Breathe in…

Breathe out…

Breathe in…

Breathe out…

This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, this is not possible, this is not possible…

I could hear the scrambling of hooves around me, like a nightmare, like the predators stalking the prey, they turned me into a pony, but this was not possible… this was NOT possible.

I think at one point I fainted after my full-blown panic. I could feel the cold sweat covering my neck, the adrenaline pumping.

A myriad of scenarios played in my mind. Maybe this whole civilization was about getting humans and eventually turning them into ponies, and that is how they reproduced, by infecting humans, and now I was one of them. I trashed and tossed around in the bed.

This isn’t happening…

Breathe in…

Breathe out…

THIS CAN’T HAPPEN!

Breathe in…

Breathe out…

Wait… in bed…

With a jolt and a gasp for fresh air I woke up.

Suddenly I felt well-coordinated and I used my… hand? To wipe away the sweat from my brow.

I was surrounded by ponies of all colors and types, for some reason, when I could focus on them, they all seemed to be worried about me.

Purplesmart was there, at the bed’s side with her horn alight and an expression as if she had seen a ghost.

Pink pony was there too, not smiling as she used to do, which was on itself worrisome.

Rare Thing was there, mildly horrified, and Timid Wingbeat was also there. She looked determined and almost… angry?

Rainbow Run was there too, hovering midair and not really sure of what to do, as she always did when there was something she was supposed to be worried about but had no idea about how to act.

Apple Something was also there, near Purplesmart, also a determined look on her face, but somehow relieved about something.

There was also that hideous thing at the end of the room, the thing I had a dream of, a thing that looked like they had made it out of chunks of other creatures, but he was… surprisingly small and shy? Timid Wingbeats was from time to time throwing a scowling glance in his direction, and it made him squirm uncomfortably.

There were more ponies around, for example Smartylocks, the kind of other Purplesmart, who was at the door, a foreleg raised and not really sure if she ought to come in or not. There was also the teacher pony, Cheery, near her, and she had a mix of worry and… a blush? With her magenta coloring it was really hard to tell, probably a trick of the light.

“Are you okay sugar cube?” the orange cowboy mare asked.

“Ugh… I think I had a nightmare… uh… why are all of you here?”

“We were worried ‘bout you y’know? One second you were turned into a…” the orange mare started, but Purplesmart interrupted.

“Sorry, Smarty. I thought you got… really really sick and we didn’t know what to… do…” She seemed to hesitate. The cowboy mare scowled at her for some reason.

“Yes, darling, no need to alarm him. Everything is okay now, isn’t it Twilight?” Rare Thing added.

“Yes… everything is alright.” She still seemed shaken.

For some reason, the sleeves of my pajamas were all twisted, and the bottom part was half of the way out, I had to adjust them. Damn… such an intense nightmare, it was a surprise I didn’t fall out of the bed. I also felt drained and my throat was sore from the screaming.

“Shouldn’t we kind of… let him breathe?” the small lizard came out and said out loud.

“That seems like the reasonable thing to do, Spike,” Purplesmart said.

“Okay, everypony! The crisis was averted and everyone is okay, let’s give this gentlestallion some space to recover!” Rare Thing said, and started to evacuate the room.

“We should keep an eye on him too… Um, like… just in case he needs something,” Cheery added.

“Yes, after what he went through, we should definitely keep an eye on him,” the other Purplesmart said.

What on earth did just happen? Why was everypon… wait… Oh, I think I’m going a little bit native with the translations there already. Anyways… Everyone was acting really weird. Was this some freakish magic nightmare? They had a princess for that too, maybe that’s why they were so worried.

The weird mixed-up creature snapped his claws (that gave me the chills again, as I remembered the nightmare), but somehow it just caused a weird spark and a sizzle. Then he looked at me with… worry? Fear? I couldn’t quite read it in that alien face, but he also seemed eager to get out of here. Yellowings scowled again at him and said something, but it was too quick and too low for me to hear clearly, so I couldn’t quite catch it. It was directed at the creature and he seemed hurt by it. I was still unable to catch everything when they talked too fast, but they all seemed quite considerate and talked extra slowly around me, so I could catch almost everything at this point, except when they didn’t want me to hear it.

“What’s going on?” i asked again.

“Some magic thing… We think it affected you, but you seem alright now. We want to keep an eye, just in case,” the other Purplesmart said. What was her name? Light of star sparkles or something of the sorts?

“So… was it a… magical nightmare?”

“Yeah? Kind of?” Light of Star made a funny face, and Apple Something seemed like she had just licked a lemon. I got the impression there was something else going on, but I felt drained to continue praying for answers.

“I see…” i just conceded.

“I need to write an urgent *unknown and fast noise*, can anypony stay with him for a while?”

“I am free right now; I can do that,” the teacher mare said.

“Thank you, Cheerilee. I’ll be back as soon as I finish,” Purplesmart said.

“Don’t worry, Twilight, take as much time as you need. I think Smarty is comfortable around me, we are good friends after all, aren’t we?” Cheery said.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Oh, come on, Smarty. One of these days we are going to hit my cousin’s bar and I’ll invite you for a couple of drinks.” She smiled and teased me again. The mares again being the ones paying for the males, what a world.

“Not feeling like it right now, to be honest. I just want to go back to sleep.”

“Let me help you then! I’ll tuck you in!”

I deadpanned at her, and she smiled cheekily.

