Long distance runners say that there’s a certain point where you don’t have to keep pushing your body anymore, where things just sort of run themselves and the conscious mind becomes free to enjoy the journey or think about things in general or even just drift off on the endorphins while the world slides on by.

I used to think that was several levels of idiocy, made up by people who were desperate to convince you that they weren’t idiots. But guess what?

They weren’t idiots.

When I woke up in the body of a pony, my mind didn’t know where all the new connections went or how they worked, and it took a few weeks of physical therapy for my mind and new body to get into sync. One of the things that helped with that was… running. One hoof in front of the other, trying not to fall on face or ass, as I worked out how to move in four wheel drive.

There were a few… more than a few faceplants, but before long walking moved up to trotting, trotting to cantering, and cantering into full out galloping. I began to understand what those runners were talking about as they watched the world slide on by.

If they could only see me now, cantering along through interdimensional space on a set of enchanted horseshoes and snickering at some of the symbology that my mind came up with, while trying to describe things that were beyond my comprehension as I zipped along through a space that no physical being had any right travelling through, never mind daydreaming about running while charging along at Hoof Factor Five.

“All right James,” I said to myself, as the destination of this run began to draw close. “The score stands at zero safe landings, and way too many crash landings, let’s see if we can change that.”

My course curved inward toward the universe that was my destination. A place where two brothers fought, as the Scripture said, “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the wicked forces in high places…”

I was pretty sure I knew what it was I had in my saddlebags for them, so they deserved my best effort in bringing it to them intact.

Plus, I loved their taste in music.

The destination swelled in my vision and I began to focus on the transition back into the, or at least a, real world, and for a moment I thought I’d nailed it as my hooves touched solid ground and my pony magic began to reach out and make contact with the ground around me. All I had to do was just extend my not being of the world just a little further…

Which is when a wall covered with a bunch of weird runes loomed up in front of me and acted like… a wall.

.

.

.

I don’t know how much later it was that I woke up again, with every part of my head and neck yelling at me that I’d done something stupid and ‘we would really appreciate an aspirin, or a bottle of Jack Daniels, or maybe both?’

Following this report from front end central, I also realized I was feeling a lot of pressure around my nose, muzzle, and the back of my head; which my slowly restarting brain managed to conclude that I had run into one of my archenemies, yet again. Cracking open my eyes and peering down the length of my snout I was rewarded with the confirmation that once again, someone had slapped a muzzle on yours truly.

“Frff,” I tried to say, which seemed harder than usual. My usual slow burn of annoyance at once again being treated like an animal instead of a sentient being was somewhat dulled by my confusion at being silenced more than usual. That is until I tried to move my tongue and discovered that this particular device also included a long something that both held my mouth open and my tongue down, reducing me to grunts and moans, at best.

Fully aware now, I realized what exactly it was that had been stuck in my mouth and it pissed me off. I get being treated as a wild animal. It’s annoying but a little understandable. I get being treated as a possibly dangerous unknown, which is why I tend not to get really angry at people who put a muzzle on me.

What really pissed me off right now was being treated as some kind of sex toy.

Bolting to my hooves, I also instantly discovered that whoever had stuck this gag in me had also buckled a collar around my neck, which had two chains leading from it into what looked like concrete spikes recently embedded into the floor on either side of my hooves, tethering me quite neatly in place inside a circle of what looked like either sugar, salt or maybe talcum powder.

At that point I pretty much lost it and started doing my best to break free through pure pony power, rearing, bucking and straining at the chains as hard as I could. A solid five minutes or so of effort had me sweating and panting as hard as I could through my nose, forcing me to calm down and work on a rational escape plan.

Step one, check surroundings. Where was I? Was anyone watching me? It was hard to tell as the spot I was… chained to was in the middle of a brilliantly lit circle of light in an otherwise dark area, the contrast made it hard for me to make out details but I was able to tell that I was roughly in the middle of brick walled room with a single entrance.

Wait, there were two entrances with one of them being vaguely pony shaped. Which explained a few things to me as I put two and two together to get five.

It was pretty clear that whatever those runes I’d seen at the last second had been some sort of magic. Just as clear as the smashed hole that had almost definitely been my entrance to somebody’s high security location, who had taken offense to me busting my way in. It didn’t make me any less angry about having a sex toy strapped into my mouth, but it did explain why. Sort of, at least.

