An Existential Nightmare in Equestria

Chapter 3: Fly Another Day

The good doctor and I were being shuffled rather unceremoniously out the grand entrance of the courtroom. I saw with my excellent pony peripheral vision which left me a blind spot right around my nose, that Celestia was being practically carried out the side of the court, surrounded by an adoring crowd. They were elated and asking questions and really did love to have her back. Celestia was looking coyly pleased with herself as the entourage of guards surrounded the doctor and I and we made off in a different direction.

The ponies who hadn't stopped to get a good look at the princess began to spill out the doors around us, sparing sheepish glances. But... ugh... there were these two colts keeping pace...

"Dreadful!" chimed the first.

"Unacceptable!" shouted the second.

"It's a nice building, but this court is a sham! They hardly discussed the issue of flight. What if that grey mare had been teleported. Oh... and this is rich. It's the first time I've heard of deadly accuracy that didn't mortally injure anypony." the first quipped.

"OBJECTION!" shouted the second. "Magical teleportation always creates very noticeable light and environmental noise. None of the witnesses mentioned that! If she could teleport, why did she not just enter the throne room? What sort of idiot plans an assassination that involves literally being a projectile?!?"

"Pish, posh! Unicorns can have very different teleportation effects! For all we know, there could be magical safeguards in effect inside the throne room."

"Magical safeguards?!? Surely a pegacorn could have enough magic to disable them for a short time!"

"You don't know that! Stick to the facts! The court has proven that she's not been performing magic. Also, there's no reason for us to expect Query to be a GOOD assassin!"

I sighed loudly. Doctor Willcrest was looking around a bit baffled. The guards didn't seem to mind these two ponies following suit and having their loud debate. I gritted my teeth as they accused each-other of improperly formatting their accusations. There was all this discussion of my shirt, and... oh, my shirt! I'd left it in the hospital room from before and I hadn't had the chance to go back. I rolled my eyes and concluded that I could just look in a mirror later.

"Well she didn't fly! Ugh! Three of the witnesses said her shirt was positioned OVER her wings." one of the colts astutely added.

"It wasn't proven. It wasn't conclusive!" the other replied.

I heard the doctor next to me mumble "He's right... you couldn't have flown..."

"ENOUGH!" I screeched, finally unable to take anymore.

"Erm... so... pardon my asking, but did you do it?" one of the colts asked.

"Pff... pfbbtf..." I blustered. "PROBABLY?"

The two colts stopped, sat right in the road, and did what looked sort of like a high-five. They were beaming, and it was the last I saw of them.

"The pony justice system needs them. It IS terrible..." I muttered as we walked.

"I haven't seen a trial here in my lifetime, Query." Willcrest said. "That building is normally just used for social functions. You see... we have the princess..."

"She was meaner and had a much bigger butt than I expected from watching TV..." I monotoned.

Willcrest blinked. "I... my goodness..." There was a hint of dejection in his voice. The doctor, despite being covered in chocolate-brown fur, looked rather pale to me. He was walking shakily.

"Look... I'm sorry I got you fired and banished." I was feeling very guilty. "I guess I just don't make a lot of sense."

The doctor perked up. "I'm... sure the princess will reconsider if she's unaware of that last comment. You just don't seem like the villainous type to me. Perhaps a bit dangerous at times, but..." His words had absolutely no confidence.

It was then that I realized our conversation was not going to last. A cobblestone building of lower quality than expected loomed nearer and nearer.

"Is that-" I started.

"Canterlot prison... probably just temporary..." he whispered.

"I don't want to go in there!" I replied.

"I don't... see much choice..." he added.

"But look..." I whispered. "We can slip through these guards. If we run in different directions, they can't follow us both!"

"Of course they can follow us both, Query!" the doctor hissed. "There are twelve of them... don't make this worse than it has to be!"

"Oh..." I said blankly, just as I was about to make things much, much worse. My trademark was soon to become daredevilism. I really didn't want to see the inside of that building! Every fiber of me cried out: "NOT GUILTY! You don't understand!"

Music: http://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=eHbQXfqnjyU

With barely a thought, I put my head down and shot through the legs of one of the escorting guards. They were experienced, and immediately there was commotion. The whole group broke apart, save for one white pegasus guard who stayed on Doctor Willcrest. The doctor just shook his head as he sat shoulder-to-shoulder with the one guard and stayed put. Luckily for me, with a horde of angry protectors in hot pursuit my legs decided to start working. My heart rate soared like nothing I'd ever felt before and the ground was a blur beneath me. I couldn't help but let out a brief 'Waaah!' of delight. Equine adrenaline.

So... I had no idea where I was going, but I was okay with it. I suppose that at no point in my life had I ever actually been sure of where I was going. A part of me seemed to squee: "Those blokes think they're going to catch up to a horse... pff..." followed by another part of me that said: "Everyone's a horse, you idiot." The plate armor they were wearing looked like a drag, but as my lungs burned and my legs began to buckle, they caught up somewhat.

