An Alicorn in Ponyville

Introduction

I wake up. I wiggle my flank. I scratch my shoulder with a hoof and yawn. And then I look around. Inches from my snout is a weird looking ‘pony’.

It’s pink. It’s a little fat. It has a glazed expression and bulgy eyes. Its horn is.. its horn is? HOLY HAY IT DOESN’T HAVE A HORN.

My horrified eyes look over the rest of the deformed pony-like creature, and quickly see it lacks wings.

That is when I realise I’m dreaming, and try to calm down.

”Slendermane lacks a face not a horn and wings, isn’t pink or a mare and wears a suit.” I quip at it, staring it down. ”You don’t frighten me!” I say, truthfully - the thing, despite its weird appearance, isn't remotely frightening.

The pink pony-shaped creature snorts, rather ungracefully. ”You call that an opening? Oh ok, I’ll play along.” she says to me, meaninglessly, before continuing in a different tone and wrapping its hooves around my neck. ”I CAN’T BELIEVE AN ALICORN IS COMING TO PONYVILLE TO MEET MY FRIEEENDS, THEY’RE GONNA BE LIKE SO SUPER EXCITED TO SEE YOU!”

I try not to grin foolishly at the excited dream-mare’s babbling. ”Wow friends! Great! I’m a ‘pony’.” I inform her and clam up, not really knowing what to say to the strange, almost uncanny, mare, and hampered by the gobbldigook about analicorns and openings. ”What are you?” I add lamely after an uncomfortable silence.

She cocks her head to one side, birdishly. ”You’re strange Mister. Twilight will love you!” she replies in an unanswering of my question sort of way.

”But not in that way I hope!” I wink and laugh, for no reason. She just tuts; this leaves my poor joke, compounded by a poor play on grammar, to languish in the still air.

Of Alicorns and ponies and pony alicorns

The pink mare continues: "So how come you were just kinda sleeping in the road? Don't all alicorns live in palaces or on moons or in Crystal palaces, or crystal moons or-"

"Alicorns 'live'" I do quotation hooves for the strange pink thing-pony "on pony's heads."

For some reason that response sends her into mad fits of giggles. I wait patiently, if mistifiedly, for the laughter to die down.

"So.." she gasps, between laughs "You live... on... your own... head." she collapses into fits of giggles again.

"Haha yes I'm a horn... look I don't really get the joke here." I say mildly, interested in how the bizarre dream plays out.

"I... think... I think...." she gasps, tears falling freely from her eyes. I don't think I've ever seen a pony so hysterical.

"I think we need to talk about something other than my horn." I cut in.

"Oh... kay..." the pony gradually calms down and we walk on in silence for a bit.

".. and I'm kinda interested to know the answer to my question before: what are you? I mean you look kinda like a pony just stunted and minus horns and wings - a bit like a pink cow."

I see the pink creature abruptly stop laughing and turn her nose up. I groan inwardly at the thought of it being one of 'those' awkward dreams.

"Uh.. not 'cow' uh.. I meant...uh goat?" I offer. No response. "No ha ha. Of course. They have horns. I meant like a.. doe."

"Listen Mr." she says in a 'teaching foals' sort of voice, "I like jokes loads... I love em! But calling ponies names is mean."

I feel ridiculously cowed by the childish admonishment.

She sighs "You are an alicorn pony. I am an earth pony. My friend D-"

"What!?" I exclaim, utterly bemused. The only thing I can think of is that she's somehow made of soil. Before you point you hooves at me and call me a foal though, kindly reflect that an earthenware bowl is made of soilish things, a mound of earth is made of soil etc etc... so an 'earth' pony... oh well I see you're not buying it.

"You're an ALLEY. CORN. PONY. I AM AN EEEARRRTH PONY." she says, loudly and slowly - punctuating each syllable with  a clop of her hooves.

"I AM A PONY PONY. YOU ARE SOME SORT OF SMALL HORNLESS WINGLESS PONY-LIKE THING." I say, imitating her, but still lighthearted.

"Oh boy." she says in a small voice "I wish I hadn't lost my cannon canon." The 'mare' produces a tiny drumset from somewhere and weakly makes a *badum tss* sound with it.

Ponyville

We arrive on the outskirts of a small village, which is idyllic to the point of ridiculousness: I look from the Windmill to the bright blue sky to the thatched rooves to the organic looking central building. I sigh happily. The dream, which had manely been weird so far, was beginning to feel a bit more sane.

"What a pleasant place your friends live in!" I observe, leaving the knotty issue of our species behind me.