Speaking of which, step two. Get this bloody thing out of my mouth and off of me in general.

My hooves told me that the collar around my neck was just as steely as the chains attached to it, but the… $#$% gag seemed to be of simple leather, with some metal buckles and the anger inducing chunk of rubber attached to its front panel. Which meant that it could probably be stretched and broken, with enough effort.

Effort I was more than willing to exercise, and over the next several minutes I did just that. Pulling and twisting at the thing until the tongue on one of the buckles finally bent just a bit and gave me the fraction of an inch of slack I needed to start pressuring other sections of the securing straps…

“I tell you, Sam, the thing punched right through the wall like it wasn’t even there. Wards and all,” a tall muscular man with dark sandy hair was saying to his companion, as they entered the room where I was being held.

“Son of a bitch,” said the man, spotting me working the last of the gag’s straps over my head and drawing what looked like a massive gun from his belt in response. “Don’t fucking move. Demon or not, I’ll fill you so full of holes even Crowley won’t be able to patch you back together.”

I froze at that, the last securing strap of the gag painfully folding down one of my ears. I wasn’t totally sure what a bullet would do to me here, but after Tamriel I wasn’t about to take any chances.

“Uh, Dean,” said the man’s companion, a taller, leaner version of the first man, and in that moment I recognized that I’d found Sam and Dean Winchester. Monster hunters extraordinaire and men who had no fear of man, beast, angel or devil. A lot of things fell into place at that moment.

“Dean, that’s a pony,” Sam told his brother, looking at me curiously. “A cartoon version of a pony.”

“It’s a demon,” Dean insisted, raising his gun a little higher. “Look at the damn wall it punched through. I was just lucky we had some stuff left over from that ‘Naughty Nights’ sales scam we pulled last month, or who the hell knows what it would be doing right now.”

Which explained where the collar, chains, and gag had come from, but I was still pissed as hell and so taking a chance, I pulled that last strap all the way past my ear and over my nose.

“I mean it!” Dean shouted, aiming right at my head. “These are holy silver bullets with witch killer in them and they will put you down.”

“Pthaw!” was my reply, as I finally spit the obnoxious length of shaped silicone out of my mouth. “Fucking pervert.”

“What?” was Dean’s witty response, blinking at my verbal shot.

“You heard me, you fucking pervert,” I replied, laying back down on the floor. I was angry as hell, but I wasn’t suicidal.

“Hey, you got no call—” Dean began, only for me to cut him off.

“A pregnant mare has an accident. Gets knocked out, and your first response is, ‘Oh boy, time to break out the bondage gear!’” was my angry retort. “What’s with you? You see a pair of teats and you decided that shoving a fake dick down my throat was the way to go? I mean, I always thought people like you were an urban legend. Like why sheep are supposed to be afraid of zippers.”

“Shut up,” Dean ordered, waving his gun in my general direction as my tirade broke his focus like a stepped on twig.

“Is that why you strapped that thing on me?” I yelled back. “Mares should be kept pregnant and silent? Is that it?”

“Uh…” was Dean’s witty response. Some part of me noted that Sam was desperately trying not to laugh and thoroughly enjoying his brother’s predicament.

“I mean, I get the salt, and I can even understand restraining me,” I said, rolling right along, and getting the tip of one hoof under the offending device’s shaft. “But this? Tell me exactly what purpose this served in keeping you safe from a pregnant pony less than half your size?”

I deliberately kicked the offending… muzzle, out of the circle of salt around me.

“Go ahead, explain this. Horse fucker,” I added, as a final verbal cherry on top.

Dean just stared at me, trying to marshal his thoughts as Sam just stood there with a hand over his mouth and shaking as he visibly fought down the urge to laugh at his brother.

“Uh, Sam,” Dean said at last. “A little help here.”

“I didn’t know you were into ponies,” was the muffled comment.

“Shut up,” was Dean’s reply, before turning his attention back to me. “So uh… what the hell are you?”

“He chains me to the floor, probably feels me up while I was out, and doesn’t know what I am?” I fired back, rolling my eyes. “Lord, give me strength.”

