The small horses all around you scattered. Some decided to retreat into the buildings while others ran further into town, all of them still screaming their heads off as they ran. The ones who ran inside the buildings quickly slammed their doors and closed their curtains, and if they didn’t have doors, they quickly barricaded the entrance with the largest items they could find. Before you knew it, you were the only one standing out on the road.

“What the fuck…?” you whisper to yourself as you scan the now barren streets.

You try to wrap your head around what you’ve just experienced and you find yourself struggling to do so. First, you wake up in a forest; then, you find this Middle Ages ass village; finally, you find that the village is inhabited by many vibrantly colored horses.

Just… What?

You sigh as you trudge deeper into the village, putting the strange experience behind you. You convince yourself that it’s simply a part of your hunger-induced hallucination and that it’s not real. It cannot be real. It’s all in your head. However, despite your denial, you continue to run into more of the tiny horses. You could have sworn you saw some with either a horn or wings on their colorful bodies, but you brushed them off.

They were just more hallucinations.

You approach what looks to be the village square as a circular, two-story building with a large spire comes into view. The village hall, most likely. All around the building were multiple stands, each of them being operated by a horse selling a variety of products. Unsurprisingly, the horses operating the stands ran when they saw you, leaving their precious items behind.

You ignore the fleeing horses and walk around, noting all the different items that are being sold. Scrolls, candles, pottery, plants, and many other little knick-knacks were present, but none were useful to you. Eventually, you made it to a section that seemed to be just for food. Your mouth waters at the sight of many signs with pictures of the different foods being sold.

You approach the closest one to you and you shiver at the wretched sight of red. It was an apple stand, you realized; it had a large tarp over it, and judging by the sign, they sold regular apples, apple pie, and candy apples. Examining the sign further, you note the foreign language present on it. It consisted of many different runes accompanied by dashes and dots which seemed to form the grammatical structure of the writing. If you were going to be honest, it looked like a more complex spin on the Minecraft enchantment table language.

Looking away from the sign, you face the stand again and see the items the sign was advertising huddled in the back. The apples were in a large wagon in the back left corner while the apple pies and candy apples were nicely displayed on a large wooden table in the back right corner.

You hummed hypnotically at the sight of the food before climbing over the stand and approaching it. Making sure to stay within the shade of the tarp, you took off your mask and goggles and proceeded to tear through the free food in front of you.

Sharp Steel was bored. When Princess Celestia sent him and several other guards to aid the citizens of Ponyville after a freak storm, he expected a bit more destruction and misery.

Granted, he should be thankful that nopony got seriously hurt and that the town stayed relatively intact; but still, did the citizens really need their help? The only notable damage to the town was the collapse of a couple of roofs and that's pretty much it. Everything else was nothing short of trivial.

“Thank you again for coming out to help you guys! With your help, everything should be good to go in no time!” a brown earth pony stallion said as he hauled over a cart of stone slabs.

Sharp Steel put on his best smile before using his magic to grab half the stone slabs while his partner grabbed the other half.

“No problem, sir! We are here to help after all,” he said with fake enthusiasm.

The unnamed stallion returned the smile before trotting back to wherever he came from. Once the stallion was far enough away, Sharp Steel allowed himself to sigh in contempt before continuing to replace the park’s damaged tiles.

“You still think we’re wasting our time out here?” his partner asked in amusement.

Sharp Steel looked up to his partner with an annoyed look in his eyes, “Come on, Nova Star. How could this not be considered wasting our time? We could be patrolling Canterlot, catching petty thieves, or stopping somepony from trespassing in the castle. But instead, we get assigned to this town that doesn’t even need our help,” Sharp Steel said as he replaced another slab with a bit more force than needed.

Nova Star chuckled, “Hey, at least we’re getting paid extra for this. So it can’t be all that bad.”

A silence descended upon the two as they continued to work on their menial task. Nova Star tried to strike up some more conversation, but he was quickly shot down each time.

Once they were finished, the two stallions began asking around to see if any others needed any help. Fortunately, everypony seemed to have everything under control. So, with nothing else to do, the two decided to report back to Twilight Sparkle.

“Miss Sparkle!” Nova Star said, “We are here to report that we have completed all of our allocated tasks and are wondering if any other areas in Ponyville require our assistance.”

Twilight looked away from the scroll she held in her magic and faced the two stallions with a small smile.

‘Please say no, please say no, please say no,’ Sharp Steel chanted internally.

“Yes, there are still some areas that need assistance. Although it’s nothing major, your assistance should help make it go by faster. Now let me see here…” Twilight said as she looked back at her scroll.

Sharp Steel sighed internally and looked away with an eye roll, ‘Can something happen so I don’t have to do this?’

Not even a second after he finished that thought, screams filled the air and the ground began to quake. The two unicorn guards whipped their heads over to where the screams were coming from and saw a stampede of ponies running away from the town square.

“Monster!”

“Run for your lives!”

“It’s hideous!”

“The horror, the horror!”

The ponies shouted in fear as they ran and hid inside the closest buildings.

One of the ponies, a yellow-coated earth pony mare, ran up to the two befuddled guards and shouted, “Please! Help! There’s a horrible monster near the town hall!"

Nova and Sharp shared a look before sharply nodding, “Go find a safe place to hide. We’ll take care of this monster,” Sharp Steel said before galloping to the town square alongside Nova Star.