"Yeah!" she says, distractedly. "Look Mr... you couldn't kind of... um.." she takes a picnic blanket out her saddlebags. A few balloons and confetti fly bizarrely out also, but the mare pays them no heed. "...wear this over your wings could you. Just so you're like a.. um... tall unicorn."

Not wanting to be drowned in gibberish again, I don't challenge the term and just play along. You would too.. it's easier. I take the blanket in my magic and wrap it round my body, trying to ignore the itchy feeling as the abrasive material rubs against my delicate feathers.

We trot into town proper. Despite my improvised disguise I detect a great deal of intrigued glances. I also notice that all the ponies are deformed: some are fully deformed, like the pink mare, while others lack either wings or horns.

The presence of the pink one seems enough to dispel their suspicions, which I suspect derive from the fact that I stand a good head and shoulders over these dwarfish 'ponies'. She is continually greeting the 'ponies' as she passes, and all in all I feel like I'm in a cheesy rural tele-drama, and loving it.

I admit I also take a guilty pleasure in being taller and more finely featured and fully formed than these runty 'ponies'. (Yeah well... it's my dream and it's easy to judge when you're not there, but being the only full pony in town freakin rawks, especially when in your own town you're kind of... well let's just say the mares aren't falling over themselves for you.) *ahem*

Anyway, feeling like "Leonard king of the Dwarves" I continue in the wake of my companion until we reach the large tree/house.

Eddie Lizard

The pink pony knocks on the door of the large tree. I don't question the plausibility of this scenario.

The door opens after a while, and the pink creature falls on her pouffy tail. I regard a purple lizard. In an apron. Holding a duster. "Pinkie?" it says, and looks up at the sky, almost warily.

She gestures at me with a pink hoof "No silly. This is... this isss? OH! In my excitement I forgot to ask you your name!"she exclaims and giggles "silly me!"

"Quite alright. My name is L-" I begin to say to the lizard, before I crack up at the absurdity of it. A deformed rotund dwarf called pinkie and a small talking lizard. "Awww ain't you just a cute lil thing." I say goofily "Talking lizards! This dream just took a turn for the awesome. What can you do?"

The lizard gives me a hooded eyes sort of look which I fail to take seriously  (failing to take talking lizard's seriously is a defining, though minor, character trait of mine). "Friend of Fluttershy?" he says, and sighs "come on in."

"He's a big dragon! Aren't you Spikey wikey!" I hear 'Pink' (Pinkie is just too foalish for me) say behind me.

"Come on through! Twilight is-" (the lizard gets cut off as I shout) "OH COME ON! Is this some weird regressive foalhood dream or what- 'Twilight,' 'Pinkie,' 'Spikey Wikey' what's next.. bucking 'Po', 'La la' and 'Dipsy'?" but I'm not too upset... there's something about them that's reassuring afterall, and I regret the comparison with the Tele-plushies. Fortunately my psyche doesn't convey the meaning of this grossly unfair comparison to the dreamworld, because the Pink one simply giggles and darts upstairs. I trot after her.

HMS Twitanic

As the room comes into view I can see that it contains: books 99%, furniture 0.9%, (miniature and wingless) purple mare 0.1%, Pink-thing 1%. The mare, though miniature, is beautifully proportioned: her graceful horn rises from her delicate head which is poised over a book; her slight, rounded, shoulders offset by a straight, almost severe, mane cut, which only serves to highlight and echo the melody of the symphony which is this mare's body. This is, literally, the mare of my dreams.. just downsized a bit. The way her tail pokes out from behind the seat alone... (tails have always been a bit of a 'thing' for me - Darwhinniest scholars swear that this is due to the way they highlight a mare's thighs; studiousness has also always attracted me {funnily enough Darwhinniests also swear as to the scientific necessity of the hotness of a pony with brains}).

During my reverie I hear segments of a muffled 'conversation' (well manely lecture) between Pink and 'Twilight'.

"Twilight! I made a new friend! Called EL he's an alicorn!"

"Pinkie I'm not falling for another prank, especially one so poorly thought out! There ARE no other alicorns - I've already asked Celestia at length on the subject of her ancestory. She explained that in the beginning there was a mother-being called Faust who drew her and Luna out of the heavens from which they derive their names. She was clear on the subject of alicorns: there were envisioned to be only two - her and Luna - and that these two would be at the center of all things, as they represent the cycles of life."

"But what about Cadence..."

"Oh Pinkie... Cadence is a unicorn! I keep telling you! Foalsitting is no occupation for an alicorn. Just because she's a princess does NOT make her an alicorn. One is a species of pony divinity. The other is a species of authority."