"Stop roight there!" One shouted goofily.

"Halt! In the name of Celestia!" another added.

"You're under arrest!!!"

"WHO GOES THERE? Eh... oops... got excited..." The first one added. I recognized the voice.

"Stop, criminal scum!" two said in unison.

I was quickly running out of pathway. There was a cliff up ahead and I didn't know how to fly, but I was in the clutches of bravery, sort of. I ran with every last ounce of strength, started to ruffle my wings, and then, well... I came to a sliding halt. Looking down hundreds of feet at the gorge below, a small "Nuh-uh... ponies build stairs, but not railings?" escaped my mouth.

And then? I spun around, horn down, and charged madly at the crowd of guards, slicing right between them. They didn't skip a beat and turned about gracefully. One of them managed to trip me up a bit as two more guards joined the chase. I was tearing up, heaving... I knew they would win eventually. My pursuers had been equine for more than, like, five seconds. I feel it necessary to note, however, that I was running like no computer nerd had ever managed back home. We were headed back down the cobblestone path in the direction of the castle compound and were about to pass by the courthouse again.

Doctor Willcrest was still sitting there with his guard, who quickly lost interest in the aging unicorn and poised to step into the path right in front of me. Oh, the guilt! I knew that I had no way of repaying the good doctor. He put himself in harm's way once more for me as he surprised me by tackling the lone white pegasus before he could complete his interception.

"Uhh... I accept full responsibility for that!" I shouted as I passed. (It probably didn't help.) I pounded down the pathway, this time towards the castle with the swarm of guards drawing even closer.

"UGHHH! How many of you ARE there?" I shouted.

"Iss' just us fourteen!" Niles said, close behind. "It's Saturday, and we drew the short straws!" Another guard whacked him on the head.

"So... no guards in the castle?" I asked, almost out of breath.

"Uh.. pf... I DIDN'T SAY THAT!" Niles blustered.

"Right..." I mumbled, smirking.

So... having nowhere left to go and with the knowledge of being within a castle compound on a high cliff, I did the reasonable thing (right?) and head-butted my way straight through the front doors of Canterlot Castle. I let out a gasp not of exhaustion... but just wow. I was right about ponies liking it gaudy. I butted into a much heavier set of doors this time, getting a bit bruised up. Castle staffers like waiters and attendants scrambled out of the way of the scene.

"Get the princess!" called a lanky, vest-wearing bellboy (bellcolt? bellpony?). I didn't want that to happen. I skittered down a marble hallway, knocking over a whole cart of beautiful potted plants in vases, which shattered.

"Ahhh!" an elegantly dressed pony screeched. "Come back this instant! This is royal property!" I said nothing. I ran past another crowd of very fancy, shocked ponies and into a much larger hallway. Flynn, the guard, got so close to me that he managed to bite off a tuft of my tail. We were in a room with high columns and windows and tables everywhere. A curly-mustached waiter pony threw a tablecloth over me, but I managed to slip out from under it (and send some place-settings flying). Forks, really? Before I had time to think about it, I was coming up on an even larger and more exquisite set of double-doors. A tan mare was talking nervously with another pony by the archway.

"Yes, yes... Silver Hammer is in there right now. We're going to have the throne room 100% for the princess when she gets back. It's why we've been stalling all morning!" she stammered.

"THE Silver Hammer is already here in Canterlot?"

"We've spared no expense for her highness in the wake of this tragic event. Of course!"

I whooshed past them and made my way into the throne room. Remember when I said that Canterlot's courtroom was like the Vatican of courtrooms? Well, this made the court look like a community center. A very careful silver stallion was hunched at the base of the throne, carving very, very delicate patterns on its base with a carving tool in his mouth. Some bits of the construction around the throne looked like new marble and wood. There was a heap of debris swept up in the corner of the room, and I swear I saw my tie and some of the casing from my BlackBerry absolutely pulverized amongst the wreckage. Even the guards were starting to breathe heavily now.

"We have you cornered. Give up now!" shouted the very authoritative Flynn. I was looking out one of the gigantic stained-glass windows at the far end of the throne room. I could see nothing but cliff and sky.

I put my head down.

"You have nowhere to go. STOP THIS INSTANT!"

I somehow ran faster.

*CRASH*

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It was as if the world went into slow motion. I could hear the shocked yelling of the guards as my body crashed through the window. Sheets of its primitive lead-framed construction were raining down. I heard a hollow clang amidst the clamor and what was presumably the voice of Silver Hammer screamed "What??!?! COME! ON! Buh. YOU'RE KIDDING ME!!?!??!? UGHHHHH!"... and I fell. Opening my wings only lead to panic, since I began to spin wildly, unable to control my flight. The cliff face I thought I had seen from the window turned out to be a near-vertical grade leading to a much lower plateau of the city. Wings and legs flailing, I eventually landed hard on my back, sliding down with incredible speed. I shrieked and didn't manage to right myself. I was no longer having fun.

