Laugh Riot

Have you ever fallen through space and time? Because I have now. One minute I'm standing in front of the big ol' Christmas tree at the center of town, the next I'm waking up in a blazing crater like everything that came before was just a dream. My immediate reality was the one that was more dream-like though. The ground was alight with dancing blue and purple flames. I could feel their warmth. More dancing colors in my peripheral vision drew my gaze to the sky. I was greeted with an aurora unlike anything I've ever seen. Okay, time to figure out literally what in the blazes is going on. I moved my arm to try and push myself up off the ground. Immediately things felt off. Everything felt off. My eyes darted back down, and where my perfectly human arms should be were two bizarrely-proportioned things covered in green fur. I could... feel them. I clopped them together. That's the sound they made. Clop. It felt like tapping my fingernails together, if my fingernails were fused into the size of a novelty mug. I shifted in my new body to adjust the discomfort from whatever I had just sat on, and then I reflexively... pulled with my ass. No, that's not right. Why do I have something on my ass I can move? I bend my neck back to look, and my heart jumped. Both because my neck can now move in ways it couldn't before, and because I had a tail that I was apparently sitting on. The tail was a wavy sash of yellow hair with a streak of cyan running through it. I... this was definitely a dream. That's what I told myself as my heart began to surge with adrenaline. Even my heart didn't feel right. Don't panic, you've just been watching too much pony. That's what I told myself, even though I actually hadn't watched My Little Pony in a while since that show ended. My priorities shifted with my attention. A high-pitched giggling could be clearly heard just to my left. If that wasn't alarming enough, my ears moving by reflex in the direction of the sound was a new sensation that my brain was not prepared for. I carefully turned my head, the action also making it known to me that my field of view was different from what I was used to. I had new eyes. Those new eyes found big, curious eyes staring back. The stare came with a glow. A glowing stare. A glare. Those orange peepers had a fire all their own thanks to two... blacklights... hanging over them? In those two seconds to process what I was looking at, the better part of me reacted to being looked at like that in the first place. I fell back with a yelp, all four of my new hooves flailing in the air. Oh good, my voice was still my own at least. I squirmed on the ground in a struggle with my new body until I dared a glance back at whatever was staring at me. It was gone. No, it was in the distance now. But it had moved fast, and without a sound it would seem. Those eyes were peering at me over the ridge of the crater that I was laying in. The silhouette against the aurora was distinct. From the antlers and the distinct shape of the ears, I could tell that this was some kind of animal.

"Hello!" A voice called out from the animal's direction. "Are you okay, little pony?"

A shrill, frustrated, undignified yelp was the first response that came from me. But words soon followed in the same tone, "I don't know what's going on!"

"I know," the high-pitched voice tried to assure me. It sounded like a girl, "Wow, did you come down on that lucky star?" The creature rose from its hiding spot atop the edge of the crater. And then it rose some more. "Things are pretty scary right now, huh?" It was a reindeer, and the damn thing was speaking in a girl's voice and floating towards me with those glowing eyes.

This did nothing to help the panic in me and I groaned while trying to back up. "Please... Oh, God..." I flinched as the back of my neck got too close to the blue and purple flames crackling around me in the crater.

"No, no, no! Easy, easy!" The little reindeer waved her hooves in front of her. She sounded concerned, despite her glare. "You're terrified. Oh, poor thing." She hung in the air just a couple feet above me. "Can you get up? Are you hurt?" She glanced back in the direction she came from, looking a little frightened herself.

Does suddenly not being human count as an injury? 'Hey, I've been turned into a pony. Can I go home?' The ridiculous question flashed in my mind with my Kuzconian situation as I rolled over onto my belly. My new hooves fell into place pretty intuitively, ready to lift me up to a standing position. It all felt so weird. My tail reflexively flicked, but then I did it again on purpose to get a feel for it. "...Nothing hurts." I eventually responded to the bizarre creature. When I craned my neck to try and find her, she had silently floated much closer to me when I wasn't looking. I gave another nervous yelp and landed back on my rump again. Without my tail in the way, a certain impact made me keenly aware of the fact that I wasn't wearing any clothes. "My clothes! My jacket, my phone in my jacket... What happened to them?" I glanced down at my light green fur.

