Cry Havoc

Penny began to walk along the dirt road. After a few minutes of walking she comes to a field of apple trees. She stopped and took a short look at the field. She took a short walk along the edge of the field until she saw a small town with...

“Ponies...” Penny mumbled to herself as she began walking toward the small looking town.

Everywhere she looked, there seemed to be colorful equines going about their day.

“Wait, is that...” She trailed off as a dark blue pony soared right over her.

‘Was that a real pegasus?’ She thought as she continued to stare at the colorful flying ponies playing cloud tag.

Pegasi weren't the only oddity that she had encountered. There were several ponies that had horns like Sombra but lacked his more strange characteristics. More specifically, the glowing eyes and razor sharp teeth. The malevolent looking horn also fell into that category.

“This is just... I don’t know what this is.” Everywhere Penny looked it seemed as though ponies had taken over the world.

Shopping, cooking, talking, truly anything. And they were doing it all. Well... most of it. They didn’t seem to have any type of technology other than stoves and other meager appliances. Penny gingerly walked into the crowd of ponies.

She yelped as she pulled her tail out from under a pony's hoof, so she could see it.

“Oh! Whoops, sorry girl,” a tall orange pony with a leather vest and stetson apologized immediately.

The pony’s rump had a red apple tattooed onto it. He didn’t have any wings or a horn like many of the others.

“You okay?” he asked as he leaned down to take a look at her tail. “Well. The good news is your tail is fine. The bad news is I got no idea who you belong to.” He looked her over some more before he spots her collar. “Here we go. Let’s see who ya belong to....”

He picked up the small crystal on her neck and gave it a quick glance before frowning. He let it go and then scratched his head under his hat before sitting on his haunches. He looked to her collar again and snorted.

“Well ain’t that fine and dandy... your collar ain’t got no tags on it,” he said rather obviously.

“Well no duh, I’m no one’s pet,” Penny said, staring at the odd pony. The pony’s jaw dropped as he stared openly at her. “Uhh...Woof?” Her attempt to rectify the situation did nothing in the least.

He blinked and pointed a hoof towards her. “Y-You just talked!!”

Penny just tilted her head as if confused, letting one ear stay up while the other go down. The pony just continued to stare before rubbing his head and looking back to her after shaking it a few times.

“I think I might need to go lay down for a bit. I might have just eaten some... bad apples, or something,” he said trying to concentrate, he stole a look up at the sky and saw that it was getting dark fast.

He looked back at Penny and sighed before speaking. “Why don’t you come back home with me, you can sleep there tonight.”

He turned away and walked toward a single house. Penny thought to herself for a slight moment before  following him. The pony opened the door and motioned her inside. She walked in as he closed the door behind her.

“This is mah’ humble abode,” he said as he put his hat on a rack beside the door. “I hope ya like it.”

After relieving himself of his headwear he walked around to an area that looked a lot like a living room and sat on a couch. To Penny, this seemed like a strange action for a pony. She decided to shrug it off and act like a dog, no sense in spoiling the illusion of the situation. She drew her gaze around for a spot to lie down before settling on a spot near the center of the room, in front of the couch. After laying down and getting settled in her spot, she stared back toward the pony.

The pony noticed her stare and returned it openly.

“What's wrong girl? Are ya hungry er’ somein’?” he asked as he got up off the couch and walked to the kitchen, opening the fridge and taking out two and a half apples before walking back towards her.

“Ah’ don’t have any dog food with me, but ah’ know y’all can eat apples. Ah’ think since ya don't have any tags n’ all but ya have a collar, I’ma take a guess that ya been a stray for some time. Why don’t ya eat on up?”  he said, placing an apple next to Penny before turning around and walking back to the couch to sit down.

She looked back and forth between the apple and the sitting pony.

’Wow... these ponies are really nice. Feels a little like my world. I wonder if there are mean ponies too...’ Penny thought as she began eating the apple. She was trying to ignore the pony that was smiling at her when she suddenly had an idea.

Since she didn’t know anything about the layout of this place she would need someone to help her.

‘I bet this pony will help me.’ Penny thought as she looked at the stallion.

It was only then that Penny noticed the pony had fallen asleep. She walked over to him and began whispering into his ear.

“You will help the dog, you won't freak out when you wake up and when you hear me talk. I need someone to help me.” Penny kept repeating this to the sleeping pony, hoping that the power of suggestion actually worked on a sleeping person, or pony.