“I believe that’s where I come in,” said a new voice, and all three of us looked over to the door where a shorter man in a beige trench coat was standing. I hadn’t heard him walk in. None of us had from the looks of surprise on the brother’s faces. Looks that quickly changed to happiness and warm greetings.

“Cas. I am so glad you’re here right now,” Dean said, lowering his gun and stepping over to the newcomer. “This… pony thing, smashed into our safehouse here. Right through a wall covered in things that every book says is supposed to stop angels and demons both. Right through.”

“Yes,” replied the man gravely. “Father told me that an Outsider was coming.”

“An Outsider?” Dean asked, aiming his gun back at me while Sam just looked at me curiously. “What’s an Outsider? Do bullets kill it, or do we need something else.”

I’m not ashamed to say that I just stood there as the sheer power coming off this average looking man flattened my righteous indignation like a man stepping on an ant. I’d met Q, and beings who had enough power to call themselves ‘gods’ and make the title stick, but I’d never felt as overwhelmingly tiny in comparison as I did at that moment.

“Hello James,” the man said to me, stepping past Dean and going to one knee outside the circle of salt and looking me in the eyes. “Father said it would be polite for me to say ‘Hello’.”

“Hello,” I replied, looking into a pair of dark eyes that held an ocean of serenity and calm. “I’d uh… shake your hand, but I’m a little tied up at the moment.”

“Dean, may I?” Cas asked, and as he looked away from me I realized that this being could only be one individual.

Castiel, Angel of the Lord.

“Uh, sure thing Cas,” Dean responded, and both he and Sam hurried to sweep away the circle of salt around me.

“I know your purpose here,” Castiel said to me, and as he knelt beside me and placed a gentle hand on my withers all of the anger I’d had drained out of me, to be replaced by a tremendous sense of peace and good will. “But it would help my friends if they heard it directly from you.”

“I’m a courier,” I stated, as I stepped up to the two brothers, barely noticing that the chains holding me in place had fallen away at the angel’s touch. “I travel the multiverse on behalf of the Pony Express, delivering packages.”

“James, and the ponies like him work for a chaos entity who wants to see all that is grow and prosper,” Castiel explained, straightening up and continuing to lightly touch my mane with the tips of his fingers. I didn’t mind. Not one bit.

“Isn’t that sort of… well, wrong?” Sam asked, with a thoughtful expression. “Aren’t beings of chaos supposed to be, well, evil?”

“Some yes, but not all chaos is bad. Just as not all random things that occur are either bad or good. They are simply unexpected, and chaos that has been touched by the magic of friendship while still random, tends toward the good and steers away from the bad,” Castiel continued, focusing on Dean. “As for James himself, he’s an ‘Outsider’ because he is from outside our reality. To him, all of this is from a realm of fiction that he has either seen or read in the past.”

“I don’t feel very fictional,” Dean replied, with a snort, as he tucked his gun back into his waist. “Hang on a sec, you said ‘ponies like him’, and you keep calling him a dude, but he told us that he's a chick… well, a mare, and pregnant. How can he be both? Is it because he’s fictional to us, like we are to him?”

“It’s a good theory, but the truth is that It’s complicated,” Castiel stated, before I could explain. “But as with all acts of creation, I can assure you that love was involved. James, I believe you have something for my friends?”

“Oh, yeah. Right!” I said, and snapping back into focus I reached into my saddlebags to pull out the package I’d carried across the realms of improbability.

“If either of you will just sign, or otherwise indicate here that you received the package,” I said, extending my clipboard to Sam, who scribbled something on it before his brother took the large package off of me.

“What is it?” Dean asked me, his eyes alive with curiosity.

“Something of your father’s, apparently,” I replied, smiling as I saw the eyes of both men in the room go wide.

“Dad’s…” Sam whispered, running his fingers along the side of the box.

Dean looked at me briefly before ripping off the paper to reveal a battered brown, leatherette case whose lid was held in place with a spring loaded catch. A catch which the monster hunter wasted no time in pressing down so that he could lift the case’s lid.

“Oh my God,” Sam said, reverently. “Those… those can’t be.”

“Look at the titles, Sammy,” Dean replied, his eyes watering. “They are. I thought these were gone forever. Even Bobby thought they were gone.”

