Author's Note

Right, so a bit of a forewarning, this story takes place somewhere around season 1, and the world is incredibly AU. There will be races that don't exist in the show, I will be adding places and continents. The ponies themselves will be au and are not going to be happy goody two shoes that accept and love everything that can and can't talk. This story is rated mature for a reason, if you have a problem with this then go find another story.

Now to those of you who are coming here from my old story, hello. I have seen your comments and will try to add some more detail and context to the story. Thank you for your patience, and while I won't promise, I will try to update at a reasonable pace.

Awakening

I awoke lungs heaving, desperately inhaling as my chest ached with a phantom pain. The first rational sense to come back to my waking mind wasn’t my hearing, touch, or sight. No the first thing to come back was my sense of smell. With a deep inhale the scent of wet soil, decaying leaf matter, and an odd musky smell that reminded me of ash and burnt lavender.

Honestly, as rational thought came back to me it was a shock that I could smell anything, the last memory I had was the wet rasping sounds of my buckshot-filled lungs and the indignation I felt at someone robbing a bookstore of all things. I suppose some of the antiques I had collected over the years could be worth something, still. It was a bit stupid, they could have robbed the antique shop three blocks down for that.

I had spent years of my life collecting old novels and books, leather-bound tomes that one would expect to find inside old ruined libraries and not in my little shop and that bastard had the audacity to ruin them with my blood. He was lucky that he hit me or I’d have shoved my foot so far up his ass he’d be trimming my toenails with his teeth.

When I finally gained the mental strength and awareness to open my eyes the first thing that greeted my sight was the dark green canopy of some admittedly large trees. A few beams of sunlight pierced through the blanket of leaves to form some real-life God rays. It didn’t take much for my confused brain to register that I was In a forest, a rather dense and dark place that reminded me more of a fantasy book’s illustrations of one than any real place you might find while hiking or exploring.

I tried to remember how I could have ended up in such a forest, but only discovered that I was missing some very crucial memories, like my name, I could remember that I was twenty-four and that I died choking on my blood after trying to fend off a burglar in my shop, and all the important life skills I learned from my childhood were there but faces, and names, those priceless memories were gone. Silently tears blurred my vision as my body reacted to a loss my mind couldn't perceive.

When my ability to feel my body finally returned I couldn’t help staring down in confusion. My memory may have been ravaged, but I was fairly certain that I had been Human when I had been shot, and yet my body seemed to have forgotten the memo. Lifting my now fur-covered foreleg I stared Dumbly at the paw that was attached to it in place of my hand. It was huge, about the size of a dinner plate.

I probably stared at my paw in shock for a good two or three minutes before my brain caught up with my thought process. Quickly I scrambled to my feet, well paws I suppose. With a thorough eye, I examined the rest of my body, not taking very long to realize that I was a very large fox. With a bit of mental guesswork, I figured was probably around eight and a half feet tall, not counting my new ears which added a full thirteen inches to my height.

Four legs with large paws which unsheathed a set of four claws about eight inches long with a bit of flexing. My entire body was covered in a rather fluffy and soft coat of fur that was a brilliant fiery orange and flickered with a dim glow almost like light reflecting off of water, it was nearly impossible to see unless looked for. My tail, or rather tails were unnaturally long and prehensile. There were nine, each one I could move individually with surprising ease and grace.

With a bit of work and a surprising amount of natural flexibility, I managed to check my underside and hindquarters, much to my relief my equipment was still there, though changed to fit my new body, a bit of prodding with a tail revealed a more feminine organ as well, I was surprisingly unbothered by the fact that I had both sets of sexual equipment, being a hermaphrodite seemed natural to my newly changed mind and I was already genderfluid before whatever happened. In my mind I reasoned it made sense if my suspicions on what I was proved true and in the long run it simply meant double the fun.

While I had no way of observing my face besides touch, I knew from carefully probing with my tails that I had a muzzle, complete with fur, whiskers, and a slightly twitching and moist nose. Running a long and to my momentary shock prehensile toung over my teeth revealed a set of large and sharp teeth along with a set of fangs long enough that they actually poked over my bottom lip by almost an inch.

“Well then, nine tails would indicate that I’m a kitsune. I’m not white so I probably shouldn’t be responsible for any messages getting delivered. I feel I should be freaking out more but I really can’t seem to care.”

And I couldn’t, despite my rather sudden change in shape and gender any attempt to impose my old form using a memory simply changed the memory to seem as if I had always had this shape. That time I caught my first fish, I had used my tails to hold the rod, not my hands, despite me knowing I was human at the time. The memory of that one family picture everyone takes, I logically knew I was human when it was taken but the image I recalled had a kitsune in that group of blurred faces.

I suppose I should be thankful for whatever was causing that particular phenomenon, otherwise my brain would probably fry itself. The part of me that should register something being wrong with this situation just wasn't coming to the forefront of my brain and honestly, I didn’t want to process that at the moment in case I triggered a mental breakdown somehow. Autism could be such a bitch sometimes.