Penny decided not to take any chances and decided to wake the slumbering pony back up. It only took a moment to think of what she could use to wake him up.

Penny began to bark as loud as she could.

The pony shot up and fell off the couch onto the floor, making Penny jump back. The pony shook his head and stood up to look at her.

Still half asleep, he glared at her and spoke a bit more curtly that he normally would. “What d’ya want? Ya want some more food er’ somthin’?”

At first Penny thought he was mad, but after looking at his face she noticed that he wasn't angry at all.

Penny then began to speak. “No... I just wanted to ask you a question” As she finished that sentence the pony began to freak out. Penny sighed, 'So much for the power of suggestion'

After about five minutes of the pony yelling things about a dog being able to talk and what not, he began to calm down. When he had fully calmed down, he looked back at her. They both just stared at each other. Neither were able to come up with any ideas of what to say. This went on for what seemed like hours before the unnamed pony finally spoke up.

“I wasn’ crazy after all. You were talking back there on the road then...”

Penny spoke firmly, but not aggressively, “Yes. That was me. Honestly, with talking ponies, I thought talking dogs wouldn’t be much of a stretch...”

“What do you mean? Everypony talks, but I ain’t never heard of no talking dog.”

“What are you talking about. Until I got kidnaped by that Sombra freak, and changed into a dog, animals didn’t talk. Only people.”

“Ponies are people, buffalo are too, even griffin folks and diamond dogs too, even if they can be a might uncivil.”

“Oh, so let me get this straight. Ponies, buffalo, griffin, and diamond dogs all talk, but regular dogs don’t? That’s crazy.”

“Ma’am, we’re not getting anywhere like this. Please allow me to introduce myself, my name is Braeburn Apple, but you can call me Braeburn.”

“I’m Penny Heart, but you can call me Penny.” She looked shyly at him, “Look, I’m lost, I’m a little scared, and you seem like a good person. Can... would... will you help me?”

Braeburn looks away for a moment, deep in thought, then turns back to her. “Well, ma’am, it would go against my family’s hospitality ta’ refuse to help somepony in need.”

“Thank you so much! I’ll pay you back, somehow.”

“Why miss, that’s just plain old silly. Friends don’t have to pay anything back, they just do. Now, I am a might tired, so I’m going to bed. Seeing as you’re person, I suppose it would only be right if I offer you the couch for tonight.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate this. All of it.” Penny, now feeling she was in a safe place, crawled up onto the couch, and drifted to sleep.

                                                                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Light filtered slowly into the room as the husky, motionless on the couch, slowly began to stir from her slumber. Her mind was clouded with images alien to her. Nothing could quite fit into place as her eyelids fluttered rhythmically open and shut while her breathing steadied out. The air stung her nose as she began to take deeper breaths; each suck a desperate attempt by her brain to restore motor-functions to her body. The feeling in her limbs was something uncanny, like she was more than she should be.

Penny’s eyes finally opened and she yawned loudly, mouth forming a wide space giving a perfect view into a tunnel-like throat. She slowly managed to work herself into enough of a mood so that her eyes would begin to register the world that she was in.

It was like home.

Everything around her felt normal. Sights sounds and smells, even the light gently kissing her face felt more real than it ever had.

Penny worked her way to her feet so she could begin her day. The alien images still bounced around in her brain as if they were demented pinballs. Fur, fangs and talking equines were all flashes that roamed her slightly frazzled mental landscape.

It mattered little to her because now she had a new day to sink into, all she needed to do was get to class......

THUD!

As far as rude awakenings go Penny couldn’t have asked for more than rolling off the couch in a daze and imprinting the floor with her face. She yowled in shock at the sudden sensation punching her in the face at the speed of a falling idiot. She bounced onto her back and latched her paws onto her muzzle with a slight tear in her eye. The pain faded so that reality could take its unwanted place in the foreground of her life.

She was still a dog.

Her life was still as twisted as the day before.

Great she thought.

Penny walked into the kitchen to see Braeburn eating from a plate that seemed to have a sandwich consisting of bread and some form of plant matter sitting upon it. Her eyes travelled around idly as she probed into each small detail of the homestead she found herself within. She took a step forwards and her paw nudged against something propped against the wall. It fell to the ground with a crash that seemed all the more powerful to her practically virgin ears, causing her to wince in slight pain.

It also had the other effect of causing the pony, who had been idly eating away at his breakfast, to look over to Penny and grin widely.