"Yeah, you must have come down on that lucky star. Nopony would make it up here without warm coverings." The spooky reindeer nodded, still eyeing me curiously with a little smile on her face. "What was it like?"

"Uh..." I had to admit, her words had me a little lost.

"Actually, do you want to come back with me? I can find something warm for you at home. Ho-ho-honnesberg is only a little ways that-a-way!" She pointed with her hoof. "And The Lord of Luck will love to hear about a pony riding a lucky star!"

Ho-ho-honnesberg? Lord of Luck? "Hey... thing. You wanna slow it down with the proper nouns maybe?" I was back up to standing now. I tentatively put a hoof forward in the direction she had pointed in.

"I'm Bou, silly." She giggled and slowly started floating in the same direction. Her hooves moved as if she were walking on air. "What's your name?"

As if I would tell this magical mutant stranger my name. Then again, I did have that pony OC I made once. I didn't exactly look like him but I guessed that the name would do in this situation. "Just, uh... Just call me Riot." I stared down at my front hooves, slowly putting one in front of the other. If you go back far enough in a human's lineage, we were quadrupeds at some point. Right? I was hoping that meant something in this case.

"Are you sure nothing hurts, Riot?" The little reindeer named Bou eyed me questioningly as she watched me struggle to carry myself.

"I'm fine. I'm totally fine. Don't even need magic. Magic isn't even real. I only need my feet, my grit, and-" As I grumbled my way up the crater the heat of the flames grew more distant. It wasn't until I had poked my head above the crater's edge that I got a blast of arctic wind in my face. A greeting from the frozen lands I had apparently landed in. My enormous eyes squinted against the gale. Bou didn't flinch, still smiling with that warm mocha fur and that thick purple floof around her neck. I bet her magic helped too.

"And a friend to guide you to town?" She asked, but her tone had an insistence to it. I sighed and followed along after her.

"It fuckin' wimdy," I groaned through clenched teeth. At least it wasn't snowing. At least my guide was easy to see with the way her blacklight antlers made the snow around her glow. Still my new fur coat did little to protect me against the bitter cold. The snow bunching up in the fleshy space under my hooves felt like having a hole in my shoe.

"You're going to love my home town!" The reindeer almost sing-songed with giddiness. She pranced in mid-air around me as we trudged in the direction she pointed us in. "They have things decorated for Hearth's Warming Eve right now. That's all well and good but you should really see it on Nightmare Night! I do all the decorating myself! No one else seems to like Nightmare Night all that much up here. But it's the best holiday ever and Hearth's Warming Eve could use more of a Nightmare Night touch but they never let me decide what Hearth's Warming Eve should look like but could you imagine? Oh, it would be horrible!" She rambled on about her passion with that same giddy grin on her face, even when using words like 'horrible' in that way. My eyes followed her every time she circled back around to my field of view.

"...What's it like?" I eventually asked when it started to settle with me that she was using freaking magic! She cut herself off mid-rant and skidded to a stop with a wide-eyed look on her face. She was mid-air about a foot above me, so I didn't have the slightest clue where the sound of skidding came from.

"'What's it like?' Why, haven't you ever seen a Nightmare Night before, little pony? The candy, the costumes, the spooky decorations and the macabre themes! Oh, it has changed since Princess Luna came back into the public for sure, but it's still the bestest most-"

"I mean your magic." I slowed down a bit to raise a hoof and urge her to stop rambling. "What's your magic like?"

Bou had continued prancing through the air in the direction she meant to guide me, but she gave me that questioning look over her shoulder again. "I dunno, I never thought about it too much. Reindeer have their own kind of magic, but I guess it's not too different from any of your unicorn friends."

I had an 'Oh, duh' reaction in my train of thought and my hoof zoomed up to my head. I was still unused to my new proportions so of course I end up clocking myself in the face. "Ow!" And when I did, sure enough, there was no spiraling keratin growing out of my forehead.