“Hey, wait for me!”

Nova and Sharp turned their heads to see Twilight following close behind.

“Miss Sparkle, I urge you to seek reliable shelter while we deal with this,” Sharp Steel ordered.

“No, I'm coming with you! I need to make sure my friends and everypony else are okay!” she vehemently said.

Sharp Steel gritted his teeth but relented, they had a more important situation to deal with.

“Fine, just stick close to us!”

You were in heaven. You had to be. There was no way that these apples should taste this good. You had relentlessly tore through at least ten apples at this point, but the taste never seemed to get any duller. The apples had the perfect amount of sweetness and juice that just made your taste buds explode with absolute bliss anytime you took another bite.

If the apples were this good, then you could only imagine how delicious the pie would be.

Honing in on that train of thought, you looked towards the apple pies, all of them somehow still steaming as if fresh out of the oven. You approached them with a wicked grin, your pupils dilating to the max as you ogled at the delectable meal.

You pick up one apple pie and are about to stuff your face with it (literally) before you are rudely interrupted by a rough animalistic yell coming from behind you.

You flinch from the commanding tone of the yell before slowly turning around to see two… pale white unicorns in golden Roman-style armor glaring at you with their horns illuminated.

…

…

…

“Huh…?”

One of the unicorns quickly responded with a hard stomp of one of their forelegs and shouted something else at you, their horn flaring dangerously as they did so.

Frightened, you dropped the pie you were holding and quickly put your mask and goggles back on just in case you needed to run. The sudden movements caused the unicorns to hesitate before they started shouting at you aggressively. Both of their horns began to hum as they flared brighter and brighter before they lowered their heads and directed their horns at you.

Your eyes widened in terror. Were they going to kill you!? You still want to believe this all isn’t real, but you’re genuinely beginning to fear for your life right now!

You raise both hands in the air, palms open, and shout, “Wait, wait! Please don’t vaporize or kill me!”

Before any of the white unicorns could shoot with whatever laser or blast they were going to unleash upon you, they were suddenly stopped by a purple unicorn jumping in the way of their horns.

The purple unicorn let out a whinny at the white unicorns, its voice a notably higher pitch which led you to believe it was female. If that's the case, then the white unicorns were most likely male.

Surprised, the two unicorns quickly deactivated their horns before shouting and neighing at the purple unicorn while pointing a hoof at you.

The message was clear. You were the danger. The purple unicorn is recklessly standing in the way of the danger. The purple unicorn is being stupid.

The three horses continued to exchange unintelligible words while you stood there and tried to wrap your head around yet another hole in your belief that this all wasn't real.

That food sure as hell felt real. If that's the case then one of the horses must've prepared it as you haven’t seen a single human being since arriving in this wacky town. That, combined with the three arguing horses, should be enough for a sane person to realize that this was, in fact, most likely real.

You are not a sane person.

You still believed that this wasn't real in the slightest and that you'll wake up back in that damn storage room or that this is all some fucked up thing they do to keep your consciousness in a kind of blissful paradise while they use your now melted body.

Your hands trembled and your breathing hitched as you considered the possibility. Could it be true? You didn't know jackshit about them so it could be.

You pictured it in your head. Your body, either its own mass of flesh and hair or absorbed into a larger mass when they took you out into the light. Your face contorted into a happy look of pleasure while you moaned praises to the sun and mindlessly wandered the city in search of another unfortunate soul to bring into the light.

You felt your stomach compress and felt bile start traveling up your esophagus as the need to vomit grew increasingly stronger.

It couldn't be true. It.. It can't be!

Before you could vomit through your mask, your thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a soft whinny from below you. You swallowed down the bile that threatened to expel itself from your mouth and looked down to see the purple horse giving you a concerned look.

It was then that you noticed just how small she was. Counting the horn, she only reached up to your waist in height. Meanwhile, the other two were a little taller and reached up to your stomach.

The purple one–which you’ll call Violet from now on–began spouting out a mix of horse and other unintelligible sounds that you think are some kind of language. Once she was done with her spiel, she looked back up to you expectantly, but you didn’t know what she wanted.

One of the white unicorns then said something which caused Violet to squeak and blush in what seemed to be embarrassment. However, the embarrassment was short-lived when her eyes perked up and she let out a short “Aha!”

Violet trotted over to one of the white unicorns and said something to them before holding out a hoof. The white unicorn looked at her with a furrowed brow before nervously glancing over at you. Hesitantly, the white unicorn wrapped his hoof around Violet’s before slowly shaking up and down while Violet made sure you were looking.

A handshake, you realized. Or would it be hoofshake?

Satisfied with her example, Violet approached you with excited eyes and slowly extended a hoof out for you. You stared at the hoof for a long second, perhaps a bit too long if Violet’s increasing nervousness were to say anything.

Slowly, you squat down until you are eye-to-eye with Violet. You look at her, noticing her discomfort before looking back at her unnaturally colored hoof. You didn’t want to shake her hoof, you felt that if you did, you’d be accepting whatever your fate was here. But, you didn’t really have any other choice, did you? You might as well accept the hospitality of whatever this place was before you kicked the bucket.

So, with a sigh, you extended your hand, gently wrapped your fingers around Violet’s hoof, and shook it.

Author's Note

Let me know if you spot any mistakes! :)