Rainbooms Over Miami

by Rainbooms_Over_Miami

Chapters

• Sunny Skies
• The Fall From Grace...
• A New Dawn
• Canadians and Royalty
• The Bumbling Brit
• Sucks to be hi- I mean, her...
• Wounded Hearts
• Wrong Side of the Bed
• Books, Celestia I Love Books

Sunny Skies

It was a funny thing, unsaid but very known among the brave souls who were in on this adventure: when you've stripped away the glory of expedition and the mystery of the unknown lurking behind every courageous step, you were left with nothing but 17 very different people, most of whom were all nearly grown-ass men, all dead set on finding a utopia of pastel-colored ponies. To think that they could actually do such a thing only pronounced the evident: not only were they braver and more persistent than most, but they were more likely than not bat-shit crazy. It was this insanity that seemed to bond the strangers, even more than their sense of adventure, or their love of miniature horses from a television show designed for little girls.

Word of this journey had traveled from friend to friend, over state lines, national boundaries, and even oceans, to fancy the ears and imaginations of these bronies (and few pegasisters). And fancy their imaginations it did. Sure they had their share of skeptics, whether they be friends or even family members, but they believed in their lost cause. Like the natural instinct to root for the underdog, they all gravitated towards this plan because of the unlikelihood of its success—the fact that it was almost too crazy to work. Almost.

The plan was the idea of a thirteen year old boy from Georgia and a 24 year old man from Clinton Township, Michigan. The idea itself was simple, though preposterous: that an alternate land—no, an alternate dimension—could be accessed through a rainbow. Not just any rainbow, had persisted Observer, the Michigander in question, as he tried to convince his friends to join in. A fire rainbow.

They were an odd weather phenomenon—something very rare. And the fact that they were simply popping up as often as they were, more often than ever recorded in history, over the shores of sunny Miami simply needed investigating. Observer still remembered the moment the mind-fuck of an idea had dawned on him, even now as he stood waiting for its execution, he approached the airplane before him. Wait a second, he had thought. That looks like a…. and then the image of a burst of seven colors exploding from a soaring cyan Pegasus was all he could think of.

But could a Rainboom truly be found exploding over Miami? Over the topless babes bathing in the sun and glamorous golden sand beaches? These regular bronies were about to find out. One by one, they found their way to the long strip of midnight-black asphalt in Jacksonville, Florida to meet their pilot.

Tyler stood by the glorious aircraft that was, without a doubt, his baby: a magnificent Douglas DC-3C that went by the name of “The Mighty Canuck”. And mighty she was. With a wingspan of over 95 feet and a weight of over 25,000 pounds, this plane stood like a gargantuan idol statue, staring down the oncoming wave of bronies, waiting to start soaring at 200 miles an hour.

Under the captains window on the plane was Tyler’s nickname, “Archangel” scrawled in fine print, his title on display with pride, for all to see. A thick red stripe ran down the tail, implanted with the unmistakable image of the maple leaf from the Canadian flag.

Tyler’s Six-foot-Seven stature just screamed authority as he watched the admiring passengers drag themselves closer, all of them seemingly still-half asleep. At only 19, Archangel was pretty young for a pilot, but his body language still emanated with dominance beyond his years. When he had received the phone call from Silver Sea, the nickname of the young boy from Georgia who had helped brew up this insanity-streak of a plan, he was more than happy to donate his piloting skills. Flying was his purpose, and the sensation of being in the sky was his soul-mate. He had visited many countries at this point, but never before had he imagined an opportunity like this: a chance to see Equestria outside his dreams. It was almost too much for him. After much, much, MUCH persuasion to Silver’s parents, convincing them to allow their family friend to take their son on a trip to God-knows-where, he had started the preparations, ranging from extra parachutes, parts, first aid kits, emergency kits, to making sure everything about this war bird was in tip-top shape. Not that the Canuck was ever less than perfect.

These passengers couldn't ask to be in better hands, even if his current mental state was more concerned and preoccupied than usual. The shock had only just worn off from seeing that text, and he stood there a little dumbly, staring at the ground, trying so hard to snap himself out of it before lift-off. He needed to be focused, he couldn't afford to allow anyone to be hurt. But still, after just finding out that his sister, his beautiful older sister Kayla, had just been in an auto accident outside of Toronto, while he was here in warm Miami and supposed to not have a worry in the world— it was too much for him. She was his best friend, the one who had always been there for him, and when she needed him, he couldn't return the favor. All he knew about her well-being from the text her boyfriend sent was that she was in critical condition, and he was here, perfectly fine. Without a doubt, he would have switched places with her—if anything was to happen to Kayla—No! Can’t think like that…. I just can’t.

He shook away the idea, and the onslaught of tears in his eyes. He had a responsibility to this journey and the people on it—he couldn't cloud his judgment with worries that were out of his hands. He faked a smile as he saw Silver Sea approaching in the distance, beaming at the aircraft and its pilot. Archangel reminded himself yet again of why he couldn't afford any distractions: Silver’s parents trust me. I can’t let anything happen to their son. Maybe I can’t help Kayla, but I can help this. And if anything did happen… I’d never forgive myself.

The Canadian distracted himself with the amusing sight of Observer. The tall Michigander stuck out like a sore thumb, being one of the palest, whitest human beings any of the bronies there had ever seen—you don’t get much sun, huh? His tall pale form was wearing an obnoxiously colorful Hawaiian shirt, littered with flowers and palm trees, and he looked very much like a pale floral giraffe. At six-foot six, Observer was only slightly shorter than Tyler, and while at the moment he had a moderately humorous appearance, he carried himself like a man who deserves respect, and due to his leader-like stance, he almost always got it.

The heavy humidity of Florida took some getting used to. I left a comfy 63 degrees for this, he asked himself incredulously. Indeed, this had been him and Silver’s idea, but if he hadn't thought of it himself, he probably would have called whoever did freaking insane. Observer was not one of those people who pushed himself towards new things. He liked his life the way it was. Simple, predictable. But the beckoning of adventure was too much for him, and drew him out of his hermit ways, and he came to Jacksonville, calling himself insane all the way.

He was about to board with 16 strangers. Well, they weren't all strangers. Tyler he knew pretty well through Silver, and he had sent an online message or two to a few others. But he was mostly a loner, and trusted his judgment more than people. Most of them didn’t even know his true name.

Observer smiled down at the dog at his side, one of his only true companions in life, and felt his spirits lift at the sight of her cute brown eyes twinkling and her tail wagging enthusiastically. She started jumping around his ankles, full to the brim with excitement at the prospect of being the first dog from Earth to reach Equestria. Or maybe she was just hoping that if she looked cute enough, he would hand her an extra treat.

At least someone here has energy, thought Ed, one of the other members of this expedition (who also went by Thor) as he spotted the dog jumping at its owner’s side excitedly. He dragged his feet slowly under the weight of his luggage. The time-zone change from Latvia to Florida really fucked with his sleeping schedule. Black circles were visible beneath his eyes against his pale skin, and his blonde hair was slicked back to reveal a couple of scars. He very much resembled the creepy form of a Tim Burton character.

He had left a farm back home, one where his family raised their own livestock. To say that America was different was an understatement. They were complete polar opposites. With a tang of homesickness, he trudged on to the plane, wondering if anyone spoke Latvian in Equestria. After all, some of them seemed to speak French. In his luggage, he had packed every sketch book he could get his hands on, thinking of all the practice he could get from sketching the ponies in real life. He was an artist of sorts, and the glimmer of thought of him seeing Equestria was overwhelming. Once he was there, he wouldn’t be able to help himself but to draw everything he saw, from an Equestrian blade of grass, to an Equestrian home, to an Equestrian pile of horse-shit. The novelty of being there would never wear off, as far as he could tell. No one in this group could underestimate the Latvian’s love of ponies. He had just spent 15 hours on a plane across the Atlantic ocean over a blog post on a rainbow for the off-chance that maybe, just MAYBE, he might be able to see Ponyville with his own two eyes. If that wasn't dedication to a fandom, nothing was. Thor continued on to the plane, watching the dog’s owner nervously, the oldest one on this trip among a group of teenagers.

The Latvian wasn't the only one watching Observer anxiously. Hana (who also went by the nickname of Glitternight), a girl with long black hair and faded bruises on her tan skin, looked at the Michigander with a hint of fear in her eyes. Her demeanor was fragile and small as she shifted closer to her boyfriend who walked alongside her and instinctively put a reassuring arm around her shoulders. It had been hell to get her here, though no worse than the hell he had just broken her out of—a place that had broken her down to being afraid of nearly everything but her boyfriend and her own shadow—but what better a place to start over than Equestria? She and her man had journeyed pretty far already, taking a three-day bus ride from Phoenix, AZ to Jacksonville. A plane would have been quicker and cheaper (and God knows it would have been more comfortable, she thought in response to her aching back) but that would require federal papers she simply didn’t have—especially given she had just ran away from a CPS group home under foster care. In a few weeks, when she was 18, she could apply for the papers again; maybe even get a job if this whole portal-to-an-alternate-dimension thing didn’t work. But Hana just couldn't stay where she was any longer.

When her boyfriend had mentioned the crazy blog he was sent by a friend, a story about a possible rip between dimensions in the form of a rainbow, he had only been kidding around. But it caught her interest. It’s perfect, she had thought. The perfect place to start over, and actually be happy. As they approached the plane and Observer, the anxiousness started to lift. Sure, the Michigander was probably big enough to snap her bones like a toothpick if he tried, but the way he was smiling at the puppy at his side, there was no way she could ever picture him trying to hurt anyone. But the idea of being trapped on a plane with so many strangers was unsettling. She had never met any of them. They were Reuben’s, her boyfriend’s, friends. Not hers. She smiled as the arm around her tightened, and she looked up at her dork of a boyfriend, the wonderful man who had gotten her into this whole “pony” thing in the first place.

Though he had just turned 18, he spoke with an intelligence beyond his years, however cynical those smart thoughts might be. While Reuben, (better known among his brony buddies as Omegadarkness) was one smart guy, he usually had no idea what to do in a large group, tending to rather sit and fiddle his thumbs or indulge himself in a handheld game than spark a conversation with people he barely knew. Perhaps it was that he was socially awkward to a fault. Or, more likely, it wasn't so much that he was awkward in front of people, but that he hated humanity’s guts. Omega didn't really say more than he needed to say; not unless he trusted you. And with the world the way it was, there weren't too many people he could trust. He was too busy protecting the few he did love with a deadly ferocity to think about trusting the ones attempting to hurt them.

He eyed the youngest member of the group, chatting away with the pilot in the distance, through his half-open eyes. So that’s the one that started all this, he thought to himself, nervous at the thought of trusting an expedition thought up by the over-imaginative mind of a twelve year old. He felt a migraine coming up at the idea. The kid looked hyper and jumpy. God, I hope he doesn't sit near me, I hate kids. He grumbled at the circumstance of an annoying kid squeaking around in his cracking pre-puberty voice in the seat behind him.

“Great, just great”, he mumbled to himself out loud, and to distract himself from one worry, his mind ventured to another, and he thought again at how little he and Hana had packed for this. There wasn't much she could bring, her being a runaway from the Arizona Child Protective Services. The Walmart bag slung over her shoulder held nothing but a couple of day’s worth of clothes and her writing journals (all she ever did was write, it being the only escape from the prison she once lived in). Omega had been a bit more self-spoiling with his packing—a PSP, a gallon of water, some snacks (most of which he would probably give to Hana anyways) a few clothes, and a sexy pin-up poster of his favorite lavender unicorn. Twilight Sparkle best pony. He mentally went down the checklist. Yup, he thought to himself as he smiled at the beautiful girl at his side, leaning into his warmth. He kissed her forehead as they walked. I've got everything I need.

Following the happy couple was another girl, Matilda Grimsworth, who went by the name of Ghostly Glow. She was considerably younger than most of them, only 14 years old, and unlike Hana, she was arriving alone, her suitcase bumbling over the asphalt at her heels. She had fit so many books into the small bag, along with a parachute and quite a few knives. She wasn't stupid. If she was going to be trapped on a small private plane with no communications tower and a bunch of Neanderthals, then she was going to come prepared. Ghostly knew she was absolutely bonkers. She even took pride in it. But one thing she was not was an idiot. How else had she escaped that mental institution so easily?

She looked curiously at the nervous girl in front of her—another runaway, huh? She recognized that fear anywhere, having once gone through it herself. At least I’m not the only Pegasister here. She had been the first girl to sign up for this trip, and that was on her mind. When she first caught eye of the blog, claiming that weird weather was the answer to inter-dimensional travel to a land ruled by colorful ponies, she knew it was her type of gig. Un-researched and unprepared delving into the depths of the unknown in a stream of risk-taking that would almost indefinitely lead to utter disaster—she lived for that type of shit. At least it kept things interesting.

While Matilda was most likely the oddest person on this endeavor, loneliness was not going to be an issue for her. Not only was she meeting a friend at the air strip, but she had brought one along. No one else could see Tod, the imaginary friend that lived in her mind and filled her thoughts with delectably gory fantasies, but he was as good a friend as she could ever find; a ponyfied version of Sweeney Todd, she could easily depend on him for support or protection, and, of course, some absolutely succulent pie recipes.

She spotted the Latvian carrying his luggage nearby and heard him mutter something in his native tongue—most likely some vulgar profanity towards the ridiculous hour at which they had to awake. She glanced around for the friend she was supposed to meet, the Latvian not being the only brony dedicated enough to cross oceans. Ghostly had convinced Stephen, also known as Suke, a Brit from a relatively small town in the UK to pack his bags and quite suddenly hop on a flight to Florida. She searched around for him as she made her way to the aircraft.

He’s not coming, Tod whispered in his dark home in her mind.

Of course he is, she thought in response. He wouldn't miss out on Equestria. She spotted him in the distance and muttered, “I told you so.”

Stephen carried only a couple of bags, one slung over his shoulder and the other bumping along on wheels. Not very much of his belongings were with him though, as he had been arguing with himself not to over-pack. He had only brought his favorite clothes and a couple of distracting electronics, along with all the sentimental junk he just couldn't bear to leave home with his dad (a dad who was no doubt furious that Stephen decided to leave on a last-second basis, quit his new job, and left his friends and family at the drop of a hat to fly to a fictional land of ponies above Miami with a group of loud, fat, Americans). He had gotten carried away, booking tickets out of the blue like this. This may not have been the type of thing that Stephen normally did, but the concept of travelling to Equestria, of seeing Applejack, and Luna, and even the obnoxious Rainbow Dash—it was all too much for this lad from Derbyshire, England.

While he was already here, and it was a little bit too late to go back now, he had to admit that most of the Americans he’d met were rather loud, rather chubby boisterous people who seemed to thrive on their own obnoxiousness and so-called swag. He despised swag, with its un-encouraging of education. Stephen prayed to Almighty Luna that he never caught it, the plague already existing in Britain. Anything America had, the Brits wanted. While this whole ordeal seemed a little overwhelming, and rather annoying when he thought of the people he had seen in America so far, he’d rather go through this ten times then go back home and face the wrath of his most-likely enraged father.

He started shaking slightly in his boots more with every step he took towards the plane. While bravery and adventure-taking wasn’t at the top of his list, chivalry and charm were. He actually was quite charming, knowing how to sing, and play piano. It’s incredible, he would say sometimes to his reflection, that you don’t have a girlfriend. Maybe Equestria would get that taken care of, he thought to himself with a chuckle. Of course, he was meeting Ghostly, the American girl who had so rashly convinced him to sign on to this expedition at the very last second—but as he was 19 and she was barely 14, he couldn't really see her as girlfriend material. And even if she wasn't, he would be too socially awkward to make a move anyways.

Like Omega, he eyed the 12 year old with nerves at the youth of their leader. But it was much too late now. This show was already on the road, and for Stephen at least, there was no going back now.

Closely behind Stephen was a well-built man with ocean blue eyes, cursing at the weight of his bag in his British accent. Why did I even pack in the first place, he thought to himself, while the bag bumped on the asphalt behind him. This whole plan was stupid. Ridiculous, really. To think that you could access an alternate dimension (if a fictional world from a TV show counts as that) was preposterous to the gentleman, and he was only here to humor his good friend, Stephen. After all, the lad had left his job and his family on a whim. He deserved some support. But did Matthew actually believe it was possible? Hell no. But he sure wasn't going to tell his friend this after the annoyingly loud and uncomfortable plane ride and the time, money, and determination put into this. Matt knew a thing or two about determination. After all, he hadn't joined the British army for nothing. While he knew this entire trip was a wild goose chase, and would more likely than not (scratch that-- would DEFINITELY) end in complete failure, he respected his friend’s efforts to the point that he had come all this way.

Following the Brits was a well built teenager who looked more like a jock then a watcher of “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”. His name was Carlos, but went by the alias of Brony Pony, among those of his own kind. To put him simply, he had the attention span of a goldfish and his brain was more over-stimulated than that of a stoner staring at a lava lamp. It was impossible for Carlos to focus on only one thing at a time, when there were so many wonderful fun-filled things around him, and especially when those wonderful things were pony-related. How could anyone be bored around ponies? He thought as he near-skipped down the asphalt strip. His absent-mindedness ruled all and his expression looked as excited as a ditzy blonde at Macy’s on the day of a sale.

Of course, his easy distraction often led to his downfall. He had gotten lost at least four times on his way to the airport, and the hotel he had spent the night in was only one block away. He had enough bubbliness in his muscular, Hispanic-looking form to rival even Pinkie Pie’s. In fact, they would more than likely be best friends upon them meeting; the two of them both always so pleasantly out of it. He silently admired the pilot, tall and dominant, in his custom black leather Royal Canadian Air Force jacket. Totally Bad-flank, he thought to himself with a manly giggle. Instead of weighing himself down hoards of heavy hardcover books, he brought his Kindle, full to the brim with his favorite fan-fictions. He had over a hundred stories on that device alone, more than enough to keep his brain busy, at least until the plane lands, or until something more interesting snatched his attention—Oh my Celestia, a PUPPY!

He smiled at the snow-white dog, wondering if it would be weird if he suddenly pet the wagging, hopping ball of fur. He glanced at the owner, a very pale, very tall man in a very colorful Hawaiian looking shirt. He guessed this must be Observer, the oldest of the group, who (along with the youngest of the group) had thought up this whole fiasco. Carlos then watched the pilot, who seemed a bit worried about something. Yikes—if there’s one thing I don’t like seeing, it’s a distracted pilot. Carlos’s mind wandered to how he had wanted to be a pilot when he was younger. Thank Celestia that never happened. I probably would have lost focus with every cloud or bird and crashed us into a building.

Behind Carlos came Joshua, camcorder in hand. Josh, AKA Codejunkie, wasn't going to miss out on a single second of Equestria. And once he was there, he was going to document everything he can. The fame of being among the first bronies in Equestria to see Ponyville? It was an opportunity he wouldn't dare miss. He was also a little too young to be going on this trip on his own, being only 13 and a half. His parents weren't that attentive; in fact, it’d probably be a couple of days before they even noticed he was gone, and even a couple more before they started caring. Perhaps before then, they would have seen the lengthy email explaining his whereabouts that he was only just sending from his cell phone. Codejunkie was just praying they didn’t find out before he got to Equestria. It was much easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Like the rest of the members of this journey, he hadn't exactly thought it all the way through. Perhaps if he did, he wouldn't have come here, would he? A couple of artists he had favorites on his regular fan-fiction site had posted something about a portal in the clouds. When one artist had commented with a joke about it being some portal, a few more responded with the same thing that Joshua was thinking as he laughed it off: What if?

Those were the words that ran this entire expedition. And one way or another, that question was going to be answered.

Codejunkie turned the camera to himself and grinned wide, waving stupidly into the lens and the red light glaring him down. “Codejunkie here and soon, My Little Bronies,” he said dramatically into the camera, “We will all behold the wonders of Equestria, and you will all see this, given we return…” (dramatic pause) “…alive.”

Joshua then aimed the camera at a brony who went by the name of Sean (a football player who was missing out on the season to participate in this trip). Sean had an adorably pudgy face, similarities evident between him and the character Mumble, from Happy Feet. Being 14, he was still rather young to be on this trip, especially all the way from Gaylord, Michigan. A brony named Wolfy Hige strode nearby, a lost and befuddled expression clouding his usually vibrantly excited face. He knew that he had forgotten something. He almost always did. In fact, he had barely remembered that he was going on this trip, and very well would have forgotten its existence if Silver Sea hadn't called him a couple of days ago asking how much he was packing. Not very much, I guess, he thought as he strolled closer to the plane with his small bag in tow. The words The Mighty Canuck glared back at him in the rising sun—whatever the hay a Canuck was completely evaded his knowledge, him being from the Caribbean and raised nowhere near those who spoke with Canadian terms. He waved at Silver, the 12 year old being the only one here that he actually knew, and the young brony waved back enthusiastically, the excitement clear as day on his face.

Wolfy seemed to be the only one here not intimidated by their leader’s young age, Silver might only be 12, but he was way smarter than the average pre-teen boy. Wolfy glanced at the pilot, who seemed to be the very embodiment of Badassery and Awesome Sauce. Archangel (as Silver had introduced the pilot as over the phone) seemed completely sure of himself and – oh, was that worry? No, Wolfy thought to himself, pushing away the concept of a worried pilot, He’s probably just not a very positive person or something… I’m sure it’s gonna be okay… right?

He thought back to the prospect that he had forgotten something. He had brought books and his cell phone (he checked his pocket for it to double-check). He had snacks and extra shoes, and a pillow, and clothes and—shit. Underwear! He face-palmed, but decided it wasn't too bad. Everyone was naked in Equestria. And even if he did need his clothes, he was sure Rarity could make a pair of boxers or two just for him.

Wolfy whistled a catchy tune that was immediately deciphered by the brony behind him as “Discord” by Euro-beat Pony. Tenebrae, the internet name of the brony in question, knew pretty much every fan-made piece of music even remotely connected to ponies completely by heart. He normally would have had to fight to resist the urge to sing along with Wolfy’s whistling, but quite honestly, he was in too much of a crappy mood at the moment, as he stared down the morning sun that seemed to want nothing more than to glare directly in his eyes. Well, fuck you too, then., he thought back to the world as he hunched below the oppressing weight of his backpack—he was seemingly swimming through his own sweat and the thick humidity of Florida. It suffocated him with a vice-grip. All this for a trip that probably won’t even work.

He had spent the week convincing his parents that this whole adventure wouldn't even work, to persuade them that nothing could go wrong if they were to drive him to Jacksonville, Florida. But through all the negative reassurance, a bit of pessimism had spread to his head, and he was starting to have some negative thoughts of his own. What if this was all for nothing? He asked himself this, even now, as he was trudging half-dead to the plane, most likely looking much like a zombie with a bad case of bedhead.