"Easy now, Riot. If you mush your own brain then I might as well start on next year's Nightmare Night!" A high-pitched cackle of a giggle echoed across the frozen wastes as she succumb to her own sense of humor. I ignored her comment and turned my neck back in the new way that I could now. I didn't feel anything before, so I wasn't surprised to find that I was missing the wings of a pegasus. Earth Pony it is. Great. No flying, no telekinesis. I could end up farming straw, and I'll grow the short straw every time.

"You said reindeer have their own magic. Do you mean like the Gift Givers of the Grove?" I vaguely remembered what little development reindeer got on the show. Those three did have a pretty unique kind of magic.

"Yes, that's right! Reindeer are all about cultural celebrations! We each have a magical talent that helps with our passions. For example, I can sense the fears of ponies and creatures. The Lord of Luck has his good and bad omens, not to mention his passive luck of course. Donner's magic is less specific though. I guess it doesn't work the same for every reindeer. Oh, but the Gift Givers-" She cut herself off in the middle of her stream of consciousness again and turned to peer at me with that trademark glare. "Hey, hardly anypony knows about the Gift Givers of the Grove in the first place! How do you know about them?"

'Because they're cartoon characters that someone wrote into a show.' Yeah, I'm not answering with that. "Uhhh, I-I know many things," I stuck my muzzle into the air indignantly. "In fact, I heard it straight from Pinkie Pie's mouth I'll have you know." Technically the truth.

"Oh, okay then!" Bou grinned sweetly and turned back around to continue. There was silence for a few minutes. I watched the dancing aurora in the sky to try and take my mind off of how I was naked and freezing. It didn't work.

Despite how cold it was, the ridge we were approaching seemed to have scorch marks on it. I looked back on the path we came from and noticed that there had been a groove melted in the snow all the way up to the crater that I had just pulled myself from. "Hey, Bou..." I asked quietly. She didn't seem to respond so I spoke up, "Bou!"

"Yeah, Riot?" She turned her gaze from the glow over the next ridge and looked back at me.

"You said you can sense fear?"

"Uh huh, all the time," she responded very matter-of-factly.

"So, uh... I guess you could tell how scared I was back there?"

"You mean how scared you still are?" She tilted her head, her words leaving no room for subtlety. I turned my gaze away from her glare. "Well we can change that. Check it out!" She pointed her hoof forward as we came over the ridge. A warm yellow glow washed over us from the symphony of decorative lights. I could only describe it as 'Christmas Town' even though I knew that Christmas wasn't a thing here. "Welcome to Ho-ho-honnesberg, my home!"

The buildings broke up the wind. The ambient warmth of the magic lights and heated homes started to help the freezing off of my ass as we strode into town. There was a distinct constant echo of sleigh bells as reindeer flew and trotted this way and that. Some of them bore a curious glance at the new Earth Pony in town, but their expressions changed for the worse when they saw who I was with.

"Isn't this place the best? Let me give you the full tour!" Bou flew a quick circle around me and then trotted on the air to different buildings that were in view. "We have a printer who can make anything into greeting cards or wrapping paper."

"Bou! It was you who filled the stockings with rubber spiders, wasn't it?" An indignant reindeer poked his head out of the window, eyeing the smaller Bou with scrutiny.

"Heehee! That was a trick!" She quickly disengaged and flitted across the street to a different building with an active chimney. "There's also a bakery for making candies and sweets for any occasion!"

"Bou! Candy canes are supposed to be white and red, not black and orange! You ruined the whole batch!" Another reindeer poked his head out of that window, his impressive antlers decorated with the very dourly-colored confectioneries he was referring to.

"That was a treat!" Bou sped off back to me. The candy canes on the buck's antlers jingled a little as he shook his hoof in anger. As Bou bounded through the air around me, we quickly came upon a cobblestone rotunda crowned with a rather fancy-looking winter lodge. The rotunda was adorned with a massive and festively-decorated tree. One to rival the one I knew from back home. The opposite outlet for the rotunda led to a hill with a few more homes at the top. Bou spiraled up the tree, and then back down before turning back to me with the same unfaltering enthusiasm, "And a cultural town center for sharing songs and oral tradition!"