In the end, I reasoned that I probably had bigger priorities, like trying to figure out where I was and why I was sitting in the woods. Looking around I was sitting atop a grassy knoll, the surrounding woods so dense that anything past thirty feet was consumed by foliage and the twisted reaching branches of trees that could only be the product of a necromancer rolling a nat 1 while trying to use druid craft. Their dark trunks stretched a good forty feet into the sky with canopies that spread like interlocking umbrellas of dark green.

Despite my attempts to spot some kind of path or disturbance in the foliage the only source of unnatural scenery I could find was a bag. I had almost missed it hanging from a lower branch of a smaller tree. I approached it slowly, carefully taking soft steps as if I were walking in a mind field. The way the bag dangled like a tempting fruit screamed of traps. My inner dungeon-master was screaming about loot traps and quest hooks.

With an ease of movement that hid my inexperience with my body, I eased a tail around one of the straps and gently lifted the bag from the branch. The fur at the end of my tail subconsciously wrapped around the strap of the bag and secured it in my tail. With a bit more confidence in my movement, I brought the bag up to my face to look at it better.

It was a canvas saddle bag, the straps and size of the bag made it obvious that it had been tailored for something of my size. It had an odd design sewn into the front with a brilliant cyan-blue thread. The design itself was that of a kitsune, it was stylized in such a way that I had mistaken it for a flower of some kind at first. It was held shut by a silver latch that was covered in strange symbols I couldn't recognize.

With a bit of hesitation, I used another tail to unlatch the bag, I watched in slight fascination as the fur at the end moved and manipulated itself into multiple minute tendrils almost invisible amongst the rest of the fur. Moving in unison with each other to allow an almost finger-like manipulation to grab the latch and flip it.

The inside of the bag was a murky dark expanse so deep that I couldn’t see the bottom, the chasm of darkness like an all-swallowing abyss that threatened to consume all light, the sudden void hovering in my grip caused me to rear my head back in shock and toss the bag away from myself.

I paused pondering on my next course of action, the rules of common sense stated that sticking a body part into a void bag would be stupid, but what fun was there in making sense when faced with magic? Then almost wordlessly I stuck a tail into the bag. I fished around inside grabbing the first thing it came in contact with, with a grin forming at the corners of my muzzle I pulled a large book from the bag.

" It’s a God-dammed bag of holding.” My mind raced with possibilities, casually jumping to the sheer mayhem one could cause with such an object. I’ll be the first to admit that I was a bit of a nerd, the local group of D&D players I DM’d for in my shop would attest to that wholeheartedly. With a small bark of excitement, I plunged one of my tails back into the depths of the bag and began pulling things with a gusto one generally only sees with kids opening presents.

By the time I got over my little nerdgasm, I had pulled five objects from the bag. The first object, the book was a large leather-bound tome, the front was illustrated with a Celtic-designed fox that was eating its own tail. The book itself seemed to have around six to seven hundred pages of old and slightly discolored parchment stained and decorated with ink. Flipping through the pages I noticed that they were the titles and summaries of books I had in my personal library, categorized by their subject.

Each page also held a single shimmering symbol that was situated in the corner of the page. Hesitantly I hovered a single toe over the symbol and pressed it. My jaw dropped slightly in amazement as the entire book shimmered and morphed into a copy of The Art of War. Flipping through a few pages I confirmed that it was indeed the whole intact book. I quickly pressed the symbol on the first page again and the book switched back to how it was.

A chuckle bubbled up from my throat as I stared at the impossibility that I was holding in my tail, my whole library a treasure cove of knowledge both old and modern sat in my grip. “At least I won’t be bored while I’m lost in the incredibly creepy forest of doom.”

The second object that I pulled from the bag was a porcelain mask, a kitsune mask. The mask was decorated with a recreation of a smirking and rather toothy grin. It was able to open the jaw and move up and down, I could find no hinge or screw that would indicate such movement, however. The porcelain was unnaturally smooth to the touch, and I could swear it gave off a slight heat.

I stared at it before silently slipping on my face. The mask fit my face smoothly and settled so comfortably along my muzzle that I imagined it would be easy to forget that I had put it on in the first place, startled as that warmth spread down my body. Looking at myself I watched as a bamboo chest plate formed over my midsection, reinforced with bands of silver covered in faintly shimmering runes. I hesitated to call the metal silver, it was brighter and seemed to shimmer even beyond the runes etched into it.

Forming on all of my tails where the fiery fur started to shift into a deep inky black was a series of silver metal bands that were paced evenly down my tails, twelve on each tail. The rings didn’t seem to weigh much and if I had to guess they would, in theory, act similar to brass knuckles or a roll of quarters. Their metal surface flickered with dim symbols whenever my tails moved too fast. Three thin chains of the same metal existed between each ring connecting them to each other and the main armour.

A cyan-colored, silk-like fabric spread over my lower stomach and back then flared briefly with dark blue symbols before a thin layer of chain mail formed atop it, soon my neck received a similar treatment, and thin plates formed over my spine and upper shoulders. My legs were armored with cylindrical guards made of bamboo and Chain-mail as well. Surprisingly it didn’t weigh all that much and didn’t seem to make any noise when I moved. The whole setup seemed like someone had mixed Ashiguru armor with a European half-plate.

