortable. "Now, what was that about last night?" "Oh, right. Well, as Spike probably told you, I was out retrieving some more medicine for you, and had just finished shopping when Rarity ran up to me with an emergency. Well, an emergency for her. Sweetie Belle and her friends had managed to steal her mannequins, and needed somepony to model her dresses. I just happened to be the first one she caught. It took many hours, and was finally finished after night had arrived. I started my trek back home, the only ponies being out were me and a few others. As I continued, I noticed that the same ponies had started to follow me. Trying to lose them, I turned into an alley near Ponyville Square. What I didn't realize, was that the alley was a dead end. Soon, after realizing my mistake, I turned around, but it was too late. I was cornered by the three ponies who were following me. I screamed for help, even though I didn't expect anyone to come. Truly, I had no idea what they wanted, but I was afraid to ask. Before they could get much closer, there was somepony else standing in front of me. A stallion, by the look of it. He just appeared as if out of nowhere, even though I know that's impossible. Without much distance between him and them, he told me to escape. I couldn't just let him take them all on by himself, but he didn't want to hear it. Right before I got out of there.I looked for a cutie mark so I could find him tomorrow and properly thank him. Well, he didn't have one, which surprised me, since what stallion doesn't have their cutie mark by now? Most likely none, making it that much easier to find him. I hope I do find him quickly. I wouldn't want to find a friend like that dying in a hospital. That is, if I dont find him in a graveyard first..." She wiped a few tears away as she said that last part. She was under a lot of guilt from this, which was what must've been tormenting her this entire time. Her guilt was not misplaced, as anypony would probably be wracked with guilt in her situation. I cut myself of there and continued to listen to her. "Anyway, I had only gotten out of the alley when I started hearing struggling inside. I couldn't look back to see what was going on, afraid of seeing something that would be burned into my memory. I came straight here, almost having a mental breakdown as I burst through the door. I tried to tell Spike everything that happened, but from what I gather, it came out as nothing but useless sounds. I felt really out of it, and Spike could tell too. He recommended that I rest myself, to which I would have obliged. But, then you burst through the door, just as injured as before. Of course I had to help again, not like I had to ask you. Then, well, Spike went to check up on you today, you came to check up on me, and here we are. Now, what the hay did you DO last night to get yourself hurt again?" I didn't answer. I couldn't. Not for the life of me. If the mare I had saved was Twilight, then that means... I took a look at Spike, who looked back in return. I had told him about the mare I had saved, how I felt about her. We were both thinking the same thing. I knew I had to tell her that it was me, but I would have to leave out some choice details. Specifically, the war my brain had with itself. As I was contemplating, Twilight sat impatiently, and finally had to say something. "Well?" "Huh?" "Aren't you going to say something, instead of staring into my face all day?" I blushed a bit. I hadn't noticed where my gaze had shifted, as my attention was in my thoughts. I coughed awkwardly, and began to speak. Oh, it's really not that exciting. Besides, it's not very much different than yours!" Twilight eyed me from across the couch. "What? That doesn't make any sense at all..." I waved her sentence away. "Well, if you dont believe me, check my flank." Her eyes grew wide with disgust. "Why would I ever look at-" Her eyes lied to her words, as she took a look anyway. This time, her eyes grew wide with surprise. I could almost see the gears turning in her head as she struggled to put the pieces together. Finally, with a sharp intake of breath, I could tell that she had figured it out. Her mouth flew open, and I could've sworn that her jaw hit the floor. I didn't bother to look, though. I was too focused on Twilight. She had put a hoof over her mouth, trying to cover up how wide it had opened. After what felt like an eternity, she was finally recapable of speech. "That...that was you?" "Well, unless you were getting attacked in the next alley over, then yes, that must've been me." "I...I dont really know what to say. I dont really know if I have to say anything, though." "Oh? And why is that?" "Well, actions speak louder than words, of course!" She began to scoot across the couch towards me, inch-by-inch. Once she finally reached me, she wrapped her forehooves around my neck and gave me a tight hug. I was a bit shocked by the sudden contact at first, but eventually I was able to return the hug. We hugged for a while, much longer than I expected. Eventually, I spoke up, even though I secretly didn't want to. "Uh, Twi?" "Oh, right! Umm...sorry. Just kinda...forgot where I was." She pulled away, and was blushing pretty heavily. I was pretty sure I was blushing too, I just couldn't feel it. After a long awkward silence, Twilight got up off the couch and spoke. "Well, these last couple of days have been...hectic for both of us. I was thinking that I should give you give you a tour of Ponyville tomorrow, since you're new here. That sound fine to you?" "Yeah, that sounds fine. I was planning on seeing the town tomorrow anyways, but I'm sure you can introduce most of the ponies to me if you come along." "Sure, I wouldn't mind. I think that my friends will enjoy seeing a new face around here. Oh, and I'm sure Spike has already introduced me?" "He has, but he wouldn't have needed to. Also, it will be pretty awesome to meet your other 5 friends." Her eyes narrowed, reminding me of my first encounter with Spike. "What would make you say that? Plus, what makes you think that I have only five friends?" "Well, five main friends. One for every Element of Harmony!" She was giving me the same look Spike did when I started revealing information. She was about to say something, when said baby dragon walked down the steps and up to us. He had caught wind of our argument, and decided to help end it much faster. "Twi, there was something I had forgotten to tell you about him. For some reason, he seems to know most of everything about this place. The Princesses, the 6 of you, even my, ahem, little secret." Twilight rolled her eyes. "No, I'm serious! He hasn't learned this from anywhere, and he's never been seen here before. It's just too strange..." Twilight wasn't satisfied. "Well, he had to learn it from somepony or another. Either way, I'm going to see how much you really know tomorrow." As she began to trot off, she stopped and turned around. "If you dont have anywhere to stay, feel free to sleep here for the night. As long as you dont mind the couch, that is..." I laughed quietly. "No, the couch and I are pretty well acquainted, so it should be fine with me sleeping here another night." She giggled to herself. "Well, alright then. Goodnight!" "Goodnight." She trotted her way up the stairs, towards her bedroom. As soon as she was out of view, I brought my back hooves onto the couch and pulled up the blanket onto the couch, which had been resting on the floor from this afternoon. I thought about the past few days, and how much I had experienced those days. I couldn't help but feel as if I had a reason for being here, experiencing things so unknown to me, but I couldn't think of anything. I shrugged it off, and instead imagining Twilight's face when she realizes that I know almost as much about her world than she does. I smiled from the mental image I received, and closed my eyes, letting myself drift out of consciousness.