"Such a bad day to lose my cannon canon..." Pinkie says in a small voice, before suddenly shouting "But Twilight HE IS an ALICORN!" This breaks my reverie entirely (which had just got to a particularly juicy and not-described-in-this-fanfic stage). She throws the improvised wing-cover off me, which, considering the state of my avid interest in the purple mare causes my wings to spring impressively to attention.

The purple pony's eyes open wide, making her look, if possible, even more attractive. "OMY GOSH OH MY GOSH! CELESTIA MUST KNOW! THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE. SHE'S GOT ANOTHER SISTER ."

Know your mares

This is not the response I expected at all. Was the dream taking a weird Freudian turn? Surely the mare meant I had another sister who was called Celestia? Why should the pony I fancy immediately say I was somepony's sister. All in all this was extremely... odd. When I wake up I'm going to feel like a weird pony. For the moment though... I really like her tail.

All these thoughts flit through my head, while the mare in front of me adopts an increasingly cunning expression. "Oh ho ho. I think that on the way to see your sister we should meet with some friends of mine." she says.

"That's what I said!" the disgruntled voice of the pink pony rings out.

"Oh good... um er... I love what you've done with your mane?"

The purple mare circles me, her eyes radiating suspicion, and something colder "I think we'll see... Rainbow first."

"Oh, you're friends with a rainb-"

My words are cut off by the flaring of the purple pony's magic. I feel my body crackle and distort, rather like when a piece of tinfoil flexes and is pulled taut again. "All that studying has paid off." I say dreamily to the mare, who is now only inches from my goofy adoring face.

"RAINBOW!" the purple mare calls out - looking at a fluffy, incongruous lone cumulus cloud.

I see no rainbow. Instead I see assorted Ponyvillian ponies comically interrupted in various stages of going about their business.

"She's at Applejack's!" shouts the Pink pony from somewhere.

The weird crinkling sensation again as Twilight's magic takes hold. Twilight is panting beside me, looking tired. She groans. Desire wells up... she trots slowly to two ponies... flank swaying lazily, with its perfect purple streaked tail...

I muse again on the purple pony, in a non-described way, my mind drifting blissfully. I'm a pony in love. The cyan pony looks at me and I smile as 'he' flaps his wings and zooms straight at my-

The world goes dark for a second, as the dream presumably cuts to another scene.

* * *

I am tied to a post. My mind hurts. Minds shouldn't hurt. A number of ponies are discussing me. "She's GOING to take over Ponyville. Maybe even Equestria! We must stop her, and stop her NOW. Let's use the elements to turn her into stone!" a very angry sounding, tomcoltish hornless (but winged) pony says.

"Woah there nelly. If she's so darn powerful how come you managed to knock her out with one blow?" an orange furred pony says in a southern drawl.

"Because I'm so. freakin. AWESOME. That's why!" the tom-colt continues proudly.

"Y'all are fast and all but if this here alicorn was any sort of a threat to anypony then..." the southern drawl of the pony's voice raises a few degrees of pitch and skepticism "...why wouldn't she just use her magic to stop you?" she spits something out. It goes 'ping'. Or the thing it hits goes ping anyway.

"He's awake!" the friendly pink one's voice rings out. "And please stop calling him 'her' I'm sure he doesn't like it! He's just in a 'her' body!" this gets treated with general derision.

"Maybe she er 'he' she um is er friendly?" a ludicrously soft spoken hornless yellow pony opines. This is also ignored by the others.

"Could... anypony tell me... why I'm tied up?" I ask, my voice dripping with self pity as I regard the beautiful purple captor and her orange and cyan accomplices.

Did I hear somepony say my name?

Mi Amore Cadenza.

I look round the group of babbling, gesturing creatures to Pink's friendly face. "Is this what you meant by meeting your friends? I get tied up while they discuss stoning me?" I say to her pitifully.

"Aw... you look super sad.." she looks very down at this "But-"

"PINKIE! DON'T TALK TO HER. She could put a spell on you! She could be the end off the world. You don't talk to the end of the world. And if you do it isn't like that! She's potentially nightmare moon! Genetics! Discord! Gala!"

The others put a restraining hoof on the increasingly frazzled (but still pretty) looking purple pony.

The orange one cuts in. "Alls ah know is what's ah see." the southern accent intensifies and cowpony QC takes the floor for the moment in the kangaroo court "...this here Alicorn seems more scared o us than we are o her!"

"That's how she SEEMS! Because she wants to! She's got some evil plan! She's going to turn us all into.. into Nightmares! Like her!" Even as my accuser I couldn't help but applaud her imagination. I've always liked a mare who didn't let a good pun go to waste too.

