To the Moon

Luna returned her concentration to her surroundings as the magic faded from her horn, the ground around her losing its blue glow. It had been so long since she had raised or lowered the moon with her bodily magic, she would need to accustom herself to the feeling of so much power flowing through such a small vessel and soon, she should be able to cast many more spells again.

Luna stood and stretched, shaking her soft-as-down snuggie free of dust and dirt, before sedately walking towards the lakes edge. As she took to the shore, Luna swore she was forgetting something with her now living brain, staring at her reflection in the rapidly disappearing light she tried to recall what it was.

Ah well, she was sure she would remember after a nice nap. After all, even a princess cannot expend that much power on one target without some stress.

She was starting to remember some details of what had just occurred, however her body had decided that it wanted sleep and was not to be denied, she fell asleep.

Not more than thirty meters away from Luna's napping-spot, a new creature was waking up. Clambering to its new feet, Nightmare-Jim looked itself over.

"When did Nightmare Moon start referring to herself in third person?" she questioned no-one in particular.

"My name is James and when did I start to talk to Myself? Also what the hell has happened to my body!?" He argued back, still to nopony but himself.

"I speak in the Royal Accent whenever referring to anyone not worthy of being in the royal highness's presence!" she?.. Said to herself.

"No no NO! My name is James Moon and I was born on earth before the three tribes had united as ponykind. I was trapped on this rock after a cold-war broke out and wind demons feeding on the hatred landed at the launch centre, probably killing all the science team controlling my flight here." sh-she ranted to herself, her speech blending between an ever so slightly Irish accent and ancient Canterlotian.

Thinking through her memories, James noticed some things she knew were errors. Unfortunately, since she could not remember what had been there before, she could not accurately spot them. Deciding to sort out her mind later, she turned her attention to her body and the changes it had undergone.

“Where the hell are my hands and what has become of the royal for-hooves?” She cried in shock, noticing the paw-like appendages at the end of her arms.

“I need a mirror, stat!” James announced, looking around for anything reflective. As she got more and more desperate, a dark blue light flashed above her head. She looked up just in time to be smacked in the face by the mirror that had just appeared out of thin air.

“Where did this come from? Never mind, it’s convenient.” She said, shaking her head to clear the stars floating around her head, forcing herself not to look as they flew away from her head and into the sky.

Bracing herself for what she might see, James peered into the fairly large mirror and looked herself over.

“…wow” was all she could say to the sight of her own gaping face.

The Transformation from whatever she had been before to what she was now had been pretty extensive, although she could not remember what she had looked like before, something told her it was nothing like this.

Her body now looked almost like a cross between a feline creature and a pony, her head and hind legs being that of an equine and her front legs looking almost like a cats paws. Her tail was fairly cat-like too, a lot slimmer than a 100% hair tail could be and with a slightly rounded end. What really caught her attention though, was her furry coat.

It was thicker than she remembered her coat normally being and seemed to flow slightly in invisible wind, the dark black of the fur waving around as though submerged in calm water. She did notice some a feeling of something missing from her back, but could not put her paw on it, did her previous body have a long mane? Or was there something else missing from her smooth, sleek back.

Her large feline eyes, right below some strange markings on her head, had her entranced for a good minute before she noticed her tail moving back and forth on its own.

After trying to get her tail to sit still for a few minutes and giving up, James decided it was high time she stopped referring to herself as James; she was not sure where the name had come from but it did not feel quite like hers.

Choosing to ignore the difficult decision for now as she could not see anyone else to talk to, she decided to just call herself One as she seemed perfectly happy to talk in third person.

Quickly boring herself with her new body, One started in the direction she knew there was large object of interest. One did not know how she knew of it, maybe one of her previous memories was surfacing! This could not be ignored, she started along the surface of the moon, her new body’s motor functions coming quickly as long as she didn’t think about them.

SMACK!

“Gaaah!”  Luna cried, leaping to her hooves wide awake. How could she have forgotten about the creature!? There was no time to delay, she hurried off in the direction the alien had approached from. Sensing a spike of magic somewhere along her surface nearby, Luna flexed her wings and leapt into the air. Using her magic to bolster her wing-strength, she powered her way forwards, eyes peeled for anything not of her moon.

Spotting something stark white against the surface of the ground in-front of her, she used yet more magic to increase her speeds yet again, rocketing towards the new object.

One was having the time of her life, jumping in and out of craters would probably never get old. Her new quadruped body allowed her to run faster and jump further than she could before, allowing her to hurl herself from one crater rim to another in the only slightly lower than normal gravity.

Another thing she noticed was her new eyesight, she did not remember ever having any vision problems before she woke up here, but her eyesight could count the pebbles in a pile at least eighteen or so meters away.

Deciding to test how far her eyesight could reliably see, One picked up a moderately sized rock awkwardly in her paws and, carefully balanced on her hind legs, threw it with all her might. Unfortunately, her body was clearly not made to walk on two legs and she overbalanced, tossing the rock a fair distance in the process and smacking into the ground with quite some force.

SMACK!

“oooh” One groaned, slowly standing upright.

“One shall not be trying that again anytime soon.”  She mumbled.

Her pain was interrupted when she caught sight of some movement in the corner of her eye. Turning her head to face it, she watched as a small flying object raced across the sky. Using mathematics she didn’t even know she could do, she calculated its trajectory and origin and turned to head in that direction.

Jumping over the next ridge, One came upon a fairly large plateau and decided to see how fast she could really go with a good build-up.  Starting out at a light run, she increased her speed until she was going as fast as she could comfortably go. Pushing herself further proved a challenge and she enjoyed every moment of it, her hooves and paws kicking up dust as she ran, her breath coming in faster and faster gasps.

Suddenly the ground before her sloped downwards and she was now running full tilt down a short slope that ended in water. She had a brief second to question the existence of water on the moon before she plunged straight into the shoulder depth water, the cold liquid quickly covering her back and making her gasp from the cold shock.

Back peddling as fast as she could, One splashed out of the water and back onto the bank and regained her breath. This presented her with a problem, how to get dry… Not seeing any other solutions, One started licking the parts of her body she could reach, it felt quite nice and she had started vibrating again. She had noticed that during moments when she was particularly happy and not panting like a dog; her chest area would start vibrating with every breath. She assumed it was something to do with her apparent feline half.

Deciding to investigate later, something she was doing a lot recently, she just went with it and continued to dry herself off.

Luna was perplexed. She had found what appeared to be some kind of clothing for a strangely shaped creature and had followed its footsteps back to a large object sitting on the moon some distance away. She did not know what it was and could only make assumptions about it, was it a mode of transport? Whatever it was, she decided to leave it alone for now and had flown back along the footsteps to the clothing. There she had found another, even stranger set of footsteps leading towards the lake instead of away and followed them too.

It was a good thing she had tired and slowed down or she would have missed the dark blur running across some flats to her right. This must be the creature that had left the strange footprints towards the lake, whatever it was, it was fast. Luna doubted that she could run at those speeds without the assistance of her magic, and was falling behind as she glided towards it. Seeing it run down the bank of her lake without slowing, only increasing its speed, she landed a short way further along the ridge.

Edging her way closer to the edge she peered down at the strangest creature she had ever seen. It had what looked like cat paws instead of front hooves and cat ears too, its tail seemed to always be moving in a very feline manner too.

Its eyes were very entrancing and she stared into them as they looked curiously towards her.

Curiously towards her-… oh.

Hearing a faint noise with her sensitive ears, One turned her head and sniffed towards the hill behind her. Scanning the top until she made eye contact with the winged unicorn staring down at her, and watching with interest as its eyes widened.

She took a breath. “hello pony.”