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Miller

by totallynotabrony

Chapter 1

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Miller

The ceiling tiles slowly came into focus. They didn’t look like any ceiling I should be staring at. Strange.

I sat up, quickly regretting the action. It hadn’t caused me any physical pain—far from it, I felt great—it’s just that sitting up revealed even more strangeness.

It was clearly a hospital room. There was a bed identical to mine a few feet away. A curtain that could be used to divide the room was presently bundled against the wall. A few pieces of equipment were present. It smelled like a hospital. Also, I had hooves instead of fingers.

I cut my eyes back and forth, looking at both of the appendages that I held in front of me. They weren’t cloven; they were the other kind, but I couldn’t remember the term. Equid?

My arms—er, front legs?—were coated with a layer of short grey hair. I touched the hooves together experimentally. There wasn’t much feeling in them.

On a chair beside the bed was a small pile of personal effects. Blue jeans, low-rise boots made of brown leather, belt, cell phone, wallet, and pocket knife. There was t-shirt with a familiar logo on it. They were my things, then.

If they were there, then apparently I was naked. I lifted the sheet to check. A tail of dark grey was spread out on the bed beneath me. On each side of my hips was a strange mark. It looked like a blueprint of a circular saw blade that faded into a detailed depiction of the silvery, toothed disk, sort of like a progression between a design and finished product.

I also discovered something at least as disturbing than having hooves—wings. The feathers were colored the same as the rest of me. I poked at them and the leading edges reflexively ruffled a little.

Considering the situation, I thought that I took waking up to the spectacle of incorrect and additional limbs fairly well. I had yet to see evidence that I wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating, so that probably helped reduce the anxiety a little.

It was just then that the door opened and a creature that had the same basic shape as me came in. I heard a little tune being hummed in a voice that sounded feminine. She had a pale green coat and yellow mane and tail, with a cap on her head decorated with a red cross. She had this pointy thing on her forehead—a unicorn? She didn't have wings.

“Good to see you’re awake, Mr. Miller,” she said. A tray of something was floating in midair next to her, and her horn seemed to be glowing. A little bit of apprehension began to work its way into my system at the sight. It wasn’t until her words registered that I got really nervous.

“How did you know my name?” I asked.

She smiled. “I didn’t, actually. It was the only thing that looked like a proper name that I could find, so I was just guessing.” She dug through my clothes and pulled out my driver’s license. Showing it to me, she indicated the line that read James Miller.

“Can’t say I’ve ever heard of a James before, but I’m not one to judge.” She laughed. “I’m Bottie.”

I laughed a little, although I was a little too worried about the situation to actually think it was humorous. “Is that short for something?”

“It’s short for ‘Phelbottie’. I have my parents to thank for that one, but at least it’s appropriate.” She turned and indicated her hip, where there was a splash of red. “My cutie mark indicates a special talent for phlebotomy.”

Cutie mark? So my special talent was...saws?

Bottie glanced at the picture on the license. “So is this your driver? Some kind of pet monkey?”

It took me a second to process what I was being asked. Apparently she had never seen a person before, and I didn't know how she would react to a sudden admission on my part. “Uh, yes. Drivers are…a little dangerous, so I had to get a license to have one.”

She placed the card back on top my clothes. “Interesting. Scientists are finding new animals in Equestria all the time. Pity they got your city wrong.”

“I’m sorry?”

“They spelled Baltimare wrong. The license says, ‘Baltimore’.”

I nodded. “I’ll get it fixed. So how did you find that card?”

“When somepony comes to the hospital unconscious, it’s standard procedure to check for identification. I see you aren’t carrying your Equestria-issued ID that tells us for sure which pony you are.”

Pony? Equestria? I sensed a long adjustment period for this. Luckily, I was saved from that thought process by the next thing out of the nurse’s mouth. “You seem fine. I think you’re free to go. So, how will you be paying for this?”

“I uh…what exactly are the charges?”

Bottie thought for a moment. “Well, I’m not from the billing office, but with the ambulance pickup, processing, doctor fees, tests, and room costs, I would guess about four thousand bits.”