The Oddest Form of Identification ReclamationI woke up early in the morning, feeling quite eager about today's tour of Ponyville. Even though I already knew what it looked like, it would still be quite amazing to see it with myself. I stretched my limbs out, and got up off the couch. I slowly started becoming awake, and began to notice a smell wafting throughout the room. It smelt like somepony was cooking. Oh, right! Spike always gets up early to make breakfast. I began to sleepily walk into the kitchen. I noticed a dining table, and took my seat. Spike immediately noticed my presence. "Oh, wow, you're up much earlier than I expected. How'd you sleep on the couch?" My brain was still tired, and I had some trouble thinking of a good answer. "Meh...it was ok, I guess..." "Still a little tired, are we? You have any nightmares?" "I don’t think so...why?" Spike had just finished making breakfast and was beginning to set the table. "That couch always seems to do that. Well, it did for Twi. She's sometimes been so tired that she sleeps on the nearest comfy object nearby. She'd always have nightmares while she slept on it, but they weren't so bad as to wake her up. They seemed to shake her up a bit though, and she's avoided sleeping on it since." "That's quite interesting, to say the least. What does Twilight think?" "Oh, she just thinks that it's just coincidence. I'm not so sure myself; they’re her only nightmares in a very long time. I think it's the couch that causes them." "That sure does pose a few questions. Do you know what they're about?" Spike shook his head. "She'll never tell me. She just ignores me now whenever I bring it up. I should expect as much, she has never been very open with anypony, even me." Spike sighed. "Still, you can’t blame her. You seem to know why, so I don’t have to explain it to you." I nodded, and thought back to when I had to coax her out of the bathroom. It was quite depressing, knowing somepony whose fillyhood was filled with over-expectations and failures. That's definitely not what fillies and colts should have to deal with at that age. The fact that Twilight had survived all of that, without losing her mind or worse, made me have more respect for her. I couldn't possibly imagine going through that, even if I did go through that. Not like I would know if I did or not back when I was...human. If only there was some way to get it all back... Two different thoughts went through my head at that moment. One was a question for Twilight, so I would save that for later. The other one, also a question, was for Spike to answer. "Hey, Spike?" Spike had begun to place food onto the table. "What is it?" "Well, do you remember that one pony that visited, Eclipse? What she wanted?" Spike thought for a moment, and then had a light bulb moment. "Oh, right! She was after some human who had made their way into Equestria. Quite unusual, don’t you think?" "Yeah, about that human...I know where he is, and who he is as well." Spike didn't look as surprised as I thought he would. "Really? We can go find him and give him to Eclipse! Maybe she'll give us a reward..." Spike started to daydream, most likely about receiving a delectable jewel as a reward. "I don’t really think that's going to happen..." That snapped the dragon out of his fantasies. "What? Are you trying to protect him or something? He some sort of ruler, or maybe has some sort of unusual power, or-" "No, that's not it at all. The truth is that...well, I'm the human." Now he became as surprised as I thought he would. "WHAT!? How can that be? You're a pony, obviously! There's no way you can be human!" "Look, I have as much of any idea than you at how I'm a pony. All I know, I was a human before, I'm a pony now. I don’t remember much else. I've only been remembering bits and pieces these last days, but I need to find out the rest. And I was hoping that-" "-that Twilight could help you, right? I'm sure she could do something. She does have that memory spell....and you're absolutely sure that this human, the one Eclipse is looking for, is you?" "Guaranteed sure. I just have to somehow explain everything to Twi. I'm definitely going to need her help..." "Help with what?" I spun around, only to find that Twilight was standing right in the doorway. She looked almost exactly the same as when I first met her yesterday, except her eyes were much less threatening. Her mane was quite in need for a good brushing, along with some patches of her coat. Although she stays up late almost every night with research, she didn't look any sort of tired at all. Could be that her body is just used to the lack of sleep. I noticed that Twilight was still staring at me, expecting an answer. I quickly tried to think of something to say. "Oh, um, nothing. I don’t need help with anything. Nothing at all!" She squinted suspiciously, knowing that something was up. "Just so you know, I was standing right here the whole time you mentioned that." Well, that explains why she could tell I was lying. "Wait, how much did you hear?" "Oh, just the end of it. Also, who's Eclipse?" This time, it was Spike's turn to speak. "She was just some mare who came along looking for a human. Apparently, he somehow got into Equestria. She didn't really fill us in on any details, including what they planned to do with him." "A human? Here? Doesn't that seem a little odd to you? What would a human be doing here anyway?" Spike perked up. "Well, if you want to find out, why not ask him yourself?" "Spike, what are you talking about? That human could be dead for all we know, maybe filling the stomach of a hydra. We couldn't possibly try looking for him, where would we start?" "I know exactly where to start, Twi. Why don’t you ask our-" I placed a hoof over the dragon's mouth, afraid he was going to give me away. "Uh, Spike? Can we talk...in private please?" I removed my hoof, and was met with sputtering sounds. Once he had finished, Spike replied, "Uh, sure, I