He had also been contacted by Observer and Silver Sea, and was now mentally reminding himself to punch them both in the nuts when it failed. When they told him the date of the trip so many days ago, he had been nonchalant, but as the date approached insidiously, the panic set it. He had spent the previous night packing and unpacking in a frenzy. What do you take to a magical world of ponies, anyway? He repetitively asked himself this as he wondered if he would even receive a cell signal in Equestria. He stood here now, swatting at mosquitoes in the humidity, feeling rather stupid. But underneath all the negativity, there was an ounce of hope—if there wasn't, he wouldn't have bothered showing up, would he?

A quiet girl watched Tenebrae whack at the mosquitoes indiscriminately as they swarmed him. Perhaps it was the way he was waving his arms like an idiot at something nearly invisible, or the look of It’s too fucking early for this stamped on his face, but she had so much trouble stifling a giggle. Shadowed Rainbow, as this girl went by, was the third and final Pegasister in this group on this endeavor. And she was actually quite confident that it would work.

It didn’t seem so preposterous to her. After all, she thought to herself upon signing up for the expedition, miracles happen everyday. She was a smart girl, being the second oldest one here at the age of 20, and was almost always lost in some kind of book. In her hands was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a book she had probably read a million and three times. She liked fantasy—it didn’t seem all that far from reality at times.

Carlos strode by Shadowed, muttering something rather loudly about “Dat Flank” as he strode by. She rolled her eyes, mentally noting that Brony Pony was, in fact, rather cute. But of course, the fact that he’s most likely an immature child seems to outweigh that.

Quylaa, a mysterious member that no one seemed to know much about approached the group quietly, his feet making no noise, his eyes just staring down the passengers as he strolled by. Observer eyed Quylaa a little nervously. Honestly, before now, he hadn't even known if this member was a boy or a girl, no picture being provided on the sites they all communicated by. The boy had packed light, only the bare necessities—a bottle of water, a bologna sandwich, and his cell phone, memory card full to the brim with fan-fictions.

In the distance, the latest member of the party was just showing up, wearing, of all things, a fez. It was a keepsake from his friends, something he couldn't bear to part with, and he had to admit, he looked pretty damn good wearing it. It’s a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool. Benjamin lived in Florida, so he was one of the few who had no real issue with the heavy heat rolling off the asphalt, and his parents were just fine with him going on this insane trip, much to his surprise. He was only 16, but he felt very much like a grown man, given his parents had allowed him to go off in the world like this. It was almost too exciting for words.

And of course, the second he had managed to get out in the world, he had gotten his sorry-ass lost in the airport. While his parents had gotten him there a half-hour early, he spent the next hour looking for the group he was supposed to leave with. In his panic, his mind scolded him with mutters of, They've probably left without you, good job, Dumb-ass. or Dude, you should have known it would be this difficult, we’re talking about the kid who rode his bike to his friend’s house and came home only to realize he had forgotten the bike.

He had searched the entire mile radius of the address maybe five times over before he spotted the group he was supposed to be meeting. He didn’t know any of them, but knew enough to tell a group of bronies from the rest. He ran towards the plane, hoping they wouldn't leave him behind or be mad for his tardiness, his military backpack flopping against his back with every step.

The name of the plane looked back at him. The Mighty Canuck. He started glancing from one passenger to the next, trying to memorize the faces. What he saw were varying expressions of anxiety, fear, excitement, happiness, and even one very creepy grin on the face of a young teenage girl who was talking to herself in the corner. Seems pretty natural. He thought to himself.

“Alright, Everypony, let’s get this show on the road!” shouted Silver Sea, who beamed at the smiles his pony terms brought to everyone’s faces. The second his parents had allowed him to go on this trip with their friend Tyler, he had been buzzing over with over-excitement. He was going to see Equestria. He couldn't believe it.

They lined up at the doorway of the plane, as Archangel, Observer and Sean started loading in the luggage. There was quite a bit of it, most of which belonging to Archangel. He had everything for any known emergency. Axes, medical supplies, tools, etc. there was no way he was going to let them down. Bad joke.

Stephen approached Matilda, the one who had convinced him to go through with all this trouble. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he fiddled his thumbs before deciding to extend one for a handshake. He took a deep breath and began speaking: “Er… Hi? I’m Suke.” So far so good, self, he muttered inwardly. But then, something went haywire and he didn’t stop. “Well, my web name is Suke. I’m Stephen Massey, middle names David and Ratcliffe. Call me whatever.” Matilda glared back, not saying anything, and he filled the awkward silence, like an idiot, with more bumbling words. Because that’s just what the moment needs. “Didn’t really need my middle names… My friends call me Doctor Massey for the initials.” He hung his head and looked to his feet in the heavy silence. “Sorry.”

She had an expression that looked amused and said nothing before clearing her throat. “Matilda Grimsworth. Nice to meet you in the flesh.” She took his hand. “I’m going to call you Steve.”

“Steve is good. Steve is fine with me.” He smiled as he shook hands with the first friend he made since coming to this rather annoying country.

Soon, the doors opened and the passengers were free to marvel at the sight of the inside of the fine plane. The cabin was rather large inside, all of the luggage they had brought fitting neatly behind the three single seats on the right side, along with a Ex-United States Army Indian 741 Scout Motorcycle. They all took their seats, some of them talking among themselves, and exchanging hellos to Silver Sea and Observer as they passed, those two members being the only ones that most of them knew.

Observer approached Tyler as the pilot leaned across one of the seats. “You okay, Tyler?” Observer asked, genuinely concerned for his friend. “You look troubled.”

Tyler planted a smile over his face rather abruptly; a fake smile, a “say cheese” smile.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just…. Something on my mind,” he said as he grimaced once more as Observer turned to his seat, one of the singles on the right side, the white pooch jumping enthusiastically in the Michiganders lap.

Directly across from Observer, Stephen took his seat next to Matilda, who was now rather quiet and inattentive, listening to her iPod while he looked around the plane and at his fellow bronies. Wolfy took the single behind Observer, not wanting to sit next to anyone he didn’t know, as Silver Sea was going to head to the cockpit with the pilot. A 12-year old co-pilot, that makes me feel safe.

Behind Matilda and Stephen, Hana and Omega took their seats. He let her take the window seat and sat in the one right besides her, putting an arm around her as they settled in. Without a word, he handed her the headphones to his PSP, and started playing Coconeru’s cover of The Doctor’s Lullaby, a song he knew calmed her down. He kissed her cheek as she smiled upon hearing it.

Behind the couple, the Latvian picked a window seat and Brony Pony collapsed next to him. “DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?” Carlos shouted into Thor’s ear, rather loudly. The Latvian shook his head at the stupidity of some Americans. “YES!” He shouted back, directly into BP’s ear, making sure it was loud enough to hurt. “ALSO, I’M NOT DEAF!”

Tenebrae took his seat next to Code-Junkie. They shook hands in mutual respect. “Aren’t you excited?” CJ asked Tenebrae with a huge grin. “Um… sure.” Tenebrae was struggling not to sound like the only pessimist in the group.

Ben took his seat behind Wolfy, his fez being admired by all of the other passengers. “I reversed the jelly baby of the neutron flow,” muttered Omega at the blatant Doctor Who reference, as Hana lay against his shoulder, and Ben beamed at the fellow brony’s recognition.

Shadowed laid in her seat and cracked open her book as Sean headed to the bathroom.

“Does anypony need anything or forget anything before we leave?” Silver shouted for all to hear.

The all shouted or muttered a no in response, and Silver headed to the cockpit with Tyler. “Hey, Archangel, when are we taking off?”

“Right now,” he responded nonchalantly. He started going through the aviator’s pre-flight and start-up checklists, trying to ignore the voice in his head that was nagging him about his sister, about matters that were out of his hands. He was responsible for the lives of these seventeen passengers. If something went wrong, there was only him to blame.

He flipped the right starter and after a bit of coughing from the engine, the engine roared to life. He flipped the switches, turned knobs and hit one of the buttons, one after another like clockwork, forcing his sister’s face out of his head. He spoke to the “cheery” ATC and began taxiing. The grumble of the two Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp engines eased his mind slightly. The massive aircraft turned onto the runway as Tyler received final clearance for take-off. He made his final adjustments before steadily increasing the throttles.The scenery outside the window rolled by faster and faster, until it was finally time to fly this old war bird, with a smile as his spirit soared (the way it always did when he was about to take to the skies), Tyler pulled the control column back. He raised the flaps, landing gear, and contacted Jacksonville Center as he and the seventeen passengers climbed higher and higher in the blue Florida skies, heading towards Miami.

Time to go dance with the Angels...

The Fall From Grace...

“Flight One-Twenty-Nine, traffic on your twelve o’clock, three miles. Flight level zero-eight-thousand, is type Cessna Skyhawk,” droned the lifeless soul at Miami Center. I glanced slightly upwards and focused on the small speck miles away, moving slowly Northbound as I flew us Westbound. I reached my hand to the side of my headset and clicked on the mic, keeping a wary eye on the craft ahead of us.

“Copy, Flight One-Twenty-Nine has the traffic.” I reached back once more, switching the headset to cockpit communications. Then again, there wasn’t really a need; I didn’t have a co-pilot on this trip, although I wish I did. On short hops, hauls, and trips, I’d fly solo; yet, usually on trips and flights like this, flying great distances and covering vast areas, I’d have Collin or John as my first officer. But none of them could be available on such short notice. I can’t blame them there.

When you think about it, this seems like a waste of time and fuel and, to any other charter pilot, they’d likely agree and decline the offer to fly these guys. But with me that’s not the care. When Jonah rang me up and explained this ‘plan’ of his to me I agreed, despite how damn stupid it sounded at the time. I packed up my shit in a hurry and flew down from the cozy ol' Miramichi to hot, uncomfortable and miserable Florida for one, and one reason only...

To Fly.

Call it what you want; a hobby, a passion, an obsession even, but I live to fly. Soaring through the skies, to be one of many who call the skies their home. All this began when I was a young lad on the Miramichi watching those Forest Protection Limited TBM-E3 Avengers take-off, with radials roaring as they flew out to fight forest fires from former CFB Chatham. Ever since then any chance to fly I get, no matter how small, I’ll take it.

The constant roar and rumble of the two Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasps soothed my restless heart as I tiredly scanned my instruments, many of which showed their age with yellowing, scratches and chips aplenty. The aircraft itself is ex-military, a DC-3C, a converted C-47 retrofitted for the civilian market, which, even prior to that, served in the United States Army Air Corps. Her history was vast and interesting, and that was enough for my great grandfather. He purchased her in the sixties and it’s been with my family ever since. Sort of like a family station-wagon... sad to think I may be the last generation to fly her.

“The Mighty Canuck” is certainly getting into her years. She’s sixty-nine, turning seventy next year, and good replacement parts are getting even harder to come by. Airworthy crafts of her type are becoming rare, leaving me with the hard yet likely decision of donating or selling her in the decades to come, but until then I’ll enjoy every goddamn minute I spend with my darling. She may not be sexy as a Spitfire, as sleek as a Lightning or fast like a Mustang, but she’s mine, and not many pilots of today can say they’ve the amazing privilege to fly a magnificent, beautiful machine such as her.

Oil pressure’s stable, fuel level’s are good and temperature’s nominal. I should have 'bout an hour plus at this rate. I mused, returning my gaze to the horizon and the setting sun. The worn leather windscreen visor was already down, and my old, dated aviators kept me from being blinded by the sun. Yet I might need that agitation to keep me awake. I’ve been flying us around now for the past six hours off the Florida coastline. Not that I mind flying, but even I have my limits, and without my co-pilot, my workload doubles, effectively putting more strain and stress upon me. And the last thing I need today is more fuckin’ stress... I have enough shit to deal with already.

I looked to my right, and where my co-pilot would usually sit, sat my friend and passenger; Jonah. My girl can only carry fifteen in the cabin, so there would be more room for cargo and supplies in her current configuration. I purposely removed some seats for more cargo space, but accidentally removed one too many, resulting in the little guy sitting up front with me. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a... good kid, but when a highly imaginative twelve-year-old is told you're going to help carry out their wacky plan, they have a tendency to get highly excited. And a bit restless.

“Hey, Archangel,” Jonah began, his voice mechanized from the headset. “how long do we have until we need to go back?”

“A few minutes, tops. Then we’ll need to call ’er a day.”

“Do we really have to?”

I chuckled softly, his demeanor reminding me of myself at his age. “Yes, because I’d rather not spend the night sleeping with the damn fish. It’s been a long day, and don’t forget we have tomorrow too, Eh?” I said, my gaze fixed forward on the setting sun, and the beautiful hues that filled these Southern skies.

“Okay...” he said, letting the cockpit fall into silence, and letting me return my state of focus and concentration onto the aircraft and her flawless operation.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Jonah softly asked, mesmerized by the sight. That didn’t last long...

“Yeah, it is... it surely is.” I said offhandedly, my mind a million miles away. The colour of the sky reminded me of a wonderful moment in my life years ago that happened in the skies just like this...

“... Hey, Arky? Earth to Arky?” My thoughts came crashing back to reality as Jonah tapped my shoulder. I turned to face him, internally scolding myself for my lapse in concentration.

“What's with the picture?” he asked casually, pointing to my prized, worn photo taped to the instrument panel. I smiled sadly, pulling the picture free of its home for the last two years. It showed me someone I once held very dear to my heart, standing before the flags of Canada and the United States... I admired the Canadian blonde; her long and wavy hair, those beautiful blue eyes, and her soft, loving smile...

“She’s nobody.” I said it with disdain, forcing out memories. I had enough to worry about as it was.

“She’s very beautiful.” Jonah said, breaking a thirty second silence.

I looked at Jonah and the edges in my voice smoothed out. “Her name’s Kat. She... died a few years back; auto accident. Got walloped head on by a drunk driver while a comin’ home from Fredericton.” I explained, trying to be as vague as possible. He’ll likely become apologetic and depressing if I told him the real story, it’s better this way. I looked over, forcing a smile onto my face.

“Anyways, that’s long ago, Jonah, and you didn’t know, so no harm done, lad.” I pointed out. “Now, is there, by any chance, something  to drink in the cabin?” I asked, trying to salvage what remained of the fresh, now shattered conversation atmosphere.

“Sure Ty, I’ll go see if I can find some water or something.” Jonah removed his headset, placing it around the headrest as he got up and left the cockpit, closing the door behind him. I looked back at the picture, now back in its special place on my panel. Softly chuckling, I recalled more of the “Happy Times” she and I had together before drifting back.

Kayla, why are you always right? Guess I do have feelings... I really need to move on, and continue with my lovelife.

*Bzzz, Bzzz, Bzzz*

“Oh, who the fuck could that be?” I wondered aloud. Normally, I had my phone set to favorites so that only in emergencies could someone contact me while flying. Even then, I rarely answered since I only do if it’s a serious emergency or problem. I scanned my instruments carefully; all showed normal readings. I grumbled lovely sayings of insultful Bay French before retrieving my battered, chipped, and scratched iPhone. With a few taps, I brought up my mail, which made me curious since no-one ever messaged me often by Email.

With ever growing agitation, I opened the message and began to read. Only to have my anger fade away.

From: James Hyland

To: Tyler Lynch

Subject: Very Important, please read... and I’m sorry.

I’m so sorry; there was nothing they could do. Kayla’s… Kayla’s gone, Tyler; she’s dead. If she could have gotten to the hospital sooner, maybe she would still be alive, but she was too far gone to save when she reached the hospital. They couldn’t stop the internal bleeding, they could only slow it down.

I stayed by her side until she finally passed. She spoke highly of you, “The best little brother anyone could have asked for.” She told me stories of the things you, her, and Kat did together when you were kids. I never knew Kat was your girlfriend, I know now that this makes it even harder for you to bear.

We both lost someone very close to us today, Ty. I lost the person who made me who I am. You lost your best friend and sister who meant the world to you. She had me write this down just before she died... for you:

Tyler,

It well may be,

That we will never meet again,

In this lifetime.

So let me say before we part,

So much of me,

Is made of what I learned from you.

You'll be with me,

Like a handprint on my heart.

And now whatever way our stories end,

I know you have rewritten mine,

By being my Best Friend and my Little Brother...

Goodbye Tyler. I love you. - Kayla

My hands began to shake, and my body felt so cold... so very cold...

“No... Oh Jesus no.”

Darkness surrounded me. Not the soothing darkness where you can sit alone in the moonlight and your mind can roam free. No… this was the darkness that suffocated you from all black directions, that took away your air, and, with it, your will to breathe. The darkness where invisible eyes crawled up your body, feasting as though you are their prey; where you would go as low as to deal your soul to the devil for a spark of light, only to realize that perhaps the darkness is a blessing in disguise and you don’t WANT to see what hides behind its veil; you don’t WANT to see the face of the monsters and the demons, or know of the hands that have been grabbing you, forcing you to the ground this whole time, just to—

“Hana. Hana! Hana, wake up!”

I awoke and opened my eyes at the feel of the hand shaking me back to bright, reality (a world that, truth be told, wasn’t much safer than the hell of my worst dreams). The darkness was gone, replaced with the inside of the cramped airplane, full to the brim with last light of the setting sun streaming in from the windows, and the 15 passengers, all staring at me with uncertainty in their eyes. I hastily wiped the tears from my face that betrayed my pride in my sleep, and winced as my hand rubbed against a bruise.

“Are you okay?” Reuben sat beside me, tightening the hold around my shoulders.

“Yeah… yeah, I’m fine.” I grumbled, staring at my hands and tugging the edges of my hoodie around my fingers. I avoided his stare. I was lying, and we both knew it. “Just a nightmare… I’m a big girl, you know,” I added indignantly.

I turned to face the window, only to stare back down in my lap; the idea of being so far up in the air that houses looked like ants was not a pleasant one, and the image of me falling to an inevitable splat never was like a tattoo on my subconscious. My stomach did a few double-back flips, and I stared into the ceiling of the plane, which seemed to be getting lower by the second. Small spaces annoyed me— not enough room for my imagination— and I felt like I was in a giant elevator that never ceased its vertical climb, the tugging on my guts only all the more infinite.

“Hey, uh, Glitternight—you okay?”

I turned behind me to see one of the Brits, Matt Something-Or-Another looking at me with his blue eyes. I scowled a bit inwardly.

“I’m fine.” I said it with such a clenched jaw that I felt a grinding pain as my back teeth rubbed together. I didn’t like people worrying about me. It was supposed to be the other way around.

I looked again to Reuben, or Omega Darkness, as he was called by the fellow passengers. “You were kind of kicking me,” he muttered, giving an excuse for waking me.

“Sorry.” When the nightmares struck, I never did know how I would awake. Sometimes I awoke a sobbing mess, and others, I would kick and toss and turn in my slumber, as though I was fighting some invisible evil, until I rolled off the bed. From the way the passengers were all either staring at me, or avoiding my cold glare, I could infer that I was probably screaming this time… I hated waking like that.

Omega was used to it, but I still hated seeing that look on his face, that concern. “Are you okay?” I asked, as I tightened my grasp of his hand.

He nodded and pulled his PSP out of his pocket once more, drowning himself in the fantasy land supplied by video games— I rolled my eyes; his avoidance of the answer to my question was all the answer I needed.

Of course I worried. I always worried. It was in my blood, and who I truly was. I was the one who needed to be in control, in full control, of each and every detail, and when I wasn’t, I panicked. And here I was, thousands of feet in the air, with a group of strangers I had barely met, on this quest to find a fictional land of whimsical pastel ponies! Needless to say, I was out of my element. The control was gone, and with it, all of my peace of mind.

I glanced back again at Matt. A side of me, the side that resides deep within, that wasn’t afraid, and wasn’t worried, and did as it pleased (a side of me that I’ve buried beneath all the caution over the years, as a hard life has taught me to) noticed that he was, in all honesty, very attractive. Blue eyes, a captivatingly charming smile, not to mention a British accent that would make any girl in her right mind swoon; let’s just say it was easy to look at. He wore a conservative button top shirt, with the top few buttons opened casually. He was pretty hot; almost as hot as my man. Nice shirt, my subconscious whispered coyly. Now take it off.

I smiled to myself, pushing the thought out of my head and leaning into the warmth of my boyfriend. “Reuben,” I began, and he rolled his eyes and paused the game.

“What?” he asked, and I smiled at his annoyance.

“I love you.” I said it with a smile and puppy-dog eyes that I knew would melt even the stoniest of hearts.

He held back a chuckle and put the game away, holding me in his safe embrace once more. “I love you, too,” he whispered sweetly in my ear, “But you need to get some sleep.”

“Are you kidding me?” I laughed the idea off incredulously, even though my eyelids were heavy as bricks. “We’re on the verge of the discovery of a lifetime, and you want me to SLEEP?”

He smiled and held me tighter, pulling up the armrest so I could lean comfortably on his chest. His brown eyes twinkled through his glasses in a way I hadn’t seen in much too long. “Yes, I do.” He said it so matter-of-factly that it forced a laugh out of me.

“Y’know”, I whispered with a seductive smile, the gears in the confident and outgoing side of my mind turning maliciously through the dust and cobwebs (boy, it had been a while since I used this side of my brain). “The bathroom is big enough for two of us, and we could have some… I dunno… some privacy…”

He laughed and kissed me, one of those sweet kisses that say more than words. “I don’t think so,” he thought, looking at the passengers we would have to pass, who would all inevitably spot us entering the bathroom together. “But thanks for the offer.”

We both laughed, and a blinding multi-coloured light blazed through my window, directly into my eyes, and I sat up out of the comfort of his chest to squint through the glass at the glorious Fire Rainbow. “Reuben,” I said, my eyes wide with wonder and watering at the brightness of it all, “… I think we found what we were looking for...”

She’s gone...

Never in my life had I wanted to shout, scream, vomit, and cry the way I did then. My insides churned at the thought of her no longer living. It hurt even more that I wasn’t home, that I couldn’t console my mother. She only ever held two things dearly to her heart, and those two things would be my sister and I... and to think that she just lost her loving daughter... and I, my closest friend; my sister...

“Look, over there! See it, Tyler? A fire rainbow!” Jonah exclaimed, pointing over to the distant left. I pushed my painful thoughts, sorrow, and grief deep into my mind, something I’ve developed and honed over time after losing so many close and loved friends and family. My mourning could be pushed aside, or buried until a time I could properly deal with it. Don’t get me wrong, it still hurts; no matter what I do I’ll always feel the pain, but for now it will keep me together until I can properly cry.

I scanned the rapidly darkening twilight skies, searching for what Jonah claimed he saw, only to see stars as they began to decorate the night skies. Shaking my head, I turned the Canuck towards where he pointed to improve my sight, yet the skies still showed nothing.

