Chapters I am lying in bed with my eyes closed, waiting for sleep to claim me. And suddenly there’s this large popping sound accompanied by a bright flash of light that seems to blind me through my closed eyelids; then suddenly I feel like I’m falling. Naturally, I scream.
I continue to scream as I fall. Until I feel something catch me. It’s soft and squishy, so much so that my momentum pushes me through its surface before I stop. I can feel it wrapped around my body, but my head and legs are free. My screaming stops as nothing appears to be happening, so I open my eyes. That is a mistake, I stare down in horror at the large drop still below me.
I can just about make out a small town in the distance, with small colourful dots moving around its streets. I feel a wave of nausea and close my eyes. Instead, I focus on steadying my breathing. As I calm down, I begin to notice that my body feels wrong. I try to shift my arms, but the squishy substance holds firm and I can’t get my hands free. Speaking of my hands, I can’t actually feel them. I try to grasp at the walls around me, but nothing happens.
I begin to feel panic welling up in me, but I quickly catch myself and focus again on my breathing. Sufficiently calmed, I continue mentally checking my body for any other unusual feelings. I try moving my legs. They are still free, but I cannot feel my toes. I try angling my legs downwards and push against the squishy ground. But the soft stuff just deforms out of the way, causing my legs to slip free every time.
Giving up, my attention is drawn to another feeling against my legs. Unlike the strange substance I am stuck in, this feels more like hair. I shift my legs against it, feeling a response further up; like a strange muscle that never existed before. I give it an experimental flick and feel something attached to it fling into the air, at the same time moving the hairs off my legs. But then the hairs fall back down into place, is it just me or do I now have a tail?
What else is different? I try to shuffle my body, I’m still stuck but I notice something against my sides. I attempt to make them do something; they try to respond but are held in place by the walls. I decide to worry about all that later, I need to work out what to do next. I’m definitely stuck and can’t move, but what am I stuck in? It’s soft, squishy and very comfortable, while also being firm and maintaining its shape. But it still deforms such that I can’t get any traction against it.
I decide to risk opening my eyes. Although I’m prepared, it’s still a shock to find myself suspended so high above the ground. I peer down at the sprawling town below. The houses all look quite small and many have yellow roofs, are they thatched? The town seems to have no structure to its layout, with random buildings spread haphazardly around; although there is a large circular building in the middle that looks quite important. There is also a large tree nearer to the edge of the town, I wonder if it has a purpose?
Tilting my head, I see a large forest stretching endlessly into the distance. It looks dark and foreboding. I twist round and see another forest, although it’s a lot less dense and appears to be part of a farm, I guess it’s some kind of orchard. I can see a red barn near the back of it and a few miscellaneous fields beyond that.
Still, I am curious as to what I am stuck in, so I pull my head upwards, causing my long hair to come loose and fall to hang below. What I see when I look upwards is surprising. My eyes widen, am I in a cloud? I am distracted from my thoughts as a large vibration runs through the whole structure. Moments later, I am pulled sharply from that strange muscle group on my behind and slip up and out of the cloud.
The hole seems to close itself up behind me as I hold out my four limbs for stabilisation while the structure reforms itself. When the vibrations cease, I carefully adjust my position, the cloud wobbles and compresses under me as I move, but holds firm. I take a moment to look down at my arms, only to find an orange furred stump.
“Hey, you alright there?”
I quickly snap myself out of my stupor.
“We’re in Ponyville, Equestria. I need to be meeting with some friends at Sugar Cube Corner right now, wanna come?”
Author's Note
This is my first story to be published on this site. It's more of a practice / warm-up story to see what I can do. I do not know whether I plan on continuing it or writing a new story from one of my other ideas. It depends on how well this one performs I guess.
Author's Note
After publishing Chapter One, I was honestly a little scared to go back to this story. Then I had exams. After rereading the first chapter, I regained my confidence in the story and decided to make a new chapter.
Chapter Two
“You’re kidding!” Rainbow exclaims. “How did you even get up here if you didn’t know how to fly?”
The wind rushes past me as I find myself falling once again. I watch as the cloud shrinks away from me. I can feel the air tugging uncomfortably on my wings, pulling them in a way I’m not sure they’re meant to go. My hair and tail trail behind me. Overall, the fall feels longer than before, but luckily there was another cloud below. I land on my back, wings splayed out flat either side of me.
I lay there breathing for a moment as I try to calm myself. After a few moments, I realise I don’t particularly want to be seen in this position. I try to roll over sideways, but my wings remain stiffly extended at my sides, I can’t get them to retract. Instead, I try rocking myself back and forth. The cloud begins to rock too. But then it rocks too far and I begin to slip off. I tumble forwards and close my eyes as I slip back into the air. Except this time, I find that the wind doesn’t rush past me.
I open my eyes and find myself suspended in the air, the town directly below me, and much closer. I look across at my outstretched wings, but this causes me to lose my balance and pitch forwards. I soon find myself in a steep dive, picking up speed. I close my eyes as I try to regain control. I successfully pull out of the dive, but only for a moment before I crash painfully.
I just lie there for a moment. My whole body aches. After a few seconds, I open my eyes; it appears that I am in a bush. I hear a soft thud from somewhere behind me.