guess." I turned to Twilight, who was standing with a confused look on her face, "Please, excuse us." I led Spike out of the room, then turned on him. "What are you doing in there?" "What? Can’t I tell her? She deserves to know!" "Yes, I know, but won’t she freak out? She's been going through a lot lately, so I don’t think now is the best time to tell her something as big as this." Spike was pondering as I said this. "Yeah, maybe you're right. We'll keep it between us." He pauses. "Maybe we should go back into the kitchen, before Twi gets suspicious." I nodded. "Right. Let's go." We walked back inside the kitchen, but couldn't find Twilight anywhere inside. The space where she stood was empty, with no sign of her ever being there. Spike and I gave each other confused looks, neither of us knowing where she went. We both heard a shuffle behind us, turned to face it, and saw Twilight reappearing from an invisibility spell. She was giving us both dirty looks. She first looked at Spike. "Spike, you KNOW I hate secrets being kept from me. Especially if they are going to be revealed to me anyway!" Then she turned to me. "And YOU! Why do you suddenly start keeping secrets? Are you part of some sort of rebellion against Celestia, and gaining the trust of her star student is your first step? Well, I've finally figured you out!" I tried to butt in. "Twilight-" She didn't hear a syllable, and continued to "rat me out". "You won’t be able to catch Celestia off guard now, not while I still live! I'm going to write to her RIGHT NOW, and she'll take care of you, ohhhh yes she will!" I tried again. "Twilight! Listen to me!" She heard me this time, but refused to listen, and began to walk upstairs. "Why should I listen to you? You've obviously poisoned Spike with your talk, so I won’t fall for it! You better say your goodbyes to your fellow traitors, while you’re not on the moon!" With that, she galloped upstairs. I didn't want to start attracting attention to myself, especially not from the Princess herself! So, I did what I had to. I galloped up the stairs myself and reached Twilight Sparkle. Still galloping, I made a diving tackle towards her, and forced her into the ground. She immediately began to struggle, but I was able to keep her on the ground, immobile. She began to scream out words. "Get OFF me you traitor! You have NO IDEA-" Suddenly, a voice roared out, one that didn't originate from either of us. "TWILIGHT SPARKLE!" I immediately could tell who that voice came from, but had no time to react. A blinding light filled the library, and I lifted up my hooves to shield my eyes away. Twilight took the opportunity and escaped my grasp. She threw me off her and ran towards the blinding light. By the time she had reached it, the light had solidified into a shape. It was none other than Princess Celestia herself! Twilight bowed to the Princess, but immediately raised herself and began talking a mile a minute. "Princess! You have to help me! There's a rebellion being raised against you, and their agents are trying to foalnap me! You have to do something before they succeed in overthrowing you! Increase the number of patrols, send out search parties, and do something, ANYTHING! If you-" Celestia raised her hoof to silence Twilight. "Twilight, please! Calm down! Now, what's happening? You said something about a rebellion?" Twilight nodded furiously. "Yes! Right there, that stallion is trying to foalnap me! He's part of the rebellion!" Celestia glanced at me, with a fury in her eyes I have never seen before. She began advancing towards me, horn beginning to glow faintly. I began to cower, hoping that my end would be swift and painless. She stood over me like a giant, horn glowing more fiercely now. Her head started lowering down towards me, and angled her horn in my direction. I shut my eyes, expecting her to run me through with her horn. What I felt was much different. It was just a slight tap, followed what sounded by a gasp, then the feeling of my body being whisked away. After flying through air for a short time, I felt solid ground beneath me. It was grainy, but solid all the same. I looked, and found myself at a familiar beach. Once again, to my right and left were a male and female. Their features were more distinguished, and I felt I was looking at two friends who I hadn't met in many years. They both turned and smiled at me before vanishing into smoke, just like last time. Instead of feeling endless amounts of sadness and despair, I felt...nothing. It was a numbing sensation, and I couldn't move an inch. Suddenly, it was gone. I glanced around, unable to see much beyond where I stood. I attempted a step, and a feeling of warmth flooded over me. I took step after step, the intense feeling growing stronger as I reached one of the darkened sides of the beach. As soon as I tried to pass into the dark area, intense cold and pain flooded in as many quantities as walking along the beach did. I pulled back into the visible part of the beach, and the pain and cold ended immediately. Unable to continue, I tried to see into the darkness, but to no avail. I was just about to attempt another try at entering the darkness, until a very bright light appeared next to me. I stared at it, not feeling any pain from the blinding capabilities. I felt entranced by it, almost as it was calling to me. It began to move towards the darkness, lighting its surroundings as it went. I followed it, almost in a trance. The darkness lit up as we continued, any darkness touched by the light was cleared up, and became visible to me. As more and more darkness was cleared, I began to notice shapes and objects were the darkness had been. There were baby products, child toys, and multiple other things. I couldn't imagine what these could possibly be, or who they belonged to. I noticed the orb stop up ahead. I walked up to it, and it seemed to motion me to something. I looked where it seemed my attention was supposed to be, and found a letter. I reached down to pick it up, grasped it, and brought it up to my face. It was addressed from someone named "Grandpa", but I knew it was just a title. As I opened the envelope, I found a single piece of paper inside. I skimmed through it, and found just small talk of nothing important. As I reached the end, I saw the name of who the letter was for. At the conclusion, there wasn't any 'sincerely' or 'love' or anything, just a name. A name I hadn't heard in a while now. Camoran Parker. My name. All of those belongings, those were mine! But, what were they doing here? Where was "here" anyway? What was my purpose here? Nothing seemed to make sense, and my new friend didn't have any answers either. Well, it might've, but I never got the chance. I had looked up to ask it these questions, but it was long gone. I scanned around, but say nothing but black. The field of black began to close in around me, blocking off my exit to the beach and surrounding me. I was