I stared at her. “Is that a lot?”

“Depends on how you look at it.” She shrugged. “It’s about what I make in one month.”

I had a single question. It was a very important one. “Does the word ‘MasterCard’ mean anything to you?”

She frowned. “I think he works at the ID office.”

I flopped backwards on the bed. I tried to cover my face, but only succeeded in scratching my eyelids with my sharp forehooves. I wondered why the edges were so pointy. I hadn’t noticed any wear on the undersides, either. It’s like they had never been walked on. I suppose that made sense, as I had never been a pony before.

“Don’t worry, dear. You’ll find a way, I’m sure.” Bottie watched as I got out of bed. Standing still on four legs wasn’t too difficult, but the joints were not what I was used to. Luckily, crawling instincts from childhood kicked in and I was able to walk slowly without too much trouble.

“So you found me passed out?” I asked.

“Somepony did. You seem fine, no injuries.” She checked my legs and walked around. “Okay, spread your wings.”

I glanced towards my back with no idea which muscles to move. Reaching a hoof back and poking one wing gave me a feel for which part of my body I should at least be thinking about. Slowly, I got them to lift off my sides.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “Out of practice.”

Bottie laughed. “I understand. With a cutie mark like that, I didn’t figure you for a weather pony.”

Just one more thing to add to my growing list of questions. Bottie got me a sack to carry my things in. I was able to balance it on my back with some help from my wings. I wondered about my ability to fly. They didn’t look like they should be big enough to allow that.

We left the room. There were other ponies in the halls, most of them unicorns. I saw a few other ponies with wings, and some plain ones with nothing at all. A lot of them were naked like me, but some wore hats or jackets. Apparently, the only pair of pants in the whole building was in the bag I carried.

Bottie took me to the administration office to do checkout paperwork. They were not pleased that I had no permanent address. I would told that somepony would find me when the first payment came due.

With that unsettling information, I left the building. The clock in the hospital lobby said that it was midmorning. I checked the sun, deciding that it probably pointed which direction was east.

The hospital’s address on the paperwork I had been given listed the city as Canterlot. From what I could see, the city was situated just south of a steep mountain. A castle that looked like something out of a fairy tale was perched precariously on a cliff about halfway up the mountain, and I couldn’t figure out how it managed to stay anchored to the rock. I wondered who lived there.

I looked around the immediate vicinity. There were a few buildings that had more than three floors. Everything was brightly colored and seemed to use older construction styles.

Other than the species difference, everything seemed a lot like a normal city that I was used to. There were businesses, residences, and all the other necessary buildings. I started down the street, looking at all the places I passed.

There were a few pegasi around and I thought it looked like fun to join them in the sky, but didn’t trust myself to fly instead of die. I had always been a little bit afraid of heights.

Speaking of being afraid, a little bit of my wonder was wearing off and being replaced by cold realizations. I had no money for food or a place to stay. Worse, I was a pony, in Equestria. This was...well, I wasn’t really sure what it was, but it certainly couldn’t be considered good.

I took a few calming breaths and tried to remember how this happened to me. Somehow, I couldn’t. What I had been doing before finding myself in a hospital was a blank. I remembered waking up this morning next to my fiancé, but nothing after that.

I set my bag down and dug through it looking for my wallet. Jenna’s picture was inside. I gulped as I stared at it. I didn’t know how I was supposed to get home, or even how I should start. Since I had never heard of Equestria before, I somehow doubted that ponies had ever heard of my country.

I took stock of the contents of the bag while it was open. My hooves seemed slightly sticky, although I knew I hadn’t stepped in anything. It didn’t seem to matter what material I was touching, or how hard I pressed. Whatever was going on, it helped me grip things better than hooves had any right to.

My phone had no service. I couldn’t operate my pocket knife with hooves. The clothes looked like nothing any other pony was wearing. Boots would be useless. I sighed. My body was not my own. These were the only things that still indicated that I wasn’t supposed to be here, and I couldn’t use any of them.