I finally hit the ground hard at the base of the cliff, horn first. On pure terrified adrenaline alone, I managed to wrench it free from the ground and sit up. The whole crew of guards were peering out the side of the castle while Niles and Flynn argued.

"It's always you and your big mouth..." Flynn began.

I wasn't sure if they could hear me or not, but I yelled back "I understand what it's like to have a big mouth!" at the top of my lungs. I sounded terrible, though, raspy and bruised and breathing shallow. Flynn flipped the armor off Niles' back to reveal... hmph... actually an embarrassingly tiny pair of wings. "He makes me look like an albatross..." I thought.

Flynn pushed him out the window as some other pegasi joined in. A few guards ran off to make their way around the castle and one or two brave/stupid earth pony guards tried to climb down through the broken window. One of them went tumbling. I tried desperately to roll over, knowing that time was short and, I did? Somehow I managed to get up. I'm being honest when I admit that physical prowess has never been my thing. I'm still wondering off and on about just how I did these things. Pegasi closed in as I leaped down onto a lower road, not running as quickly as before. I don't know what sort of hope had me clinging to my chances of escape, but up ahead I noticed my big break.

A crowd. It was a large one. There were ponies everywhere like someone chose to empty a truckload of skittles upon the landscape. There was a train station.

"Wahaa hahaaaaa!" I cackled as I motored into the crowd. The pursuing ponies were lost and slowed by the equine traffic jam that resulted. An ornate carriage ground to a halt in the road, just barely missing me. I finally managed to escape the gaze of the guards as I slipped into the train station. Slowing for the first time in some 30 minutes, I finally took the time to notice that I was absolutely filthy from sliding down the cliff-face. My feathers were pointed in all different directions and bits of greenery were poking out of my mane.

"Take that, spa!" I said. Aloud. I hadn't meant to say it aloud. Ponies everywhere were staring at me as I tried to casually walk throughout the station. Exhausted, I noticed a large hanging sign, hoof-painted, that listed destinations and ticket prices. It was written in the same odd angular script I had seen in the hospital, but upon close inspection I realized that the obscure symbols did have English counterparts. A little mental transposition produced:

Fillydelphia - Round Trip: 18 bits

Manehattan - Round Trip: 14 bits

Canterlot - Uhh... you're here. 0 bits

Las Pegasus - One-Way: 8 bits - Round Trip: 15 bits (What? I wondered. I thought that place would be in the sky.)

Trottingham - Round Trip: 13 bits

Ponyville - One-Way: 4 bits - Round-Trip: 8 bits

The only problem was that I had no possessions nor money, and looked suspiciously like an escapee. However, there was hope! Out of the corner of my right eye, I saw a golden glint coming from a drain in the floor. A very large stallion was standing over it, so I stalled nervously until he moved. I managed to flip the grate clumsily with my hooves. A lot of ponies were probably startled by the sheer amount of noise it made, but I had the golden disk safely pinned between my teeth in no-time. It tasted like dirt and metal.

Shortly after, fortune struck again! A little colt being escorted by his mother, some twenty feet away, was holding the money for his own ticket. As he bounced about, one of the coins slipped free and rolled far into the crowd. I heard his mother sigh and say "Just be more careful. Don't worry about it."

Naturally, I plowed through the crowd like a maniac and dove on it. That's when I noticed a bar against the south wall of the station. Several well-seasoned ponies were huddled around an old-fashioned tube radio with cider in hoof.

"...and Star Streak is coming up on the left..." crackled the radio announcer. "...It's going to be a close one, fillies and gentlecolts!" It sounded like very old-timey sports coverage. I saw one stallion slap a coin down on the table, but the bartender pony turned to the radio and was too distracted to notice. I briskly walked past the counter and quietly snatched it up, feeling like I was turning out to be a pretty rotten pony, after all. "I'm just desperate..." I tried to tell myself.

I wheeled around the side of the bar, walked down a short hallway, burst into a bathroom, and stuffed my head in the basin sink. I began an emergency sponge-bath and de-leafing of my mane, but then a stallion came out of one of the stalls, stared at me for a moment, and briskly walked out while checking the opposite side of the door.

I mumbled as I washed my hair. "Why do ponies have full-size doors? I'm like, four feet tall at best..." At one point, I was on my back, trying desperately to get my legs in the sink when another stallion began to walk in, and quickly backed out. Moments later, an attendant earth pony in a red vest came walking in.

"Excuse me, miss?" he began.

"Yup?"

"This is... the little colts' room, if you know what I mean? You need to leave."

"Whatever, I've done worse things already today..."

The attendant became agitated. "Please don't give me a hard time. What's wrong with you? Get out of here!" ...and suddenly I hatched a plan. I got off the counter, making sure to look as scraped/desperate and giant-eyed as possible. (The latter wasn't hard.)

"Uhh... just give me one bit, and I'll get out of here." I said quietly.

"Buh-what?" the attendant asked.

"Look... I'm desperate..." I replied.