eventually sucked into the pitch blackness, and immense cold and pain washed over me again. There was no escape, my only option was to suffer the pain and hope it ends soon. For once, my hopes were answered. The pain ended, and I found myself lying on the ground. I snapped my head up, gasping for air. I was back in the library, right where I had been. I caught sight of Celestia in front of me. She was slumped over, breathing heavily, and wasn't responding to Twilight's questions, who was standing right over her. Twilight looked over at me, and gave me a disgusted look as she saw I was conscious. She trotted over and started screaming words at me. "What the BUCK did you do?! You just injured our PRINCESS!! How could you sabotage her like this? You have NO IDEA what you're in for now. I swear in Celestia's name I will DESTROY YOU for this! You're rebellion will fall, along with every single one of your friends. I can guarantee you that-" "TWILIGHT! Enough!" Celestia had heard every word that came out of her mouth. She had regained enough strength to stand, and enough energy to finally speak out. She continued her lecture to her favorite student. "Don't blame this pony for my condition. In fact, please do me a favor and don't blame him for anything! There is no rebellion, he wasn't foalnapping you, and he definitely didn't try and sabotage me." Twilight attempted to argue. "But, Princess! I saw him, he-" "No, Twilight. He wasn't attempting anything of that sort. It was all just a misunderstanding! Trust me on this, Twilight. He means no harm." "How can you be so sure, Princess?" "I-I saw the same thing you told me about Twilight. When you had experimented with your spell on him. You had sent me a letter describing the spell, and I got to learning it right away. I had decided to try it on him for myself, to see if you were correct in your letter. I saw the same, if not more. His mind is truly broken, and there is nothing to be done about it. His whole mind is clouded, and there doesn't seem to be a way to help. I'm sorry, but it just seems that he-" They were obviously talking about me, and I had to know what they were talking about exactly. "Um, I don't understand. What about my mind?" Celestia swiveled her head. "Oh, I'm sorry! I had forgotten you had awoken. As to answer your question, everything you heard is quite accurate. It seems as though your mind is clouded, filled with a "smoke", for lack of a better word. It's been blocking you of all of your memories. It's not a natural thing, like amnesia, but magical in every sense. Until a remedy can be found, your memory will be the same as it is now." "That's the thing though! There IS a way, I know it. I had experienced it while I was lying here." Celestia's eyes went wide. "Tell me, what happened?" So, I told her about the beach, the darkness, the blinding light, everything I could remember. Celestia kept a focused eye on me, as if focusing on every single word that passed my lips. Twilight, who still hadn't fixed herself from breakfast, stood behind Celestia, watching my every move, still worried that I would attack her. "...and I think that the light might've been you searching inside my mind." Once I had finished, Celestia kept staring, her mind processing this information. Finally, she spoke. "So, did you remember anything?" "Just one thing. My name." Celestia looked aghast. "Even your name was gone? That is some powerful magic that is tampering with your memory. Anyways, what is your name? I don’t think I've seen you before." I scratched behind my head. "Yeah, I'm kinda new here..." "Oh, well why didn't you say so? I'm-" "Princess Celestia, I know." I realized how rude that sounded, and tried making up for it. "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. I'm having a tendency to do that now..." Celestia looked puzzled. "Why is that?" Twilight answered before I did. "He believes he already knows everyone here, yet he knows nothing about himself! It doesn't make any sense." "That is quite strange. But, I want to put that knowledge to the test. I want to see how much you really know!" Celestia gave me a competitive smile, and took a seat next to Twilight, who also sat down. The situation had suddenly turned into a game show. Celestia cleared her throat and spoke. "Now, I'm going to ask one thing and one thing only. What do you know, if anything, about me?" That question shocked me, as I expected her to ask about one of her fellow subjects. Either way, I knew exactly what to say to her question. "Well, I can definitely tell you about your relationship with Discord, and your past history with him too." The princess frowned at what I had said, not of sadness, but of defeat. Twilight looked up at her teacher with a quizzical look on her face. "P-princess? You have a history with Discord?" She didn't answer. She instead stared at me, waiting for me to continue. I didn't keep her waiting for long. I talked about how they first met, and how badly Celestia had broken Discord's heart. I moved on to his transformation of which he is now, the chaotic monster that enjoyed the unhappiness of other ponies. I referenced the battle between the alicorns, how he had utterly destroyed them. Well, all but two. Celestia and Luna had survived, and began to bring back order to Equestria. Discord was beaten at every turn, and was forced to fight the two princesses head-on. He horribly underestimated them, and was incarcerated into stone. The last thing he had ever seen was the face of the one he loved, the one who had destroyed him and made him into the monster that he is. All the while I was telling this story, I observed Celestia's reactions. I saw only one. Guilt. The entire story, she had hung her head, unable to look at anything but her hooves. I saw a few tears come forth down her muzzle, and she made no attempt to hide it. Twilight had started to notice, and began to comfort the alicorn. Finally, I had finished the story, eliciting more than a few tears out of Celestia. I felt horrible for bringing up that memory, as it's obviously haunted her since then. I approached her, preparing my apology, but she spoke first. "No, please don’t apologize. It's my fault. All of it is my fault. I was just so naive back then. I couldn't see anypony past their appearance, and it really affected some ponies. Discord was the worst case I had seen. Most would just never talk to me anymore or just avoid me, but Discord took it to a new level. I just had to stop him, but there was no other way than entrapment in stone. It just killed me do have to do that to him...I-I don’t think I'll ever be able to forgive myself for it..." I saw a glint in her eye, one filed with determination. Suddenly, she got up and said, "I'm sorry, but I really need to go. I have to...take care of something..." Her horn flashed, and she was gone. I still felt horrible for doing that to her, even if she had asked for me to do so. I just couldn't