“Jonah, I see nothing but clouds, distant navigational lights, and stars. Use the heading indicator and give me the direction of the cloud.” I commanded, searching the skies for the cloud he saw.

“Okay, umm... heading two-five-seven.” I slowly banked the Douglas left to the heading he gave me, seeing a speckle of colours in the distance. Well I’ll be damned, kid wasn’t seeing things. I mused, straightening out the aircraft and flying us towards the distant cloud.

“See, I told you!” Jonah exclaimed, grinning ear-to-ear.

“Uhuh, yeah, listen, Jonah. Go into the back and make sure everyone and everything is locked down, Eh? After we fly to or through this, we’re landing.” With speed and grace equivalent to a dancer, he jumped out of his seat and shot into the cabin, grinning and chattering like a madman. I re-checked my instruments, gauges, and pressures, forcing my duty as Captain to repress my surfacing emotions.

Even after this flight is over, I can’t rush home, not without ruining this as the entire flying portion of this plan rested upon my shoulders and skills. And heading home now is not an option, no matter how much I want to run on home and be with my family.... Even when the day is done, I can’t hide this. I’ll need to inform Jonah and Connor of this, of what happened...

“All is well in the back, bossman; everything is lashed down and tightly secured.” Jonah said happily, fiddling with the headset as he strapped himself back into his seat.

“Great... oh shit, lock in, Jonah, we’re going to grab some turbulence by the looks of it.” Despite how black the sky had become, the distant flashes behind the cloudbank were a sign of trouble. Likely that thunderstorm forecasted earlier this morning, wonderful. I mused, tightening my seat harness as I steeled my arms and shoulders for a fight. Once more into the fuckin’ breech, bring it on nature, I’mma ready for ya.

The “Fire Rainbow” had disappeared from sight, the storm system swallowing the cloud whole within its grasp. Normally, I’d fly above or below the clouds, but with what fuel we had remaining and the distance left to cover, I needed to punch my way through it so we could all sleep in beds instead of coffins tonight. I snapped my neck to the side, swiftly and quickly eliciting a sickly string of pops and cracks.

I let my mind commence a quick equation and determined I had a moment or so until contact with the storm. I’ve flown through storms before, but its something pilots usually try hard to avoid doing. My last flight, prior to this one, had me fly through a nasty storm system over Fredericton. The turbulence nearly brought me down, and turbulence alone has brought down aircraft before. Just by the looks of it, this storm was on par with Fredericton, possibly worse from what the weather reports stated the morning during pre-flight.

This wasn’t aiding the fact that I was responsible for seventeen lives on board; all of them, and the mutt, being my absolute responsibility. No matter what happens, a Captain is responsible for bringing each and every person aboard back down to the ground alive. I was the Captain, and this was my ship and I’ll be damned, hell or high water, before I let anything harm my passengers.

I breathed deeply, releasing a breath I never knew I had been holding in. The system within a kilometer filled my entire windscreen with the ominous storm before us. I gave Jonah one last glance, his face filled with apprehension and nervousness before I grinned to him.

“Just think of it as a rollercoaster ride and you’ll be fine.” I tightened my grip on the yoke, my words opposite of how I felt about flying into his storm. Larger aircrafts were mildly thrown about, but in an aircraft of his size? It would be like throwing a penny into a blender; only bad things can come of it.

With a flash of close lightning, I flew us into the storm, the turbulence immediately attacking us with a strong tailwind. Then a gust of wind from the side shoved strongly and my feet rammed the rudder full right to counter the yawing to the left, while my hands forced the yoke to remain center and level. To Jonah, I likely looked like a madman, the yoke twisting and leaning from side to side and front to back. My hands cried out, the violent jerking hurting my wrists from countering the heavy crosswinds. The aileron throw was severe with the powerful winds tossing us about like a toy boat in a typhoon.

“...Twenty-Three...respond, over.” my ears barely caught the static filled call over the howl of the storm and the roar of the engines.

“Flight One-Twenty-Nine to Miami Center, come in?” My voice filled with a twinge of concern as my headphones buzzed with interference. I reached over, playing with the tuning dial as my ears continued to be abused by the noisy static.

Then there was a deafening boom with a flash of lightning across the nose as the turbulence intensified. Must be the storm fucking with comms- My eyes darted across the skies before us, the lightning becoming more frequent, occurring closer to the aircraft. My battle with the shitty turbulence was the least of my problems now. Because one good lick from this lightning, and we turn into a flying can of SPAM.

The loud claps of thunder pounded my ears, which began to crackle and buzz from the high amounts of noise. My efforts keeping the aircraft level, if only barely as the sounds of distressed passengers, which barely reached my ears, were already nearing the limit of noise tolerance before pain would set in, but I already was in pain; my wrists and hands fatigued from the day long trip, now being yanked and whipped around from the winds.

“To hell with this, we gotta get out of this soup before we get fried.” I forced the yoke forward, pitching the nose down as the buffeting and crosswinds intensified. Rain began to splatter against the windscreen with our fall in altitude, the airspeed indicator dipping towards the yellow as I hastily took us down. We  broke through the cloud layer, my eyes came under assault from an explosion of colours, I was blinded from the sudden contrast from darkness to intense light.

“Jesus Christ! What the hell is going on!?” I pulled back hard on the yoke, fighting to level off, but something was forcing the nose down.

“I don't know, I can’t see a thing!” Jonah cried out, even with headset I hardly heard him over the ever increasing cry of the engines as our speed steadily climbed. My arms burned as I pulled with all my might to level off the plane, but the stick hardly moved.

“PULL UP, PULL UP, PULL UP YOU GODDAMN SUMBITCH!” The yoke shook violently, yet held steadfast against my commands. The roar of the engines began to change into a deafening scream, one that shot a cold bullet down my rattling spine. I grabbed the throttles and wretched them to idle, the engine scream changing back into a roar. I planted my feet against the deck, using every ounce of my power to pull back the defiant yoke. My eyes strained against the colourful assault, as I squinted at my gauges and instruments. The compass spun around like a drunk on St. Patty’s day, the heading indicator the same way. My altimeter spun round and round, like a clock going backwards, and the artificial horizon twirled around in its case. The fuckin’ hell is going on?!

*BANG!*

The yoke gave, snapping into my gut as the blinding dance of colors ended. My jaw clenched tightly, to avoid tearing up out of pain. Fuck!... that’ll be a nasty bruise. I blinked as my vision returned... as a large mountain filled my entire windscreen, front and center, as we left the cloud bank.

“OH JESUS FUCKIN' CHRIST!” Within a heartbeat, I shoved the throttles forward, slamming my massive boot into the rudder-pedal, and thrusted the yoke into a hard left bank. Canuck groaned loudly, the likely damaged airframe complying with my forceful inputs as we skimmed around the mountainside within a few hundred feet of death, and destruction.

“When were there ever FUCKING MOUNTAINS in FLORIDA?!” I blurted out, my brain struggling to process everything that's happened so far on this fucked up flight. Random mountains, colourful eye-rape assault, a storm from hell, and malfunctioning controls. Pain burned in my hands, wrists, and chest. Never more, have I wanted to cry out, yet never more have I wanted to vent my anger, and vast swelling emotions threatening to overload my beleaguered, strained mind.

“I don’t know, does the terrain look familiar?”

“No... nothing looks even remotely fuckin’ familiar.” The terrain below us was vast, rolling green hills across the sprawling countryside. Mountain ranges, hardly visible in the far distance. Large swaths of timberland littered the landscape below us, it looked nothing like Florida, or anything in Florida for that matter. Speckled in the distance, small settlements and developed land could be seen.

“Oh my... Arky, bring us around the mountain again. Lower, and slower if you could...” I looked over to Jonah, his face glued to the co-pilots window beside him. Whatever he sees, must be one helluva sight or a landmark.

“See something that could give me an idea of where we are?”

“Y-yeah, if I saw right. I think I can figure out where we are.”

“Fuck, alright hold on...” I eased us down, the stick resistant against my commands, but followed through. I retracted the throttles to half, watching as the airspeed began to dip lower, the engines falling into a dull rumble as I brought us around for another pass. I angled it enough so I could snag a view of what he saw, if he had actually seen anything at all.

In seconds, the plain mountain side vanished, replaced with a sight to behold... but my already crippled soul sank even more into the darkness that now cloaked my heart.

“... H-holy shit, Jesus Christ almighty I’ll be damned, Jonah.”

“It’s Canterlot... CANTERLOT! HOLY SHIT WE ACTUALLY DID IT!” A resounding cheer came from the cabin. Jonah grinned beyond what I thought was the human limit. I forced a smile across my face, watching as he literally squealed with joy. Yeah I’m smiling, but inside I’m dying...

I fought my emotions down again, knowing I still had issues to deal with Like where the hell am I going land? They don’t have anything close to a runway here, or anywhere for that matter... fuck, may have to go and bush this bitch. Can shit get any worse?

With the sound of a starving, choking radial, the universe answered. I slid the side window back, facing a wall of whirling wind as I watched the left engine die. I already knew the cause, I just feel fucking stupid that I let it slip my mind... and fuck you Murphy, you goddamn motherfucking asshole. I turned my attention back to Jonah, who already was beginning to panic.

“What’s going on Ty? W-why did the engine stop?!”

I eased the slowly falling craft to the left, away from the tall spires of the glamorous castle, and away from the surrounding residential area. Placing the Canuck on a heading towards the sprawling forest I saw to the Southeast. Clearings speckled across the vasts of timberland, and within it, I needed to land ten-and-a-half tons of speeding metal within a football field size clearing.

Shit.

“We’re running on fumes, and we’re going down and fast.” I watched as the altimeter slowly fell, as well as the airspeed indicator. I fought between the balances of speed and altitude, too much speed and I’ll run into the trees. To high, and we’ll be in the trees. At this point, many people panicked and flipped their shit like Jonah, however pilots, no matter the fear of death, must try to remain calm and collected... Or risk making mistakes during critical moments, like now.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday, Flight-November-Bravo-One-Twenty-Nine fuel exhausted, preparing for crash landing. Flying current heading of One-Seven-One into the Southeast.. There are seventeen souls on board.” My ears listened to the static, as no reply could be heard. Then again, considering our location I’m not overly surprised.

“Copy...Twenty-Nine...can..repeat..ast..” Well, that was completely unexpected. Considering the amount of hell we went through, that I went through, like I said I was never expecting a reply. And those are now my and our last words... I left the mic playing, since our odds of landing safely looked a mite shitty. At least they can piece together what happened...

“Jonah, find a seat in the cabin and strap yourself in. This is gonna be one helluva landing.” I reached down and tugged the landing gear lever freeing the gear from their housing behind the engines.

“What? Hell no, I’m staying here and helping you!”

“No dammit, listen! Unless you have a fucking deathwish and prefer me kicking your ass back there, you’ll do as I fucking say! Clear?! I’d rather you survived this, besides I’m the goddamn captain, and this is my ship and whatever I say goes!” I glared at him, I knew he knew what I knew. That I’ll likely wouldn’t survive, and if I did, I’d be one helluva mess.

“F-fine, you stubborn bastard..” Despite his firm response, the tear falling down his cheek was a sign of internal pain. Letting your friend to fight alone is a terrible feeling, especially when you can help, but can’t, at the same time, without the high chance of death.

“Don’t cry over me, I’ve had one helluva run, Jonah, I really have. And if the dark dead man of death comes a callin’ my name, I won’t hesitate to answer. Besides, it’s one-for-all, and I’ll take that over all-for-one anyday.” I said with a small smile, even here I can look on the bright side. If I die, at least I’ll be with my sister again, and fill that hole in my broken heart...

I actually look back on this moment with a bit of pride, at least at how I somehow managed to stay so… calm. Shit got very real quite quickly. Our descent was a hectic one. People were scared as hell. Me? I noticed the internet was still working, and wrote a new post. My previous post, ‘HAH! WE MADE IT!’ was already gathering comments:

It appears that the Equestrian laws of physics did not agree with our mode of transport. While I type this, ‘The Mighty Canuck’ plummets to the ground. I can’t help but recall the beginning of LOST. As it turns out, I am the only friendly Brit on this plane, as far as I know. This makes me quite confident about my survival. I will be the ‘Charlie’ of the gang, possibly with extra life included. Weirdly enough, I imagine our exceedingly young leader will survive and will be like a mini-Jack. I can only hope someone here has medical knowledge, or else they’ll have to cope with my mediocre assistance. I already know where we land will be magical. Now, I leave you with the unbelievable fact that I am quite certainly in my right mind. Perhaps I shall use my extra life now to protect a fellow passenger; chivalry and all. Wish us luck. Oh, and there’s a dog with us… not the same breed though. Stephen Massey, aka Suke.

My hands were quite steady while typing, and I didn’t make any errors. Again, I feel this is a rather impressive achievement considering the circumstances. I was probably gonna freak out later, once I survived, but now was not the time. I looked around to see if any of the younger ones needed help. I was under the impression that nineteen was one of the oldest ages, so I had a big group to choose from...

My attention was instantly grabbed by a distraught Silver Sea rushing out of the cockpit. Silver's seat was the co-pilot's, so he had no seat out here in the cabin. I undid my seatbelt and got up, holding onto the headrest for balance. Silver looked at me in horror as I signalled for him to sit.

"You can't!" he shouted. "I won't!"

"It's this or I force ya mate." He glared into my eyes, and I stared back, hopefully looking caring. It's what I was going for.

"What'll it be kid?" He stubbornly sat down and did his belt. After that he stared, concerned at me.

"What is it with you adults, putting your lives in danger for us kids?"

"I don't know. I'd say you're the next generation, but I'm too young for that. If one of us has to survive and we're somehow still in America, I'd rather it be the innocent, confused and mislead child. I'm supposed to be a responsible adult who'll just look like an idiot after all this."

"But still-"

"Oh shush it lad. We'll be fine. All of us. I promise."

"Pinkie Promise?"

"Cross my heart and stick a cupcake in my eye... I think that's how that goes... Anyway, as long as I've got a hold of these chairs, I'll be alright. Got me some strong arms."

It was then that I noticed Ghostly fidgeting greatly next to Silver. Next moment, she's out of her seat headed for the hatch, a parachute bag on her back. She was barely old enough to legally fly, and I was quite certain she was kept away from such dangers by her parents, or whoever looked after her. There was no chance in hell she knew what she was doing.

"Oh no you don't!" I grabbed her by the back of her collar, choking her mildly. I had to let go of the headrests to force Ghostly down.

"Get off! I'm jumping to safety."

"More likely killing yourself!" I disarmed her of the parachute, holding it up to start a lecture.

"Look here, Missy. I'm betting you ain't jumped out of a plane before when it was flying good, so don't go starting with a crashing plane. Arky knows what he's doing, and these planes are sturdy buggers too."

She threw the puppy dog eyes at me. Masseys are made of sturdier stuff.

"No! You're gonna sit right there and brace yourself like everyone else."

"And you?"

"Like I told Silver Sea here, I can look after myself. I know what I'm doin-" The plane hit the ground. In an instant, I was at the back of the craft. Pain and darkness came next...

The ground was rising before me, filling the windscreen with timberland, the target just visible, a small field with a few obstacles decent enough for a landing. I’ve landed in fields before, however not like this, fighting to stay aloft long enough to even try to land, not to mention there’s no chance of a go-around possible.

“O-on-on-one Hundred” I laughed aloud; out of all the fucking times for that stupid electronic piece of shit to work, it picks now. I could feel the tears rolling down my face, the yoke vibration increasing as I neared the stall limit.

“Fifty” branches shattered against the wings and raked the underbelly as we entered the clearing.

“Forty” The right engine sputtered, coughed, and choked before dying out, letting an eerie silence take hold. I struggled to keep my calm.

“Thirty”

“Twenty” The ground rushed past the windscreen, my heart raced as I held us steady.

“H-hey Ka-Kay, don’t worry about being alone up there...” I mumbled softly, as I allowed the to pressure release.

“Ten” “Cause I’m a comin' home!” The plane struck hard and fast. My head slammed forward, catching the yoke full force, plunging me into a cold, dark, and silent abyss...

A New Dawn

The collision had sent many of the passengers flying, their bones jarred and minds shaken. The plane had been reverted to a junkyard pile of twisted metal near the nose, and its cabin was burst at the belly where it had pounded against the grassy clearing. The sixteen adventurers scattered in the mangled metal remains and on the nearly iridescent green grass they were sprawled across.

Observer had hit his head on the plane ceiling pretty hard before falling back into his seat with a bullet-speeded jolt. His vision was still swimming as he tottered to his legs through the clearing cloud of mingled dust and fog.

“Is everybody okay?” He shouted through the thick smoke, but couldn’t hear it himself through the loud annoying ringing in his eardrums. “Anybody?”

Observer turned on his weak legs looking for somebody to come forward, praying to God, or Celestia, or whoever else might be listening that he wasn’t the only one walking from this.

He thought he heard movement to his left and swung around facing only an unbroken fog, and through it, he saw nothing, straining his ears for some kind of sound.

Benjamin was staring in awe at the sight of his hands. He had dropped his fez in the crash, picked it up, and then what he saw had no explanation. “I’m going crazy,” he kept muttering to himself. “I’m going crazy.”

His hands were… flat, they were hard. They were solid and dark. They were, well… they were hooves.

He wanted to scream, to shout, to say something. But all Ben could manage to do was laugh. Not only had he survived a death-defying plane crash, but once emerged, he was a pony.

He struggled to get on all fours. Having an extra pair of legs and losing a pair of arms was quite the change to get used to. Bending one knee and then the other was something completely new to him, and walking, once so basic, had to be completely relearned. Moving his legs in this new way was so out of sync with every instinct in his body, and he giggled to himself as his muscles fit into this new system of movement, like fitting into a new shoe. He wobbled his knees for a moment, and lost balance, his new body plopping to the floor.

The body was blue, a deep blue that fit right in with the impending gloom surrounding the crash sight. He was shaking, not knowing where they were, and he sat on the moist ground, his blue flank and dark brown tail soaked with mud. He had—were those wings?—stuck to the side of his body. Through the mud, he saw a symbol of crossing lines on the side of what used to be his back thigh. As he peered closer, he realized it to be his cutie mark, the image of the number 4.

“The hell does that mean?” he muttered to himself, trying once again, to rise out of the mud. He peered through the fog, looking for anyone, or if they had reached the same fate as him, anypony. He heard a yelp of fear and stared off into the direction, where he could only make out a dark shape.

Carlos was staring at what were once his hands, mouth agape in terror.

“MY HANDS! MY HANDS! SOMEONE’S CUT OFF MY HANDS! I’m going to die of blood loss! Oh my Luna! Holy bucking mother of Celestia! I’M GOING TO BLEED TO DEATH! Oh Luna, Why is there no blood! Oh no, I’ve already RAN OUT OF BLOOD! Tell my mother I love her…and she needs to stop cooking; she’s going to poison someone one day! Goodbye cruel world! Oh, look at my hands… they’re… they’re… hard. They’re… hooves? Um… Oh. I’m a pony… Well… That makes relatively more sense.”

Brony Pony’s blazing red coat gleamed in the few splatters of sunlight streaming through the coverage of leaves above them. His mane and tail were a pure obsidian, the exact same as when he had been a human.  A horn protruded through his mane on his forehead and his eyes twinkled with the realization of the dream come true. A pony, he thought to himself, numbly and dumbly. The shock was almost too much, but not nearly as much as the overwhelming excitement boiling over inside. “I’m a pony!” Carlos screamed, bouncing in place in a giggling fit. He leapt to his feet immediately; for him, the transition from two feet to four hooves was effortless. In fact, if anything, he felt more like himself like ever before.

He spotted the navy blue pegasus with a ruffled brown mane just feet away from him, his image faded in the fog. “Oh my Luna, Oh my Luna! My first pony encounter!” He cleared his throat and slowly approached the stallion. Okay, BP, he thought to himself, his smile so large it verged on the creepy side, teeth taking up the majority of his new face. Don’t overwhelm him, just keep calm, stay cool. It’s only the most awesome thing in the universe. Be chill about it.

Ben yelped as the glaring red pony leaped on his back in a vice gripped hug, shouting, “Oh my Luna! My first pony friend! I’m Carlos. But you can just call me Brony Pony. Or just Brony! Or just BP! It might as well be BF, though, ‘cause we’re gonna be BEST FRIENDS, and this is gonna be the most magicky-perfecty-wonderfultastic friendship EVER! And I’m going to always be there for you and never let you down and love you FOREVER!... So what’s your name?”

Ben pushed the bubbly brony off his back with a struggle, the hug probably more of a hassle to escape than the grip of a boa constrictor. “It’s me, BP. It’s Ben. God, I’m happy to see you’re okay, too, BP, but you might want to, I dunno, NOT strangle the ponies on sight!”

But BP was already out of ear’s reach, leaping through the fog, and his cries of “I’m a pony! Ben’s a pony! Pony, pony, pony!” echoed through the gloom.

The shouts were heard by Observer, who stared blindly at the thick fog surrounding him.

“Brony Pony? Is that you? Ben? Anyone? Can you—” Did BP just say he was a pony?!

He had heard the words, but their meaning only just barely registered. And a thought pushed its way through the worries and curiosities of him buzzing mind. No… it can’t be…

He didn’t feel his legs move across the mud as the shock set in—it seemed as though he was floating through the fog in an astonished daze. Before he looked up at the plane window, he knew what he was going to see.

Instead of the Michigander with skin so pale it probably tanned in front of the television, Observer saw in his reflection a grey unicorn with blue eyes, dark and deep and intense with a mix of amazement and fear. Around his horn, his brown and gold mane grew out long and shaggy. The cheesy and obnoxious Hawaiian shirt hung loosely over his pony frame. “Well, shit.”

His head moved to the left. So did the unicorn. He lifted a hand. A hoof entered the image. Observer took a gulp and looked behind him at his new body. He saw his flanks, where the image of two overlapping eyes with a shared pupil stood out in white against his gray fur. He didn’t understand how this had happened, how it was possible. His hands, his beloved hands he had once used to bake and pet his dog and beat men to an inch of their lives in bar fights… they were gone, and the replacing horseshoes felt like such a handicap.

Wait a second… “Pig?!”

He looked around the mud for his dog, listening intently for the familiar bark of his best friend.

He leaned closer to the reflection his mind still wouldn’t acknowledge as his own—a whimpering noise could be just barely heard through the inch thick glass.

He ducked back in the hole in the underside of the plane, shouting Pig’s name up and down the aisles. He passed a pony or two, rubbing their heads with hooves they still didn’t know they had, but his mind just overlooked what it knew it couldn’t process, and he ran past them as though they were strangers at a bus stop. He halted at the seat he was sitting in before the crash had thrown him out.