I played around with the mask and armor a bit before I moved on to the third item I pulled from the bag. It was a bottle, a simple nondescript porcelain bottle with an old-style cork. Spinning it around in my tails grasp I eventually popped the cork out of the bottle and sniffed, my muzzle wrinkled slightly as the sour scent of alcohol hit my senses. I wasn’t certain but with a sip and a brief thought of my situation, I guessed that it was probably sake.

The fourth object was a koto, nothing seemingly special about it at all, idly I plucked a few strings, the harp letting out a few notes. The lack of glowing symbols or odd effects was surprisingly comforting, I’d half expected to summon lightning or cause some plants to do the juicy wiggle or some such.

With a somewhat strained smile, I picked up the fifth and final object a single stained piece of parchment. There wasn’t much written upon it. But what was written was done so with such a smooth grace that It could only have been written with a calligraphy brush.

To whom it may concern
Congratulations on being chosen for the great game that is change. Be you player or piece the dice have landed on you. Within this bag is a set of objects that will help survive the coming days and the challenges that follow them. Have fun and remember, chaos is but the stepping stone of change in the face of stagnation, and change is the ladder on which one climbs to salvation or damnation.
With love, CG
Ps. I do hope you enjoy your new form.

I couldn’t help but stare dumbly at the letter as it began to smolder before being consumed in a flash of blue flames. I couldn’t help but feel a bit of dread, I played role-playing games. I knew what it meant when the game master starts a player with a set of powerful magical items, and who the fuck was CG, the fucking chaos gods?

What game, chess, Stratego, fucking 4d checkers? Am I a player or a piece? Was I going to roll too high of a perception check and see a kid holding a dammed character sheet and a bunch of snacks, if so they’d better share. Worst of all, if I was part of a game what was my role? Could I be the king? Maybe I was a knight, better yet a pawn.

I snarled as I threw the bag to the ground in mild frustration, a rant that would make a sailor blush on the tip of my tongue. Barely a sound had left my mouth when a loud snap caused me to close it with an audible clicking noise. Slowly I turned to look at where the sound had come from, a thicket of brambles that slowly shuddered as the interloper made itself seen.

I couldn’t help it, I broke down cackling. My chest heaving with mirth and probably a slight sense of insanity at my situation. As cliche and predictable as it was the rabbit scare was a bit humorous. A fanged smile still tugging at my lips I observed the small critter.

The small spiraling horn in the center of its forehead told me it wasn’t normal and my years of DND probably would have left me worried at the sight of the almiraj if I wasn’t as big as I was. Though I did take note to make sure there weren’t anymore in the bush, one wasn’t a threat to something my size a group could cause some damage.

However, the existence of the magical rabbit did foreshadow the likelihood that there were other magical beasts in this forest. Between my size and my armor, I could try my luck with a bear, but a pack of dire wolves or worse a magical Badger or giant Wolverine. No thanks, I liked my testicles where they were thank you.

Honestly, the almaraj was the kick my brain needed to finally comprehend my situation, I had been putting off the fact that I was lost In some weird forest. “Right, time to take stock of the situation. I died, woke up, and have transformed into a giant fox.”

“So first things first,” I sat back on my haunches and lifted a paw before slamming it into a tree, “Ow fuck.” Okay so this isn’t a dream and I’m probably not in a coma while in the hospital, despite wishful thinking, the nearest hospital to my shop was almost forty minutes away. The shotgun had most likely shredded my lungs, there would have been no saving me not with me being at point-blank range.

Which meant that this was real, I stared at my paw for a while, contemplating what I was supposed to do next, I could guess that with the way the forest looked and the magical unicorn rabbit, I was probably not on earth any longer. A good thing given that I had no wish to be dissected or start a cult. So where was I? I could guess that it was probably some kind of fantasy realm.

Where was I to go, my new body and instincts would make hunting easier so food wasn’t a major concern, the general environment indicated that water was abundant, and my fur should protect me from the cold. Realistically my biggest threats would be predators and my own boredom.

Perhaps I could find a city or some other kind of settlement here. Settle down and open another bookshop. I was always fond of the stories in my books, a retreat from my mundane and painful life. Burdened by debts and medical bills, barely scraping by, the only lucky break I had was my bookshop.

But now I was that character in the books, the one that found themselves in a new land, except those characters always had a goal. A mission to complete before they could live happily. I didn’t have that. I didn’t even know if there were other sapient creatures in this realm.

" Well, if I don’t have a goal then I would just have to make one,” with a determined grin I stood up. My first Goal would be to get the hell out of this twilight forest lookalike. Closing my eyes I spun in a circle three times before opening my eyes.

With a few bounds, I was moving with an ease that would make one think that I had always had this shape. The distant sounds of animals going about their lives echo throughout the trees. “Well forest, show me what you’ve got, I’ve always loved a challenge.”