bear to stand it, and I felt like a nap was in order. I turned to start trotting away, but Twilight stopped me. "How...how did you do that?" "Do what?" "You just...made her cry. I've never seen her cry before. I almost cried myself too...how did you know that?" I sighed. "Honestly, I'm not sure, nor will I be sure. Not with this brain at least." "I-I can help you with that, you know..." I shook my head. "I don’t think your remembrance spell will work on something of this magnitude..." She shook her head too, improving the style of her hair. "No, I mean the spell Celestia performed. I taught her how to do it, technically. I could try to get into your mind and help improve your memory too!" I smiled. "Well, I would appreciate that, but that will take everything out of you. It almost knocked out Celestia even!" "I'll be sure to be careful." She was quiet for a while, staring down at her hooves. She finally spoke up. "Hey, thinking about earlier this morning, what were you two hiding from me? If I'm going to find out about it later, I'd rather find out sooner." I sighed again. Might as well! "Fine, you heard about Eclipse, right? How she's looking for a human?" "Yeah, still don’t know what she'd want with one, but yes, I remember." "Well...I think that...I'm the one she's looking for..." I braced for an outburst from her, but heard nothing. I cracked open my eyes, and found her staring back, eyes wide open and pupils filling most of the space in her eyes. It reminded me of an episode, although I couldn't recall it this moment. She kept staring at me with those eyes, until I was certain her face had frozen like that. Finally, she spoke. "You're...not kidding?" "Not in the slightest!" Her eyes, somehow, got even larger. "That's...just...wow. There hasn't been a human here in pony history! We can finally perform experiments, do tests-" "Um, Twi? I'm obviously not a human anymore..." Disappointment fell across her face. "Oh, right...well, least we can do is try to get your memory back, I guess." "Yeah, sure. Anyway, it's only morning still. I'm planning on taking a much needed nap, but maybe you can show me around today like we planned?" "Sure! I'm not going to try and quiz you now, since you seemed to have proved yourself. My friends, however, might test you themselves. Just a warning." I waved it off. "Don’t worry, I got something for them all. They'll believe before long!" She giggled. "Well, ok. Enjoy your rest!" I smirked. "I'll try to enjoy it, if I don’t get nightmares from your couch." She facehoofed. "Don’t even get me started on that..." I laughed, and climbed onto the couch and attempted to drown out everything but my thoughts. If I had this, this "smog" floating around in my mind, how come I still remembered everything from the show? A mystery better left for when I wake up later, I thought. I fell into a dreamless sleep, but not exactly nightmareless...
The Couch of NightmaresMy head snapped off the pillow, eyes as wide open as they could. I stared off into the surrounding night, attempting and failing to see into it. I had no idea what had woken me up, but it surely wasn't anypony doing so. As my vision became used to Luna's night, I could see nopony around me, and heard no sounds as I lie on the couch. My entire body was tense, as if startled by an unknown force. Eventually, seeing as there was nothing around me, I eased up and began to lie back down. Sleep just didn't come to me, so I decided to just stay up for a little while longer until I felt tired again. I immediately got up and went into the kitchen, looking for any sort of night time snack. Not many of foods there looked too appealing, until I noticed one package that, oddly enough, had my name on it. With no idea what it could be, I began to open it. As I did, something started to squirm around in the package. Frightened, I tossed the package back, and the whole bag ripped open. Inside, was a horrifying creature, shaped as a misshapen foal. It was utterly void of any hair. No tail, no mane, just skin. It's hooves were mangled in every direction possible, and were quite longer than a normal foal's should. The worst part was the face, but I couldn't say that. That's because there wasn't a face. Not a single feature was placed; eyes, mouth, ears, nothing. Almost not even a muzzle. It was just barely seen sticking out from blank face, pointing straight at me. I was stunned beyond hope. The only sort of movement I could of made was backwards, away from this creature, this....monster. Every step taken back was proved fruitless, as the "foal" moved closer every time. It didn't use its over-sized legs, however. Instead, it seemed to break into a static-like state, then appear closer without disappearing. This honestly began to creep me the buck out, but there was no escape. I was trapped in the kitchen, with no way out but through the foal pursuing me. After too many steps, I found myself up against a wall, the foal not too far away. Guessing that I was now helpless, it saved some time and appeared right before me, and not savoring the moment like I thought it would. Sitting almost on top of my feet, it began to stand upon its long, slender legs. Higher and higher it went, reaching the top of my legs, then my torso, neck, head, and beyond. Finally it stopped, and this once small foal now stood taller than me, with the same foalish body as before. There was just now way this could exist, yet here it stood. I glanced up at it, and found its blank slate of a face already staring back. Then, like a predator finished toying with its prey, it attacked. Excruciating pain flowed throughout me as unseeable damage was being done to my body. I screamed and screamed, but they had no effect on the situation at hand (or hoof). No help came, and this unimaginable creature did not stop from destroying me wholly. I screamed for what felt like an eternity, even as I felt myself fading out... My head snapped off the pillow, still screaming. Heavily breathing, I realized I was back on the couch, now soaked with sweat. It was still the middle of the night, just as in my dream. Luckily, I wasn't feeling hungry, so I didn't make a move towards the kitchen. Instead, I stayed right on the couch, hoping that there was no squirming package with my name on it in the fridge. I took one final glance around the room, and noticed a shape not far from me. Freaking out, I dove under the covers and began shaking,but was instead greeted by a voice. "What? Not happy to see me?" I looked out, and saw the face of Twilight Sparkle in the dark. She was standing almost right next to the couch when I peeked out, wearing a sly smile. She had a certain air about her, one that I felt she shouldn't have. She leaned in closer to me, her face just inches from mine. "I know how you think about me; you don't have to hide it." "Uh...what?" "Spike already told me about how you feel about me. It took some pressure, but I finally got it out