"Bou! The kids won't touch the dishes! They think the kitchen drain is gonna eat them! Did you tell them that story about the Smooze again?" An older doe had stepped out onto her porch just across from the lodge. She was levitating a dish rag to point it accusingly in Bou's direction with the magic of her antlers.

"The original and the remake!" Bou had the proudest grin. The other doe just gave a roll of her eyes and threw the rag down in frustration before returning inside.

As we strolled into the town center, I couldn't help but notice the scorches and burns on a lot of the rooftops. A couple of the homes near the edge of town looked like they had chunks taken off of their eaves and beams. Not to mention the dark-blue plume of smoke coming from atop the hill. Clearly something had happened. "Uh, Bou?"

"We're almost at my home. We can get you into some warm clothes. It's up this hill." She started to guide me to the other cobblestone road. But the reminder that I was naked really jettisoned my mind back into an immediate perspective.

"Wait!" I called to her. She halted in the air and turned back to me. I looked around at the quiet-but-lively day going on in town and quickly trotted up to a random buck on the street. "Sir! Sir, please!"

The buck looked back and forth, confused for a moment before spotting my lower stature. "Oh! Hey, little pony." He greeted me casually.

"Right! I'm a pony. And you're a reindeer, right?" The buck quirked a brow but gave an affirmative nod. "And her!" I hooked a foreleg over Bou's shoulder and pulled her out of the air and closer to me, "She's a reindeer too, right? You can see her?" My other front hoof pointed at her to make it obvious who I meant.

The older buck's expression fell a bit, unsure of what to make of this line of questioning. "Hi, Bou." He greeted his neighbor in a deadpan tone.

"Hey, Frederick. Oof!" Bou gave an awkward little wave before I let her go and the pull of her magic jerked her back into the air.

"Thank you. I just wanted to be sure." The buck gave a shrug and kicked off into the air. I got a face full of road snow and he flew away. The cold on my face made the recent exchange all the more clear. Yep, none of this was a dream.

Bou watched the buck trot off to a different part of town before looking back at me with a mirthful grin. "Pfft, what was that? You're weird, Riot."

I didn't respond, as I was now on my haunches. Rump and junk on the cold stone as the reality of it all settled in. I'm naked and cold. I'm not home. I'm not myself. I'm in a cartoon world for no goddamn reason. I'm a horse now. I had a magical manic pixie caribou chattering in my ear. I have no idea what happened. How. Why. I could feel the adrenaline, but the panic felt different. I had a new heart. A horse's heart. That wasn't my heart beating in this chest. Or was it? I slowly opened my muzzle for the only words that came to mind in this moment. "AAAA-"

"Bou!" My train of thought and its full cargo of existential dread was derailed by a new voice. It was a booming, wrathful voice that struck the fear of a scolding parent into my heart. Both Bou and myself snapped our necks towards the hill, and I was surprised to find that the source of such a mighty bellow had come from a creature half my size. It was a reindeer for sure. But it looked a bit more like a toy poodle. Or a topiary, considering the green fur and floof. The antlers branched out proudly, despite their proportionate size, and looked like polished gold. Bushy red eyebrows glowered at us. This little thing looked like it was squaring up. And not just because of the square shape to its scowling red beard.

I puffed out a chuckle at the sight of this reindeer who was even smaller than Bou, "Oh my god, it's adorable." Bou dropped from the air and sat on her haunches at my side. She wasn't laughing.

"Lo-Lord of Luck? Um, h-hi-h-hello..." She stammered with her ears tucked back. It was jarring to see her demeanor change so quickly. Before I even noticed, the tiny green one had closed the distance on us with that livid glare. A true glare, nothing like Bou's blacklit irises.

"None of that, lassie!" The apparent 'Lord of Luck' addressed her with the heaviest Irish accent I had ever heard. I suppressed another wheeze of laughter. Even I can read the room. "Where have ye been!? Didn' ye listen to a word?" He paused, allowing Bou to have something to say for herself.

