The Magic of Music

“Newwnahot! Row kat giyq tejkw qiy!” The door opened, with Sleight dragging the horse outside by the leg.

“Kick me, will you?! Hee-yaah!!” In a high, wide arc, it spun away from the house. Hmm... Did it just right itself mid-air? “Dumb animal...” When she turned around, there was an angry yellow Pegasus hovering next to her face. “What? It kicked me!”

“Bio gi QIW kotw pb hteaqv!” It's eyes became piercing orbs, staring straight through to her soul. They were the eyes of one that commanded respect, obedience, and authority.

You've gotta be kidding me... Sleight deadpanned, much to the surprise of the hovering beast. She had received expert training on how to resist 'The Stare' from the true Staremaster: her grandfather. It tried several more times but was resisted each time

“Ew'v qiw yitmeqj... Ykuw vkiong E gi?” said the nervous Pegasus. I don't have time for this. If I'm gonna hallucinate, I'm gonna enjoy it, not spend all my time inside a house full of animals.

“I'm going to explore. Later, Pegasus!” Sleight walked down the steps, taking the blanket and using it as a cloak to protect her skin. The four-legged beast was pacing and didn't seem to hear a word she said, but she wasn't going to repeat herself. In a few moments, she crossed the nearby bridge and followed the path away from the cottage.

It wasn't long before she came to a village. The place wasn't very technologically advanced. In fact, Most of the buildings hatch straw-thatched roofing, but in the distance there were a few buildings that were just flat ridiculous. One looked like it was a carnival tent, another looked like a gingerbread house, and there was even a windowed tree. The largest building was in the center and appeared to be a merry-go-round type structure.

As she approached, her presence did not go unnoticed. The population was teeming with horses like the ones she had met earlier: Pegasi, Unicorns, and 'Regulars' as Krys liked to call them, since they had no special attachments. There weren't any other winged-unicorns like that one purple one, she noticed. Perhaps she was a special case?

And then the population disappeared. One moment they were there, and the next the houses were all but boarded up. Krys could almost hear the tumbleweeds roll by in the center of town. If I didn't know any better, I'd say they've never seen me before, even though it's my dream. And this is too weird to be anything but a dream...

Isn't it...?

She couldn't be sure. While everything that was going on was too weird to be considered normal, she had fallen asleep back at that cottage and woken up in the same spot. The kick from the bunny sure felt real, and throwing the Pegasus felt real too. Was it even possible that Digit's trick wasn't really a trick? That this wasn't a dream concocted by chemicals and that his pretend magic actually worked?

She walked into the ghost town, robed in her blanket to protect her pale skin from the sunlight. She could feel the stares of the equines following her as she traveled down the road, but the eyes disappeared wherever she looked. Except for three little pairs of eyes that weren't quite sneaky enough to avoid detection. They belonged to smaller versions of the equines, probably foals.

"Don't be afraid," Krys cooed, dropping to her knees in their direction. "I'm not going to hurt you." She could hear them whispering in their strange language, but couldn't make out what they were saying. A few moments later, they were poking their heads out, one by one. They seemed too timid to approach her, so she decided to take the initiative. She didn't make it more than 3 steps before she was flat on her back with a pain in her gut and a certain cyan Pegasus standing in front of her.

"Nauxa wkap uniqa!" She looked back at the foals behind her. "Ykuw uta bio yueweqj hit? Taq! E'nn king ew ihh kata oqwen bio uta vuha!" The three wide-eyed foals nodded, then ran like their lives depended on it.

Once they had rounded the building, the rainbow-maned Pegasus gulped and turned back to Krys, not entirely sure it wanted to tangle with her a second time. "Tueqdiy Guvk! Uta bu u'tejkw?" shouted an unfamiliar voice with an unusually thick country accent.

"E'p heqa, Urrnalufm!" Krys turned back to find the orange fedora-clad Regular from earlier. It seemed the two horses know each other. And now she was caught between the two of them. The Regular pulled a rope from off its back and began twirling it expertly. She couldn't help but be impressed by the dexterity it used to wield the rope. Horses back home usually don't suddenly use lassos like a wrangler.

In a flash, the rope launched forward and wrapped around her torso, catching her off guard. The orange horse yanked back hard, pulling her off her feet and down to the ground with a thump. Before she could react, the Pegasus was sitting on her chest and pinning her down.

"Kuk! Vatxav bio tehkw hit wktiyeqj pa!" it smirked, if the look on its face was anything to judge by.

"Get off me!" Sleight brought her legs up and wrapped them around the Pegasus, then threw it off to the side and propped herself on her knees toward the Regular. It yanked again, but this time she jerked back hard, bringing the rope and the horse along with it straight toward her. The lasso loosened, allowing her to free her arms and catch the beast mid-air. It was much heavier than the Pegasus, even though they were about the same size, and knocked her backward on impact.

The Pegasus was shaking its head to regain its orientation when it finally saw its friend in Krys' clutches. "Urrnalufm!" The orange horse suddenly disappeared in a purple flash, reappearing a short distance away.

"What the heck?!" And then Sleight was trapped inside another purple bubble. "Not again... Let me go, stupid horse!"

"Wyenejkw!" exclaimed the two horses in chorus.

"E'p vittb E wiim vi niqj, jetnv," said the winged-unicorn as it walked up to the group. "E yuv yitmeqj iq u qay vrann. Wepa wi wavw ew iow..." The purple glow around its horn grew brighter, gaining another layer of aura around the first. The glow condensed, becoming a bright ball at the tip of its horn. At once, the ball blasted toward Sleight, becoming a beam of purple light that surrounded her, then disappearing as quickly as it appeared. "Geg ew yitm?"

"Ykuw yuv et supposed to do?" asked the cyan Pegasus as it joined the orange and purple equines. "It doesn't look like anything changed. Krys' eyes went wide as she realized: I can understand them! They aren't speaking jibberish anymore!

"It was supposed to break the language barrier between us. Now we just have to wait until it talks again."

"That's amazing! How did you do that?" Krys cried from her prison. The group collectively drooped their shoulders.

"I don't understand... I thought for sure it would work." sniffed the purple one. Huh? But it DID work! The other two wrapped a leg around her in consolation.

"It's a'right, Twilight," assured the orange one. "Nopony expects ya ta be perfect. Yer jes gonna have ta work on yer spell a li'l more, that's all."

"Littlefur! Where have you been?" I looked over my shoulder to find a not-so-happy little yellow Pegasus behind me. Oh boy...