Beneath the seat, shaking in fear, his beloved best friend was curled up, whimpering and cold.

“Oh, Pig.” He reached down, realizing that he was now unable to grab gentle hold of her with the hard hooves, instead settling for rubbing her back. “Pig, it’s me. It’s okay now. Come on out.”

At the sound of her owner’s voice, Pig’s eyes shined and she ventured out, tail wagging with recognition of the pony in front of her, and she glowed with understanding.

As Ob strolled out, Pig at his side, he noticed a dark purple unicorn with a blood red mane and tail sitting where Tenebrae was just minutes before. “I knew this trip was a bad idea”, the unicorn muttered to himself as he gazed into the cracked window next to him. “‘Let’s go to Equestria’, they said. ‘It’ll be fun’, they said”, he grumbled to himself, annoyed with the concept of finding his footing on the unlevel ground when he no longer had feet.

Feet away, a beautiful unicorn, with a lavender mane and light blue coat shook her head as she made her way out of the luggage she had landed in. On her flank was the image of a pen and scroll. A white unicorn with a mane and tail of gray helped her out, muttering something in Latvian. To their left, a golden yellow Unicorn with a clean cut, light blonde mane and was digging, muttering something about needing to find a camera.

From the bathroom, Ob heard the grunts of Sean, who unfortunately had the runs at the time of the crash. “Oh God, it’s everywhere! Aw man, that’s disgusting. Aw, the smell is terrible... Oh God, there’s no more toilet paper! Come on! What the fuck just happened? Did we hit turbulence? And- HOLY FUCKING MOTHER OF SHIT, I’M A PONY!”

                Outside the plane, Matilda lay in the mud, her head in so much pain it seemed to burn.  It was a miracle that she was breathing, being the only one to attempt jump from the plane in time and float safely to Equestria with the parachute she had so conveniently packed, only to be thwarted by Steve and land in a tree before falling in the puddle. Her head felt light, as though someone had bitten a chunk out of it. And something, something alive and moving, was on her back, pinning her face-down in the mud.

Well, hu-frickin’-zzah.

Something was wrong with her hands. She couldn’t feel them. She fought off the instinct to look at them, preparing herself for the image of them being cut off, or crushed completely beneath rubble. Just then, she heard a familiar bark, one that sounded like the cute white dog she had seen before take-off, and the voice of the dog’s creepy owner, calling if anyone needed help. “Over here!” She responded, hardly believing her good luck. “Someone else is here too, but he’s out cold and pinning me down!” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the bushes to her left part, and out trotted a unicorn.

                Oh schizophrenia, you’re wonders never cease to amaze me.

                The unicorn was tall and grey, wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

                My subconscious has a very odd sense in fashion.

                Observer heard the girl to his left, and saw the pony on top of her, a pony he couldn’t recognize. But then again, he could barely recognized himself.

“Umm, yeah, not really breathing. A little help here!” Matilda shouted out from the mud.

                As Observer was about to push the pony off of her back, a thought came to him and he stopped. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, his eyes shut tight and he concentrated. A silvery aura surrounded the pony on top of her, and it slowly rose off of her back. Observer felt his energy deplete dramatically Well, he thought, that’s gonna take some practice.

Matilda rose and took a look at him, puzzled. “So… um… imaginary pony. Can you tell me something?”

“Um… sure,” Observer said, staring back, deciding to humor her.

“What’s wrong with my hands?”

“Well”, he said back calmly, as Pig sniffed the unconscious pony on the floor. “You don’t have hands anymore. “

Her face contorted in a grim fear. No, she thought, I was right—they are gone.

He noticed the look on her face and gave a reassuring grin.  “It’s okay... they’re just… have a look for yourself.”

She looked down, noticing that her hands were indeed gone, but there was no blood, no bones, nothing. Just… stubs. Stubs with black material stretched over them, like felt or cotton or…. Fur.

Slowly, she stood up, her legs all shaky… all four of them.

She looked back and realized that there was something even odder than her hands. She had wings. Flaring open above her grey silky tail, was a pair of black wings with light grey inner feathers.  The outer feathers were a darker gray, like her mane and tail. She hesitantly tried flapping them, and they obeyed; the entirety of their existence was so alien to her, that it didn’t match up in her mind that it was HER doing it. She was a pegasus. A full-fledged pegasus, wings and all.

“So… you really are the creepy guy with the dog?”

Observer rolled his eyes. “Yep.”

“Did this happen to everyone? Is… is Steve okay?”

“As far as I could tell, yup, we’re all ponies now. As for Steve, we’ve yet to find him…. Now… who’s this fellow?”

Stumbling, Matilda got closer to the pony on the ground, and just about had a heart attack.

Before her lay a light gray earth pony with a white stripe running through his black mane. He was tall with a bushy black tail, wearing a specially tailored vest. Stitches ran across the route of his throat, and on his flank was the picture of a razor blade. A cutie mark that signified, very well, his special ability.

The pony was Tod. She didn’t know how it was possible, but it was. She had turned into a pegasus, and her imaginary friend was now not so imaginary.

She walked up to him and shook him gently. “Tod? Come on, wake up.”

Observer gave her a strange look. “Todd? I don’t remember a Todd being with us..”

“You wouldn’t. But he was there the whole time. None of you could see him then…but you can now. Tod was my imaginary friend back home. I don’t know how, but now he’s real.” I explained.

“Hold on a moment….you’re telling me that this pony-“

“Tod.” she interrupted. “His name is Tod. With only one D.”

“-that Tod used to be just a figment of your imagination? And now he’s real?”

“Yep, God help you all.”

Tod groaned and twitched. Matilda backed up. Personal experience taught her that he was going to be one angry pony when he got up. His dark brown eyes slowly slid open, and he stared up at them blankly for a second.

Then, as she predicted, he sprung to his feet with a howl that would send all but the bravest of men running. He pulled out his razor blade from the secret pocket he kept it in and swung at the pegasus and unicorn. The white dog ran behind its ponified owner, whimpering. The blade hissed through the air, and Matilda and Observer barely leapt out of the way in time.

“BACK!” he roared. Surprisingly, his deep cockney accent that she knew and loved now sounded pretty damn scary. “GET BACK!”

They backed up as far as they could. He followed suit, his razor clutched tightly in his teeth.

“Who are you!?” he growled. “Where’s Matilda?”

“Right here.” The Observer said, bravely, gesturing to Matilda. “Now, could you please drop the sharp pointy thing and chill the fuck out?”

Tod’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not Matilda, you blithering idiot. Matilda’s a human! That’s a pegasus!”

He advanced, eyes narrowed into cold, heartless slits. Daddy pony has come out to play, she thought. And he thinks we've hurt his little filly.

“Tod, it’s me! I’m Matilda, honest! Here, look at my shirt!” She stretched the shirt that hung off her pony form and stretched it out so he could see it. Sure enough he recognized it. That plus the sound of her voice made it obvious that she wasn’t lying. He dropped his blade, completely shocked. “Ma-Mattie? That’s really you?”

She grumbled at the fact that he had used that embarrassing nickname in front of someone she barely knew but said “Yep. It’s me. Don’t bother asking what happened; I’m just as clueless as you are. And that statement also includes your new body.”

He looked confused. “My new body?” He looked himself over. “What’s so new about it? Looks the same to me…”

“Well, um….our friend here—”

“Observer.” He interrupted.

“Observer can see you too.”

There was a very pregnant pause as Tod considered what was just said. Then he grinned. It wasn’t his usual “I’m going to kill you and use your skull as a urinal” smile. This one really was happy. He winked at Matilda. “Finally, someone let me out of my cage.”

Observer watched the friends hug and catch up. Indeed it was odd; this whole thing was odd. It made no sense. He stared at the terrifying pony hugging the pegasus. Had she really thought him up? What kind of imagination did she have?!

He stared at them in a trance that was broken by the hopeless cries of a young girl.

“Reuben! Reuben, wake up! Come on!”

Observer looked to his right and through the fog, saw the midnight-blue mare leaning over the black stallion, fear in her golden eyes, and tears dripping into her gold and purple mane. “Reuben, please!”

The black unicorn lay on the floor, unconscious and obviously injured. His waist appeared bent oddly and he lay completely limp. His purple and gray mane rubbed against the dirt as the mare shook him frantically, desperate for him to wake up.

Observer raced to the mare’s side. “Glitternight?”

Hana glanced up at the sound of her nickname. She wasn’t just scared; she was running on pure terror right now. The fact that she was a pony didn’t even remotely bother her. She was shaking her boyfriend with her forehooves, as though they had always been there. All she worried about at the moment was if the man she loved, the pony she loved, was okay.

“What happened?” Observer asked, avoiding the cold fear in her eyes.

“During the crash, he threw himself on top of me, it was like the wall was caving in where we were sitting… it was going to crush me, but he jumped and… I just couldn’t get my seatbelt off in time, it’s my fault… I’m sorry… sorry….” Her voice trailed off in quiet apologies and self-blame, as she cried shamelessly into her hooves. She didn’t understand how she could have let this happen. Hana had a way of pushing every bit of blame on herself, even when it had nothing to do with her. But this time… she would rather be crushed, be dead, than be alive with Reuben hurt the way he was. “He… his breathing… it’s….” Unable to go on, she held his hoof with a tight grip, fighting to hold back the sobs.

Observer leaned over the stallion and heard the breaths, uneven and labored.

“Omega? Come on, kid, wake up.”

Omega turned a little, but didn’t yet regain consciousness.

“He’s alive, but how hard did he hit his head?”

“It wasn’t just his head,” she muttered, not taking her eyes off the way her boyfriend’s chest struggled to rise and fall. “His whole body hit the ceiling and then he just...” She shook her head trying to shake the memory out

.

Just then, Omega muttered something, slowly coming back to the world of the living.

“Hana?” he muttered quietly, turning his head and groaning in pain.

“Reuben! Thank God!”

He opened his violet eyes carefully and slowly, and blinked a few times at the sight of his girlfriend’s new body.

“Hana? Is that you?”

“Yeah.” She smiled through the tears as he held her hoof tighter in his own.

“You… you’re a pony.”

“Yeah, I know. Reuben, you hit your head really hard…”

He stared at his hooves. “… I… I’m a pony too.”

He said it numbly, shock rendering him void of emotion.

“Yes, Reuben, we know.”

“You scared your girl nearly to death, Omega.” Observer smiled a little.

“Reuben, are you alright?” She was on the edge of sobbing uncontrollably.

He blinked twice and then looked Glitternight square in the eye. “Woman, please! I’m a fucking pony! I’ve never been better!”

He laughed before shuddering as pain enveloped his chest.

“Reuben?!” Her golden eyes grew wide. “Reuben, stay still!” She pressed a hoof gently against his chest, against a rib, and he convulsed in pain.

“It’s his ribs, he probably broke a few of them.” Observer pushed down on Omega’s shoulder as he tried to lift himself up, jaw clenched in pain.

“Omega, don’t get up.”

“I can walk,” he groaned stubbornly, fighting to rise against the broken bones.

“No you can’t!” She looked at him with such a gaze of sadness that he was defeated. He lay back down against the mud and looked at her with a smile.

“Okay”, he muttered.

Observer turned to Hana, who avoided his gaze. “We’re going to need to carry him.”

She nodded, the tears dripping off her muzzle into Reuben’s mane. “You ready, Love?” she asked him, shakily.

“Yeah. How bad could it be?”

That question was answered as Glitternight lifted him carefully and every bone in his chest screamed in protest with pain. “Agh! Shit! Fuck! Shit’n’Fuck!”

She lay him back down immediately and he strained to control his breaths; the bigger they were, the more they hurt. She looked at her hoof and an instinct took over. An instinct she didn’t know of or understand. Gently, with a touch light as a feather, she ran her hand over the bruises she knew to be on Omega’s black hide. Her hoof glowed with a golden gleam and he relaxed as she pressed against the painful broken bones. His breathing evened out, and while she didn’t understand it, she knew that somehow, she had healed him; or at least, she had stifled the pain.

Reuben was rather large, about the size of Big Mac in pony terms, and his weight was a struggle for Hana to support. She held him up, allowing him to lean most of her weight on her, and pushed him along as he fought against the pain to walk.

Observer noticed the struggle for both of them, and ran to Omega’s other side, and closed his eyes shut. Just… just focus, he thought to himself.

Like before, the silvery aura surrounded his horn, and surrounded Reuben. He couldn’t take all the weight, but his magic held Reuben enough to help Hana out.

Just a few feet away, Matthew was contemplating what had just happened to change not only the world they were in, but his species as well. He stared into the pool of water. If not for the sounds of the other passengers crying and laughing, he would think this was some insane dream. But it wasn’t. He had opened his eyes near the remains of the plane, collapsed next to the body of a green mare. Matt seemed to have been catapulted by the crash. The mare next to him was green, very pretty, very dead, and vaguely familiar. She lay in an equally familiar bush of blue flowers, which Matt barely recalled, as though he had seen this once upon a dream.

He peered in the water. A black and green Changeling stared back at him, eyes open wide with astonishment. Matt yelped and threw himself from the pool in fear. This can’t be happening, he thought to himself. This can’t be happening.

As he began to slowly comprehend what had happened to himself, a thought came to him. “Steve?”

He shouted his friend’s name into the distance. “Stephen, where are you? Suke? Steve?!”

His eyes strolled down to the body of the green mare with cerulean in its mane, the same blue as the flowers in the bush.

Matthew’s eyes grew wide with realization.

“Poison Joke.”

He ran next to the mare he now knew to be his friend, or what was left of him.

“Stephen? Oh my God! Steve! No! No!”

Matthew leaned before his best friend. It was tragic- the first time Stephen had ever truly decided to live, he dies. And with female genitalia for Christ’s sake!

He went down the thorned pathway of memories with his friend (most of which consisted of drunken shenanigans) and tears came to his eyes.

“It’s so sad.” He muttered to himself, the sobs now overwhelming his usually calm demeanor. “Why God, why? He was still a virgin!”

At that exact second, as though the word “virgin” was sleeping beauty’s kiss, the mare burst to life, panting.

Matt screamed, walking backwards away from the pony. No, he thought to himself, as the mare rose to its feet. She was dead. I saw her! She was DEAD!

In his shock, he picked up a rather large rock in his forehooves and threw it, screaming, “DIE ZOMBIE!”

The mare did a double take at the British accent coming from the changeling, at the voice that she knew so well.

“Matthew?” she shouted incredulously, dodging the rocks he was throwing, and cursing loudly as one hit her front forehoof. “Matthew, is that you? What’s… what’s wrong with my voice?”

“Stephen?” Mathew stopped throwing rocks at the mare, eyes open wide with fear of a zompony apocalypse.

“Yes! It’s me! Is that you, Matt? You look… well… different.”

“I look different?!” Matt laughed and guided his friend to a nearby puddle.

Suke looked in the pool and fell silent, barely breathing in his shock.

He was a pony. No. Not just a pony. A mare. A silky green mare, the shade of baby grass. His mane waved out against his new face, thick and curly, in two colors, a dark brown, and a contrasting bright cerulean blue. He was quite pretty. Dude looks like a lady, he (or she, if you will) thought to himself.

He walked over the pool of water, staring at his underneath parts. It was true. He was female. He analyzed his new genitalia, thinking about how this was the longest period of time ever spent by him staring at a female private—and it was his own.

“Well,” he muttered curiously. “That’s rather odd.” He then ran off screaming in a fit of hysteria.

After Stephen had bolted when he realized his new condition, Matthew felt it was probably best to do the same. Sneaking away whilst everyone else picked themselves up from the plane's wreckage, he went a little further into the forest for a place to sit and think. After stumbling upon a clearing in the forest next to a river Matthew moved closer to the waters edge. He’d already seen his reflection once before just after regaining consciousness but he was now mesmerized by it. What used to be a taller than average guy with a tiny little patch of hair under his bottom lip was now a God knows how tall compared to the average whatever he was without a tiny little patch of hair under his now absent lips. The thing in the reflection staring back was a cross between a stag beetle and a pony.

“Damn” He cursed aloud. “That means Stephen was right, and that rainbow thingy was more than just a rainbow thingy. I hope he’s too traumatized to remember the bet...”

Matthew began to study his reflection a little closer now. He could remember seeing something like this somewhere before. A text book? Documentary? No... that wasn’t it. He flared his wings and studied them.

“They’re all full of holes, what even happened?!” He then noticed that all of his extremities seemed to be full of holes. Something in his mind clicked. He remembered where he’d seen himself before. Why hadn’t he realized sooner, it made sense when you looked at how everyone else had been affected by the blue flowers(That must have been poison joke). He’d been turned into a changeling. The most universally hated creature in the ‘Fictional’ land of Equestria.

Far behind him, where the stumbling passengers were still rising and realizing their fates, he heard a high pitched shout.

“Help!... HELP! ARKY NEEDS HELP, GUYS!”

Nearly all the passengers heard the cry, and they gathered around the nose of the plane, the source of the shout.

A small royal blue pegasus, stood near the tip of the nose, now crumpled like a giant paper pall, steel dents and sharp edges of broken metal disfiguring the once great aircraft.

Ben and BP were there first, followed by a dark brown pegasus with a black mane, who they knew to be Wolfy. Tenebrae made his way out of the plane with Shadowed Rainbow, Quylaa, and (a very smelly) Sean at his heels. Observer and Hana raced there as fast as they could, supporting the wincing Reuben, and Matilda and Tod raced out of the woods to answer the cries for help.

“Silver Sea?” Ben asked as he approached. “Is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me. I guess you can all tell what happened.”

A few of them nodded silently in response.

“You guys, it’s Tyler,” Silver Sea said quietly, pointing at the crumpled nose of the plane. “He’s… he’s trapped in there! I don’t think he can hear me.”

Ben climbed up, scratching himself on the edge of the twisted metal. “Arky?! Archangel!” He peered through the cracked windscreen, and saw a splatter of blood against the glass, but not much else.  

Observer saw the expression on Ben’s face, and raced up after him, laying Reuben down next to Hana before climbing up and staring through the glass. Brony Pony followed, along with Quylaa and Shadowed, and they all grabbed hold of one of the sharp edges of steel, trying with a painful struggle to bend it just enough to reach in there and grab whatever Tyler had turned into. Observer, Quylaa, and Shadowed all winced, trying to use as much of their physical strength, combined with their unicorn magic, to budge the metal blocking the cockpit entrance. Ben grabbed the metal edge and flew with a newfound struggle—wings were hard to use, and the breeze blew him to the left. He used his wingpower to help along, to move the bent metal.

Slowly, with a creak, it moved back enough for Observer to jump in, and he dragged out Archangel, surprise evident on his face. “Well, if it isn’t the last of our kind?” he muttered, and one moment later, they all knew why.

Tyler had no horn. Or wings. Or horseshoes. He didn’t have hooves or a mane or a silky long tail. He was a human. He was injured almost beyond recognition.

His face was bloodied and bludgeoned, probably against the glass where it had slammed before he slipped into unconsciousness. His nose was bent to the right dramatically, crimson blood pouring from his nostrils. His forehead was scraped, cut and bruised, blackened and blued.

Silver approached his close friend with sadness. “Arky?”

Archangel moaned in pain, groaning muttering something under his breath. “Kayla?...” He muttered it so quietly it was indiscernible.

“Arky, wake up. Come on, Archangel.” Ben shook his shoulder lightly, and Tyler sat up off the ground, roaring in pain.

“AGH!”  He gripped his shoulder in agony, and Ben backed up.

“Archangel, calm down!”

“It… fuck…” Tyler muttered to himself, holding his left shoulder tightly, jaw clenched and eyes watering. Hana stepped forward towards Archangel, knowing what she had to do. She gripped the shoulder he was holding, and he winced. “Trust me,” she muttered with a maternal tone. Her hoof glowed once more and he exhaled as the pain lessened. He laid back, his head swimming, and eyes unfocused in the agony.

“What... what happened?”

“We landed… er—crashed. We’re ponies, Ty. All of us.” Observer answered.

“Wh-Wh-Where…?” Archangel was slipping back to unconsciousness, and he struggled to keep his eyes open.

“We’re in the Everfree,” Thor replied, his Latvian accent still intact.

The white and gray unicorn was already fumbling through the luggage for his sketchbook. He was going to get a drawing of that Poison Joke if it killed him.

“Is everyone… okay? Did you… is everyone… counted for… 17 of us?”

“18 of us,” corrected Matilda.

“But… makes…. no sense…” he muttered through the exhaustion and pain.

“And I’m a pony. Can you tell me how that makes sense?”

He shrugged with his good shoulder and Ben raced to his side to help him up carefully. “So… we… we need to stick together, guys.” Archangel felt delirious, and his head felt so heavy. It throbbed in pain and the scrape burned in the wind.

“Halt! In the name of Celestia!” A couple of white earth ponies approached the group and the twisted chunk of metal that was once the glorious plane. They headed straight for Tyler.

Even in his injured state, he was so easily recognized as the leader, his authoritative demeanor strong, even through the pain.

One of the guards took a gulp and addressed Tyler, nodding and saying curtly, “You have been asked by her Royal Highness Princess Celestia to come with us to the castle. If you so refuse, you will be taken by force.”

Tyler struggled to his feet, Ben and BP helping him up carefully. “Well, folks.” He said, his full height towering above them all. “We got an invitation to accept."

“But let’s get one thing clear…” he reached into his prized jacket retrieving a sleek looking revolver, he pointed it skywards pulling the trigger...

*BANG!*

The guards jumped back in fear of this unknown weapon. The report echoing loudly throughout the woods around them, as Tyler glared menacingly at the guards. One which they returned.

“So help me God, if any harm comes to my passengers, I’ll personally see to it that your brains paint the dirt a lovely fuckin’ shade of red. Do I make myself fuckin’ clear b’ys? Or shall I provide a demonstration...” His bloody thumb pulled the hammer back, eliciting a sharp click as it locked into place.

An older guard stepped forward, his eyes locked with Tyler's.

“There’ll be no need, as no harm shall come to them. Now if you’re done, we’ll be off.”

“Then lets go...”

Canadians and Royalty

I couldn’t help but feel a surge of anger as we strolled out of the Everfree Forest, into the blinding light of the Equestrian sun. He had a gun. I eyed Tyler, our honorable pilot, with such a stare that, if looks could kill, he would have probably burst into undying flames. This whole time, he had smiled in our faces with a revolver in his pocket, and he expected us to trust him? I didn’t know Archangel! He could have been a psychopath waiting to chop us up into little pieces for his stew with a nice chicken breast sautéed with garlic and onion on the side (and perhaps a chilli pepper and lemon juice sauce dripped over it....). Any of these people – or ponies – could be absolutely nuts, and I was stupid enough to convince Reuben to take me on this bullshit trip! Why was I so stupid?! Note to self: next time you have an idea, completely discard it and do the opposite.