I look around me, I appear to have crashed into some bushes just outside of a building that looks like… gingerbread? My ears swivel towards a sound on my left, my head follows. I watch as more colourful horse things rush out, I guess they must have heard me crash. The white one seems to notice me first and rushes over.
Before I can even begin to contemplate an answer, the pink one is up in my face.
The white one spoke again. “Oh, don’t mind Pinkie. She can get a bit…excitable…when a new pony’s in town. Anyhow, as I was saying before I was interrupted… What in Equestria happened to you?”
The orange one steps forwards. “Howdy, ah’m Applejack. D’you need that wing looking at? You really should stop by the Ponyville hospital and get that wing checked out. Ah’m no expert, but that doesn’t look healthy.”
The white one steps ahead of me.
Rainbow comes up to me.Are those decorated with hearts?
We pass a few other ponies as we walk. They’re all in different colours, and I notice that they appear to come in slightly different species too. Some of them have horns on their head, which I guess make them unicorns. And the ones with wings, like me and Dash, are pegasi. But there’s also some with neither, I wonder what they call themselves? Normal ponies? But they wouldn’t be considered normal since there’s just as many as the other species. A few of the ponies glance curiously across at us, or I guess me; I must really look a mess.
Rainbow eventually speaks up.
I notice a large building on our right, I wouldn’t have been able to tell it to be the hospital, if it weren’t for the large sign outside with a big cross on it: the seemingly universal sign of a hospital. Except this cross also has hearts surrounding it.
“You okay? Right, you’re wings… just keep them open for now.”
I am standing alone in one of the hospital rooms. The nurse had left pretty much as soon as we had arrived and Rainbow also had to leave explaining that she had to quickly go check on her friends. It is as I am standing there that I notice a mirror tucked behind a curtain. I realise that I don’t really know what my new body actually looks like, other than that it is most likely similar to the other pegasi I have seen. I carefully trot over to get a better look. It appears to be mounted on a wheeled frame, but unfortunately, the curtains obscure the reflective surface too much to get a clear view of myself.
I reach up to grab the curtains, but my hoof just brushes uselessly against them. Mildly frustrated, I hook my foreleg around the back of the fabric and attempt to pull it across; it is heavier than it looks and so I nearly lose my balance. After readjusting my position for stability, I slowly pull back on the curtain; but it slips over my hoof before I can get it out of the way of the mirror and it falls back into its original position.
Okay, one last try… how does a pony do this? After staring for a moment at the stubborn curtain, I have a new idea. This time, I nose my head into the gap behind the curtain, then sidestep my whole body. The heavy curtain resists, but I am eventually rewarded with the grinding of metal on the curtain rail as I shift the fabric mass out of the way. Stepping back in front of the mirror, I can finally examine my new body in detail. As I already knew, I am covered in short orange fur. But where I once had hazelnut eyes, they are replaced with large blue pony eyes and my head sports a mint green mane; a mane which looks more like a bird’s nest than anything else.
I let my eyes drift to my new wings; they are covered in orange feathers of the same shade as my fur. They are also an absolute mess. It seems like every other feather is broken and almost all of them are splayed at seemingly random angles, not a single one lays flat. On top of that, there are even a few stray twigs sticking up painfully through them. I turn slightly to try to get a better look behind me, but my extended wings block my view. I conclude that my new form is completely unrecognisable and shares next to nothing with my old body. The only thing that seems to have carried over is my voice.
I am interrupted from my musings by the sound of the door opening. I turn to see the nurse walk back in, she is followed by a brown unicorn male.
I feel a strange tingling in my sore wings, not that I could tell what normal should feel like in limbs that I didn’t have an hour ago. I wince in pain as something yanks on my wings. I turn to look at them, but don’t see anything… except now, all the sticks are gone, strange. I turn to face the ponies, Doctor Stiff Hoof seems to have finished his examination. His horn is glowing strangely and my wings are still tingling. His brow furrows in concentration and I feel my feathers start to shift… and then more pain.
It’s at this moment that the door opens and a familiar blue pegasus steps in. She stops in her tracks at the sight of me. Rounding on the two medical ponies she almost shouts. “What did you do to his wings?”
The doctor speaks up. “Alright Mr Greenwood, no flying for at least a week, and make sure to keep good care of those wings.”
We are led back out into the corridor and up a set of stairs to the first floor. I am brought to a door and let inside.
I nudge the door closed behind me and wander towards the bed. I realise just how tired I am from the day’s events. I also realise just how much I need to use the bathroom. Luckily, there’s one adjoined to my room and I hurry inside.
It did take a while to figure out how to use, but I somehow managed it. I head back to the bed and clamber in. I roll onto my back, but yelp as my injured wing is caught under my body and I am forced back onto my belly. I bend my neck round to look back at my body, and can finally get a clear view of my back. My wings, now free of trapped undergrowth, still look terribly messy and feel slightly itchy. My tail is quite long and hangs over the side of the bed and out of sight. I sigh and reach my neck towards the covers. I contemplate how I should do this, before I simply take them in my mouth and pull them over me.
I take one last look around the small hospital room before I rest my neck on my pillow and let my eyes drift close.
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