"Ugh... you have no right to come in here causing trouble. Look at yourself! What do you take me for?!?"

I did look at myself.

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Let's stop everything for a moment. Before any of this pony nonsense had occurred and I was just a normal guy (not a victim of some random quantum accident) I had this thing for cartoons. I loved cartoons. They were my innocent break from stress and the like. I had created this character Query, put her on a shirt, and worn it to bed in the least-creepy manner imaginable. It's safe to say that I could get really attached to a character. It's like... a self-representational character, however absurd, could be meant to exemplify some shining quality... something to live up to. That is, not in the sense of being attached to some fantasy world and distant, but as a means of expression. I looked at the face of Query in that mirror and saw how is was mottled and scraped and dirty. My pupils were like dinner plates. Deep down I was scared, and I suddenly felt uncharacteristically sad. I was just struck by the visage staring back at me.

"I'm sorry I ruined you..." I squeaked at the reflection. The red-vested pony just stood and stared.

He looked at me with the saddest expression, and finally reached into his pocket to place four coins on the tip of my muzzle. He didn't say a word.

I had gone into this planning to try and play the cute/helpless card, but I was really bothered by it. I started to well up with tears, but I knew there was no time for theatrics. I was sure the guards hadn't gone away. It was a wonder they were taking so long to find me. I wanted to hug the baffled pony, but knowing better I slipped out the door and back past the bar. I just kept telling myself that I'd have to sort out my identity crisis later.

"If this doesn't make any sense, don't worry about it!" I said, spitting two coins at the bar-pony I had stolen from before. He was actually sitting on a stool like a certain mint-green unicorn, and the coins landed in his lap. "Ptooie!"

They might have been a little spittier than I had intended. Eww. Oops. I made my way to the rear of the station and dropped the remaining four coins on the counter.

"Where to...?" asked a bored mare with a candy-red mane.

"Uhh... Ponyville. One way." I replied. It wasn't long before I was clutching a ticket. The lettering was once again in some script I couldn't make out. Actually, the big letters at the bottom did almost look like they spelled 'ADMIT ONE'. Odd. I began to step away when I realized there were six platforms.

"Uh... wait!" I said, barging back to the front of the ticket line. A purple pegasus I bumped into gave me a very perturbed look.

"Uhh... which train is it?" I asked.

The teller mare sighed loudly. "It says so right on your ticket. Good day!" I looked at the ticket again, which had a confoundingly stylized font.

"...............where?"

The teller pony just glanced at my ticket and said "Platform two".

I ran off, the purple unicorn still looking disgusted. I swear she mumbled "I hope that's a one-way ticket to a bathtub in Ponyville..."

Then, I nervously waited in a line of ponies on the correct platform. It wasn't long before steam was rising from the trains. There was a sense of urgency about the place.

"Last call! All aboard for Ponyville! All aboard for Manehattan!" yelled a tan-furred conductor. I approached him, excited by the thought of getting away. All I knew was that I didn't want to be in Canterlot. I'd happily take any place else. The conductor eyed me up and down. Most of the ponies I'd met did the same. Apparently having the wings, the horn, and being the size of a normal pony was pretty unusual and on top of that I was still looking mighty windswept, to put it gently. Maybe some of the locals thought I was secretly the alicorn deity of clumsiness and awkward interjections in disguise. Just maybe... Maybe their minds practically crashed when they saw ':~$' on me. The conductor squirmed about for a moment, like he was deciding whether or not he should let me on the train. I mean, he spent an unusually long time inspecting the ticket, but eventually he sighed, punched a hole in it, and said "This way. Watch your step." When my turn came, I faceplanted over the gap into the train car anyway.

Music: http://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=KuYixP1IzEU

Ponies are a mixed bag... I thought from the cartoon that they'd all be super in-your-face and cheery, but the truth was that some of them were really sweet, and some maintained a very normal sense of public distance. An older yellow earth pony with an unflattering green mane said "Oh, poor dear..." and helped me up while she got my tail out of the doorway. I laughed nervously... and then I just felt awkward. The train car was almost completely full. There was nowhere to slip away and be alone.

"Come on!" I thought to myself. "Query's adorable... and, and confident! She's a true leader, and knows how to cut through the fluff. She doesn't care what others think. She... I..." I probably didn't realize that I was just standing still right in the middle of the aisle. "...but maybe I'm not a character that can be summed up in a sentence. Maybe life's not black and white. Maybe Query's not who I am... I don't even know why I'm running. Is running from this all some sort of weird metaphor for my life?"

"Baww! What am I so worried about?" I asked aloud as I turned to see the traffic jam of perturbed equines that I'd bunched up in the doorway. I walked briskly across the car until I came to the first open spot near the back. I slipped into a seat next to another grey pony, oddly enough. She didn't make eye contact.

"OK, that was the last call!" the conductor shouted, as he closed the doors on our car.