I try to speak again, but am stopped. A comical, but also horrifying, thing happens to my mouth as the purple mare's magic affects me once again. This time my lips pucker up to become hard edges that fasten together in a zip like effect. An oversize zipper handle hangs from the side of my mouth... presumably for effect. All in all though I was sort of enjoying the drama.

The cyan one laughs. I give her a hurt look, but make no move to 'unzip' my mouth.

The yellow, pink and orange ones look rather uncomfortable; the purple one looks increasingly unhinged as she mutters about the impossibility of me. For the first time I notice a white one - the first mare to have classic proportions (not really my type next to the purple one, but still). Back home we'd call her elegant. We might also call her a 'bitch' however because all she does is look daggers at me. 'Jealous?' i think, for some reason.

After rather a lot of bickering my captors seem to increasingly mention a not unfamiliar term. Even the pink one joins in.

"SHE MUST BE A CHANGELING."

--

Obla dee obla dah obla DIE

Changelings, to my knowledge (which comes from Baldurs Gate), are grey in their natural state, with a bat-ish-ish sort of look. Fundamentally they're weird things of fantasy, which are manely known for changing their shape. They don't just change their shape - they also change pretty freakin much everything else. They're one of those fantasy concepts that is cool, but under close analysis breaks down. This leads me to doubt the current trend within some fantasy sub-genres of closely analysing things to derive story ideas. Which is sort of ironic really since- *ahem*

"You evil EVIL thing! You've come to feed on the love and kindness of all the Ponies of Equestria!" the yellow hornless one says in dulcet tones, whose bittersweetness is somehow more biting than the brazen insults of the others. A bit like when you get a cold spell in a normally hot and humid country. Anyway, the soft, burning hatred of the harmless-seeming pony chills me to the bone.

"Ah.. changeling'd explain it. This one sure chose a dumb disguise. Ask her where her queen is. Unless she IS the queen?" the cowpony gives me a hard look.

"You tricked me! NOPONY TRICKS PINKIE PIE!" she raises her hooves up, as if to stomp on me, but instead falls back down and snorts. "Pinkie... you could be tricked by anypony." I hear the cyan one mutter. (A harsh, but fair assessment on the whole... I may have only known Pink for a little while, but she's certainly a credulous type.)

"Nopony other than CELESTIA should look like that! Alicorn's proportions, black fur... this gives me an idea for a dress." the white one says. Weird compliment, weird context for it, and weird to want to immediately want to dress up for me, but you take what you get I suppose. I don't encourage her though. My eyes are solely for the purple one. If she doesn't stone me first anyway.

"Will everypony stop foaling around and just turn her to stone already? We should have done that LAST time. Well I'm prepared to finish the job!" the tomcolt growls out in a cracking voice.

"Rainbow is right." 'Twilight' begins. (Yup.. this violent tomcolt is called Rainbow. 'Rainbow' advocates your swift death. 'Rainbow' is your nemesis. 'Rainbow' will die before she sees your kind taint her world etc etc. If by this point you were wondering at my lack of real protest and failure to take the group entirely seriously then perhaps that might clue you in.) "She's probably just a vanguard for the whole Changeling army! The whole of Ponyville could be under attack!" the mare continues. "We must use"  (dramatic pause) "The elements of harmony!"

The 'ponies' around me quieten down. I notice, for the first (described) time, that they are all wearing rather fetching pieces of jewellery. I can't believe I missed the purple one's tiara - freakin gorgeous. Anyway the reason their attire suddenly caught my eye is because they're all rising into the air driven by these fetching necklaces. The impressive headpiece is leading the way. The air distorts a little in the energised haze of epic pony magic. Something epic is clearly about to happen. The epicness starts with a beam of pure white light, which seeks out each of the ponies, before splitting into rainbow colours. When this light touches their necklaces they beam some sort of energy, which makes me feel rather pleasant and sluggish.. and 'friendshippy'. I begin to hum the infectious Beatles nonsense song: obla dee obla daa life goes oooon YEY!' Lalalalala life goees ooon. I don't feel remotely scared as the purple one finally raises up herself, despite the fact that her face has been replaced by a burning white light. The painful feeling from my head diminishes, along with everything else, and I drift on a happy hazy 'dream within a dream' in which I chase a purple tail.

Distantly, as if through a tinny radio I hear the purple pony say "WE DID IT GIRLS! WE HAVE SAVED EQUESTRIA!"

"I... dunno Twa'light... I dunno..."

End of part 1