I stared at the bloodied pilot down as he staggered on his two feet (feet I envied in an odd sort of way), his head obviously still swimming dizzily from the crash. I mean, don’t get me wrong, being a pony was, well, cool as buck. It truly was. Even the most pessimistic of our group could be seen skipping on their hooves over the bramble and rocks at the joy of their new form. But it wasn’t me. I was NOT a pony. I was a girl. A human girl, with breasts and clothes and fingers and the like. Why should Tyler not join this new existence with the rest of us? I glared at the gun in his hand with another surge of betrayal. He had all the power. We were not at the mercy of Celestia’s guards, but at the mercy of Archangel, the 6”7 grown-ass man with a smoking revolver in his hand. God knew what else he could be hiding. But what could I do? This new form felt so useless… but then again….

I examined my hoof, tucked around Reuben’s form as I supported his weight, and pondered the possibilities. I didn’t understand it. What had I done before? I closed my eyes tight and tried to focus energy to my hoof, to make it glow a glimmering gold as it did before, to heal and perform, and do wonderful things. But I couldn’t. Not now, at least. It was odd the way the impulse had possessed me before, the idea that with a touch of my hoof (the golden Midas touch, if you will), I could heal anybo—anypony— and now, it was suddenly gone. I obviously couldn’t will my hooves to do this type of thing, not in the same way one would carry out simple tasks like moving your hand or blinking an eye.  But I still had no way of understanding how I had done it before.

Observer’s pony form walked besides us, lessening the weight of Reuben off of mine with his silver unicorn magic. His deep blue eyes were shut tight in concentration as he struggled to keep it going. I was thankful for the help, but there was something about Ob, about the depth of his eyes and his overall demeanor, which chilled me and thrilled me simultaneously.  I wouldn’t say I was scared of him, but more so intrigued, as though his story was one I could relate to, but at the same time didn’t want to know. He was, even as a pony, still huge, and was probably fully capable of crushing every bone in my body in mere seconds if he so felt like it. There had always been something in me, since I was young; about being so close to someone I knew could hurt me—Reuben was an exception. But Observer… he had something in his eyes, that, while inviting as a siren’s song, told me he wouldn’t hesitate to kill if he had to, let alone cause as much pain as was indiscriminately possible before doing so.

Reuben groaned as my uncoordinated self tripped on a rock and my stumble jolted him.

“Sorry, babe,” I muttered, avoiding his pained eyes, snarling inwardly that I should better watch where I’m going.

Reuben was the only one that was there for me when I was at my lowest and now, because of me, he was… broken. My heart ached. It was a mental agony that was on the edge of physical pain. It hurt to breathe. It was seriously fucking hurting to breathe! He’s my everything, I thought to myself. He’s my everything and I let him get hurt. Breathless sobs escaped me, burning my throat.

“Hana?”

He looked at me with a sadness in his eyes I very rarely saw on him, a sadness I hated to see. I rubbed away the tears against my shoulder in a hurry. I had to be the strong one right now.

“I’m okay”, I said with a distant smile, looking at his mane rather than in his eyes. I distracted myself with the rising sun, glowing like a dying ember in the distance. I had said that phrase to him so, so many times. “Everything is going to be just fine.”

I sped up the pace a little, trying to keep the devastation at bay with the added effort of following them to the castle as fast as I could. Where there was a castle, there were ponies, and, hopefully, help for Omega and Archangel (as if he deserves it, I added sourly).

Observer struggled to keep up with the pace I made while still supporting his constant use of magic. I slowed only slightly, and he passed me an understanding look. But no, he didn’t understand. He couldn’t possibly know what it felt to know that the man—the pony— I loved was beaten, battered, crippled, crumpled, all in the name of saving me. In a world where I had nothing but Reuben, he had become my whole universe, my reason to live, and the idea of him not able to make it through this—I shook away another fit of sobs.

Observer eyed me carefully. I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that one bit. Being watched, being sized up, people wondering just how much I could handle, if I was crazy, if I was stable, if I was okay—

“I’m fine.”

I muttered it with clenched teeth. I probably wasn’t very convincing, but at that moment, I couldn’t give two flying fucks. As if I’m going to go mad with grief, I scoffed at myself indignantly, laughing the thought off… But then again, if anything happened to Reuben, I just might.

We followed Tyler and the guards over the hill to behold the sight of 3 golden carriages waiting for us. They gleamed in the rising sun, the gold molded into ornate curls and weaving designs, like solidified lace, and from each of them, held in reigns, were four solid white pegasi in golden armor. My eyes danced at the glorious sight. We were, indeed, getting the royal treatment; being flown to the castle in the Princesses’ royal carriages. We filed into the carriages, one by one. A guard extended his hoof to help me, but I shrugged it off, my eyes downcast as I helped Reuben on board, one hoof at a time. We took a seat on the violet silk cushions, basking in luxury and most of us holding some of the most shit-ass grins ever conceived on our faces. On the carriage with us, laying in the soft embrace of silk and velvet laid over the gold was Archangel, groaning and holding his head with his right arm as his left arm, broken at the shoulder, hung loosely at his side. Next to him sat Silver Sea, the concern for his friend clear as glass on his face, his muzzle dripping with tears. Ob took a seat next to me, and I fidgeted uncomfortably, never taking my eyes off Tyler the whole time.

Archangel’s face truly was a mess. Half of it was blackened with dry blood, the other half completely bruised and a sickening shiny periwinkle. Purple bruised skin stretched over the cracked edges of the bridge of his nose. He wiped the pouring blood from the nostrils off on the sleeves of his leather jacket, torn and tattered and littered with splinters of broken glass. Glass was all over him, scattered on his face like crystal sprinkles in blood-crimson icing, his brown eyes intense with pain, until he rubbed his left shoulder. The shock of agony was too much and his eyes glazed over for a second, as unseeing than two piles of mud, and he groaned and leaned his head back.

“Arky?” I asked, forgetting for a moment that I was supposed to be furious at him. “Are you okay?”

“Uh-huh.” He groaned into his right hand for a second, as though he was muffling a moan of pain. “Just…. my shoulder….and…. my head is…. Just terrible….”

His words were incoherent and slurred, and it scared me—the dominant, assertive (if not threatening) man that we saw just hours ago was defeated by circumstance, hell, by his own plane—hunched over and rambling in pain.

The carriages took off, and I heard BP’s distinctive high-pitched voice letting out a long, shrill “Wheeeeee!!!!!!!”

The white pegasi pulling our carriage pounded their feet against the floor in a thrilling beat before taking a leap in unison towards the glorious rising sun. The reds and pinks of the newfound dawn streaked the night sky, and I felt myself being flown across the new scarlet morning. And then, the horizon unfolded to behold Ponyville in all its glory.

The sleeping town lay before us, blanketed in peace and whimsical thoughts. Pinks and purples and shining roofs dripping with calm country moss.  We couldn’t see anypony roaming around; it was probably a ridiculous hour to awake, anyways. Our carriage soared over the orchards of Sweet Apple Acres, and we rubbed our eyes at the Granny Smith and Red Delicious trees, their fruit gleaming in the eye of the golden sun, the sun we knew to be raised by the Princess herself.

Silver Sea rubbed his right foreleg painfully as the wind rushed past it. I had barely noticed until now, but it was swollen and blackened near the hoof, and this whole time, he had been limping on it, wincing every time he had put weight on it.

“Silver?” I glanced at Reuben, who glanced annoyingly up at the fading stars with an eye roll of irritance (probably at the frustrating situation of not being able to move), before scooting next to Silver Sea. “Let me see your arm.” Of course it wasn’t an arm anymore, but he got the gist of it, and put his hoof across mine. I pressed gently across the skin and felt the break, and he choked back tears. I smiled tenderly at him and rubbed his back. He was, after all, only 12.

The image of the castle of Canterlot bloomed in the distance beyond us, and it sparkled in the setting moon and rising sun and glittering stars, as though the marble walls were made of diamonds. We all marveled at the vastness of the estate. We jumped in our seats as the pegasi swooped down, landing on the smooth marble driveway, edged with golden borders.

The guards stood at either side of the entrances of the carriages. One by one, we filed out, and the injuries made by the crash became even more apparent. Tyler was still dazed and dizzied, and his breathing had labored out over the course of the ride. As soon as he jumped down the step, he swerved to the side, bending over in a coughing fit, and I noticed a trickle of blood litter the polished marble behind him.

From the other carriages, the rest of our group ventured out, Shadowed leaning on Thor with her swollen ankle, her disheveled mane covering her eyes, and Thor’s blue eyes were open wide as he took in the glamorous sight in front of him.

BP skipped annoyingly at Ben’s side, hopping in beat with his rapidly pulsing heart—the excitement was nearly too much for him, and he was full to the brim with enthusiasm. “Oh. My. Luna.”

We entered the long hallway we have seen in so many episodes, and our jaws dropped simultaneously. The stain glass windows let the rising sun’s rays fall upon us in a prism of color, the designs and intricacy laying on us like snow as we made our way to the silken purple throne of the one and only Princess Celestia. Her mane flowed out with an unseen mystical breeze, the colors bright, sparkling, and blinding, as though her mane itself was made out of nothing but glittering rainbow sequins.

At her right hand side was the Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, the gorgeous young alicorn with the light lavender eyes and pink, purple, and pale gold mane, who sat in her pink throne of velvet next to the Captain of the Royal Guard, Shining Armor, and a prince in his own right.  To the left of Princess Celestia, in a midnight blue throne, tipped with lace, very similar to the shade of my coat, was the Princess Luna; her hair glimmered like a night sky, the midnight blue aura surrounding her face. I couldn’t help but notice, with a smirk, Tyler, completely captivated. As the night was ending, obviously, so was her shift to watch over the kingdom. However, as strangers in Equestria from another world in a burning capsule of metal were an important matter, she had obviously made the time to be there.

Tyler stumbled forward, as he dizzily approached the throne, he did a little bow, as low as he could without losing balance and flat-out collapsing. Luna and Cadence had a look of plain concern on their faces, (you wouldn’t be concerned if you knew he could kill you in an instant with that gun in his hands, I thought) while Princess Celestia looked on, keeping her composure.

“Your Highnesses.” He said it curtly, licking his teeth of blood, but everyone could tell it hurt him to speak. “We come from Earth, and we have crashed in the middle of the Everfree. Some of us are injured. We came here purely by chance. We set out to find this world, but the fact that we are here, now… well—”

Here, he fell into a coughing fit, spittle of bloody drool escaping his lips as he did so. Then, he regained his poise, stood erect, and was about to continue when he was interrupted by a clearing of the throat—

“Get him a seat.” Celestia called to a guard.

“What exactly are you?” asked Princess Cadence, her voice like sweet music.

“Well, I’m a human, the main species on Earth, our planet. We were all human, but when we got here, well… most of us turned into, well, ponies. We are missing two members of our group, and, well, oddly enough, we also gained a member.”

Tod fidgeted with an eerie smile on his face.

“How can we believe any of this?!” Shining Armor spoke up. Inwardly, I squealed with a fangasm. His voice was like honey.

Archangel rolled his eyes and levelled the gun at Shining Armor in a moment of rage. “I’ll tell you how you can believe this, Snowball! I have three people here who need hospitalization, a few who can barely walk. Also, I’m the one with a gun in your face, so how about you get with the fuckin’ program and—”

What happened next happened so fast that the moments went by like a blur. The gun went off as Tyler’s hand contracted, an involuntary muscle movement that caused the bullet to spring from the chamber, missing Celestia’s face my mere inches.

He fell to the ground, seizing and wriggling against the floor, unable to inhale, his mouth letting out odd noises, a mixture of moans and labored breathing. I stared at him, in the middle of this seizure, his eyes pin-prick pupils in their brown irises, swollen shut from the blackened eyelids. And, well, I did nothing. I said nothing, I moved not an inch.

The reason: I was angry—no, FURIOUS—at our “perfect” leader. A betrayal of trust does not blow over easily in my mind. But standing there, watching Tyler’s broken shoulder crash against the marble, harder than concrete, as the blood trickled down his chin, made me sick with guilt. No one here knew what to do, but I did.

When Archangel’s mouth started filling with a bloody foam, I couldn’t take it anymore, the guilt ripping me apart, and I burst from the crowd to sit on the cold marble besides Tyler.

“He’s having a seizure!” I shouted, as if they knew what that was. Princesses Luna and Cadence looked on in concern, unable to help for their lack of understanding. Princess Celestia barely seemed to notice him flopping like a fish, as she stared into the bullet-hole on the wall, inches from her head. Meanwhile, in the corner, Shining Armor mulled over Tyler’s last remark. “… Snowball?”

Struggling to keep him moderately still as I turned him on side, I muttered close to him, “It’s okay, Tyler, just calm down, it will be fine.” I knew that as scary as it might be to witness, it was a thousand times worse for Archangel, and I rubbed his head gently, hoping, praying, that it would pass before it was too late. He took an effort to hold down.

His whole body was stiff and shaking, quivering against the floor furiously. Stained on his face was an expression of fear, one that was just so alien to his usual demeanor. For Tyler to be scared instilled terror in everyone in the room, me especially, and in my stomach it rolled over and festered, mixing with guilt. His mouth moved to shape a word again and again, in an infinite loop of silent conversation.

Help… help… help.

His out of focus eyes, pupils so small they were barely there, said it all, and all I could say back was “Hold on! Hold on!” as I tried to focus the golden energy to my hands again, the power I knew lay dormant in me somewhere. I had to cease that pain, I had to gain control. But one look at his face, branded with horror, and I knew I had none. Not here. Not in a world where my body, hell, my species, had changed and all I could manage to do was try to hold him on his side and calm him down.

After five minutes, but what felt like an hour, the shaking stopped, and his muscles relaxed as he lay limp on the floor, his head resting in my hooves. Tenderly, I wiped spittle of bloody drool from his chin, and tried to ignore the tear escaping the corner of his eye. After his injuries, God knows what that seizure did to him. I stared at the blood. Internal bleeding was almost definitely a culprit here.

Our group stared between the fallen Archangel and the shocked expressions on the faces of the Royal Family. Shining Armor was the first to speak.

“Arrest them, .”

“Fuck this, I’m out of here.” Tenebrae ran towards the exit only to be knocked back by a guard at least one foot taller than him.

“No!” Observer stepped forward, hoof raised in protest. “I’m sorry, Captain, but you don’t understand.”

“This… human… used a weapon on the Princess! ... And he called me Snowball,” he added quietly. He stepped away from the throne, approaching us and pointing the guards in our direction.

“It was an accident!” I shouted. “He just had a seizure. He lost all control of his movements. It was a ticking muscle that pulled the trigger, not him!”

Luna looked to Celestia. “Sister, perhaps this young mare is right.”

Princess Cadence approached her husband with the cutest puppy-dog stare in existence. “Please, sweetheart, let them go…. Eh, Snowball?” She giggled.

He grumbled a bit in protest, but she melted him. “Stand down.” He muttered to his guards and they backed away, the one holding on to Tenebrae dropping him to the floor.

“Oof!” He hit the floor hard before bouncing up on his hooves. “Yeah, you better run!”

“We need hospital care,” said Silver bravely, and he limped forward on three hooves, holding his bad ex-arm up.

I looked back at Reuben, wincing as he struggle to stay on his feet without my help. I held the look of desperation as I confronted the princess.

“Please, Princess Celestia. We… We don’t know what happened anymore than you might. But we need help.” I pleaded.

Archangel grumbled as the numbness wore off, his hand on his side, against his rib cage. He coughed again, blood rolling off his lips, and turned to his back. The Princesses and the Captain watched as me and Ben propped Archangel up, while I muttered, “Slow breaths, Ty. Slow breaths.”

Princess Celestia rose from her seat, her tall, regal stature overlooking us all, and approached our group.

“What are your names?”

Silver Sea stepped forward with a gulp and introduced us.

"I'm Jonah. This is Tyler; he got us here in one piece. He is also my friend."

He looks over to the rest of us, and spoke in his young inexperienced voice. "This is Benjamin, next to Carlos. Over there is Hana and Reuben, and behind them Jorge and Tenebrae and Joshua, but you can call him Codejunkie. Steven and Matt were lost at the crash sight, but that's Steve's friend Matilda and her friend... um.... Tod, I think. That's a friend of ours that goes by Shadowed Rainbow, and that's Observer and Thor -- well, his real name is Ed-- and-"

"These are all very odd names...." Celestia said, a look of confusion on her face. I could understand it. Usually, a name, at least to the ponies, said who you truly were. What you looked like. Who you see yourself as. As far as humans go, our names are just labels.

"Are you sure those are your real names?" Celestia asked with a twinkle in her eye.

“Silver Sea,” piped up the youngest of us, the silver wrench shining by his tail

She looked to me and I held my tongue. Hana. That was my name. And somewhere in me, it still was. But I looked to my cutie mark, the golden crescent moon, glowing against the midnight blue coat.

“Glitternight,” I responded effortlessly.

She looked to Ben, who stared at the number 4 on his lower flank, still caked with mud.

“Quad Ruple.”

“Glissando.” Codejunkie nodded to the Princess, the trombone on his rear gleaming.

“Observer.” The gray stallion behind me said it curtly, as he stared down the goddess.

“Omega Darkness.” I rolled my eyes at the rough voice Reuben said it in, trying to add as much badassery as possible to the fact that he was now a pony unicorn. “And I am a Time Lord from the planet Galifrey, in the constellation of Kasterborous. I'm 9 hundred and 3 years old, and I'm the man who’s going to save your lives and--”

I nudge him on the shoulder. “Ignore that,” I say to the princess.

“B-B-Banterful Phrase,” said BP, who was probably shaking at the idea of actually speaking to Princess Celestia.

“Ice Rune,” muttered Thor in his Latvian accent.

“Ghostly Glow… and this is Tod.”

“Denavian,” said Tenebrae, without even thinking about it. I guess it just sorta... came to him.

        “Hige. Wolfy Hige.” The brown Pegasus did a little curtsy. “Pleased to meet ya.”

       “Lavender Wave,” said Shadowed Rainbow, her purple mane gleaming in Celestia’s god-like glow.

        “Quylaa. Just Quylaa.”

        “Please your Majesty,” muttered Tyler. “I-I-I’m sorry for the threat, b-b-but they didn’t d-do anything. They need medical attention. If you are to arrest anyone, l-l-let it b-be me.” He stuttered as he battled with consciousness, his brain forcing him into rest mode for everything he had endured that day.

        “Very well,” said Celestia. “Guards, take them to the hospital quarters. Wake the nurses and the Doctor. Treat them as guests, but keep on eye on Tyler. See that they are well- treated and well-fed. Tyler, I'm going to need to ask you to give up your weapon both for our safekeeping, and as a sign of peace.”

"N-no. I'm not giving this up. I haven't been here long e-e-enough t-to be sure that my passengers are safe. I n-need to protect them. I refuse t-to g-give up my--"

"I wasn't asking, Tyler. I'm sorry, but my world is as new to you as you are to them. You must give up your weapon."

Tyler looks at his revolver before sighing and hesitantly holding it out. "Yes, your Majesty."

After giving it up, he stays on the floor, unable to move, and is helped out by the guards.  

       “No, we do not like bananas”, muttered Wolfy under his breath, as a guard ushered him out.

        I sighed as a guard took its place beside each of us, escorting us to the infirmary.

        “Well that went well,” said Denavian, as he eyed Archangel being held up by four ponies.

“We should have known that on our first encounter with the Princess, one of us would blow her face off.”

       “Give him a break, guys.” I said it loudly, glaring at Denavian angrily. I don’t know why I felt I had to defend Archangel, but I did.

       “Hey, at least we aren’t on a one-way trip to the moon,” muttered Omega, who winced painfully with each step.

        “We should have asked Luna what Lunar hotels are best for a thousand year stay,” asked Wolfy, and the guard beside him rolled his eyes.

        The hospital chambers of the castle were huge. Unicorns, most likely just woken up, ran between the rooms with their own assortment of healing spells. As Archangel was ushered behind a zipping curtain, puzzled nurses and doctors looked over him.

        “What are we supposed to do?” asked the nurse.

        “Well…” began the doctor. “What is he… or she?” I rolled my eyes and face-hoofed.  Some help they would be.

        “He’s a human. He’s suffered a seizure, along with multiple head injuries. Just… just get started on clearing out that glass and getting him bandaged. Okay? And if he seizes up again, call me.”

        “And you are?”

       “Glitternight.” The name fit me. What had started as a pretty alias now seemed a big part of me. I followed Reuben into a room while my mind raced over my own thoughts and guilt.

        After a few minutes, the doctor projected some x-rays on a screen with a light blue aura of unicorn magic. He analyzed them for a moment, before turning with a pearly white smile.

        “You’re going to be fine, Mr. Darkness.” Reuben smiled at the sound of his new name. Mr. Darkness.

        “It’s only a couple of fractures in your lower ribs,” the doctor continued. “That, and a rough concussion, but nothing too serious. It’s no doubt uncomfortable, but nothing that won’t be gone in a week or two. I recommend you stay off your feet for a while. No more strenuous movement. Walking is probably too painful without assistance anyways… Ms. Night?” He turned to me. “Just make sure he keeps any kind of activity to a minimum. Can you do that?”

        “Of course, Doctor.”

       “Have a good day.” The doctor flashed another pearly smile, overflowing with charm, and strolled out of the room with a courteous nod.

       Reuben responded to the exit with a grumble.

        “I don’t like him.”

        I laughed for the first time since becoming a pony. It felt weird. It felt nice. “Why? ‘Cause he told you you can’t go running into bar fights or saving girls from crashing planes for a week?”

        “No. Cause he was checking you out.”

       “He was not!”

        “Yeah he was. Right before walking out that door, he smiled at your perfect ass.”

        “Um, I think the word you’re looking for is flank. And anyways, that wasn’t my ass he was smiling at, it was my face.”

        “Your perfect face,” Reuben chipped in, smiling like a bastard.

       “Trust me, it’s not.” I giggled and blushed.

        “Trust me. It is. And what was that crack he made about sex?”

        “He didn’t say anything about sex!”

        “Yes. Yes he did!” Reuben’s voice deepened for a terrible impersonation that sounded more like Duke Nukem than the doctor. “’Please make sure you keep ACTIVITY’” (he stressed the word to the point of annoyance) “to a minimum, Ms. Night.’”

       “Um, no. Just no.”

       I stared across the hallway, to the room with the curtain. Seizures were terrifying, a painful experience to endure, and I had let Tyler undergo it for over a minute before even deciding to help.

        “What’s wrong?” Reuben asked with prying eyes.

       “Nothing.”

        “You’re a terrible liar, even as a pony.”

       “I said I was fine. God!”