*chug* *pause* *chug* *pause* *chug* *pause* *chug* *pause* The train began to just barely, barely move. "I'm doing it!" I thought to myself. "I'm really getting away!" Oh but of course it was too good to be true. From outside the train I heard a voice bellow "In the name of Celestia! STOP THE TRAINS! I command you to STOP! THE! TRAINS!"

"Humph! Well we cahn't just stop the trains, they've already built up too much momentum." the conductor shouted out the window in his nasal voice.

The voice of Flynn continued to bellow outside on the platforms. "Alright, you two! Hop that first train! Go, go! You, second train! You, third! You, fourth! Niles and I will take this one!" They were long trains, and our car was already outside of the platform area itself. I still was able to hear a great deal of clamoring outside and I sunk in my chair.

*chug* *chug* *pause* *chug* *chug* *pause* The train picked up speed. I sighed and plonked my head back on the bench, peering over at the grey mare beside me. She just gave a very brief passing glance. I cleared my throat... she gave the daintiest little *ahem* I'd ever heard. Finally, I sat up and looked over.

"So... who might you be?" I asked, trying to sound friendly.

"Oh..." the grey mare said very softly "Uh, Octavia. Pleasure." She had dark grey hair and a purple G clef for a cutie mark.

"Octavia?!? Now there's a name I'm sure I've heard of!" I said excitedly.

"Oh..." she said, blushing "Surely not. You must be thinking of somepony else." ...and she started paying way too much attention to the newspaper page she had been cradling in her lap.

"Then you wouldn't just happen to be a renowned cellist, or anything of the sort?" I asked. (Come on, it was Octavia. I took some weird pleasure in having the upper hand in a conversation finally.)

"Uh, renowned? I'm not quite sure if I'd use the word."

"That's because you're more modest than I would be..."

Octavia actually giggled. "Oh my, so you are an appreciator of the arts, then?"

"Very much so!"

I must have missed a leaf from earlier, because as I leaned over one fell right off the top of my head and planted itself on Octavia's foreleg.

*chug* *chug* *chug* *chug* *chug* *chug* *chug* *chug* The train was going quite fast at this point. I could see trees flying by out the window.

"Uhh..." I said. "When I'm not appreciating the arts, I'm coming up with new ways to appreciate nature? They often involve sliding down a cliff on my head. Well, I take it back. That's more of a recent development."

Octavia actually busted out giggling in a still somehow reserved sort of way, but my fun was quickly halted by a white head peeking out the door at the end of the car.

"Check both front carts now! We can't afford not to be thorough." a familiar, dutiful voice said.

"Al'roight, al'roight... sheesh... I'm checkin' em!" Niles replied. He stepped right between the carts and started to meander about. The portly pegasus was unmistakable with his tiny wings and proud, gilded, red-brushed helmet.

"Hey, can I check that out?" I asked Octavia, pointing to the newspaper she had been clutching.

"Why, certainly." She said flatly. I fanned out the newspaper, sinking low in my chair (and pretending I was able to read the Equestrian alphabet). My heart pounded in my chest as Niles stood inches away. He craned his neck this way and that. I wanted to jump for joy at how lucky I was to get the bumbling, incompetent guard, of all ponies.

"What's the matter? They're not looking for you?" Octavia whispered.

"Shhhhhh!" was my response.

"Oh my."

"I don't want to talk about it." I said through gritted teeth. Niles did eventually make it in and out of the front cars.

"Well, I suppose I'll just mind my own business, then." Octavia said, sheepishly.

"It's nothing, really." I said. "...a relatively major misunderstanding. I'll take care of it when I reach my destination." Octavia seemed to relax again.

So, the raging, giddy fan in me was on cloud nine when it came to talking to Octavia... even if she did think I was a mysterious vagabond or something. Hours passed, and I never passed up the peanut cart as it made its way up and down the train. At about the two-hour mark, the attendant pushing the cart was actively trying to avoid me.

"Fo... *smack* I beff youf wondering how fomepony likeph me can eat like phis and ftay so fhin..." I said, through a mouth filled with an entire bag of peanuts, which I did finish chewing eventually. "The answer, most reserved one, is mortal terror. A little mortal terror every day is enough to keep you ready for a magazine cover."

It's funny how she stopped being shy around me... almost like she was used to my personality profile.

Time passed.

"So... one time she came home at the dreadful hour of 3AM... completely deaf after one of her concerts." Octavia began.

"Wait... Is this going to be another one about Vinyl?" I asked.

"None other!" she exclaimed.

Time passed. Evening was approaching. Ha, nighttime in Equestria. It was odd to see the sun wavering and jerking below the horizon as if someone was pulling it by a string (a sinister magical string). Even the other ponies seemed surprised by it. I was really exhausted and eventually both myself and Octavia must have passed out on the train. I had a considerably greater number of peanut wrappers on my side of the bench than she did. My dreams were of a mysterious world full of pink and brown primates who tended to worry too much and produce brilliant animation.

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I felt a hard rapping on my shoulder.

"Mmph!" was all I said, stirring a bit.