"Oh, well you see..."As Bou explained herself, her cadence quickly returned to her usual rambling pace, "I was out closer to the pole and I saw a lucky star come down and I got excited because I had never seen that before and I thought it might have been the same lucky star I made a wish on last night so I-"

"You WHAT!?" The Lord of Luck cut her off. The look in his eyes made me flinch too. Bou was silent now, and she just looked away sheepishly. "Ah, so you know yer in trouble. Well you don' know the half of it, Bou! Come!"

The Lord of Luck beckoned Bou to follow him up the hill. Her enthusiasm lost, she followed on the road she was initially going to guide me on. My hooves on the cobblestone were the only sound in the awkward silence until we came to the top of the hill. Bou let out a gasp. The dark-blue smoke had been coming from the ruins of a lodge. Several reindeer were flying around the site with buckets of snow. They all looked exhausted, as if they had spent all evening working to put out the fire. Those familiar blue and purple flames now glowed as cinders in the lump of charcoal that was once someone's house. Chunks of wood and burned housewares littered the cul de sac at the top of the hill. Bou's shocked expression told everything. I spoke softly to try and console her, "Oh my God... Bou, your home..."

"Oh, my house is over there," Bou indicated the much smaller house that was just next door to the left of the wreckage. It was in very good condition, untouched by whatever disaster had just occurred.

"Aye! That was my home!" The Lord of Luck bellowed while pointing at the burned rubble. "I told ye, Bou! Bad! Omens! All about you! Your so-called 'lucky star' nearly obliterated me, and half the town with it!" He made clear hoof-quotes before gesturing towards the line of barely-avoided destruction that singed the roofs of the town.

I wasn't crazy about Bou, but she had been nothing but nice and friendly to me since I woke up in that crater and now this tiny creature was jumping down her throat over something that she clearly wasn't around for. A frown came over me and I chose to speak up in her defense, "Hey! None of that was her fault!"

The little green caribou turned his attention to me for the first time since I had first seen him. He looked me up and down and then spoke, his tone did not change, "Do you know who I am?"

"I've heard you're the Lord of Luck?" I deadpanned, with a sassy emphasis on every consonant as his title left my lips.

"And do you see what happened to me home?" He waved his hoof at the smoldering blue and purple embers that were once his residence.

"I do," I calmly shot back. Bou was sitting next to me with a foreleg raised. She was subtly shaking her head trying to urge me against my words.

"And have ye any idea of what that means, laddie?" The half-pint buck was floating in my face now. The glow of his golden antlers was hard to look at this close up, but my expression did not flinch.

"It means you need a new title?" My ears twitched in the direction when Bou's hoof met her face. The Lord of Luck looked shocked, and it was an effort not to smirk.

"Wh-wha-I-I-Oh! Oh, why you..." He stammered indignantly as a wind started swirling in the air between us. "Who even is this pony!?" He barked at Bou who visibly flinched behind her facehoof.

"Um... He's the lucky star... sir," she muttered.

"What?" I tilted my head at her, genuinely confused.

"I found you in that crater, remember?" She growled at me.

"WH-WHAT!?" The Lord of Luck's indignant scowl turned into utter rage. A green-tinted wind spiraled around his golden antlers now, and the dying embers in the wreckage suddenly burst to life again as a magical blaze. The few reindeer who were still tending to the site had to dodge out of the way when the flames reached up like little geysers. I was a few feet away from the livid Lord of Luck, but I could still feel the heat of his antlers. My ears pulled back just like Bou's had. Okay, this was bad. The little guy was very magical and very pissed off. "I warned you, Bou! Bad omens all over you! And this.. this... pony, too! Oh, you're in for some bad luck, laddie! And that ain't no omen, neither! I oughta drive a snake like you back where you came from!"

My lips turned up a little and I put a hoof up to say, "Oh, if you could..." I trailed off when steam started trailing from the Lord of Luck's nostrils, his glare set on me.

"My Lord! Oh, Lord of Luck!" A woman's voice came from behind us. The Lord of Luck's attention turned to the source, and his rage quickly turned down. The flames in the wreckage didn't go out, but they were manageable now. Still much to the volunteer firefighters' disappointment, as they had already put those flames out as best they could.

Bou and I glanced back behind us. An older doe was trotting on the air towards us. "Not now, Vixen. This here is a bit of importance." The Lord of Luck's voice was still agitated.