        “Adding ‘God’ to the end of a sentence doesn’t make it true.”

        I lay down in the bed next to him with a tremendous sigh, and he wrapped himself around me. Even as ponies, we fit together perfectly.

        Finally, I spoke. “I stared at Tyler for a whole minute.”

       “So? He was flopping like a goldfish. We were all staring. It’s quite the attention grabber.”

       I rolled my eyes again. “Can you stop being an insensitive douche for five seconds?”

        “I’ll be an insensitive douche whenever I feel like it.”

        I grumbled and turned away from him, wriggling out of his hug.

       “Fine,” he muttered. “Be like that.”

        “You don’t understand. And I can’t expect you to.”

        “What’s there to understand? You stopped a seizure.”

       “I let the seizure happen for a whole minute!”

       He grabbed my shoulder and turned me towards him, looking me with his new violet eyes. “Explain.”

       I wriggled uncomfortably for a second. “I let him go through it. I was… well… I was mad.”

        He blinked a few times at the word. “You were mad?”

       “Yes.”

        “You’ve never been mad in your life.”

       “Yes I have!”

       “No. You haven’t. Sad, yes. Over emotional, ALWAYS. I’ve seen you irritated one second and bubbly the next, but never, in all my time knowing you, have I seen you mad.”

       “Well… Now you have.”

        Reuben stayed quiet before clutching his waist in pain to sit up. “Was it the gun?”

        “He could have told us we were at his mercy!” I shouted indignantly.

        “There are fucked up people in the world, Hana. I’m sure he just—”

        “He very well could have been one of them! And you don’t need to tell me about fucked up people, Reuben!”

       “You can’t just hate EVERYONE!”

        “You’re one to talk!”

        He said nothing, not even dignifying my retort with an answer, and he placed his hooves behind his head on his pillow, relaxed and expressionless.

        I grumbled something about needing air, and walked out of the hallway. Silver Sea’s front foreleg was trapped in a cast, and he smiled as BP signed it, grinning at how fast he had learned to use a pen in his hoof.

A long, sharp tone of electronic noise pierced the air.

“DOCTOR, ITS FLAT-LINING!” When we heard it, our spirits fell.

The group was, for the most part, all there, staring at the curtain that hid Archangel from the rest of us. We were all thinking the same thing. If Archangel could fall so easily, what would happen to the rest of us?

The Bumbling Brit

After slipping away from everyone, I refuse to use the term everypony, I found myself in a clearing in the woods, which I highly suspected was the Everfree Forest; a place renowned amongst the pastel pony folk of Equestria for being a tad risky to adventure. After waking up in a bed of Poison Joke, I came to the conclusion that there was indeed a risk factor that should be noted by anybody wishing to live a long and happy life. How long does an adult changeling even live anyway? Hopefully a tad longer than most insects back home....

       I had slung my kitbag over my neck awkwardly and emptied the contents onto the floor of the clearing, trying to see what would be of use. My tablet would be impossible to use with gloves on, let alone with arms and legs made of chitin… useless. Not to mention I would probably have to update my facial recognition features. How about my Hexi Burner and Hexi? I don't have any means of opening the fuel packs and setting up the little standard issue stoves I'd accrued during my time as an officer cadet, so not useful in my current situation, but maybe at a later date. Standard wilderness gear including a multi-tool, a jet lighter (Groovy little things that use lighter fuel at an astonishing rate, but are almost impossible to put out in the wind, and don’t give off much light) which again would be hard to use in my current state, but was worth keeping hold of, a compass that I doubt actually worked and finally my sleeping bag, cover, and roll mat; all things that could probably be useful to me at a later date.

        Being the genius I was, I had brought many of my rations with me into the airport as hand luggage; this led to the security staff taking me to a special room and questioning my motives as well as my lifestyle choices and ultimately confiscating my rations. Everything else was just plain useless now, like my clothes, shoes, and kit bag itself. How annoying; my once nice items were now useless to me.

       I remember hearing that; not all of us had been changed and one human remained. I thought about giving him my clothes, but remembered how tall he was at 6’7”. Christ, I had been 6’2” this time yesterday and I had never really felt short until I shook this guys hand as I got on his plane. It looked as if it were held together by nothing more than hopes, dreams and Gaffa Tape. We were lucky; we got off as lightly as we did when we came down hard, I thought. I cached my gear in the branches of what looked like the only willow tree situated on the bend of a river’s meander, a site I hoped I could remember and find quite easily.

       It took me a few hours to come to terms with my new condition, and by “come to terms”, I mean work out all the basics as best I could without help. It turns out when you suddenly go from one species to another, you don't get any sort of instinctual knowledge regarding one’s own ability to fly or use of what could only really be described as magic, so anything I couldn't do before I was a changeling, I wouldn't be able to do as a changeling. Not, at least, without a little bit of practice, and practice I did.

        Flying is difficult- No, it's impossible. At least, that was my initial attitude when I was attempting to beat the little insectoid wings on my back at any speed. All I accomplished after my first few tries was making myself tired and generating a lot of noise. The same noise that a mosquito in your room makes while it flies around your ear, except this one would be about 3 ft tall and would be cursing at his shortcomings. I got it into my head; baby birds jump out of trees to teach themselves how to fly, so I climbed the largest tree I could and threw myself out of the branches. It did not end well; all I managed to do was slow my very rapid descent.

       After a few hours practice, I managed to get to the point where I could fly about as well as a chicken; poorly. I was able to use my wings to augment my jumps somewhat and took great pride in doing so, I mean, I had only been a creepy bug monster for the better part of an afternoon now and I was happy with my progress. It was during a particularly pathetic jump into a tree that I came across my first citizen of Equestria. A diminutive zebra and one that I was pretty sure I could guess the name of. This was the first time, and not last, that I would bury my face into my hoofy-handy-leggy things and curse this strange place that, until today, had existed only as a television show.

       When I pulled my face out of my... hooves, (Seriously, what is the deal with changeling anatomy) the Zebra was looking in my direction, and I ended up staring back at her. I really had no idea how to break this stalemate and did all I could think of, which at the time was forcing myself to smile and wave. It was at this point that I realized that a changeling has very prominent fangs and I may not be conveying 'friendly’ and ‘approachable’ monster too well. She looked back at me a little bemused, like this was not ordinary changeling behavior. I mean, as far as she was concerned, I had been jumping around like a lunatic and had tried to hide myself behind my own forearms when realizing that somebody else was in the clearing. Thinking back on it, I had been acting like some sort of mentally deranged changeling... Which was sort of true, I suppose.

        "Hey there," I blurted out the first thing that came to mind to stop this agonizing silence. "I'm having a bit of an identity crisis. I don't suppose you could give me a hand? Or hoof, whichever you respond to."

       She was visibly taken back. I'm sure she fully expected me to fly away or attack her and to be honest, if I knew how to fly, I probably would have.

       "Well, if it isn’t a changeling I see, what is it that you want from me?" Yep, I was pretty sure I knew who this was. Her forced rhymes confirmed it. But still, she was offering help and I wasn't about to turn it down.

       "Couple of things, actually. Firstly, I don't suppose you could fill me in on the current view of changelings in Equestrian society?" I hopped over the river that separated us. "Are we hated for that little event up in Canterlot, or is it all water under the bridge? Secondly, I don't suppose you have any idea which plants I can eat and which will poison me? I've been trying to fly all day and it has left me pretty hungry. I'd rather not eat some poison berries. Bonus question; do you always have to rhyme?"

       The zebra just stood there, looking at me. After a moment, she let out a sigh.

"After what your Queen did, somewhat vilified your species have been." She stopped for a moment and continued "… And rhyming is just something I try to do in front of the ponies. Adds a bit of the mystique around everything I do, and I enjoy that. Now, if it is food and more knowledge you are after, then follow me home, little changeling, and I will teach you what you need to know." The zebra turned her head to one side and looked me directly in the eyes. "But tell me first why your brood did not already tell you this? Why are you unable to even fend for yourself or find food to eat? Why you were not disguised as something other than a changeling? And what if this is all just some changeling trick; why should I trust you?"

        "Fair shout, Zebra lady. Fair shout." I stepped back from her gaze and took a deep breath, preparing to explain my situation.

       "WELL! I was not actually born, or hatched, or whatever process makes a changeling, a changeling. I am from a different plane of existence altogether. I mean to say I'm not of this world. My companions and I, or rather companion that I was babysitting, had noticed strange phenomenon that could not really be explained; large rainbow rings in the sky. don't ask me for details, as I really have no idea what they could have been. If everything had gone my way, then I would still be in Florida, just about getting ready to head to Michigan. When our party passed through one of the rings, we were transported here and our craft came down in the forest. We all awoke after the crash, having been transformed into ponies. Well, everyone except two of us. From what I could tell by their shouts. one guy was still a human, and yours truly was turned into a changeling. Why? I have no idea. So I've actually only been a changeling for a few hours, and have very little life experience here."

        Wow, that sounded rather far-fetched. I chose to leave out the whole 'I saw you in a television program' bit as it might sound a fair bit creepy. Anyway, I was after hearts and minds here, not lynching and alienation.

       To her credit, the zebra had taken it all quite well. I think she sort of believed my story after I dragged her over to my cached gear and showed her the tablet. Hilariously, she could use her nose to act as an input, so I said she could keep it. She accepted all of this and took me back to her hut, introducing herself along the way as Zecora, the Witch Doctor. I did feel as though I was in good hands; I assumed Zecora would have a fairly decent knowledge of changeling lore, but also being an outsider herself, she could sympathize with me and my situation. When we arrived at her home, she told me the plan.

       "Okay, I'm going to head into town tomorrow and try to find out if anypony has heard about your friends, but it is probably best if you stay in the forest and not stray too far from the hut." She moved to a cupboard and pulled out a basket full of fruits, placing it in front of me. "The ponies of Equestria have been cracking down on changelings as of late and Prince Shining Armour was in the area yesterday. As you can understand changeling, he is not too fond of your kind after the changeling queen tried to take over Equestria."

       I bit down on an apple. "Well, what do you suggest I do to stay safe?" I asked.

       "That is easy," she said, smiling with her eyes closed. A trait of creatures in this world is that I could never, not see as them trying to be overly smug.  "You must find a changeling colony and ask if they will take you."

“And this colony would be where, exactly?”

“Through the brush and leaves, you see, after leaving the Everfree way behind,

You’ll see the hive of changelings around you; they may or may not be so kind.”

“I thought rhyming was unnecessary?”

“Meh, old habits die hard.”

“So, how long is the journey?” I ask, wondering just how big the Everfree forest can be.

“About a four-day walk. Given you don’t get eaten by Timberwolves.”

        “Great… just bloody brilliant.”

Sucks to be hi- I mean, her...

“Damn fuckers gave me some new scars,” I said as I rubbed my arm.

I could check off another world as safe to ruin itself. The creatures don’t make my job easy, but neither do they make it too difficult. With the odd tweak here and there, every problem is solved almost identically to those prior.

“Retarded buggers. Ah well, onwards and sideways. I’m coming for you Claire.”

I felt myself hop from inter-dimensional limbo into the next reality. As per usual, my attire changed, but I paid it no heed. First things first, I have to check out the place and compare to my rather large list of possible alternate realities.

The most obvious thing was I was walking on a cloud. I didn’t have any wings, so this made barely any sense. All around were more clouds: up, down, left, right, front and back. No land could be seen between the clouds below. The Sun was glaring down, yet I could see normally and the temperature was… unnoticeable. The clouds had a solid poofy look to them, in such a way they didn’t really count as clouds when I say ‘It was a clear sky’.

I roamed for some time. No wildlife to be seen anywhere. I jumped from cloud to cloud with surprising ease. Eventually, I spotted a figure some distance below me. I went for the quick option and basically leaped down directly. I figured the fall wouldn’t hurt me for some reason. I was right. With a soft thud I landed (with style I might add) behind a female human. Sadly, I noted my inability to gauge her. I could always tell when someone was good, bad or one of those ugly things in disguise.

This world had seen fit to give me access to a few of my large weapons arsenal upon arrival, which I was thankful for as I drew the sword from its sheath fastened at the hip. It was a one of my double edged blades. One of my favourite ones too, drawing without a sound. I felt throwing knives attached to one of my arms, hidden under the sleeve.

“There’s no point in that thing, if you’ll mind the pun,” the woman said.

“I do not know your allegiance in this world, and for that, I shall be wary.”

“Really now? What of chivalry?”

“The right to chivalrous treatment is proven when the knight is unsure.”

The woman turned around with a smile on her face, saying, “Oh come now Stephen. You can relax here.”

I twisted my sword so the blade reflected the confusing sunlight.

“You are not helping your case Miss. I know not who you are, I have never been here before, and no oracle can predict my coming. How do you know that name?”

“Would you prefer Tobias? Or Hermes? Thunder perhaps? Or more specifically: Thunder of the Infinite Arsenal? Or maybe how my brother knew you; Suke?”

“What? Who are you?”

“My name is Kayla Lynch.”

I recognised the surname, but I’ve travelled so much I couldn’t remember the source.

“Where are we?”

“Heaven, in one of its many forms.”

“I’m quite sure I’d know if I died… permanently anyway.”

“Many don’t. It can be sudden and unexpected. I saw my death as it came for me.”

"Well, I’m er… sorry for your loss?”

“Thank you. I was taken before my time, as it were, and now I worry for my brother, who could not be there for me. I know he wouldn’t blame you and the others but he certainly wouldn’t see himself as innocent.”

“I’m sorry, but who’s this brother you speak of?”

“He was with you when you died, as well as a few others.”

“One: I’m not dead Miss Lynch-”

“Call me Kayla.”

“-and Two, Miss Kayla: Could you stop being so cryptic and just tell me his name?”

“It’s better if I have you remember on your own. Do you recall when you became Thunder?”

“Of course I can, it’s when I met Claire. She inspired the name.”

“Not when you took on the name; when you first became the person that the name represented.”

“I think it was back in… where was it again? ... Equestria? Yes, I think so.”

“And what happened there?”

“Some fellow Bronies and I from my Earth crash landed, killing more than half of us. Those that remained died defending that reality. I remember Arky being the last to fall, pushing me into that goddamn portal. Dastardly bastards tore him to shreds in front of my eyes while the thing closed. Wait… Arky… Tyler Lynch! But he’s dead. Why aren’t you with him now if you’re so worried?”

“Things happened differently to what you believe Stephen. Look at yourself.”

I did. What I saw shocked me. I was exactly how I was when it all started. A weedy nineteen year old in Jeans, an Eddsworld shirt and my white Society hoodie. This did not bode well.

“But… all those experiences. They were real. I felt them.”

“Was it not what you’d always wanted? To travel to parallel dimensions, saving them all from an evil force bent on collapsing all reality? A thankless hero, not needing the appreciation of others?”

I opened my mouth to object, but it really was too good to be true anymore

“Well shit. I died in the crash didn’t I?”

“You died in the crash.”

“How’d I cross the threshold?”

“Your skeleton is pretty much dust.”

“Yeesh. So, what do you want me to do? We’re both dead. If you want me to haunt him, couldn’t you just do it yourself?”

“Equestria has a strong background radiation of magic. With a couple of pulled strings we can arrange to have you resurrected.”

“We? ‘The Big Honcho’... He’s real?”

“Yes and no.”

“Oh, He’s a She?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Ugh, I’m not gonna bother. I assume whatever’s in charge is okay with my thoughts on him or her or it or them, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Now, why do you need to pull me away from my own literal piece of heaven and chuck me back into cruel real-life?”

“I died as you entered the Fire Rainbow, and Tyler’s going to hate himself for it. I just want you to look out for him while he gets over it. Obviously don’t tell anyone, or anypony, that I spoke to you. Or even that you died in the first place.”

“And the skeleton?”

“Replaced and improved.”

“Improved?”

“You’ll see. So, will you do this for me?”

I looked down at my sword. My grip had loosened over time. I sighed and tossed it to the side.

“If I must. I suppose the Equestria I know was just my imagination anyway. Need to see the real deal. Will I remember any of this?”

“Oh thank you! And I’m certain you will.”

From nowhere, Kayla pulled out a Zanpak To.

“Really?”

“I borrowed it from your memories. Now, just got to-” She paused, the Zanpak To’s hilt inches from my forehead. “Oh… Oh dear… Can’t he… oh my.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing! Actually… something… you’ll find out when you get there.”

With that she slammed the hilt into my foreword and returned me to the living, my last dead thoughts being of my hatred for indirect answers.

Looking back now, perhaps I shouldn’t have acted as I did. It was just… everything! I went and ditched my family for some adventure to a land of magical ponies I didn’t even know existed or not. Yes, it did end up a success, but what came of it? Not only am I now a pony, but I’m a fucking mare! And then there’s this crap with Arky’s supposed recently deceased sister saving my life, or giving me a new one, WHATEVER! ARGH!

So, where am I now? Lost in a God forsaken forest filled with countless magical and mythical creatures all higher up on the food chain. Christ, I’m an idiot. Just had to scream like a madman and run. No doubt my face’ll be on posters. ‘WARNING: Insane Mare on the Loose, Do Not Approach and Alert Nearest Member of Guard.’ Only just arrived in Equestria and I’ve already fucked things up. That’s it, I’m done!

I found a nice and tall looking cliff face. If somepony were to fall off of it… that would surely be the end of them… perfect. There didn’t seem to be any walkable way up. I’ll just find my own way up. So, I climbed the thing. Finding hoof holds left, right and centre, swinging about at times, and making good time.

It wasn’t until I reached the top that I realised, “I shouldn’t have been able to do that… wait a sec…”

I looked at my despicably feminine flank and saw a cliff top similar to the one I stood upon currently.

“That’s awesome and all, but my mind is made.”

It took me awhile to choose how to go about committing the act. I decided upon tricking myself.

“Hey what’s that over theeeeeerrrrrr-” THUD

There was silence as I gathered my thoughts at the bottom, the thought gathering a big give away to the results of my plan. Needless to say, it hurt; like the Dickens.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! SWEET PONY JESUS!”

Silence once more, slowly accompanied by my pained whimpers. Tears started to blur my vision.

“Why? Why do you hate me so, whoever the fuck you are? People suicide all the damn time, so why can’t I? Is it some sort of Equestrian magic?”

I glared up at the sky, where I assumed whatever great entity was watching lived. I was going to give him a deal he couldn’t refuse.

“I’m going to kill every damn unicorn, alicorn and any other magic spewing creatures in this hellhole just to find out, or hopefully die trying. I swear to you, I will! So you have these options: One, you let me go slaughter ponykind; Two, ‘Smite me now, Oh, mighty smiter!’ Three, you turn me back right now, or at least give me back my manhood. Last but not least is Four, and I think you’ll have your work cut out for you with this, but number Four is this: You do something so incredibly nice that I’ll forget this all happened, or at least postpone my threat. You got all that?” Silence “Right, I don’t care really ‘cause One’s on default. I’mma go find civilisation and go all Chainsaw Massacre on their flanks.”

I got up, still aching all over. I started considering all the different kinds of ways to commit mass Equicide. No smiting occurred, and if they really intended to turn me back, that would be done by now too. There was always my last option, the delay being possibly due to lack of civilisation and/or it is taking time to build up. It’ll have to be a doozy, though. I hummed the tune to ‘September’, noting I could copy the story in the lyrics of said song.

By the time I reached the edge of the Forest (which, after spotting Reginald on my trek, I knew was most certainly Everfree) the Sun was rising. I had not failed to see how stereotypical our arrival was, crashing into the Everfree. If this were just some story, I would have had the crash somewhere else, but then again, it is the easiest place to have a crash without harming anypony… what do I care? I’m here to kill a third of the Pony population and their royalty.

With a fast and long strides, I passed by Fluttershy’s cottage. I thank small mercies that she was a Pegasus and didn’t have to put her six feet under. Don’t think I could ever live with myself, no matter what gender or species I was. When clear of the quaint residence I began to trot down the path I guessed led to Ponyville.

In hindsight, I should have expected the first thing that happened upon my arrival. I snuck around, hoping to find some easy to wield weapon of mass destruction (I wasn’t thinking clearly, alright?). However, there is one pony who spotted me. One which, to be perfectly honest, probably less ‘spotted’ me, than ‘hunted’ me with that sixth sense of hers. What was stupid though was, after making all that trouble to locate me, just did a repeat of when she first met Twilight.

I placed a hoof between my eyes, wishing I had fingers to rub the bridge of my nose, and sighed.

Looking up again, I said, “So you played your ace in the hole straight away huh? Well, don’t expect too much from this, BUB! No simple Pinkie Party’s gonna change my mind.”

So I now had a day free to explore the town while still maintaining the killing mood I was in. I had no idea where the party was going to be. Where to go first? Library? Maybe. Boutique? Heck no! Farm? Why not? I looked around for a hint of apple orchard and saw it silhouetted in the distance. Gonna get me one of those renowned apples.

I finally had a chance to catch my breath. I really hadn’t thought the day through; at all! Gee, you think? As has been specified by countless fan fictions, and agreed by many more, stealing an apple from Sweet Apple Acres is near suicidal. Not only was I caught munching on my third apple, the previous two cores at my feet- er, hooves, but I was caught by Rainbow Dash, who likes to nap over the orchards. She yells ‘THIEF’ to high heaven, catching Big Mac’s attention, and I have the toughest stallion in Ponyville and the fastest flyer of all Equestria on my tail. You’re just lucky RD flew into that branch. One which I lead her into.

I took in my surroundings. I was now hidden under a stall in the marketplace. With my pursuers nowhere in sight, I cautiously slid out of my hiding place, got up on all fours, then leant against the stall.

A voice asked behind me, “Just what d’ya think y’all were doin’ down there miss?”

“Just hiding from a couple of ponies I sorta pissed off.”

“What in blue blazes did ya do to ruffle Rainbow’s feathers so much?”

“Eheh, saw her did ya? Well, I got hungry and well, she caught me snacking on an apple or two… or three… thaaaaaaat didn’t belong to me. But just keep that between you and me would ya Miss- er…” I turned to face my company and felt the blood leave my face.

“The name’s Applejack., and I believe you owe me some bits.”

“Oh… er… bloomin’ ‘eck… you see, errrrrr…” I pointed a hoof behind her. “ALIENS ARE ATTACKING!” Unbelievably, AJ turned. I took the opportunity and ran like the wind, shouting, “I’ll go get the cheese!”

No sooner had I said that, I heard my now third pursuer calling after me, “Consarnit! Get back here ya varmint.”

Shortly after that, I spotted Big Mac coming in from the right. A lasso caught my left hind leg, but I shook it off, slowly me down only momentarily. Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God. I saw a half built house, which went on to connect to a long row of complete houses. It was time to put my special talent to good use. I headed straight for the building site, Stallions having their lunch breaks on the scaffolding.

