Feathers amuse me. They are tiny little leaves attached to a body for warmth and for flight. They are perfect pens if you use them right, and they make great things to worry on with my mouth. They make the most delightful blankets and they fill a certain part of me that I hardly even knew existed.

Let me introduce myself. The name is Cale. I do have a last name, but it would be terribly boring if I told you every meaningless smidgen of detail about myself right away, wouldn't it? Besides, I'd rather have more of a multiple choice backstory.

Maybe I was an amazingly talented teenager who had everything come easily to him and never had to struggle, but I was secretly depressed and constantly put down my admittedly meager achievements?

Or maybe I was a dreamer with my heads in clouds sculpted straight out of the freedom of the soul. Velvety blue skies beckoned my name with every step and every wind's whistles.

Or maybe I was a life saver that many owed more than can be described to. Disgusted with how little I actually achieved I became more of a cynic, standing to the side and only interfering in the way fate plays out when completely necessary.

All you really need to know about me was when things actually started happening for me. You know, the exciting bits. The real one two punch lines where good triumphs over evil and the hero nabs the girl and they stride off into the sunset.

Wait, that's not my script. Er.

Starting a story like this is about as difficult as relating to you what the inside of a train wreck that happens in zero gravity is. You don't care about the conductor, you don't care about the why.

Because really, like many things in life, a train is only interesting once it fails.

To cut short a few endless metaphors, on the fateful day it all began I was awakened from a nice dream by a completely natural sensation.

Hunger. I was hungry.

It was a light hunger, the kind that graces one when one misses breakfast. The same lightness that you could easily ignore. Still, that was what awakened me.

There was the sweet sound of bird chorus off in the distance. It was almost unnatural how natural it sounded.

The air was crisp and sweet, sugary sweet honey pervading the air. Allergies were sure to follow shortly.

I was resting on something rough and hard.

The air itself tasted of peace and tranquility.

This is how the train wreck of metaphor began. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

I opened my eyes and hot bright sunlight almost shattered my ocular orbs. Or maybe I should just say that my eyes felt like someone had poured salt on them.

I threw a hand up over my eyes and felt an odd waver in my positioning. I adjusted my weight instinctively and regained balance.

Once again, I opened my eyes.

My body was filled with a curious, general lethargy. Like a cat hiding and waiting for the right time to strike.

There was a burst of tension through my thoughts as my eyes focused on where I was. Or rather, where the ground was. Which was below me at a distance that I was more than a little bit uncomfortable with. Suddenly, the bird song made a bit more sense. I was in a tree, after all.

I was draped over a tree limb.

Surprisingly, I was more than calm about that. I was more worried about the taloned appendage that graced my forehead. The one that twitched when I tried to move my fingers?

Those ones. Yes.

I tapped my forehead with the talons and winced at the sharp pain that lanced through my skull in response to them. Makes sense, talons hurt. I waved them around for a bit, listening to the keen whistle the movement evoked.

Delayed panic response kicked in after a few seconds when it suddenly hit me that I was hanging off of a tree limb with eagle talons that had apparently replaced my hands.

"Shards!" The voice was unexpectedly feminine. I latched on to the branch with my hands and was more than a little dismayed when the branch unexpectedly gave way before me. I rolled off.

Not exactly what I was going to say, but it suited my mood.

I plummeted the ten or so feet to the ground and felt my self shift my body, by instinct, shifting like a spinning top so I could land on my... feet... which I had four of...

I landed smoothly without much pain

“Hello.” Again with the feminine voice.

Which was a bit bad. Ok, bit of an understatement, it was very bad.

Ok, let’s back up a bit to the previous night.

A tiny bit of backstory maybe won’t hurt this, right? At any rate, there was a meteor shower the night before.

Which I had a masculine voice to ooh and ah with whilst I stared at the pretty star lights. As well as a human body, though you probably already guessed that.

There was also the fact that I didn’t break all of my bones when I fell out of the tree. I was a good ten or twenty feet in the air...