The rapping came again. I opened my eyes to see a blurry image of Octavia.

"OK, girl... I'm not your cello, sheesh..." I mumbled. However, Octavia appeared to still be sound asleep. I sat up on the bench to come face-to-face with Niles.

"GOT'CHA!" he exclaimed.

"Waaaaaaaaah!" was all that came out of me. It was slightly girlier than I would have liked. He put his forelegs around me and tried to grab me, but thankfully horses tend to be pretty bad at restraining other horses, or maybe guard-duty just wasn't his thing, because I was able to scramble up and over the back of the bench I had been sitting on. I tried to run for the back of the car, but I careened headfirst into Flynn as he opened the door.

"Yeeeooooooow!" he screeched, as the part of me that transferred all my momentum to him was the tip of my horn.

"Heh, oops!"

"GRRRRR! Why, you little..."

I ran the other way and slid right under Niles. Most of the occupants of the train had woken up by now and were in quite a startled state. As I motioned to leap across the gap to the next car, I got stuck like someone who wasn't completely in tune with the operation of their own legs. My front half was in the next car, but my backend was dangling precariously on the hitch joining them. My hooves were drooping dangerously close to the track. Thankfully, a bit of scrambling did get me back up. I tried with all my might to remove the pin joining the cars, but it didn't budge. Before Flynn and Niles were on top of me, I pulled off the same daring maneuver and wound up in the engine. Again, the pin joining the cars was stuck fast. Also, the engineer wasn't happy with me but he was far too distracted with letting off steam from an engine he'd accidentally dumped a bit too much coal into. Ha... his cutie mark was a lump of coal, too! There was no time for silliness, though! Remember what I said earlier about 'daredevilism'? Well, there was nowhere to go, and the next thing I found myself doing was trying to force myself out the window of the engine.

"I should have a window cutie mark after all this!" I shouted. I was starting to hobble out onto the front of the engine, and Flynn was right behind me! He was seething and climbing fearlessly onto the exterior of the engine.

"Don't do it, Flynn!" Niles cried. "Yuh gonna' get 'urt!"

"Quiet, you coward!" he shouted. "Either get out here and help me or keep your mouth shut!"

"But how do you know she's not just trying to banish 'erself? Save us the trouble?!?!?"

"I doubt that's the case!"

Niles peeked his head out the right side of the engine.

"Come on, crazy grey lady... please tell 'im you're jus' banishing yerself?"

"I AM BANISHING MYSELF!" I shouted at the top of my lungs.

"WARRRRGH!" Flynn bellowed as he lunged at me. I climbed up onto the roof of the engine. He followed.

"You can't run forever!" he said.

"I'm doing pretty good, though!" I said, as I jumped to the first train car. I ducked at the last moment as a heavy bough from a nearby tree grazed the top of my mane. Flynn spun around and dodged it. Then, I jumped to the second car. He was never very far behind me.

"I don't know what you think you're doing, but you're beginning to strike me as just crazy enough to fling yourself through a roof at some royalty!" he bellowed.

"I know... I know it all looks very bad, but I'm really a lovable sort of crazy once you get to know me! The whole princess-murdering thing was a terrible misunderstanding." I replied, making it to the third car. We were about to reach a bridge over a deep ravine with water at the bottom. There were arches up ahead. I just had to keep Flynn looking at me long enough.

"You go recklessly running from the law, charging through crowds, hopping trains, and... and THIS?!?!? ...and you expect me to believe you?" he asked, incredulously.

"It's a bit of a stretch..." I admitted. "...but so is my luck tonight!"

"Huh?" was all Flynn had time to get out.

*CRACK* "Waaaaaahhahauuuuugh! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" One of the short stone arches over the bridge hit Flynn squarely in the legs and sent him careening through the air. He caught on the side of the next car briefly before falling helplessly towards the water below. I just barely managed to dodge the arches, myself.

"F...FLYNN?!?? FLYYYYYYYYYYYNN???" Niles bellowed hysterically. He suddenly flipped onto the front of the engine himself and began to scale the train with startling prowess. "What did you do to Flynn?!??" *SPLASH*

I heard Flynn make contact with the water and start shouting some words at me I wasn't even aware that ponies knew.

Niles took one look at me and started blubbering. "I'M COMMIN' FOR YA BUDDEH!" he bellowed, as he tossed himself off the train and sailed on his stubby wings.

"What are you doing?!?!? Go back there and get her!!!!" Flynn cried, growing distant already. The train was moving quite fast.

"NO! *sniff* I'm not leavin' yew 'ere!" was all I could make out before they were both out of range. I knelt down on the top of the train and breathed a sigh of relief. I think I spent close to an hour up there, unsure of what to do. Eventually though, dawn was approaching and I was just a bit too cold to last much longer. I didn't have to think about how to get down, though, because in my dazed state I managed to miss another branch as we entered a wooded area.

