Chapter 1: An Everfree Discovery
Zecora hummed softly to herself as she worked at collecting a number of herbs to restock some of her supply. It had been quite a while since she had ventured so deep into the Everfree Forest, but needs were. She had long-since learned the dangers of the forest; even the worst no longer scared her. She assumed there was little she had left to learn, which is why she was dumbstruck when she saw a rather strange creature looking around a clearing.
They were a canid sort of being; long ears, a snouted face, the whole nine yards. However, they stood on two legs, and wore garish clothing, including a particularly bright red beanie.
This had certainly caught the zebra off-guard; almost as off-guard as the creature speaking.
“Where am I?” The dog asked, rubbing their head.
With some degree of hesitation, Zecora stepped forward. “Excuse me, are you lost, strange creature? It is rare I am unfamiliar with the woods’ feature,” She explained simply.
The dog looked at her with wide eyes. At first, they were panicked, but then their face grew into a wide smile, “I know…” They began, “I gotta believe!!”
Zecora flinched as she suddenly heard pounding drums echoing through the forest. The start of a punchy baseline filled her ears, and suddenly, her mouth began to move before her mind.
“In what do you have to believe? My mouth is now filled with words I did not weave! You must explain yourself with great haste, or I fear we will be tracked by beasts of the waste. Tell me, Zecora of the Everfree, why I must speak as if I am filled with glee!”
“Well, I’ll be honest, I don’t know where I am; I stepped through the mirror during my usual morning plan. I’m PaRappa the Rapper, you see you see, and your rhyming tone brought on the spell within me.”
“Through a mirror, it is you say? And now my rhymes cause this music to play?”
“Through a mirror, it is I say. I must match your rhymes to keep the mood gay.”
Zecora’s eyes widened as she saw a cockatrice sneaking up behind PaRappa.
“How can we converse under the influence of the curse? I fear that we will soon experience worse.”
“All of the magic bends to the curse. Watch and behold as I take charge of this first.”
PaRappa spun around and grabbed the cockatrice by the wings. It tried to stare at him, but he simply spun back and began dancing with the confused creature. Zecora watched in awe, her ears filling with an even more chunky, complex melody.
“I don’t believe that you can control a cockatrice; such a feat can only be fantasy gone amiss.”
“I promise you, this is all real. As long as I match your last syllable, nature’s rules will fade like a kiss.”
PaRappa spun around, flourishing the confused cockatrice at Zecora, whose body moved without command. She caught the now screeching bird; an unwilling participant now roped into the strange magic’s midst as the zebra began to dance with it.
“Is there a way out of this curse’s grasp? Or am I doomed until my voice is a rasp?”
“It wears off when the song ends, until then, we have to rap until the very last.”
“Very well; we will play this game. I will not let this be a mark of shame.”
“That’s the spirit, let’s play the game. Rapping’s fun, after all; no need to be lame.”
Zecora attempted to guide her body in the direction of her home. It wasn’t too far; any kind of productive movement was a victory to her. Sure enough, she managed to influence her feet to prance in the direction of the abode, even as her and PaRappa tossed the cockatrice back and forth as they danced.
“Help me guide us in the direction of home; while we dance, it seems we can roam.”
“Let’s head out in the direction of your home; we can dance, regardless of loam.”
“Where did your magic come from; do you have any clue? It’s not usual for magic to belong to a creature like you.”
“Where my magic came from, I have no clue. Where I come from, rapping’s more common than a bluebird’s coo.”
“This what you call rapping, you say? Seems to me like having a conversation while tunes play.”
“That’s all it is some times, I say. You can even do it in a field, finding a place to lay.”
Zecora spun around one more time as they approached her house, tossing the cockatrice aside. It scampered away hysterically; no amount of petrifications was worth getting caught up in that mess again.
“We’re almost to the place I call home; just a little further, and I can research your curse in a tome.”
“We’re almost to the place you call home; I think I hear the music starting to die in tone.”
The two whirled inside, and the door slammed shut behind them, bringing the music down to a dull finishing beat. Zecora looked up at PaRappa, who was now holding her in a dramatic dip. She hadn’t even fully processed how they had wound up in this position; at least now she was able to hear herself think. PaRappa helped her back to a standing posture.
“I’m really sorry about what happened, Zecora,” PaRappa expressed, “I would’ve warned you if I had known the first thing out of your mouth would be a rhyme.”
Zecora shook her head, “It’s alright; what a terrible curse. To think a simple rhyme could bend a world by the ver-” She was cut off by PaRappa clamping his hand over her mouth, eyes panicked.
“By the line, right? You mean by the line,” He corrects exasperatedly.
