Wings of Adventure

Wings of Adventure

Chapter 1- Press-ganged

Day 10: Thorsday, 7:12 A.M.

Yes, you read that correctly. No, it is not a typo. But more on that later.

I never was a morning person. Today, however, I was especially unhappy with my forced return to the waking world. So, I decided to be stubborn, refusing to move or open my eyes until-

"Milo, I'm leaving for work! You should get moving, too! Love you, bye!" The front door slammed.

...until I was forced to get up and ready to leave for class, which wasn't 'til eleven today, thank you very much, mom. Why did I pay money to sign up for a German class, anyway? I'd spent most of high school trying to learn it in my free time.

Oh, right. Keyword 'trying'.

After several minutes of trying and failing to fall asleep again, enough brain cells finally came online for me to remember why I wanted to return to dreamland in the first place. What the heck was up with that dream this time? Why the weird perspective? Trying to retrace my my steps served only to confuse me further, as I quickly found that any other details had already faded, as ever. It had always been the same, why the changes this time? The knee-high viewpoint was odd, but... that was it. Just odd. That guy at the end, on the other hand, had always been the part that drove me crazy. This time I'd actually seen his face. Spoken to him, even. What the heck did any of that mean, anyway? And just when I was about to get some damn closure...

My head jerked to one side involuntarily, eyes squeezing shut tighter as the sunbeam creeping up my bed finally reached my face. Ah, forget it. I'm not getting anywhere with this, I surrendered, lifting a hand to my face to rub the sleep from my eyes.

And instead was hit right between said eyes with something feeling rather more like a brick than my own hand.

"Ow! What the..." I shot bolt upright, hissing in annoyance as I brought the offending limb more gingerly to my now-maimed face.

Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is to repeat the same action and expect a different result.

I suppose it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the not-hand still felt like a brick.

But it couldn’t be a brick, either.  Bricks didn’t feel... well, they didn’t feel.  And whatever this not-hand, not-brick was, it quickly became clear that it had nerves which were sending impulses to my increasingly confused brain, which in turn indicated that not only was the lump held to my face not a brick, but somehow it was doing just that- feeling my face.  Somehow... it was me.

Now, I’d imagine this is about the point where any rational mind would start to get at least a bit freaked out.  Granted, there’s a fine line between my kind of ‘freaked out’ and ‘full-blown panic’.  I’m honestly not sure I’m capable of the latter.  My friends and family always said I was the calm and collected one, and now did not seem like the time to go changing that.  More like the time to prove just how calm I could be... hopefully.

O-kaaaaaayyy... that doesn’t feel like my hand.

Easing the foreign limb away from my forehead, I finally opened my eyes to see for myself what my brain was telling me.

Again, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.

To this day I have difficulty making sense of the thoughts which ran through my mind in the following seconds. You know that part of the story where the hero sees or hears something that seems familiar? Something that feels like it should be important, and ends up being very important to the story later on?

This is not that part of the story.

This wasn’t one of those times when you get that nagging feeling that just sticks in the back of your mind. This was one of those times when the nagging feeling jumps out front and center, grabs you by the shoulders and shakes, screaming, “Dude! I know why it’s familiar!”

Fitting, that it was so blunt on this occasion. No wonder the appendage before me had felt like a brick.

I was now staring at a sickeningly familiar, sandy brown... hoof.

The past week-plus of news broadcasts, Youtube videos, and Equestria Daily posts flashed through my head; Lauren Faust’s press conference. Her and Tara Strong stepping onstage in the bodies of Equestria’s own alicorn Princesses. Her warning that each day, more and more people would find themselves in her position- waking up as a pony. And, most importantly, my own thoughts of ‘What if it happens to me?’

There was no room left for “What if” now. It had happened.

“...Oh.”

One word. So simple. Given the circumstances, though, it had been the most coherent response my rather overwhelmed brain was capable of producing at the time.

This morning seemed to be full of not-surprises. It had already been established that I’d woken up in a body not my own, and, go figure, the voice didn’t belong to me either. Thankfully, now that I recognized exactly what I was looking at, I didn’t need another throttling from my subconscious to realize who it did belong to.

It was unmistakable. Rough, yet clearly feminine. And, I had to admit, kinda se-

No. Bad Milo. Don’t even go there.

Anyway, paired with the particular hue of fur sported by my new forelimb...

“Yeah, I don’t even need to check the cutie mark, do I?” I deadpanned. “So.. Daring Do, huh?” I observed as a stray lock of grayscale mane fell into my... her... eyes.

Man, this was already getting confusing.

At least it explains why the dream was... off. I think.

“Well then,” I continued, throwing off my sheets, “I guess the first order of business is to...  wha?”

Now, I realize that losing your favorite pajamas is, by comparison, a minor complaint when you’ve just turned into a pony who had been, until that moment, little more than a fictional storybook character within a supposedly fictional television show. But they were my favorite pj’s, darn it.

Another, though admittedly less critical, bit of familiarity gone- replaced by Daring’s signature green khaki shirt.

And for one moment, I lost my cool. The feeling jumped at me again and my eyes went wide, darting to the armchair beside my bed and the keepsake that, to my relief, still sat on one arm, as usual- my fedora.

Indiana Jones style, mind you. Which is why I’d been terrified for a split second that it had been replaced with Daring’s headgear of choice. Don’t get me wrong, pith helmets are cool too... I’m just very attached to that hat.

Crisis averted, my brief panic was replaced with quiet perplexity.

“Huh... why the shirt, but not the hat?” I mused.

I continued to gaze at it for the next few seconds, hoping in vain to divine some kind of answer to my only somewhat-rhetorical question. With none forthcoming, I gave an annoyed sigh and returned my attention to the previously-mentioned first item on the list for the day.

Learning to walk with four legs.

And here’s your first not-surprise, reader. How do you think my first attempt worked out?

That’s right. Fell flat on my face. How I managed to get my now much shorter legs tangled in the sheets, I’ll never know. Regardless, I soon found myself with chin on the floor and hind legs still in the clutches of said sheets on the bed above. As I’m sure you can guess, this left me in an overall rather compromising position.

“Well, that didn’t take long,” I sighed.

The feeling of something brushing the top of my head served only to remind me just how... exposed I now was.

“Oh, right. Tail. I have one of those now.” I allowed myself a halfhearted grin. “...Cool.”

While my short fall hadn’t exactly left any body parts in pain, somehow ‘comfortable’ felt like an even less fitting term. Particularly so for the two new appendages sprouting from my upper back.

*...And wings.*

That’s when it really sank in. You know the feeling; when something so huge happens to you, your brain just can’t process it all right away, and it isn’t until a minute or two later that it fully registers and you stop and think, ‘That actually just happened.’

...Wings. Pegasus. A Pony. Not only am I one of thePrincess Celestia’s ‘little ponies’, I’m Daring freaking Do.

“...I’m a girl.”