*SMACK* "Oof!" I guess I kinda deserved that. The impact sent me into the crack between the rooves of two cars. My legs felt numb and I was unable to hold on. It wasn't long before I was sliding down the wall and onto the hitch joining them. "Just... gotta get back inside..." I thought to myself.

Oh, I should have known that karma would catch up to me sooner or later. Somepony opened the door to the front car at just that moment. It hit me squarely in the face and I lost my balance.

Everything happened so fast. There was an incredible noise! ...and then, well, there was just me lying on my back on a train track. I leaned up just long enough to make sure that all of me was still there, and it was. I collapsed back onto the track and stared into the morning sky, motionless.

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I'm not really sure how long I laid there, but it was quite some time. I couldn't help but feel like I'd had enough of being Bruce Willis in pony-form. I mean, I felt like some sort of cute terminator but it wasn't really on my list to see just how many death-defying stunts I could last for! I was pretty sore when I did manage to stand up and get a good look at my surroundings.

Music: http://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=1iXzi9KpdKQ

Fields.

I suppose it's time to mention a couple of things about myself if I haven't made them clear already. One: I've never had even a reasonable sense of direction, and the pony global positioning system is still a few years off. Two: I've never had even a reasonable sense of direction, and th... Three: My short-term memory once belonged to a sand dune or something. I'm what you'd call 'charmingly absent minded' if you wanted to be nice. I remember a LOT of things, but I wouldn't make a good air-traffic controller.

So... fields. Yes, Equestria turned out to be a lot bigger than I'd ever imagined. I was looking out over a wide landscape of subtle hills and meadows with a dense wall of trees far in the distance. It was becoming very bright out, and the birds and wildlife were loud, but distant. I had positively no idea as to where I should have been going. For all I knew, I WAS banishing myself. In retrospect, anyone with even the slightest clue would have followed the train tracks, but I didn't. I meandered lazily right out into the open, flattening the untouched grass as I went.

Up until this point, I hadn't been anywhere without ponies. I just walked for hours, never coming across any signs of life. I picked a direction, then I changed it a few times, and then I wound up headed for the trees which were still very far away. I hardly made any progress on that first day and I found myself watching the weird sunset while sprawled out on my back at the top of a hill. The meadow-grass was crunchy, and I couldn't help but feel like it needed some ketchup, or maybe some mustard, mayonnaise, pickle juice, and cream cheese.

"I beff all the ofer ponies fink in groff..." I mumbled through a slightly dirty mouthful of meadow-grass. There were no water sources anywhere. It worried me. What did I think I was I doing?

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Nothing much happened on day two. I found a horseshoe, oddly enough. It was about five sizes too big for me and covered in rust. I carried it for a while before getting annoyed. Day two. Sunset. More grass. Rinse. Repeat. Hmm... the fur on my back was looking pretty awful. It had acted as my braking mechanism I supposed, when I fell off the train.

Day three came along, and I was beginning to get legitimately worried. I'd seen nothing of interest along my trek, I was getting dangerously weak and lost, and I'd started humming 'been through the desert on a horse with no name' to myself.

"...it felt good to be out of the rain..."

So then it started raining midday. What a relief, to be honest. I would have killed at this point for the implied 'bathtub in ponyville'. I quietly wondered if I'd become an enemy of the state by then. If I did make it to 'civilization', would my giant-eyed grey mug be posted on every lamp post? Would the law-enforcement know my name? Could I explain myself to a pony police officer without busting out laughing?

The answer was: Definitely not. I don't know what really constitutes an 'element of harmony', but mine would have been laughing at my own demise. My own demise, by the way? What happened to me back home?!?!? I mean, I remembered waking up in the hospital, but... I wondered if they just found something comical like two smouldering boots at work where I'd touched the energized X-ray tube-array.

I had gotten so caught up in my own private deliberation that I barely had time to notice the wall of trees closing in on me. I finally looked up to see that it had gotten very dark and the rain had slowed. The trees were tall and gnarly and old-looking. I walked on... It was loud in the forest, just a cacophony of critters. There were all sorts of chirps and hoots and snarls coming from everywhere. I think I was actually beginning to miss Flynn and Niles. I decided that if I ever met them under non-running-for-my-life circumstances, I'd apologize for dragging them through all this. With every step into the forest it got a little darker, and I got a little sweatier, like a nervous prey animal. "Pshaw! I am a fearless predator of leaves and grass. This lush greenery should be trembling with fear!" I told myself.

"Oh, hi there mister leaf! I'm feeling generous, so I'll give you a five-second head start." *CHOMP* "Too slow..." Finally, I came across what I had really been hoping for: a stream. Hm... it was more like a tiny, tiny brook, but it was water. I quietly hoped that if this world allowed flying, talking ponies to make liquid rainbows in big vats in the sky, that just maybe it would be kind enough not to have parasites.

When I put my head down to have a drink, however, I was in for a start. After a minute or two, something touched my leg.

"Yaaaaaaah!" I shouted, whirling around only to come face to face with the most adorable thing (actually, there are several most adorable things in Equestria). A little grey, big-eyed sphere was buzzing inches from my muzzle. I uncontrollably clamped it in my hooves.