of him. Enough about him, I'm more focused about you." As she said the last part, she climbed up onto the couch and layed on top of me. There was truly something different about her, I just couldn't tell if it was good or bad. She began to nuzzle her head against my chest, almost making a purring sound if I didn't know better. I decided to go with it, and began running my hooves through her mane, She scooted up higher, placing her head under mine and holding me in her forehooves. I returned the embrace, eliciting a sigh from Twilight. Not seeming to waste any time, she gave me a look with her beautiful violet eyes, followed by a deep kiss. Surprised, it took me a few moments to return the kiss , but finally did with as much strength as her. Seeing as I was playing along with her, she began to start prodding my lips with her tongue, to which I cautiously accepted. If I had tried to tell you how this whole experience had felt right now, I wouldn't have words for it. I felt a surge of happiness, one that I was sure couldn't be anything besides magic-induced. Either that, or I had never felt real happiness before in my past. I guessed it was the first option. The feeling of kissing Twilight was unreal, feeling her tongue slide deeper and deeper into my mouth, finally reaching the back of....my throat? I snapped out of my trance and shot my eyes wide open, staring into a pair of unfamiliar, gray eyes. Her mouth had stopped making contact with mine, and had pulled back an inch or two. Aghast, I was helpless as her tongue continued its journey, stopping for a moment at my throat before continuing down. At this point, I found it very difficult to breath. I began choking, gagging, and even slightly throwing up from the presence of the throat intruder. The tongue didn't stop, reaching the fork between my windpipe and esophagus. I had no idea which path it took,; I was more concentrated on the lack of air in my body. I had just started feeling light-headed, and felt everything shutting down, hoping to compensate for the lack of air. I had wished to have blacked out sooner. Her tongue had stopped finally, right next to my heart. It began poking at the edge of my innards closest to my heart. After a few pokes, a sense-shattering pain jolted through my nerves as the invader burst through and grasped my heart. After wrapping around it a few times, my heart was disconnected in one swift motion, and I finally left consciousness as I felt it being escorted back through my limp, dying form. For the third time, my head snapped off my pillow, except that I was flailing about in fear as well. The force of my flailing, plus the fact that I was on the edge of the couch, sent me spiraling towards the floor. I landed head-first with a load thump, and frantically searched the area for Twilight. Luckily, she was no where to be found. I pulled myself off the floor, and shook off any dust that might've collected on my coat. Of course there wasn't much at all, since Spike cleaned the library every day. "Hey! Are you alright?" Speak of the devil. That is, if the devil exists in pony form in this universe. I swiveled my head towards Spike's voice near the kitchen. Spike was sticking his head out of the doorway, a look of worry on his face. "Oh, yeah! I'm...um...fine. Never better!" I attempted to put on a fake smile, trying to not to get him worried. Long story short, he saw through my ruse. "The couch worked it's magic, didn't it?" I sighed. "Yeah, you have no idea." "Well, come inside and tell me all about it!" I sighed again. I didn't want to lay my mental burden on him, but I felt that it was ok if he really wanted me to. I trudged my way into the kitchen, but I didn't stay long. Already inside, waiting for breakfast, was Twilight Sparkle. Almost immediately, I paused mid-step and bulged my eyes out, reacting out of sheer terror. Obviously, I hadn't recovered from my nightmare. Could you blame me? I used a maneuver I learned watching Twilight handle those snakes during Winter Wrap-Up. I reared back, and quickly began to backpedal out. Twilight could sense my fear, and became as worried as Spike was. She began to speak, but I didn't stay to hear. I was too afraid that she was about to try and steal my heart, literally. As soon as I had reached the doorway, I spun around and bolted for the door, but was blocked by a flash of light, followed by Twilight. She had cut off my only escape, and now I was doomed to die. Of course I wasn't dying without a fight. And by fight, I meant running away. Quickly, I tried bolting up the stairs, only to be tackled from behind without getting far. We both fell to the floor, struggling against each other for our own reasons. Finally, seeing this as an unavoidable failure, I gave up, suddenly changing tactics. I literally went from fighting for my life in one second to pleading for it the next. I was almost sobbing, begging her to do anything but kill me. I tried anything, even offering to give sacrifices to her, or worshiping her as a goddess. I was ready, willing, and able to do anything possible if it meant sparing my life. I looked up, searching her face for some sort of answer to my pleas. All I saw was a face as surprised as mine when I saw her in the kitchen. It took her some time, but she finally gave a quick answer to everything I said. I, for one, didn't waste any time responding. "Does that mean you're not going to rip my heart out of my body?" "What in Celestia could you possibly mean by that? That is the oddest question I could have possibly heard in my existence!" At that moment, I felt as if I got slapped right back into my mind. Noticing the kind of situation I had put myself into, I began to try and patch it up. "Sorry about that...I do have a reasonable explanation for my actions, trust me!" "Well, you better. Anypony knows that I don’t usually believe in anything but a reasonable explanation!" "You wont be disappointed, I promise. Shall we talk over breakfast?" She rose off of me and extended a helping hoof. "Sounds fine by me." I looked dumbfounded at her hoof, not exactly knowing what to do with it. I couldn't grab it with either of my hooves, so what else is there to use? Twilight must have noticed my dumb look, and quickly said, "You're supposed to bite it." "Huh? "Bite it. I can pull you up that way." "Wont that...you know, hurt?" "Well, yes, but it's more polite than leaving you sit on the floor all day!" "If you say so..." Slowly and carefully, I reached my mouth over and gently bit down on her hoof, she not flinching in the slightest. I shouldn't have been surprised, but since everything was quite new to me, I couldn't help but be surprised. As soon as I was back onto my own two hooves, Twilight motioned towards the kitchen and said, "C'mon. I'm sure Spike's got breakfast waiting, and both of us will be wanting an explanation too." I nodded in agreement, and we walked side-by-side back into the kitchen. Spike was setting