“What did the pony bring you?” Castiel asked, likely pretending that he didn’t already know.

“Mix tapes,” Dean answered, and he spun the case around to reveal two dozen cassette tapes, each in a hard plastic case and set in soft holders in the larger case. The sort of thing someone back in the 70s or 80s would have used when they wanted to take a lot of music with them on a trip.

“This… this is a piece of our Dad we thought was gone forever,” Sam said, getting down to put a hand on my shoulder. “Thank you. This means a lot to us.”

“James is only a little pony, so he can only carry small pieces of chaos with him,” Castiel stated, a small half-smile on his face. “But they can change worlds, when placed in the hands of the right people.”

“Sammy, we gotta see what we’ve got here,” Dean suggested, roughly wiping his eyes. “There’s a tape player in the workshop.”

Together, the brothers turned to go, but just as they did, Dean looked back at me, “Hey man, thanks.”

“Anytime,” I replied, waving a hoof and feeling the joy and satisfaction that comes with a job well done.

A minute later, the angel and I were alone in the room.

“Ready to go?” Castiel asked, looking down at me.

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked, looking up at the being with enough power to end a galaxy.

“You have free will. Of course you can ask me a question,” was the angel’s answer.

“What am I?”

“That’s a question that many ask themselves, and one to which few ever obtain a good answer. For you, the question is more complicated than it is for many, but if you truly wish to know, I can give you some of the answer. The rest you will have to work out for yourself.”

“Please,” I begged.

“You are a wife to Derpy, surrogate parent to Dinky, and mother-to-be. You are an agent of Chaos that helps hold back the Empty Night and someone who brings joy to many,” Castiel stated, holding up a hand to forestall me as he paused before continuing. “You are one of God’s children, and he loves you as he does all creatures under heaven and earth.”

I waited an extra moment to make sure he had finished speaking.

“I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with that,” I sighed, when nothing further came.

“It’s more than most get,” Castiel said, and I could feel his power gathering around him. “You should also know that when you reach the end of this life, you are one of the few that will be able to choose where they spend eternity. You may wish to give it some thought before then.”

“What?” I demanded, only to find myself back in the space between spaces. I guess Castiel had decided I’d asked enough questions and that it was time for me to go. Getting my bearings and letting my enchanted horseshoes get a grip on the aether around me I began the trip back home, lost in thought at the angel's final words.

It wasn’t until I was almost back that I realized that there was a faint jangling sound coming from around my neck and I paused to feel around to try to determine the cause. Sometimes things like to attach themselves to dimensional travelers like myself in an attempt to hitch a ride to a new universe, but you can imagine my surprise when my hoof touched the steel collar that Dean had locked onto me when he thought I was a demon.

The jangling sound was coming from the rings on the collar. Castiel hadn’t taken the collar off of me, he’d just severed the chains, and there was no way that wasn’t a deliberate choice on his part. That sneaky bugger had pranked me!

“Pffft,” I snorted, smiling at the stunt and strangely not feeling the same anger I’d felt at the gag, maybe ‘cause muzzles were annoying as hell. “Good one, Castiel.”

Reaching around to the back of my neck to undo the thing, my questing hooves found a lock instead, which meant that the thing was stuck on me until I found something to get it off with, which likely meant Derpy or Discord was going to see it and laugh their asses off.

“Next time, a certain angel is getting pantsed. Let’s see how you like walking around in nothing but a pair of boxers,” I declared, getting back into motion and preparing my entry vector back to Equestria. Castiel had fired the first shot in this pranking war, and I was determined to give as good as I got…

Author's Note

The final bits are a reference to a behind the scenes prank war that apparently went on during the filming of the show, with the various actors pulling fast ones on each other. One of the more memorable of which was Misha Collins, who plays Castiel, having to walk around in white boxer shorts because his clothes had been hidden in the ceiling of the sound stage.

A quick note about my commissions status. The next two months are currently booked up and the next free slot isn't until December. If that changes I'll put up a blog post regarding that.

My fumbling attempts to stream my late night gaming sessions continues. 11pm to 2am Pacific Daylight Time, Saturday through Tuesday nights. Currently doing a run of vanilla 7 Days to Die, version 1.1

Link to Stream