"D'awwwwwww! I get it! Para-'sprites'. Very funny, world!" I said aloud as I melted. It was exactly the same color as me, too. "You need a stupid computer-themed name to go with mine... hrmm... 'Quote' it is?" The little grey sphere made a sort of trilling noise and nestled in my mane. "Watch it, buddy..." I said. "You're pushing me dangerously close to a cuteness hangover! You won't like me when I get desperate."

Oh... and guess what happened next?

*ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR!* A deep, throaty noise poured from the bushes. Birds flew everywhere even though they had begun to roost for the evening. I blinked.

*ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR!!!!!* issued from the darkness, even louder than before. Yellow eyes appeared. I was actually... angry?

"Come on! No way!?!? COME! ON!?!?!? You've got to be kidding me? Why?!?! This. Is. UNREAL!!!!" I shouted furiously as I started to gallop. The little grey creature in my mane, I kid you not, actually shot me a nervous look. I guess where there are parasprites, there are manticores. If it's not clear, one was chasing me.

"Uhh... got any paw-thorns I can help with?" I shouted.

*RAAAAAAAWGH!*

"No? I'm pretty good at math. Need a tutor?"

*REOOOOOORGH!* It drew closer.

"Well, a lot of people are intimidated by the subject, but it's nothing to be ashamed of. I'll ask again later when you decide to calm down! I taste like dirt and peanuts, by the way!"

I was not in any shape to outrun the manticore, and probably did start screaming at the top of my lungs. As I ran and ran, the trees began to thin out up ahead. I nearly caught a break, but then, tree root. I had the wind knocked out of me, sliding on my back through the dirt, with hundreds of pounds of lion-ey thing in hot pursuit.

Finally, I did something very un-Query. In a state of complete terror and exhaustion, and in an act that would haunt me for months to come, I gave up. I just laid there, limp. Quote was actually making a sort of mewling sound and pulling my hair desperately. I sobbed.

"I... *sniff* ...hope you have a nut allergy!" I squeaked, hysterically. Oh yeah. Those were epic last words. I meant it!

I heard an exasperated shout (not from me), felt a hard blow, and everything went dark.

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Very far away, a group of exquisitely black, sinewy, perforated hooves made their way across an adorned marble floor.

"How many so far?" asked an unmistakable female voice.

"Six today, your highness." replied a nervous male voice.

"Not good enough! I want them in their places faster, loyal... servant..." hissed Chrysalis.

"But a thousand pardons! We're doing all we can..."

"How DARE you? I'll be the one to tell you what you can do."

The tall, male changeling cowered, silent.

"...and if you really can't? Ahaha!" she sighed. "Well... you'll find out."

The evil queen stepped her way out onto a balcony with her iridescent, blue-green, moth-eaten mane whipping madly. She leaned against the railing, wearing an expression of sinister glee. She cackled.

"You see..." Chrysalis began. "...I am EVER so clever. I hardly even need YOU anymore. This time... this plan is going to be..."

"...perfect?" the male changeling injected. She shot him a stare that could have killed.

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Music: http://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=XIb6RoxF5tg

Honestly, I think that cartoon logic may have taken over completely. I hadn't stopped yet at this point to think that the event which sent me hurtling toward Equestria in the first place was infinitely more unlikely than all my recent close-calls combined. Anyway, it's easy to imagine at this point that I was very surprised to be opening my eyes.

"Mmph..." I groaned. I shuffled a bit under the... covers? My eyes creaked open to reveal a bright, blurry room. Why did I have to be a pony with corrective glasses? I tried to sit up, but a yellow hoof planted itself softly on my shoulder.

"Oh, thank goodness you're awake!" said a soft voice. "I can't imagine what got that crabby manticore so upset... are you alright?"

The voice was like velvet.

"Well... if that's... Fluttershy I'm speaking to, then you know what?" I rasped.

"Oh, it is. Do I know you?"

"You don't, and I'm OK. Got my specs?" They were quickly plonked on my face. A yellow visage just inches from mine made a 'squee' expression.

"Oh... OK. I think I'm going to throw up." I groaned.

"I'll get a bucket. Are you ill?" Fluttershy asked, very concerned.

"No... everything. It's just that everything is too cute for me." I sighed.

I got a good look around the room. It seemed like I was in the middle of someone's dream-treehouse. There were little cages and suspended walkways everywhere... and lots of small animals. A tiny blue bird was in a enclosure just inches from my bed, staring intently. It was very bright out, and morning already. Fluttershy put a cloth on my head.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Well.." I began, right before Quote decided to pop out of his hiding place in my mane. A gasp came from the demure little pony.

"Oh! Oh no... Oh my! Oh dear!" she gasped, as she began to run back and forth frantically.

I looked at Quote. He shrugged at me with his little beady eyes. Next Chapter: The Worst Pegacorn of All-Time Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 8 Minutes