“I can do that on my own, thank you.”

“Oh, come on, you are no fun… Alright, alright. Sorry about that, I couldn’t resist.” She giggled.

“My goodness, please, get a foal or something…” i murmured.

“Ouch! Right in the feels, you little shit…” She posed dramatically as if struck by a gun.

I couldn’t help myself and snorted a laugh… Yes… Snorted and then giggled a little, felt again like going native with the snort, and she joined the giggling afterwards.

She looked left and right suspiciously, like checking if no one was hearing (Purplesmart was anyways) and hushed, “Apart from that, If I wanted a foal, I need to get a stallion first.”

“No… really? Who told you that?” I regained my deadpan.

“No one did! I think it’s a secret. I found out in a book!”

“Errr… do you need anything, or are you two alright?” Purplesmart cleared her throat. She was pursing her lips and had an unimpressed look on her face.

“Oh! A glass of water and a pitcher, just in case he gets thirsty,” she responded calmly, like nothing was going on.

“Got it, maybe make it two glasses, just in case,” Spike said, the small lizard and he bolted out of the room.

And so, we were left alone. She took a chair near the bed and I tried to go back to sleep, but it was slightly awkward with the mare near me. At some point she got a book from my bookshelf (really, this place had bookshelves everywhere) and so she was distracted, only then I could relax a little bit more and eventually went back to sleep.

***

Dear Princess Celestia.

I need to inform you of the latest developments regarding the apetaur creature I am taking care of right now. By the look of it, Discord paid him a visit and turned him into a pony as part of one of his sick pranks, you know him.

That on its own should not be a problem, as Fluttershy could reason with Discord and make him turn Smarty back into his original form. It was a very stressful situation for the alien, but that is not the actual reason I am writing this report.

When the apetaur was turned into a pony, he panicked and obviously I heard him scream, so I came to investigate and found out about this whole predicament. The first reaction I had, as a competent mage, was to perform a magical scan. I could already imagine this was Discord’s fault, but I wanted to make sure it was indeed chaos magic.

I know for a fact that this creature has a strong resistance to magic, but the level of resistance seems to vary widely depending on the situation. It was a mystery until now.

To the point. Halfway through the scanning process, I could already discern the complex random patterns characteristic of chaos magic, something started to happen. I could feel a magic pull. Suddenly, I needed much more mana to maintain the spell, and after a while I could not even maintain it at all.

Before my own simple spell collapsed, I felt the chaos magic being also affected by this phenomenon. Drained from the mana, even the chaotic patterns began to fail and even Discord’s spell started to lose consistency until it collapsed on its own. Normally, this is a huge risk, as chaos magic tends to backfire in unpredictable ways, or the raw energy put into it tends to make a brute force dispelling almost unthinkable, but it happened.

To my surprise, all that energy did not come back in a feedback loop overload (that could have resulted in a destructive reaction), it just simply disappeared, violating Clover’s Mana Conservation Principle.

Raw mana or magical energy being pulled by force, disabling all magical reactions and spells, weakening all lifeforms all around it and rendering powerful wizards useless. On my whole life, I have only witnessed a similar sensation once, only one creature could create a negative mana field like that. Only Tirek could drain it like that and use it for his own benefit.

I was expecting something to happen, I was wondering if such a huge mana drain could affect the apetaur in some way, but to my surprise, he just continued to be his normal self and deduced this transformation incident was just a very intense nightmare. He does not look like magically charged, quite the opposite. My theory is that in some situations, he can act as a mana sink, interfering with all the magic surrounding him and neutralizing any spell. All that mana seems lost or transported, as I could not find any trace or residue of it and the ambient magic seemed lower all around him. After the incident passed, the ambient mana began to slowly recover.

After watching the reverse transformation happen, there was a midway point when he was half pony and half his original self, and that was when I realized it.

This apetaur creature might be related to a centaur as well. Half equine, half apetaur. And following this deduction everything started to fall into place.

This apetaur creature is not a weird alien, unrelated to all Equus species, as we all deduced at the beginning, actually, the case is quite literally the opposite, and the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.

I believe we have found a lost and unknown Primordial.

A centaur is a beastfolk creature half equine and half an unknown Primordial. A minotaur is a beastfolk creature half bovid and half an unknown Primordial, and the list goes on. Diamond Dogs, Catfolk…

All or almost all beastfolk biped creatures share this similar structure, and our science deduced all of them came from an unknown and common Primordial species that came to Equus and went extinct for some reason, or got so mixed up that no traces of the original could be found.

I will continue to observe him, but his existence might be much more transcendental to our whole world than we initially imagined. We already know he came from an advanced civilization, and we already know there are more of his species living somewhere.

This might end up not only being a scientific breakthrough, but also a sociological and diplomatic predicament, as we, as heralds of friendship, ought to bring friendship and magic to all creatures to live in harmony.

Smarty, therefore, might be the first of many of his species to come in contact with us if we manage to establish the link. We need to take advantage of this situation and study their culture and biology to better understand how to approach them as a whole.

Sincerely yours, Twilight Sparkle.

Author's Note

Well, as I promised, 1st of July I would come back and continue this. I wanted to have a buffer of chapters, but Life TM and distractions got in the way. I haven't built up said buffer, but I think I'm going to have more time and energy to write this Summer.

Revised and corrected by: Tincho argentum 9002

Thank you very much for your help!