I looked down at my talons and for once had it sink in that something was wrong. My perspective shifted slightly as I took into account all the things I knew about my situation.

I was some strange thing with talons. A better examination, better than the glance I had earlier.

Correction, strange thing with talons and brownish fur.

I craned my neck around, a few vague hairs away from going into mental shutdown mode.

…My neck hurt.

Fur covered every inch of me aside from the white feathers that graced my neck. I let out a huff, and cracked my head to the side. With a sound like cracking bones, the tension in my neck disappeared. I did the same for the other side, relaxed at the sound. Something familiar, at least. I could focus on that.

“Right.” The voice was still wrong. I blew a bit of hai- er... feather out of my face and watched it drift back down. I growled under my breath.

Growling. This is a thing now. Good to know. I sounded a bit like a ticked off cat, but still. Growling.

Back to the list of things I knew about what was going on.

Lion paws at the back. They probably had claws, or something equally sinister in them. I wondered how I was standing so easily and promptly fell over on my side in a lump.

“Griffon.”

The name rolled off of the tongue. I quickly bit said tongue and was forced with the realization that I had a beak to match the eagle talons.

Gorey details aside, I was now a griffon minus the tip of a tongue. My tongue, if you want to be specific.

“Ow.” Rather simple response, no? Still, female voice.

I had an idea of what was wrong with my voice at that point, but I allowed myself a few more moments of denial.

But only a few.

“My name is Cale.” Well, at least I knew my name. Good to have that going for me.

The voice was still not my own, and of all of the many things that could bother me, it had to be that. I mean, the new voice sounded like something out of a cartoon. Cartoon.

Cartoon, like that newscast from last week. The one with Celestia and Luna. Lauren Faust. Tara Strong.

Like I said, with a whimper, not a bang.

Instead of pondering the fact that I was now voiced by a popular voice actress in growling soprano, I attempted to pull myself to my feet.

Which was hard. You know what? Having two not matching pairs of feet makes balance a little weird. Like balancing a plate of flaming cacti on your nose. That’s a horrible way to describe it, but the mental picture alone should convey the difficulty that I encountered, and the wounds to my pride that I suffered in the process of learning how to stand on my own mish mash of avian and feline feet.

Long story short, I was slightly bruised when I regained the ability to stand on my own four feet. Which was alright, because in the process, I had noticed something next to me in shattered pieces. My glasses. Clearly, I was oblivious or brain damaged if I didn’t notice that I didn’t have them.

Or you know, something could be messing with my head in a way that would prevent me from noticing obvious things.

Or oblivious.

I’ll go with oblivious.

I didn’t need the glasses, truth be told. Or at least, I needed them before hand, but my vision was now better with the whole new eyes thing. Which I assumed were avian. Maybe.

I remember a news cast from a few days ago. If Celestia and Luna wanted the mane six to go to New York... and I was in New York...

I snapped the thought process shut in the manner of a teacher snapping a ruler down on a bad child’s hands; with no remorse or regret.

Forest in New York. Great place to go camping with a few friends. Great idea. Get away from the world that seems to be going insane over ponies. How lame. Get away from the psychos. Have fun. That’s what they said.

Friends. Camping with friends who weren’t entirely happy at the thought of people being turned into cartoon ponies.

Well, I’m cooler than some ponies, I guess.

Not that it matters. My stuff is back there. I made my decision without really realizing it.

I realized my thought processes were jumping around and tried to still them, seeking the source of the issue. A nice tight knot of panic lancing through the thought trains and sending them into a cacophonous array of light and sound and screamy noises.

“Cale?”

That was not my voice. The tight knot of panic was a bit more agreeable, and the crimson metallic taste in my mouth was not helping to settle my nerves or stomach.

“Er.” I managed to get out, not really sure what to say.

There was a loud shuffling sound from a convenient pair of nearby bushes, arranged in the common cliche of being impenetrable to the naked eye unless parted.

I took a nervous step backward when an alien sensation overtook me in a golden wave of glory. Pride. I had pride again. I was strong, I was fast. I had no need to fear anything, much less a simple human.