What happened next I just can’t describe well enough to give it the justice it deserves. There were leaps, wall jumps, flips, swinging on poles and then some. When I landed on the neighbouring house’s roof, I felt like I should have been wearing a get up with a beaked hood. However, upon landing, I spared no time for admiring my feat of epicness. Big Mac was out of the picture now, but Applejack still had that accursed lasso.

What I’d forgotten was the first pony to chase me, and she had wings. I narrowly avoided Rainbow Dash’s first dive attack. I had plenty of rooftop to cover, and a Pegasus with free reign over the sky. The only advantage I had was RD’s boastful attitude warning me of her dives. Then, an idea came to mind. More than likely, it was going to backfire in the long run, but I only cared for the here and now.

I kept looking back to judge AJ’s lasso attempts. Eventually, the perfect opportunity arrived. I stopped to give the farm pony an easy shot, and she took it. I rolled down the opposite side of the roof I was on. Applejack’s lasso caught Rainbow’s torso, wings and all. The force of Dash’s dive pulled AJ from her place on the ground, and they both crashed, one after another, into another house across the street.

Lowering myself to the ground, I threw a quick glance at the damage. Yep, definitely gonna pay for that in the long run. Maybe I can throw some blame on them for reckless behaviour… Perhaps I could, but now was a time for more hiding; but where to go? I felt the sleeve on my hooded jacket sag. It was almost completely torn at the seams. ‘Which seams?’ I hear you ask? All of them!

Another plan came to mind. Looking back now, I really was a glutton for punishment.

Deceiving Rarity hadn’t been too hard at all. I had done some amateur acting back on Earth. All I had to do was collapse through her door, a little extra mud here and there, and her generous side kicked into overdrive. Then came the questions. I’d planned for them, but, well, those that I planned for were only the beginning.

She’d insisted on fixing up my jacket, washing all the pieces (it had fallen apart completely on my way to the Boutique) and sewing them back together. I claimed I could not read, so the writing on the jacket was ignored. My state had been due to escaping Diamond Dog slavery (that plucked on her heartstrings even more so), and before then I had come from Trottingham. One thing I had not counted on was the lack of zips in Equestria.

I’m not too good at lying on the fly, and started putting holes in my formerly concrete lies. I had put on my newly repaired clothing, and was leaving the Boutique as calmly as I could, when a knock rang upon the front door.

Twilight’s voice came through the door, “Are you in there Rarity? We need your help!”

As I watched Rarity pass me, giving me a suspecting look, I was really wishing I’d managed to kill myself earlier. Once the unicorn turned her attention to the door, I began edging myself to the kitchen, recalling a back door in the area. The door opened too soon for me to hide.

“There you are Rare. There’s a thief somewhere in Ponyville, and we’re making a search party.”

“Do we know what this thief looks like?”

“She has a white hooded sweater of some kind with writing on it.”

“Oh really?”

I made a last ditch attempt for the kitchen door, but was held in place by magic, presumably Rarity’s.

“Because I think I’ve found her.”

I sat curled up in the foetal position, my two front hooves firmly pulling the hood of my jacket over my face. Twilight had carried me like this to her Library, followed close behind by Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Applejack. I could feel all the judging eyes rest upon me as we passed the crowds of ponies going about their business.

“Miss, if you don’t lift your hood from your face, I’m going to have to force you.”

As I felt the beginnings of magic take form around my hood, I let go. The hood made its way off of my mane. I stared fearfully at the four ponies looking down on me.

“Now, what you’ve done today wasn’t very good was it?”

I shook my head.

At least you’re aware of your wrongdoings. First off, what is your name?”

I realised I couldn’t just tell them my human name. Wouldn’t make sense and it was male too. Twilight took my silence to be hesitance.

“If it helps, I’m Twilight Sparkle, personal student to Princess Celestia.”

I knew what my pony name had to be. I’d done it physically and socially, so it seemed only right.

“Cliff Jumper,” I whispered.

“Well, Cliff Jumper, we need to know: Why did you steal from Sweet Apple Acres, and then lie to Rarity like you did?”

“I don’t have any bits, and I hadn’t eaten in awhile… I only meant to take one, but they were so good. And then, after the big chase through town, my hoodie was in pieces.”

Rainbow Dash leapt forward, glaring at me.

“You could have just asked ya know?”

“I- I- I’m sorry! The past few hours beforehand hadn’t been kind to me and… and… and I wasn’t thinking! Let me make it up to you! I… can work on the farm… and model for the Boutique. And the damages in town; let me help there too! Just please, don’t kick me out of town. I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

“Kick you out of town?” Rarity balked, taken aback. “Goodness me, we’d never do that! We’re not savages!”

“You… you wouldn’t?”

“Course not sugarcube. Besides, I can tell you’re being honest with us this time.”

“ALRIGHTY THEN!” Pinkie shouted, appearing behind me. Needless to say, I screamed. “Let’s get you to the town hall for your party!”

“So that’s why we couldn’t find you,” said Twilight, ignoring her guest’s reaction to the party mare.

“It was hard getting hold of the drinks.”

I relaxed my muscles, lowering a hoof from my chest.

“Drinks?”

“Yep! I got this feeling that you’d prefer the good stuff, so I dug up some of my secret stash. Enough Sweet Apple Acres Cider to knock out the princesses.”

“Awesome!” RD exclaimed as she pumped a hoof into the air."

Just then a burping sound was heard from another room.

“Twilight!” called Spike. “There’s an urgent letter from Celestia; says she needs all the Elements to hear this.”

RD moaned. “I’ll go fetch Flutters.” She flew out the front door.

“And I’ll take Cliffy to his party!” My eyes widened.

“Cliff’s a mare, darling.”

“That’s what I said.”

Before I could question her about it, Pinkie grabbed my hoof and zipped me to townhall.

“I get a Pinkie party, thrown for me of all people, plus actual alcohol, as weaksauce as it is, and the Mane Six aren’t here to flirt with, ignoring the fact I’m a fuckin’ mare. My life just bloody rocks, doesn’t it?”

I was talking to myself. As ‘weaksauce’ as the drink was, I’d had a LOT of it. It made me rant, specifically about the shittiness of my life; only to myself however. Whenever somepony came over to talk to me I’d put on a smile and greet them. I’d met Cheerilee, Ditzy, Minuette, Lyra, etc. The list was rather long. Vinyl Scratch was on the DJ set so I hadn’t spoken to her yet. That was about to change though.

Vinyl joined me at the bar, which I didn’t know the Town Hall had. I didn’t look to see who it was initially, so to me, it was just another random, getting a drink.

“I gotta say, for the pony who’s the whole reason we’re having this party, you’re not being very interactive.”

“I gots a lot on my mind.”

“Oh really? Like what?”

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

“You won’t laugh?”

“I’ll try not to.”

I sighed, then explained, “About twenty four hours ago, I was a guy.”

“Sorry, what?”

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

“It’s not that. It’s just… not something you hear every day.”

“You can say that again.”

“I suppose it is possible though. Being a unicorn, I know that magic is capable of loads of things. Is it just physical or what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, do any of the mares here attract you?”

I looked behind me at the female dominated party, and considered the question.

“I… think so.”

I turned to finally realise who I was talking to.

“Wait, I’m getting life advice from THE Vinyl Scratch?”

“I’m not that famous, am I?”

“You’re famous enough."

She blushed… It looked cute… Yeah, definitely still into girls. The fact that they were ponies didn’t seem to bother me. Maybe it was the insane amount of drinks. It had got to the point where the bar attendant wouldn’t serve me anymore. Not my fault I still had my human (and part Irish) liver.

“Aw, shucks. If I didn’t already know Octy wasn’t into threesomes, you’d definitely be at the top of my list. I can tell you were telling the truth earlier. You’re a true gentlecolt.”

“It’s the British blood in me.”

“British? What’s that?”

“Oh, well, that’s another story altogether. Where is this Octy anyway? Perhaps I could… change her mind?”

“I’ve half a mind to let you try. She’s attending to my equipment while I get us drinks. I should really get back to her. The flashing lights confuse her.”

“Oh… ok.”

“If you're still here when my last couple songs are on, I’ll introduce the two of you.”

“I should think I’ll last that long.”

I dunno. That mare over there’s been checking you out since before I showed up.”

I turned in the direction Vinyl nodded to. There danced a plum coloured pony, looking off elsewhere, having obviously just turned her head suddenly.

“So she is. Well, I’ll see you later maybe Miss Scratch?”

“Please, call me ‘V’. And yeah, maybe you will.”

She gave a provocative grin and left the bar, two drinks levitating alongside her. I decided I’d get more involved with this party. It was for me after all. I downed the remains of the last drink I’d been allowed, then approached the mare.

I opened my eyes to find a familiar... landscape?... before me; one of solid pearly clouds and endless sky in all directions. I knew where I was. It seemed I’d failed Kayla’s request without even talking to Arky once since coming to. Looking down, I took some relief in being a man again

“I’m… sorry I didn’t warn you about… what happened to your… you know…,” Kayla’s voice got quieter as she spoke.

“It’s fine. Not like it’s a problem now anyway,” I replied, looking for the source of the voice.

Kayla was sat on the edge of the cloud above, looking down while sipping from one of those cardboard coffee cups.

“Erm, well… I never said you only had one shot. I’m going to be sending you back soon. Just have to wait for the right time. Can’t have you just jumping up alive next to an apparent rock wielding pony.”

“Yeah, that was a tad bit scary.”

We both chuckled, and then there was an awkward silence.

“So… What’s that you’re drinking?”

“Oh this? It’s Tim Hortons coffee. Wanna try some?”

“I don’t drink coffee. Theorised that if I did, I’d break the speed of sound, I’d get that hyper. I drink Hot Chocolate though; does Tim’s do Hot Choc?”

“Sure. Here.”

Another cup appeared by my head, which I caught and drank. Boy was it good!

“You know, we could make some changes to this drab place.”

“Really? Like, can we add NPCs? And our own landmarks?”

“Yeah. Like that game… what’s it called?… Minecraft? But with less effort.”

“Sweet.”

So, we started planning a little village to kill the time we had left. I got the impression from Kayla I’d be seeing her a lot. I failed to see the foreboding. At the end of it all, to send me back, she had me struck by lightning. It hurt. She laughed. I suppose she has to have her fun somehow.

Correction, it wasn’t the lightning that hurt, it was the defibrillator the doctors in Ponyville hospital were zapping me with.

“ARGH!”

“What in the-” The Doctor’s hooves slipped, defibbing me again.

“ARGH! Dammit man, stop that!”

The equipment was put away by a couple of nurses, the doctor continuing to stare at me in disbelief.

“What’s wrong? Never succeeded in bringing someone back to life before?”

“No- I mean yes- I mean… I’ve succeeded before… It’s just… usually they only start breathing again. Nopony’s ever come back as if they’d woken from a nap.”

“Well, you see something new every day. What happened anyway? One minute I’m getting it on with some fine lady, the next, electrocuted for medicinal purposes.”

“You started coughing up blood into the poor mares mouth then dropped to the ground. You were officially dead when we pushed you through the hospital doors. We believe it was internal bleeding. We only tried resuscitating you because your heartbeat came back faintly. Do you know how this could have happened?”

“Probably when I tried killing myself by jumping off a cliff.”

“WHAT!?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m fine now.”

I hopped off my hospital bed, ignored the doctor’s insisting voice, saying something about check-ups and so on, and trotted out the front double doors of the building; albeit 30 minutes later (Hospitals are cleanly mazes of doom!). I let the early morning light pierce my eyes, as everything around me sunk in. The smells, the townfolk, the strange happy-go-lucky atmosphere. Can’t say I’m used to that yet. What a depressing thought. I shook my head, nipping the depression in the bud. I set off in the direction of the town centre.

Wounded Hearts

As I watched the curtains get pulled over Tyler, a wave of shock washed over me as we just witnessed our pilot’s heart fail. I’ve seen things die before. Things like animals and such. But I’ve never witnessed an actual human death before. And up close, for that matter. Trying to hide the look of shock was a bit of a challenge for me but I believe no one noticed it on me.

The doctor stuck his head out from behind the curtain. “Nurse, we’re going to need this room cleared! Get everypony who can walk outside into the hallway, NOW!”

Before I knew it, almost everyone was pushed out into the hallway. The doors slammed behind me and we all heard muffled shouts and rushing hoofsteps coming from the room, but as soon as it started, it died down.

The doctor poked his head out of the room and said, “I’m sorry for moving you all out here like this, but for now we need as much space as we can to make sure we can keep your... ‘friend’ alive. The nurse will direct you all to the lobby.”

Right then, a nurse came from the same room and lead us all into the lobby, where we sat in silence. A sense of dread and awkwardness filled the air as no one made a sound. That, and the smell of fecal matter coming from that peppermint-colored pony we all kept at a distance.

We all sat by ourselves, excluding the girl (or should I use the term mare now?) and the creepy guy with a razor blade for a cutie mark. It seemed strange, though. I never saw anybody like that get on the plane.

I took to my own spot in the room and looked around at everybody, just staring at nothing and wondering what was going to happen. I took a look over to this one certain person (or should I use pony now, this is getting really confusing) and he looked like he had a lot on his mind.

It was that same pony that was crushing me during the crash landing. He was just sitting there smiling and giggling, and I was thinking that he had already lost it. So out of curiosity, I picked myself up and trotted (Yes, I’m using pony terms now) over to where he was sitting. Even when I was right in front of him, he didn’t seem to notice me, which wasn’t really news to me at all.

“You okay, little dude?” I asked him. He still didn’t seem to notice me. I asked a bit louder and nudged him in the shoulder, and he stopped talking and looked up, surprised, and still not noticing me somehow.

“What? Huh? Who?” He stopped when his eyes landed on me. “Oh, Quad! Sorry, what were you saying?”

I was confused for a moment when he called me Quad, but then I remembered that it was the name I’ve given myself.

“I asked if you’re okay. You seem to be acting like... well, me on one of my walks.” I said, chuckling. It’s a habit for me to do that, but I don’t really want to break it anytime soon.

He looked into my eyes with his sparkly globes of magnificent innocence, smiling like no other. “Oh my Celestia, I am doing just fabulous! Thank you, friend! Say, now that we’re ponies, care to join me for lunch and, perhaps, the beginning of an excellent friendship?”

“Uh, I think that friendship already started when you lunged for me at the crash site.” This kid was weird, but I’ve been used to it for so long, it doesn’t bother me. “So what exactly do you think of the situation at hand?” I ask, sitting down next to him.

“By Luna, I love it! Everything is so fantastically, spectacularly, beautifully ponified! Ah! I can’t take the ponies!” he said, apparently feigning a heart attack and falling over. Or maybe he actually had a heart attack, but soon he swiftly shot up, a grin smeared all over his pallet of a face. “I love it,” BP concluded, whispering.

Seeing this reaction from him, I could safely say he was one of those die-hard fans of the show.

“That’s great and all, but I was actually talking about the situation right now with one of us dying.” I felt a bit awkward making that statement while he still felt happy.

“Oh, right, that! Yeah, that’s cool too, I guess!” he waved a hoof, either not really paying attention or he really meant it. I hoped it was the former, or else things could get complicated between  him and everypony else who was on this flight.

I picked myself up. “I’ll see you later, uhmm...” He must’ve noticed that I didn’t know his name, because he interrupted me saying “Oh, my name is Brony Pony, but I would love it if you called me BP!”

I chuckled sheepishly and rubbed my hoof on the back of my head and nearly falling over since I still wasn’t used to this body. I regained my composure and replied “Thank you BP. I’m Quad Ruple, in case you didn’t know.”

“Oh, I know your name already!” He said cheerfully. “Remember? I said it earlier!”

Oh fuck, he’s right, I thought to myself. I suck at remembering names. I said my goodbye once more, along with an apology, and went off.

There wasn’t really much room I could go to, at least not leaving the lobby that is. The only thing I could do was interact with the others (please note, I’m not very sociable) sitting around me and many of them were sleeping, except for those two ponies I saw earlier and the one covered in shit.

As I was thinking, a voice called out to me, “Hey you. Peckerwood.” I look over to see the fecal pony calling out to me. “Can you come over here for a minute?” He asks.

“Well, um... Sean, is it?”

` Come to think of it, I hadn’t heard Sean say his new name in front of the princess.

“It’s Static X Charge, now.” he said, as though just coming up with it. I guess not all of our names came so suddenly.

“Well, Static...I would rather stay over here if you wouldn’t mind.” I reply.

“Come on. You get used to the smell and we don’t want to wake the others” He made a point, so I took a deep breath and trotted over to where he was sitting. I sat down next to him and took a breath. I almost gagged when the smell hit my snout. It was not something anypony could get used to and it never would be. I felt sorry for this stallion.

“So... What did you need to see me about?” I asked, trying not to vomit against the smell.

He looked over at me and nudged his head over to BP. “Did you know that guy from before?”

“You mean from before the crash?”

“Yeah.”

“No. Not really.” The question made me curious to ask. “Why? Do you?”

The fecal pony smiled, “Talked to him every day, pretty cool dude.”

“Did he ever seem oblivious or something during your talks?” I ask, hoping for a yes.

The fecal pony nodded, “But I think its better for him to be like that, so many things in this world that are cruel and uncaring. I’m glad he’s like that.”

A sense of relief spreads across my mind. “So... How exactly are you taking all this?”

The fecal pony sighed, “Not well...trying to decide if this or real or not, dealing with the realization that I’ll never be able to listen to heavy metal again...knowing that I’ve lost my friends and family, still trying to find one of the bronies in our group, I know he’s around here.”

Listening to this made me feel bad for us all. I couldn’t say that we all had good lives back then I could guess that most of us did. I tried to cheer him up with a little optimism. “Come on, man. We don’t exactly know that. This is Equestria! The land of magical talking ponies! I’m sure that if we managed to find a way in, we can find a way back out.”

The fecal pony sighed, “Who said I wanted to go back? I don't mind living here, just scared of what I’d do to the innocence in this perfect...perfect world.”

“Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Let’s just worry about more current matters at the moment.”

“Like what? The almost dead prick back there? Why should I care about him?”

“Because he...” Nothing was coming to mind. After everything that happened, he gave no good reason as to why we should care about whether he lived or not. Nopony here looked like they wanted to go back, so him flying us back was out of the question. And really if he did die, it would make things easier for us to live a new life in here if we all ignored our connection to him. Would save us a lot of questions.

But it wasn’t really his fault that it happened. He had a spasm and nopony died. We’ve all had a rough day and we need a break. Him more than us. I didn’t want to think that he deserved it. Not now at least. I finally knew what to say.

“Because he’s the one who brought us here. He’s also the one that made sure we got out of that plane crash alive. And if he would care enough to make sure you were still breathing, the least you could do is do the same.”

The fecal pony laughed “I'm good, he’s just another body to add to the graveyard... Well I’m going to find myself a shower, fuck ya later.” The fecal pony got up and walked out of the room, causing some of the ponies to wake and gag when he walked by them. After the air got clean again, they closed their eyes to drift back to sleep.

I was left speechless as he walked away. I never really met anybody like that before in my life. I’ve read this type of character in many stories before, but meeting one on one in person (Or pony? God it’s confusing) left me with an empty feeling in my chest. I needed to get away from everybody, to think to myself for a moment. Noticing that nopony was paying any attention to me, I picked myself up off the floor and trotted towards the hallway.

Unfortunately though, BP saw me and asked “Oh, are you going somewhere, Mr. Ruple?”

I look at him, my mind still processing what just happened and replied “Just on a walk, BP.”

“May I come with you?” he asked, his head tilting to one side.

“No. I want to be alone for now.”

I went into the hallway hospital wing of the castle and forced my mind to go off into it’s own little world. I became oblivious to my surroundings and others around me. Mumbles and small giggles escaped my mouth as I walked along.  This habit of mine makes me happy, but most people think I’m weird when I do this. I don’t care anymore,  but I never cared before when it came to things like this. I like being happy.

You’re definitely not going insane. I thought to myself. And so I escaped reality, my body on autopilot going wherever it pleased, excluding outside of the hospital wing.

I walked down the long hallway of the infirmary, humming a peaceful tune. “Now where would a young boy like myself find a shower?” I asked myself as I walked down the hallway. It wasn’t fun smelling like a plane’s shit tank. I walked around the infirmary for a little bit until I found a doctor. I walked up to this doctor and asked if he knew where a shower was, and he said that there’s one upstairs on the left side of the floor. I thanked him and headed towards the stairs. I entered the second floor and started my hunt for the showers, it took me a few minutes but I found it. There were individual showers lined up with glass panels covering them for then no one could see inside of the showers.

I smiled and looked inside one of the showers. It had a bottle of shampoo and a bottle of conditioner, plus a scrubbie “Thank you, Luna.” I reached my hoof inside of the shower and turned the nozzle to the shower to the right, causing the water to spray from the shower head. After a few minutes of trying to get the right temperature, I finally got it. I smiled and hopped in the shower, enjoying the warm water spraying the shit and piss off of my coat.

After spending half an hour rinsing the piss and shit off of me, I was finally clean and got the smell off of me. I walked over to a nearby mirror and looked into it, this was the first time I actually seen my new form. I had a white coat with red zebra-like stripes running down my body, but they looked like cuts instead of stripes, almost like those peppermint candies everyone’s grandma seemed to have an infinite stock of. My mane and tail were black with blue highlights. “Damn...I look alot better in this form then my human form, I even lost most of my fat and gained it in muscle.” I smiled and walked out of the room containing the showers.

I walked through the infirmary, enjoying being clean again

I hate hospitals.

There’s just no way to be comfortable in a building that smells like sanitation, sickness, and death. No matter what the situation is, if you’re in a hospital, you’re in pain.

And then, of course, you have the whole “psychosis diagnosis” that occurs every now and then. I can tell you from personal experience that those suck ass. Overall, I’m not happy.

I glance over at Tod. He’s scanning the other passengers. Judging by his expression, he’s not impressed. No big shock there. He rarely is.

I turn away to stare out the window, but look back quickly as he starts. Quad’s moving over to BP. I swivel my ears in their direction, laughing on the inside as I do it. It feels so weird, like I’ve got tubes of cardboard stuck to the sides of my head. Still, I’m glad I got them. Eavesdropping is so much easier to do when you can turn both of your ears to the direction of the sound.

I’m not sure what to make of the two of them. BP’s a little too giddy for my taste, but Quad seems okay. That doesn’t guarantee anything, though. I’ve known plenty of people who acted nice until I was with them alone.

Tod loses interest quickly. He looks back at me a bit cautiously. I smile at him and wink. I know exactly what he’s worried about. I don’t usually cope with stress well. And I’ve got a rather...obvious way of showing my discontent. The carnage that usually follows it...well, if you saw it, you’d understand his worries.