After picking up my things again, I started walking. I didn’t have a direction in mind. The next couple of hours passed slowly, made all the worse by my building anxiety. I did manage to learn a lot about the city, however.

Canterlot was spread out in a rough semicircle around the base of the mountain. The hospital was pretty close to the center. Closer to the castle, the buildings and ponies got more wealthy-looking. I noticed that there were also more unicorns closer to the castle. I wondered about some kind of caste system, but dismissed the idea. Nopony I had seen appeared to be too much above or below any other.

Nopony? Apparently I was already starting to pick up the lingo. Not that I had a problem with the way I talked, but I had no idea that immersion in a new situation brought about such quick changes.

That afternoon, I happened across a library. I had yet to see any computers in Equestria, but went inside the building on the vague hope that I might find internet access. While electricity seemed to exist here, there were not nearly as many devices that used it here as there were back home.

I perused the shelves, looking for a book of maps. Their sorting system wasn’t something I had used before, but it was easy enough to learn it. A book about world geography looked promising, but turned out to be exactly what I needed to have a major-league mental breakdown.

I stared at the diagram on the first page. Either their planet was flat, or the mapmaker should have been fired. Neither option was reassuring.

I stood up and went looking for something related to astronomy. If the planet was flat, did it rotate? Consulting a book about star charts, I found no reference to their positions at certain dates and times. The view of the stars never changed, and so the planet’s position relative to them didn’t move.

I glanced out the window. Wait a minute, the sun was a star. How was it progressing across the sky? In the last few hours, I had seen the shadows change as it shifted to a different place.

I found the surprising answer in a book about the environment. Pegasi coordinate the weather with ground conditions set by earth ponies. Both groups coordinate with unicorns for general magic, while Princess Celestia’s sun provides energy to make the plants grow.

The topic of Princess Celestia—a resident of the castle on the mountain—led me to search for more about the Equestrian government. I kept at that until the librarian kicked me out of the library that night.

My head spun as I stood on the sidewalk outside. This place was so different from what I was used to. Perhaps the most important was that physical laws didn’t really mean anything here. They had magic.

I’d done a little reading about that, too. While unicorns could manipulate magic directly, the other two groups had their own variations. Earth ponies had a connection to the ground, and were generally suited to things of that nature, like growing plants. Magic also helped them to be physically stronger and tougher, even if they were not much different body-wise.

I’d paid special attention to pegasus magic. That generally covered manipulating clouds and air. Of the three, the earth ponies—without wings or horns—had the hardest kind of magic to wrap my head around.

The sun began to set, and I saw the moon rising in its place. I wondered about that. Was it in orbit around this crazy planet, or did Princess Celestia control that, too? The book I had opened didn’t really talk about it.

I sighed and looked around. There was still so much I didn’t know. Namely, where could I get a free meal? I hadn’t eaten anything all day. Walking by a closed restaurant, I stopped to check the menu in the window. Summer sampler platter-eight bits, fruit plate-five bits, veggie burger with hay fries-six bits.

Hay fries? It honestly hadn’t occurred to me to eat grass. There was a small park nearby that I walked over to. The lawn had been trimmed recently, but I was able to find some loose clippings scattered among the living grass.

I hadn’t seen anypony eating grass au naturale, and residual humanity made me embarrassed to be seen doing it anyway. Lucky it was dark and the park was empty.

I hoped there wasn’t some reason for not chomping raw grass. As I took my first bite, I prayed it wouldn’t kill me. The grass tasted just like you would expect. Now I realized why ponies didn’t eat it straight from the source. Still, I persevered until I didn’t feel quite so hungry.

The night was clear and fairly warm. The park was well landscaped, and I found some bushes to lie down near. I made a pillow out of my clothing but it wasn’t easy to get to sleep. Thoughts of Jenna, home, and real food occupied my mind. I eventually managed to drift off, though. Hopefully my luck would turn around the next day.


Author note:
Edits/story ideas by: Pinkawne Pie, Brony Tom, conantheimp, The_Dash

Next Chapter: Chapter 2 Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 25 Minutes
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