Just as quickly as it flicked through, I realized that I had taken a step backwards. Which was a pretty big accomplishment, considering that I had just managed to figure out the correct way of standing upright.

The bushes parted and a head poked out with brown hair draped across the face of it like greasy ivy. “Cale?” Our eyes met.

There was a moment of sheer awkward silence. “What the F-?” He swore, violently. There was another silence, broken only by my attempts at a reassuring smile.

Which came out more as a face that looked like it was going to tie him to a rock and devour his liver for the rest of time. Prometheus, eat your heart out. Well, liver, but anyway.

“What the F-?” He repeated again.

“Shhhh.” I tried. Of course, considering I was a bird lion hybrid thing Griffon it didn’t really work that well. It came out as more of a hiss.

He went pale at that. His eyes, wild with fear and probably stupidity, (I do not have the greatest amount of faith in him) latching on to the sight of the crushed pair of glasses. He seemed to draw courage from the waste of money, time, and glass and expanded like a balloon made of skin.

“Cale?” He croaked again. To his credit, I was an angry lioness bird thing GRIFFON. I probably would be panicking if I were the one staring at me.

That sounded creepy, like I was planning on checking myself out. That interpretation sounded creepy. I had to wonder where these thoughts were coming from if my friend wasn’t staring at me in shock.

“You killed Cale!” He screamed, stumbling back into the bush and taking off into the trees.

Taking chase seemed like a great idea at the time. Get him. There was a moment where I doubted whether I could even walk well enough to give chase before I casually executed that thought with a mental double tap from a mental revolver. It’s metaphysical corpse dropped to the ground and I rushed after him, mismashed legs working just as well as my legs had beforehand. I vaulted over the bush.

‘Course, it was more like I was just watching it happen. Less like I was the one forcing my legs to move and more like I was just riding shotgun in my own head. There was a thrill to it, like a rollercoaster. It was a nice happy feeling.

I felt pride in myself.

I was a griffon. For a brief few faltering moments I looked over the brim of mental breakdown and greeted the griffon inside of me with a good smile.

You know, right before she mauled the hell out of my mind.

Metaphysically, of course. I retreated to my safe haven and resumed the chase, the griffon within seeming content with controlling my limbs and placing a wicked grin on my beak.

Gilda.

Gilda the griffon. I was Gilda the griffon and I had something to hunt.

I was happy.

Anytime you wake up on top of someone and you have no idea why is bad. That’s a rule of thumb, or talon. Pretty common one, as well. Normally followed up with insinuations of being great last night, or being a dirty little boy and or girl.

‘Course, he wasn’t naked. Which was points in my favor. Not knowing why I was on top of him, or why he looked to have cried himself to sleep were not nearly so encouraging.

I stood and took stock of the situation.

“Ok. What.” Anger. There was anger. I have a few trigger spots, and not knowing what happened was one of them. Completely understandable.

Not really caring that I was standing on top of the friend that I won’t name for sake of anonymity, I pushed him to the side with my talons, feeling a nice bit of amusement over how easily his shirt shredded.

We were a ways from camp. Easily out of earshot. This explained why I had been able to pin and, apparently, cuddle the distraught human without anyone coming to his aid.

Cuddle wasn’t the right word. A certain part of me growled at just the thought. I had pinned and... restrained him? I really wasn’t sure if there was a descriptor that didn’t sound absolutely terrible.

Pin? Pin sounded more like something a ferocious creature would do. Pin, followed by ravaging. No. Ravage sounds like rape.

Hm.

In the end, I turned away from the conundrum of my ferocious cuddling, Cuddling is lame, and look through the trees towards a stream nearby. I was pretty sure following that stream would lead me back to camp.

Then I remembered I had wings. Great wings. Strong wings filled with blood pumped from a powerful heart. I was strong. Pride flowed through me like blood through veins.

I turned back to the downed teenager and stared at him for a while. I would probably need him later. The real question was, when was later?

Focus on the situation.

Humans are becoming ponies. Newscasts tell them to go to New York. I am a griffon. Where do I fall? I’m already in New York. New York forest. Camping.

