My initial missteps were forgiven, it had seemed. Forgiveness was the order of the day, or maybe the almost-horses that I'd run into were just special like that. I couldn't yet know, I was too busy trying to make sense of my own head.

Was it just a... dream? Another word that I shouldn't know, yet somehow was able to draw on when I needed it. Was this a blessing to be enjoyed? A curse when it was to be taken away? If it was taken away... would I have enough of this left to know what I was missing?

"Maggie?"

I jerked my head up, Twilight was talking to me, I'd drifted off. I wondered if she was getting tired of that. "Sorry," I replied, still unused to speaking. My voice was... well, if I had to compare it to anything, I'd compare it to Orange or Red, though none of the other almost-horses sounded quite like them, which made me wonder.

"It's fine, I was asking if you'd like something to eat?" She asked.

Bowls were floating in the air above her, her headspike was glowing with the same purple... fog, that the bowls were. It was... It was... 'Magic!' The word screamed in my head, like something talking directly into my mind, completely differently from before.

I flinched like I'd been struck, blinked and shook my head, and looked up at her, "y-yes." Short words, simple words, words that are hard to screw up. Take it slow, don't look foolish. I then realized, I cared about looking foolish.

This, whatever this was, was getting more complicated by the minute and showed no signs of stopping. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself, it just wouldn't do to get myself all spooked again.

The bowl clinked against the table in front of me, sliced apples, something I knew even without that voice in the back of my head nagging me about it. 'and another word, great' I thought. I was beginning to develop a sarcastic streak.

'another... calm down Maggie... calm down' I sighed and closed my eyes, then lowered my head and bit into one of the apple slices.

I hadn't remembered apples being that good; I needed little motivation to eat the entire bowl, and was well on my way to doing just that when I was interrupted by a soft coughing sound. I pulled my head out of the bowl and flicked my eyes up and toward the noise. Twilight looked less than pleased.

"Were you raised in a barn?" she asked incredulously.

I didn't immediately understand, although the word 'yes' had crossed my mind almost immediately. I looked back down at my bowl and realized what had upset her: I had made a substantial mess of the bowl, the table, and myself.

I looked up at her sheepishly, she was unmoved. I was unsurprised.

"Look, just... try to be more careful okay," she started, "what are we going to do with you?"

It was a good question, what was she going to do with me. I wasn't like her, could she tell? Was she helping me because she couldn't tell or was she helping me because she could? I had always been the most comfortable in the herd and yet she was here, by herself. And then there was me, I supposed.

But then what?

I turned my head down and started eating again, calmly this time, taking care not to make a mess of things, or more of a mess than I had already. For the moment, I could put all of my fears aside and just enjoy the simple pleasures of food.

Having put the meal behind me, I could focus on more important things, like not making a fool of myself, and not earning Twilight's ire. So far that had not been as successful as I'd have liked. I had learned that, unlike what is in small bowls, plants in pots were not meant as food.

That, and an incident not suitable for being put into writing that nearly took place as a result of my unfamiliarity with plumbing.

I don't believe I will ever live that one down.

Which lead, somehow, to me sitting on a cushion staring into the open pages of a book. Little symbols and squiggly lines, I could make sense of none of it. It was supposed to have been a book on 'manners', something which I had apparently lacked, if Twilight's lamentations were anything to go by.

"Well?" Twilight asked expectantly.

I took my nose out of the incomprehensible scribbles and looked up at her with a blank look on my face. What was the best way to approach my total lack of comprehension of what she'd given me?

I blinked at her, she frowned in reply. "You can't read that, can you?" She asked flatly.

I looked back at the book, at the squiggles. There were some pictures, I could sort-of figure out what was going on in them, the nature of the writing still eluded me.

"No," I said simply, softly. I felt my face heating up. 'Embarrassment.' I looked away from her disapproving eyes, as if ashamed by that failure.

"Where do you come from?" she asked, I couldn't tell if she wanted an answer or was just asking it for the sake of voicing her thoughts.

I wasn't sure I had an answer in either case. I kept my head hung low, I wanted to fit into whatever mold she'd envisioned for me, herd instinct if anything, and yet it was something I couldn't suppress.

And I'd failed.

I felt a hoof on my shoulder, turned my head to look Twilight in the eyes again. My eyes felt wet, she smiled. "If you can't read... then I'll just have to teach you. I'm sure we'll figure all of this out sooner or later, okay?"

Would it be figured out? What was there to even figure out, less than a week before I'd been a mindless farm animal, a beast of burden and from there I'd become a shy illiterate among a herd of not-quite-horses that were obviously superior to me in every way, and yet...

I felt a spark of something, I almost didn't have to search for the word, it was just there like a light in the darkness: Hope.

Hope, for the future? That I'd blend in, fit in, find a new herd to call my own? That I'd find meaning in what had happened to me, how I'd changed?

I wasn't sure, but... like it had been with Orange before, she said those words to me and I believed her, without question, without doubt. Was it a reflection of her own confidence in telling me or... was it just something inside of me that knew she wouldn't let me down?

I decided, as my eyes dried, that for now, hope would be enough.

Author's Notes:

Here's another one, trying not to suck so, yeah that.