the table, not looking very concerned at all for what had taken place. He seemed to know what had taken place though. "So, did you guys finally get it sorted out?" Twilight looked a little insulted. "Do you not care about either of us? There could have been a serious problem!" Spike took no notice. "Oh, I know. I could hear the commotion. It's just that you guys seem to get into fights that sort themselves out, so I choose not to get too involved. It's not like I could do much anyways. But honestly, to the best of my knowledge in this topic, you guys fight like an old couple!" Spike began snickering at his awkward moment-causing joke. While Twilight was busy not trying to look embarrassed and hiding her blushing face, I tried to destroy the moment. "WE WERE ABOUT TO HAVE BREAKFAST YES? RIGHT! LET'S DO THAT!" While it didn't seem like a good idea at first, it actually seemed to work. Twilight and I took our respective seats, exchanging quick glances as we did. As soon as Spike placed the food on the table, he took his seat and we began to eat. The meal consisted of hay bacon and scrambled eggs, among other things. The meal was delectable, and I finished much faster than either of my two table-mates. I got up to put my dishes away, happy that there was only one plate to bring up. I turned around from the sink, and noticed two pairs of huge eyes staring back. I became a little nervous, as most would. "Um, what? Is there something on my face?" Twilight was the only who could respond. "I'm more concerned about what went INTO your face! What, are you excited that I get to finally that you get to go on that tour I promised you?" "Well, that could be part of it, but it was mostly how scrumptious that meal was!" Spike finally regained the ability to talk. "Well, at least SOMEPONY appreciates my cooking..." Twilight looked aghast. "You said that like I don't, Spike!" Spike raised his hands in defense. "I'm just kidding, Twi! Don't need to get so upset." Twilight sighed. "Oh, sorry." She looked back at me with waiting eyes. "Now, don't you have a story to tell us?" I had almost forgotten. "Oh, right, of course. Just don't blame me if you become mentally scared, because I know I am..." "Spike, I want you to leave. Now." "What? Can't I even finish breakfast?" "Bring it outside. I don't want you to be hearing this." Spike was reluctant, but eventually left the room with his plate, grumbling to himself about still being treated as a baby. That left me alone with Twilight. I was a little worried about how she would react to my nightmare, hoping she didn't think I was some sort of pervert. Unfortunately, I had no choice. I took the seat across from where Twilight sat, and began to recall last night, which wasn't difficult, since it was burned into my mind. I recalled every feeling, emotion, and painful moment that I could remember. I found it much easier to explain as "story time" continued, and I started speaking at a rapid pace, but not so fast that it couldn't be understood. It all poured out, feeling more and more relieved as the flow of speech increased. I couldn't bear to look at her, afraid of what I would see in her face. The best I could hope for was to at least keep the couch as a bed, either inside or outside. Maybe she'll enroll me in a therapeutic class? It could help, since I feel like I might be going insane with everything happening recently. No, I'm a goner. She'll throw me outside, and never let me back in. Worse, she'll also spread rumors around town about me, so nopony would help me out. Then I would have to move to the nearest town, possibly out of Equestria even! What could I do then? Fade away without a care in the world for me? That wouldn't be the greatest way to leave, knowing that everypony is disgusted by you. In fact, it would be the worst way to go. I'm pretty sure nopony would even go to my funeral, maybe not even the priest. Would there even be a funeral? Would anypony even bother reporting my death, or would I just be meat for the animals? I could already feel the various animals pawing at my shoulder...but, if that wasn't real, why did it feel so? I finally opened my eyes, and found out why. Twilight had put one of her hooves on my shoulder, and had begun patting it. It was then that I noticed how sore my eyes felt, and how wet my face felt. I must have been crying the entire time I told the story! Now I just felt more embarrassed, but more hopeless than that. There was no way I wasn't going to live in a box in the next couple hours now. I was going to be cast out, alone against possibly the worst thing to battle against: nature itself. But...why did I feel like that's not going to happen? I lifted my head out of my hooves, and found Twilight looking back with a deep, solemn look across her muzzle. Just one look into those violet eyes of hers reassured me, but they also let me know something else, maybe about her nightmares. There was only one way to find out. "Something about your nightmares you would like to share, too?" "How...oh, of course Spike told you about those. It's no surprise to me he would. But yes, it is about those nightmares, and how they tie into my past history. You see, I've been getting nightmares ever since I started sleeping on that old thing. They used to be very basic, not lasting much longer than what seemed like ten seconds. Then, as I grew older, they became longer, and much more fearful." "I started becoming paranoid, thinking my nightmares were predicting what was going to happen. It started becoming my image to the other ponies, and I became despised and lost connections. Research became difficult, since I didn't have many useful resources, and life became stressful. The usual vacation from the stress became worse than the stress itself, and I failed to find any relaxation, awake or asleep. Sleeping anywhere else other than the couch didn't work either, as the nightmares just followed me everywhere. Life itself became a nightmare all it's own." She gave herself a chance of reconciliation before continuing. "I couldn't find any happiness anywhere. Not even Princess Celestia could affect me in any way, and became worried for me, afraid I would do something I would end up regretting. She placed a royal guard to follow me around, making sure to keep me safe from myself. His name was Captain Stalwart. Like his name suggested, he remained loyal. To the Princess, that is. He had no cares for me, and only did his job when the Princess was around. To me, he belonged in my nightmares. He mistreated me, spoke badly of me around other guards, and didn't hesitate to beat me if I didn't listen to his suggestions. He was a monster in every form of the word." Twilight had become a different pony in the time we had been talking. Now, her eyes seemed to be glazed over, as if she were not here mentally and was reliving those horrible moments. Her voice had become lifeless, without any emotion or feel. It was almost