Shut up and actually do something. Idiot.

Walking. Walking was something to do. Surprisingly, walking was pretty easy this time. I had a handle on the most of it and was just about as graceful as your average drunken college student. You know, the annoying one that comes in and vomits all over your new couch while you angrily swear at them?

Foot after the other. Taloned foot after lion foot. It was a nice pattern, actually. Relaxing. Let me think.

Camp wasn’t too far off. All of my things were back there... including my phone...

Do talons work on touch screens? For that matter, do talons work for other more important things? If talons won’t work on touch screens, can paws work?

Does it even matter? It’s a goal. Go do it.

I decided to simply get it over with, and worry about how it could’ve gone better later.

I stalked through the bushes like the giant cat GRIFFON that I had become.

The tip of my tongue was still sore. It has stopped bleeding, but the amount of blood I had had to spit out had dappled my fur with streaks of it. This shortly became far more than a hygiene issue, however. I had been wandering in the general direction of our camp for long enough that I had started wondering if trying to fly would be worth the risk.

Suddenly, a movement and the sound of shifting branches behind me startled me out of my daze, causing me to spin around and come nearly face to face with my other friend. He was holding a large branch and seemed less than inclined to ask me if I needed help finding my way back to camp. He seemed quite a bit more inclined to hit me over the head with that stick.

It hurt. A lot. However, knocking someone out is not so simple. Especially when they are as filled with pure awesome as I am.

The roar knocked him off his feet. He literally fell on his flank, er, bottom. I stalked towards him and decided to tell him off.

“What, exactly, do you think you are doing, dweeb?” I growl. What the hell? Wait. Where?

“A.... A.... Avenging my friends!” He squeaked pathetically. The smell of his fear was enticing, like an electric current tempting me further and further. I’m not. Wait.. What?

“Pfft. Idiot.” There was a flicker in my head. It stung a little, like a second attack.

There was a moment of silence until he dropped the stick and ran screaming like a little girl. I snickered. That wasn’t nice... Not that I am nice.

Distantly, through the distortions of a closed tent and through the forest I heard something a little odd. Voices.

There was a curious feel of sliding glass and suddenly the world was a little different, and I was breathing hard. “What’s... happening?” It was the question.

Heh. You’re in my body and I decide when I get to have fun. Got it, Dweeb?

...Gilda?

That’s the name. Beats Cale. What’s that even mean, anyway? It sounds like a vegetable.

I just...

Ignoring that. Yeah, ignoring that. Just...

I went forward without thinking, walking through the brush and forest. Forward and onwards, trying not to think of anything...

Ok, I was panicking. So sue me.

I was at the tent flap before my mind really returned to me. It was one of those zip up models. There was someone inside of the tent, by the sound of it.

I realized, coincidentally, that I was hungry. That is a bad connection. I have to wonder what people taste like. Probably salty and why am I even considering this?

There was a faint smell of blood in the air. From myself, I was sure. It made my mouth water.

I needed to focus on getting my things.

“Well there you have it. After being brutally assaulted, they appear to be in good condition and thanking everyone. This is Andrea Moris for channel five news, signing off.” Newscast. It was a repeat. He was watching it again for some reason.

I suppose, while I have the chance, that I should address my feelings towards ponies. I was... I used to watch the show a little before I was yanked out of it by friends. I valued them over said show, and shared their recently developed beliefs that people becoming ponies by sheer chance was a BAD thing.

There was an attack on Fluttershy.

She was heading to New York. There was a broadcast telling them to head to New York.

The entire thing reeked of a trap. What would stop said group that ATTACKED her from setting a nice trap and snaring the rest of ponies heading there?

I was already in New York...

Fluttershy was in Kansas. Assumedly, she was heading for New york.

I had a few days to check out the situation. If I could... If they were all really so trusting, I had to find a way to stop them from coming here. Or at least, figure out if I was right.

New York City.

I had a destination. I may not have my sanity, my friends, or my home. But I had a goal.

That is all I needed.