"It's Alice, my Lord!" Vixen quickly explained, "She sent a letter ahead. She says that whatever is going on here, everyone needs to stay put."

The Lord of Luck completely shifted gears from threatening me. "Buh-buh-bwha!?" His poor little heart wasn't getting a break today, it seemed. "One of the Gift Givers is coming up from the Grove? Wait, 'whatever is going on here?' Did she say that in the letter?" Confusion was tightening up his brow.

"Indeed I did," another new voice called from above. Oh great, now what? All eyes looked to the aurora-lit sky to see a yellow reindeer lit by the teal glow of her antlers. Although she was a fully-grown doe, her freckles and decorative red bow collar gave her a look of youthful wonder. Her sleigh bell gave a little jingle as she landed between the Lord of Luck and us. "You got my letter, then?" This was Alice! I remember her from the show!

The Lord of Luck exchanged a look with Vixen, both seemed pretty confused. "Um, yes... Just now."

"Ah... Yes... I guess my timing was off..." The mystical doe blushed a little and turned her attention to the domestic carnage behind the Lord. Her expression seemed distant, but curious as she stepped softly towards the flames.

"Deerest Gift Giver of the Grove, what brings you into town? And how come the others did not accompany you?" The Lord asked with a careful tone. He even knelt as he addressed her. Vixen and Bou followed suit in the corner of my eye. Clearly all of these reindeer held a great reverence for the Gift Givers. It made sense, I supposed. This whole town seemed to care about Hearth's Warming Eve more than anywhere else in... I guess I was in Equestria, wasn't I?

"My job, Lord of Luck. I'm here to do my job," she turned back towards us. Her eyes fell on me. Those eyes went to my left to hang on Bou for a few seconds, but then they were back to me. But it didn't really feel like she was looking at either of us.

We were all quiet until I dared to break the silence. "So you're-"

"Get out." Alice interrupted me with a firm and lucid tone.

"What?" It was all I could muster. That had caught me completely off guard.

"Huh?" Bou seemed to have been distracted by a thought, but she snapped out of it when Alice's gaze darted back to her.

"The both of you," her eyes were looking directly at us now. No doubt about it. "Pack your things. You have to leave."

"...Gift Giver?" Bou's voice was soft now. She looked devastated. Like she was about to cry. Bou was the only one on my side here. Did I really just get her banished? Okay, now I was angry.

"Hey!" I stomped my hoof on the snowy cobblestone, "I'll leave if I'm not welcome. I get it, alright? But don't bring this on Bou! She's done nothing but-" As I tried to assert my point, I stepped closer to Alice. Her face flashed a panic and she took a step back. Before I knew it, Vixen and the Lord of Luck were between us with their antlers glowing in my face.

"I am not having a laugh, Riot. This is my job, and I mean to do my job." Alice's collected tone could not hide what emotion was behind those pinprick pupils. She was sending us away and she had the nerve to be the nervous one?

"You're a Gift Giver, right?" I asked indignantly.

"Riot, please..." Bou muttered.

"That's your gift to Ho-ho-honnesberg, huh? Getting rid of us? What, you think I didn't notice how popular Bou was on the way over here?"

"Riot..." The little reindeer sobbed.

"So Bou's a little weird. So what if she wants to have fun in her own way? So what if the way she stares at you makes you scared to turn your back to her? Well let me tell you something, you future victim of a Cabella's gift card! She's-"

"Riot!" Bou growled through her teeth. Her antlers were now glowing too, but they weren't pointed directly at me. She huffed just like the Lord of Luck did, with visible steam blasting through her nostrils. I let the rest of my words fall back down my throat.

Alice's eyes went back to Bou, "I do not expect you to understand it. Just know that this is a gift."

A silence hung, but Bou slowly stood up and turned towards her house. "Come on, Riot," she sniffled, "We're gonna need clothes and food."

I narrowed my eyes at the rest of the reindeer. Making sure that the Gift Giver saw my scowl. Alice's ears turned down, but the rest of her face did not change. "Yeah. Merry-fucking-Christmas..." I muttered as I turned to follow after Bou.