The husky girl took a nervous step away. Despite her clear revelation that this was the world

she was now residing in; it was hardly any less unsettling to find an equine living how any regular human being would.

Muttering something about having to find a bathroom, Penny made her escape from the kitchen despite the pony’s minor protests following her like countryside laced butterflies of the vocal cords.

Truth be told Penny had no intention of searching for a restroom of any sort, her true goal was simply to prolong the space of time she had to spend with the odd talking equines, it still creeped her out to no end how they lived with such ease despite their clear drawbacks.

Like how the hell do you operate things with hooves?!

Penny ambled her way around the room she had just come from in her improvised attempt to find solid mental ground to rest upon. It wasn’t that she was losing her finite measuring of sanity as a result of being here; it was that Penny couldn’t quite grasp the concept of the world around her.

It was just so boggling to the mind for so much new information to stampede its way inside her brain without so much as knocking first.

Penny slumped to the carpet with a groan of utter defeat as the gears of her mind ground together painfully in its newest vain effort to process the incomprehensible information that her newly canine mind had been pumped full of. It kind of hurt to try.

A gentle trotting sound approached her from the direction of the kitchen. Penny cast a weary eye towards the source of the gentle sound of hoof-fall on floorboards. It was Braeburn in all his partially clothed pony glory.

“Y’all feelin’ alright there?” He asked sweetly, voice laden with good intentions.

Penny mustered some sort of response that was hardly worthy of being called forward into the realm of audible speech.

“I’m gonna take that as a no.”

Penny continued to maintain her silence despite the clear concern of the pony beside her.

Braeburn nudged her gently with his nose, yet another attempt by the stallion to earn a legitimate response from his lethargic canine visitor.

It was proving more difficult than he had previously thought.

“What is it that’s bustin’ yer bonnet their girl? Y’all feeling sick?”

Penny groaned a response. “I don’t understand any of this!”

“What is there not to understand?”

“How the heck are ponies doing all this? You’re a horse, a horse! Yet you talk and act like... Like...”

“Like a what? C’mon girl spit it out, I’m dying to know now!”

Penny failed to bring the words past her lips. The equine male in front of her clearly didn’t understand what she was trying to say. Did Penny even understand what she was trying to say?

Truth be told she didn’t.

Every word that came to her mouth made little to no sense when it arrived in the context of the new universe she was living within. Nothing made sense here without the relevant information, information that Penny sorely lacked. She didn’t even know if this was a world-wide occurrence, for all she knew this could just be an isolated case.

An isolated case of creepy, talking and functioning in a human-like manner equine disorder.

“I just want to know what’s going on in this place.” Penny whined.

“That’s all?” Braeburn asked. “Y’all jus’ wanna know what’s going on?”

Penny gave a saddened nod.

“Well that might take some time, and I would normally question something like this. But judging by the look in yer eyes you are pretty confused. So then, where should I begin?”

Penny shook her head.  “Just tell me about this place. This world around me.”

“That’s all? Well then buckle up cause it may take a while. You see, it all started a long long time ago......”

                                                                   * * *

“..... So that is just about everything that I think I can teach you on the matter.” Braeburn said triumphantly, pleased that he had managed to recite a large portion of knowledge on Equestria from memory.”

“Thats helpful I guess, lets get going.”

“A’hm sorry, but ah can’t go with ya, I have to stay here and take care of the town, but I told you everything about Equestria, so you should be just fine, if y’all ever need me, ya can always come back.”

“Oh, well I hope the it stays safe, goodbye” Penny said a little disappointed as she walked to the open door and outside.

I wish I had listened to half of that, I would've known what he was talking about Penny thought somberly as she began her journey away, she walked through the streets with little to no goals in mind. As Penny was walking, she heard a lot of fast hoofsteps, and looked behind her, seeing a herd of buffalo running at her. Her eyes shrunk into miniature dots on the front of her face. It would appear that while the rest of the town had taken small steps to simply be out of the way when the herd had arrived, Penny had been idling around in the centre of town totally oblivious to the impending danger.

Penny ran with the bright sunlight in her eyes and tried to use her power to go further away, but all it did was make her form shift from dog to shadow, then back into dog form, she was confused, she didn't know why she couldn't use the powers Sombra gave her. The buffalo were getting closer.

She kept running and ran down a dirt path, seeing a sign, but unable to read the writing, she decided to walk down that way, and see where it led.