Zecora paused. What was once an innocent verbal tick that helped her punctuate her own thoughts was now a very real threat to anyone within hearing distance, it seemed.
Zecora carefully pushed PaRappa’s hand from her snout and huffed lightly. “Yes, by the line. I’m sorry, PaRappa, the fault is m-” Zecora cut herself off this time, “N-not… Yours,” She choked out.
PaRappa wiped some sweat from his brow. “It’s okay… We just have to not rhyme… That’s not that hard, is it?” He asked.
Zecora sighed, “For any other individual, it would be; however, my rhymes have long been a way of defining m-” Once again, Zecora choked on her words, “...My speech pattern.”
PaRappa looked down. He felt guilty; he could see the trouble the zebra was having. He didn’t fully understand why not rhyming troubled her so, but he could tell that it irked her regardless.
“So, PaRappa… I have never heard of a curse that forces a rap,” Zecora admitted, “Could you tell me more about the curse’s tra- Effect?”
PaRappa nodded, “Well, like I said in our duet, rapping’s just a part of life where I come from; we use rapping to learn things, to celebrate… Heck, I won my lovely wife Sunny’s heart by rapping,” He explained, “But now that I’m here, it’s like I’ve got a curse; every time someone rhymes around me, I start hearing music and have to bust out a…” It was PaRappa’s turn to need a non-rhyming word, “...Stanza.”
Zecora nodded a bit, grabbing a large book on curses from her bookshelf and quickly flicking through it. She didn’t know any rhyming curses off by heart, but it couldn’t hurt to check the ones she knew.
PaRappa sat quietly, observing his surroundings. The house was crammed full of unusual items; it almost reminded him of his father’s basement and all the clutter it was stocked with; albeit, these items seemed more magical in nature.
Zecora sighed with a soft huff. “My own book does not cover a wide enough band; we will need to search for the curse in one of the better libraries in the la- World. Come with me, we will consult the library of Twilight Sparkle,” She said, forcing herself to not come up with an accompanying rhyme this time. What would even rhyme with “Sparkle”?
PaRappa nodded and stood up. Zecora looked at him for a long moment. “Your bipedal form might not do; it would draw much unnecessary attention to y- us,” Zecora reasoned.
PaRappa nodded a bit, “What do I do about that?” He asked.
Zecora hummed for a long moment and dug through an old chest. She thought she’d had something planned just for this odd scenario; she couldn’t be too careful, after all.
She then pulled out a thick, murky potion that swirled blue and and white; never mixing, like the constituents of a lava lamp.
“Drink this,” Zecora said, “It will adjust your shape as easily as a flick of the… Hoof.”
PaRappa took the potion and uncorked the bottle. It had a thoroughly unpleasant smell, and its swirling, viscous texture didn’t make it appear any more appetizing.
Zecora looked at him expectantly.
“I… I know,” PaRappa sighed, “I gotta believe.”
He took the potion and tipped it up into his mouth, gulping it down. It had the consistency of cough syrup and coated his throat; PaRappa forced himself not to gag it back up.
He dropped to the ground as the potion began to twist and adjust his body.
His shirt receded up to his back as his pants lifted from his legs; his beanie began to unravel. His body adjusted to a quadruped gait as his jeans became a flowing blue tail, just as his beanie became a loosely styled red mane. His shirt melted into two large, blue wings, as a horn sprouted from the beige fur of his head.
Zecora gasped as she saw the form take shape; the spell adjusted the interloper to a shape best representing their abilities and experience, which mean he had apparently done something worthy enough to make him…
“You are an alicorn?” Zecora asked, “This is a most perplexing development; these are traits with which almost no one is bo- created.”
PaRappa took deep, gasping breaths as his body settled on its new shape: A beige-coated alicorn, with great medium blue wings, a red mane, and a denim-blue tail. A cutie mark of a microphone adorned his flank. He looked at what had once been his hands; now, they were hooves. “What the heck happened to me?” PaRappa asked.
Zecora lead the unstable interloper to a mirror, and he looked at himself.
“Huh… Does your spell always take clothes into account?” PaRappa asked.
Zecora cocked a brow. That was what his worry was? She supposed he didn’t understand the significance of being an alicorn… Of course, now it might be even harder to explain his presence to any ponies they happened to pass by.
“I have never given it to anyone before; I only had theories, and now you’ve given me much… Greater amounts of information,” She admitted, “Let us go outside and get you used to your new shape.” Once again, she cut off her sentence before she allowed herself to try and rhyme. This would be hard for her.
PaRappa nodded, awkwardly toddling out of the house on four hooves. It was a gait that would take a significant amount of getting used to, for sure; nevermind all of the other things Zecora seemingly had planned for him.