torture to watch a pony full of life seem to die right in front of me. She continued her story after a moment of silence. "Stalwart stayed with me for many years, all the way up past the time I officially became a mare. That only somehow became an even worse time for me. Now that I was a mare, there was a whole wide new range of "punishments" he could give me. It...was unspeakable, what he did to me on a daily basis. I just..." A single tear rolled down her muzzle, unable to keep it back. She was close to cracking, possibly sending her into a mental breakdown. That big brain of her's had finally reached its limit. In an attempt to comfort her, I moved my chair right next to her and put a forehoof around her shoulder. She seemed to slightly relax in my arms, and she began to calm down a bit. After she was in control again, she continued. "I'm sorry...it's just that, this has always been a touchy topic for me." "Oh, don't be. Everyone goes through tough times, some more than others. You, however, have gone through the worst kind of life I have ever seen. I'm surprised you actually didn't do something to hurt yourself!" She shook her head. "Of course not! I believed my life couldn't get any worse, so I thought that if I could survive through this, everything would start improving. And it did! Not while Stalwart still hung around, though..." "What happened to him?" "He was caught having...'unacceptable contact' with another guard. With my help." "I'm guessing he wasn't very happy with you." "Just some empty threats. Nothing I cared about." "You know what he was punished with?" "He wasn't. He escaped before any sort of punishment could be decided. Nothing has been heard of him since, so he hasn't been worried about from anyone." That Stalwart sounded like a real threat, even if he hadn't caused any trouble in many years. He isn't someone I wanted to meet anytime soon, that's for sure. Quite a card, with a pretty bad-sounding nature. Definitely somepony to avoid. That is, if he was still alive. "By the way, thanks again." I brought my attention back to her, surprised that she was thanking me a second time since we met. "What for?" "Well, you were the first pony to have ever gotten that out of my system. Not even Spike knows the whole story, and I've known him ever since I was a filly. It felt pretty good to finally expel all of those pent up feelings. That's the second time you've been a fake therapist, right?" "Well, yeah, I think so, if those can even be called therapy sessions..." Suddenly, a huge crash came from upstairs, followed by a cry. "Oh COME ON! That's the third time today!" Twilight and I gave each other a confused glance before Spike barged in. "Did you guys hear that? Sounds like Rainbow Dash got herself into another accident." Twilight sighed. "Well, we might want to see how she's doing..." I nodded. "Yeah, good idea." Both of us quickly ran upstairs to the source of the crash, and found an enormous hole in Twilight's bedroom. Among the rubble, was a cyan colored pony with a rainbow mane and tail. Obviously, Rainbow Dash! She was in the process of brushing of every trace of dust off her fur. After shaking herself off, she turned towards us. "I thought you would come check up on me." She suddenly realized I was there. "Hey, who's this? New coltfriend? I knew you would eventually find somepony!" I could only groan. "Twilight, if every one of your friends call me your coltfriend..." Rainbow laughed at the embarrassing situation she created for both of us. "Oh, come on! I'm just teasing you! You know I love to do that, Twilight. But seriously, who is he?" The pink across Twilight's face slowly faded. "Oh, he's...new to town. I was just about to take him on a tour!" "Well, might as well start with me, right? Now hold on, I need to begin my introduction..." "Oh, that won't be necessary Rainbow. He knows a lot about this town and it's inhabitants. He'll have no need for an introduction." Rainbow puffed out her chest. "Well, I guess my reputation precedes me." I laughed. "Rainbow Dash, this has nothing to do with your reputation, although you have made quite a name for yourself. Gaining approval from the Wonderbolts, being the only pony to perform a Sonic Rainboom, even being named the Hero of Ponyville. You've been quite a busy pony, but you've also needed to learn a few things along the way, including how to hold back the need to gloat about your abilities. But I haven't learned any of these in a bar or from some rumor spreader, not at all. But if I tried to explain to you how I did, I couldn't. That's because I honestly don't know myself, but that's beside the point. The point is to prove to you that I know you just as well as well as your friends, and I hope that I have succeeded." Rainbow Dash had a look on her face of perplexity on her face. "Well, that's cool, I guess. Shame that my reputation hasn't spread very far, but I guess that will have to wait. But, you're saying you know a lot about me without even knowing me personally? Things that my friends might not even know?" "That is exactly what I'm saying." She eyed me with suspicion, and stuck her face a few inches from mine, glaring with eyes that could burn a hole into mine. My eyes kept darting around, unsure of what action to take. Thankfully, Twilight took action for me, separating us both. "Rainbow, he isn't a spy, stalker, or anything like that. I honestly don't understand how, but I can't question it. I learned that lesson a long time ago." "When you guys rescued Fluttershy from the hydras." "Yeah, exactly. He knows way too much to NOT be suspicious, but I trust him, and I think you should too." Rainbow wasn't fully convinced, but was satisfied. "Well, I wont fully trust him. Not yet. But I'll keep an eye on him for you, just in case he tries to challenge the element of loyalty." With that, she flew out her newly created hole. Unsurprised, I said, "Well, I should've expected that from her." Twilight could only look after her. "Well, she does try to keep her friends safe. I'm sure she's just looking out for me." "You want to get ready for that tour you promised me? We still have four more of your friends to meet." "I don't see why not. Let me just get ready, and we can get going. Honestly though, I don't see the point in this tour anymore, since you seem to be the more informed of us two." I laughed. "Well, I don't have a map of the town, so I don't know where everything is in the town, just what they are." "If you say so." She left to get ready for the tour, but I didn't really know what she needed to do for what was literally a walk through town. Maybe she was prettying herself up for me? I could only laugh. Of course not, she wouldn't go for a pony like me. Might as well go clean myself up too, I guess. Need to be looking good, or at least not like I just got out of bed. I decided to follow Twilight so I could ask her where another bathroom was located, if there was one.