He nods in acknowledgement and moves closer to me, just to be sure. I almost flinch away, but stop myself at the last moment. Whenever he touched me before, there would only be some sort of odd warmth, but nothing other than that. Now I can feel his pelt rub against my skin. It’s a bit jarring.

Tod crinkles his nose in disgust as the pony covered in shit moves around and fans his scent in our direction. He glances back at me with a small smirk. “Aren’t you glad that I made you use the restroom before we left?” he asks.

“You could say that.” I laugh.

“So, do we have a plan? Or did you barge into this without a clue about what you’re doing?”

“The latter.”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Why did I expect anything other than that?”

“Because you hope I’ll know better some day. But I never will, so you can stop hoping now.” I nudge his stomach playfully and he swats my hoof away.

We watch as the crap-pony stands up and wanders off. “Good riddance.” Tod grumbled. “If I wanted to smell shit, I’d stand by a trench.”

“Hopefully he’s looking for a shower.” I sigh. “If it smells bad from over here, just imagine how bad it is for him.”

I look over my shoulder to the room where our pilot is currently dying. I should probably be shaken up by this, but after all my years with Tod this sort of thing doesn’t faze me. I still feel a bit bad about it, though. He finally got to someplace awesome, and his ticker times out. Luck’s a bitch.

What I’m really worried about is the fate of my pen-pal. I don’t see him anywhere. He’s probably alive. Hopefully alive. I’m a bit pissed at him for forcing me to go down with the ship, but I don’t want him dead. But he’s probably fine. He just didn’t wake up in time to join our group, that’s all.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it unless proven otherwise.

I should be over the moon right now, but I don’t feel particularly happy. Yeah, Tod becoming real is pretty damn awesome, and I’m  thrilled about having wings, but currently all I feel is anxious. This might’ve been a mistake. I don’t know what I’m going to do or where I can stay, what’s acceptable, what’s forbidden, how to move around...it’s like I’m a toddler all over again, and I don’t like that feeling.

And then there’s the fact that the authorities back in good ol’ Arizona are definitely going to blame my disappearance on my parents. As much as I hate to admit it, some small, primeval, and incredibly stupid part of me still cares about them. But there’s really nothing I can do about them. This might have been a mistake, but there was no way in hell that I’d be going back to the asylum. I chose to go on this trip not only for the laughs, but for the small chance that I might get a chance to start over. I’ve got that chance now, and there’s no way I’m going to give it up.

The clicking of hooves snaps me back into reality. Banterful and Quad are heading our way. Tod sits upright and narrows his eyes. I smile at them and elbow him in his side. We’re all screwed here. There’s no point in not being nice. “Hiya, you two are Shadowed Rainbow and Wolfy Hige, right?” Phrase asked.

Quad looked over at BP and stared blankly at him. “I know I’m not good with names but I’m pretty sure they’re not Shadowed and Wolfy.” He looked back towards Tod and I.

“Er..no. I’m Ghostly Glow and this here is Tod.”

“Oh, alrighty! Wait, I don’t remember a Tod! Oh my Celestia, is he a native?” BP shouted erratically.

“No.” Tod answered flatly, sporting an expert poker face. Well, at least he wasn’t trying to stab anyone yet.

“Wait, so if he’s not native to this place, and he didn’t come along with us on the plane, where is he from?” Banterful Phrase asked. He then gasped and continued, “Oh, is he from Zebraland?”

“Um...you mean Zebrica, right?” I asked. Tod glared at Banter, and I could hear him growling about a zebra-mane joke and how stupid it was. I elbowed him again-hard, this time- and said “From what I know, he was my imaginary friend, and then some weird magic happened and now he’s real.” Weak explanation, but hey, state what you know.

Quad’s eyes widen a little and his smile grows a little bigger. “Really?! That’s awesome! An imaginary friend come to life. Now you know somepony has your back.”

“Yeah, you could say that..” I chuckle. Tod grants him a strained smile, but says nothing.

Quad nods a little without saying much more. BP then took the talking wheel, saying, “Whoa, like, he came to life just like that? What if other stuff became organisms back at the plane? We totally have to go check!”

“I doubt that.” Tod deadpanned, going back to his emotionless state. “I was alive before the crash. Unless someone else had someone with them in the same state, then I’m the only new pony.”

“I would doubt someone else had a friend like Tod. Anyway, what do you guys think about the situation?” Quad asks.

“It’s a bit sketchy. I mean, it’s awesome and everything, but I’m not sure if I can settle myself in a totally different culture. I barely fitted in anywhere at home...I don’t think I’ll be able to do the same here.”

Tod shrugs. “It’s nice to be noticed again. Other than that, I have no opinions as of yet.”

“Yeah, I get what you’re saying, Tod. As for the not fitting in, well... Really, I don’t think the others here will have an easy time fitting in too. We’re all too different so while we might not be able to fit in with the ponies, at least we can fit in with the group here hopefully.”

“It’s not so much as being different...” I began, but Tod shot me a warning glance. It probably wouldn’t be wise to mention my previous problems. I smiled sheepishly and shrugged.

“Uhh, I won’t ask if you don’t want to talk about it... Do you think the pilot will make it? Because part of me is starting to doubt he’ll come out okay.”

“He’ll live” Tod stated. “I’ve seen people come back from worse.”

Quad looks at Tod quizzically. “Weren’t you basically brought into existence right after the plane crash?”

“Not quite...”

“Did you and Ghostly, like, share bodies?” BP asked excitedly, hopping in place. “Was Tod always a pony, or was he a human?”

“We’d rather not talk about that. Touchy subjects, long story.” I said quickly, glancing over at Tod nervously. He had tensed up, and his face was starting to contort into a dark scowl.

“Sorry about that. We won’t pry.” Quad throwed a suspicious glance towards BP. “Or at least I

won’t.”

“Oh, but I really, really wanna know! Please?” BP whined.

“BP it’s not polite to get into other people’s business. Especially if it’s private.” Quad told BP

“It’s definitely private, so...um...LOOK!! IT’S A DISTRACTION!!” I pointed my hoof in a

random direction, and they both turned quickly to look. “Oh, you missed it.” I sighed. “Better luck next time.”

“By Luna, what was it? Was it a pony? An alicorn! A pegasus! Were they wearing clothes?

Were they on fire?” Banterful pressed, stoically facing in the mentioned direction.

“Um...they were running from...a Shoggoth. Yeah. A Shoggoth.”

“A sloth? I don’t think sloths could really chase anypony very successfully, Ghost, in fact, I think you’re lying! Why would a sloth even be in a hospital?” Phrase misphrased.

“Not a sloth, a Shoggoth. Y’know, huge purple-black shape-shifting monster covered in green eyes?” I asked hopefully. Please tell me you read Lovecraft...

“I’ve never heard of that! Is it, like, some kind of Changeling? Oh my Celestia, did you write a

fanfic about it and now it became real?” BP stuttered in a mockery of fear.

“It’s not a Changeling. And I didn’t write a fanfic about them.” I deadpanned. “She did, however, summon one.” Tod snickered. I glared at him. “I thought we agreed never to speak of it again!”

“If I recall correctly, it ate the Headmistress’s cat.”

“Tod!” I protested.

“You should’ve seen the look on her face when this huge abomination started twisting her precious kitty around like a towel.” he smirked. “I never heard someone scream so loud.”  

“Whoa, what?” BP asked, actually stunned.

“I didn’t know it was actually the real Necronomicon! I mean really, who puts that out where any kid could get it?!” I squeaked.

“Well, they certainly couldn’t get their hands on it after that.” he laughed.

“Shut up!”

“Whoever put it that way must have been really irresponsible with it.” Quad mumbled to himself.

“Wait, Necronomicon? That’s a book I’ve heard about! You summoned something from it? No way! Hold on, did you summon that sloth?” Banterful Phrase asked, stated, and shouted.

“My only regret was that she didn’t summon Yog-Sothoth before they took it from her.” Tod cackled.

“It was an accident!! I swear!!” I yelped. That’s when I noticed everyone was now awake and staring at us.

Oops.

Well... Shit.

Wrong Side of the Bed

            Canterlot opened before the new ponies outside the hospital window. Observer felt as though he had reached the outskirts of El Dorado, and instead of gold, the streets were paved with cotton-candy-colored pastel goodness.

         While the birds outside were chirping perfectly in tune. Glitternight was inside while the doctors were busy droning on about Arky who laid still on the hospital bed.  There was no family there for him, or any of them for that matter (she knew how that felt), so she stood in where his sister or mother would, listening to the doctor's diagnosis- a diagnosis that was, in short “we have no idea what the buck just happened”.

         She didn't know how she managed to heal him or Omega that one time. It just happened. So, without her new found abilities, she wasn't as much help as she hoped to be. However, her conscience wouldn't allow her to be anywhere else.

         As Observer stared out at the glorious view of the window and the doctors droned on for what seemed like hours about how they had no clue what was going on, Omega made his way into Archangel's room, wincing with each step, but for the most part healed on account of the Unicorn magic. The same pang of guilt that emanated through her spine when she saw Archangel’s face bandaged after the cleaning, shot through her stomach as Omega limped into the room.

         “Come on, Glitternight.” Omega said.

         She smiled apologetically to the doctors before hissing through clenched teeth, “Not now, I'm busy.”

         As she turned back to the doctors, who carried on with their business as though they were never interrupted, he rolled his eyes and limped closer. “Hana. There's nothing we can do for him now but wait. Listening to them go on about a species they've never even heard of won’t help.”

         She looked at Archangel's bandaged form, sprawled against the bed, spewing machinery. It had been but 5 hours since the crash, and Archangel hadn't opened his eyes a wink since-- the others had all moved on, each of them hopeful, of course, for the life of the man that had saved theirs, but safely unexpectant, trying not to expect too much to protect their hearts from disappointment's sting. Some had gone out to explore the wonders of the beautiful world outside the castle, wander through Canterlot, or to heal their own wounds. Out of the rest, it seemed only Silver Sea still waited for his fallen hero, and he limped outside the door, pacing with no end in sight.

         As Archangel's bodily functions came unglued piece by piece, the hope they had for him grew thin. But for those who still waited, hope was all they had that this man they knew so little of (but enough to figure that he would lay down his life for 17 strangers) would live to see another ponified day.

         She reluctantly apologized to the doctors and made her way out of the room. The castle was vast, but filled to the brim with buzzing guards and maids, keeping the marble and ivory walls in their tip-top shape, sparkling and gleaming with the shine of the moon and sun. For the first time she noticed the tiled mosaic on the ceiling, in diamond and rubies, making the shape of a glimmering moon and blazing red sun, circling each other. The images seemed even to move, and upon seeing what she thought was the man in the moon winking back at her, Glitternight looked away, rubbing her eyes. “Unicorn magic.” she muttered, and Omega smiled at her.

         Indeed she had spent so much time in Archangel's room, she had missed out on Omega's healing process. The cuts and scratches on his face had disappeared, and for the first time, she could see the silky fur on his face and chin without the matting of scabs and blood and his eyes shined back at her in a rejuvenated splendor. It was a huge relief for her to see him like this, healed, and back to his old self, (if a little more hairy). “Come on, Hana.” he said, and she smiled the way she always smiled when he said her name. “Let's go out. There's a park around the corner. I grabbed our lunch to go. You need to get out of here.”

         She peered through suspicious eyes at him. Omega Darkness was not the kind to set up a surprise picnic. “Why the sudden romance?”

         “That's not important, my dearest love.” His toothy smile scared her more than anything.

         “What did you do?”

         “Well... Remember when you said you would be in the east wing yesterday?”

         “Yeah, why?”

         “And remember when I was late?”

         “...Yeah, why?”

         “Well, I got lost in the west wing... and, well.... There's a really dark room in the west wing, and I thought you were in there, and well, your fur was REALLY soft, and you were really warm, and I started kissing your neck, you know, like this...” he stops to peck the side of her neck, and she melts slightly. “and your moans started sounding really weird, but I wasn't gonna stop, and then well--”

         “What are you talking about?!”

         “It was Luna.”

         Glitternight's eyes opened wide, first with shock, then with anger, until she finally started laughing loudly, snorting in a fit of giggles. “You can't be serious.”

         “I'm totally serious.”

         “But Luna... she's sexiest pony!” Glitter caught a few stares from nearby guards.

         “Correction,” He said with a charming smile. “Luna WAS sexiest pony. I got the sexiest pony in all of Equestria right in front of me.”

         “Where is she?!” Hana turned on her hooves, growling at the wall behind her making Omega laugh.

         “I mean you, woman!”

         She turned back to him and smiled. “So let me guess. The guards are after you and are trying to get you thrown in prison?”

         “No, Luna understood the mistake. But I figured I should make myself scarce anyway. But there is one thing you should know about Luna.”

         “What?”

         “Her” (whisper whisper whisper) “is a lot less” (whisper whisper) “than yours.” He winked and left a baffled and blushing Glitter grinning like an idiot behind him.

         It was about a minute before she regained her composure and followed him onto the castle grounds.

         The grass had never looked so green to either of them, and the butterflies seemed to sparkle,  as if rubies and emeralds were embedded in their wings. Anything that they once thought amazing about Earth was tenfold the more splendid here. But while it may be glistening and brilliant, it wasn't even close to home. The gates outside the castle looked like crocheted silver and gold, and the intricate lines made the shapes of the three Princess's cutie marks on the glamorous wall. As they walked out of the gates, they heard a familiar giddy voice squealing nearby.

         The street corner was most possibly the busiest in all of Canterlot, being less than a block from the castle walls. Guards (more so than usual in response to the arrival of the Mighty Canuck's “aliens”) littered the streets and the posh, primp, ponies poured out of the buildings surrounding the corner, scattering across the road by the hundreds. And right smack dab in the middle of all the excitement was Banterful Phrase, standing near the library, his hooves quivering with joy.

         He ran from one pony to the next in a frenzied fit of giggles, hugging each one, even going as far as to pet a few manes. One primp grey pony with a monocle scoffed as BP's hoof rubbed against his head like an autistic girl at a petting zoo, and muttered “How would you like it if I did that to you?!”

         BP responded with the largest “Christmas morning” smile in existence squealing, “Oh my Luna! Would you? I would love that! Thank you so much, Mister!” He bent his mane down for the other to pet.

         The older pony groaned something about “Lower-class”, leaving a confused BP behind.  “Oh, okay then, Mister! Maybe a different time.” He smiled to himself, humming the tune of Octavia's Overture as he hopped to his next victim.

         He grabbed Omega and squeeze-hugged the rib that was broken no more than a few hours ago. “Argh! Sonofabitchthathurtslikeshitwhatthefuck--”

         As Reuben went on his rant, Glitternight pulled BP off of him. “Banterful! What are you doing?! You're hurting him!”

         “Oh my Celestia! I didn't mean to-- Oh, hi Glittlernight!-- hurt him! I'm ever so sorry! But still, he was just so soft and cuddly and, well, ponytastic!”

         “What are you doing out here anyway, BP?” Reuben muttered as Glitternight rubbed his side.

         “I just wanted to make sure everypony in Canterlot knows that we love them, and that ponies are the greatest, and that they are better than humans and that they are SOOOOOOOO cool and that--”

         “Whoa, whoa, BP slow down there. You'll hurt yourself. And honestly, I think you might be scaring the ponies away. You should try a more subtle approach. Like, well, instead of hugging them right away, how about introducing yourself first?” Glitternight shot a motherly smile at him.

         “Good idea!” He leaped to a sky blue pony sitting in an outdoor cafe, and smiled endearingly at him. “Hello, I'm Banterful Phrase! Nice to meet you! Who are you?”

         The blue pony scoffed back, saying poshly, “I am above your station and wondering why you are even speaking to me.”

         “Well that's an interesting name,” beamed BP. “Nice to meet you, Above Your Station and Wondering Why You Are Even Talking To Me! How are you doing?”

         Omega stepped in front of BP, scowling at the prim pony. He then cleared his throat and tried at his best impression of a David Tennant accent. “Your real name, sir,” he began, “Should have been Useless Pile Of Scum That Nopony Likes.”

         The blue pony looked appalled. “Well, I NEVER! How dare you--”

         “Quite easily, actually.” Omega grinned as his horn started glowing very, very slightly. “Or perhaps your name is Mommy Issues. Or maybe even My Parents Liked My Brother More Than Me And I Use Horn Enlargement Spells To Overcompensate For Something.”

         The sky blue pony's eyes swelled with tears and he ran off, crying something that sounded much like “Mommy, why?!!!” while BP shouted after him, “It was nice meeting you!”

         Glitternight stared at Reuben wide-eyed as his horn stopped glowing. “What the hell was that, babe?”

         He smiled at her. “I'm not sure, but my head hurts.... totally worth it though.” He looked towards the nearby park. At her unchanged shock, he threw on a fake British accent. “Let's carry on, Love. We are still British! We drink our tea and such.” She giggled and followed him.

         They ran past Lavender Wave. She was sitting with her quill, trying to figure out how to hold the damn thing, let alone use magic to move it. She had been practicing with magic most of the time they were there, like many of the passengers who had been turned into unicorns, but the most she could get the pen to do with her horn was quiver a bit, making a splotch of black ink on her parchment. When she did hold it with her hooves, she had to use two of them and sit on her rump, pressing her forehooves together and scribbling on a page. She groaned as her unicorn magic pressed the pen straight through the parchment. “How am I supposed to chronicle all this if I can't write?!”

         Near her, walking out of one of the boutiques was Code Junkie wondering whether or not he had made a good deal on the hat he just bought. Just how much was 30 bits anyways? He had approached the princess just hours ago with a five dollar bill crumpled in his hoof. He had thrust the paper in her face asking “So how many bits is this worth here?” The princess had laughed and pointed at a sign reading: Please Dispose of All Paper In The Recycling Bins.

         C.J then received the bits that the princess had distributed among everyone (about 600 or so, just for the week) and walked off sheepishly.

         As Glitternight and Omega made their way towards the park passing a greenhouse that captured the sun upon a hill. After staring at the entrance for a few minutes, they saw a hazy smoke seep through gaps in the doors. In a hurry, they raced into the greenhouse and in their fearful frenzy, saw what they least expected.

         Gripping to the glass walls were vines of every hue and scent, from the rainbow and putrid to the dark and sweet. Flowers erupted from the magical dirt. Timber-Wolf saplings mewed and whined in a pen, while poison joke changed a speedy squirrel into a slow motion oddity.

         But odder than everything else, on the floor laying down as calm as ever, was Ice Rune, huffing on a roll of some green plant that smelled incredibly familiar to the ex-humans.

         “Ed? Is that.... is that WEED?!” Glitter stood befuddled at the icy pony in front of her.

         Ice Rune stared at them calmly with a blank face for about thirty seconds before answering.

         “Yes.”

         Omega rolled his eyes. “Well how and WHY do you have weed?!”

         The Latvian stared for what seemed like a whole other minute before finally replying.

         “Yes.”

         Glitternight and Omega shrugged, backing out slowly and continued to stroll towards the green field, silently agreeing to never mention that again.

         However, before they made it, they heard a voice in the distance shouting out behind them. Observer was running to the point of being out of breath. “Glitter.... Omega..... the.... princesses.... they need.... us ….. right …. away.....and.... was that weed?.....”

         “Um, yeah, about that....”

         “Nevermind! Just come fast! It's Archangel!”

         Glitternight didn't need to hear another word. She galloped back towards the castle like a midnight bullet across the grass. Omega stood behind her, shouting for her to slow down before running after her as well as he could with his injuries.

         Observer galloped alongside them, explaining the situation. She could hardly believe her ears. How was this possible? What had happened?

         They busted through the golden gates, past the ponies of Canterlot, bystanders stuck in shock and awe. Finally, they arrived before the princesses, noticing that the rest of the Mighty Canuck's passengers had also been summoned, and seeing the looks of concern haunting the faces of every individual in the room.

         “Is it true?” Glitternight was the first to speak, out of breath and shaking.

         Princess Luna looked down, and her expression said it all.

         “What happened to him?!” Silver Sea stepped forward, tears streaming down his face.

         “There is no need to worry, young colt.” Princess Celestia smiled endearingly at him. “We have sent our guards after him, and Shining Armor won't rest until he has been found. I have also summoned from Ponyville my faithful student and her friends. They shall be here soon.”

         Banterful Phrase let out a soft gasp. “Twilight...”

         Glitternight regained her composure and looked the princess square in the eye. “So what now?”

         “Your leader has escaped.” Celesta said. “All we can do is wait.”

Books, Celestia I Love Books

        Sunlight alone lights up Canterlot Castle’s throne room, seeping in from various artistic windows. The floor reflects the arched ceiling above with its finely waxed surface, something that a lot of precisive effort had, at some point in time, been placed into. Stained glass windows positioned along the hall-like room, however, let in less light due to the translucent staining upon them which took the shapes of delicate art. Each window has its own color as well as picture; one depicting a solar system, others displaying portions of an earthly planet, such as bodies of water, land masses, and skies, while another window in particular shows off twinkling stars and webs of yellow in different shades. In the center of the long room rests a red carpet running all the way up to a regal throne on which creases fold and unfold as some of the ponies standing before the throne shuffle and move about.

        Princess Celestia’s eyes slowly graze the face of every pony in the room. Though her face remains in careful composition, her eyes purposefully allow a mixture of fear and alarm to become apparent, perhaps in hope to place her kingdom’s well-being at a visible forefront of her concerns. Banterful, meanwhile, struts up to her throne, swaying his hips and humming with sealed eyelids. “Hmm, how ‘bout we skip the exposition and get right to the ... plot?” he suggests, opening his eyes and wiggling his eyebrows outrageously, removing all seriousness from the flirtatious remark.

“Please, Phrase, I ask that you refrain from courting me. I think that it that it might be more important to concentrate on the task at hoof.” Celestia replies with a stern expression. She turns back to the rest of the group.

        With a gasp, Banterful scurries backwards and stops beside Denavian, harshly whispering, "She's totally desperate; we should go before she tries to ship herself with my flank!"

Denavian replies, ”Ummmm, I don’t think that’s what she meant, but whatever,” as they walk away from the throne room.

“I know many of you are most likely undergoing confusion, fear, or disbelief, but I need each of you to maintain composure and ...” the princess’ voice trails off as the two make their way semi-stealthily out of the throne room and away from the rest of the group.

        Once they enter the hall, Phrase spouts, “I’m going to hastily search the castle for interesting stuff! Ooh, or maybe I should go outside and explore Canterlot some more! Celestia knows I’ve done almost nothing of importance since we landed in Equestria! I mean, why wouldn’t she know? She’s been overlooking our entire stay here!

“Now that I think about it, I wonder if she minds our adventuring. ... Ah well, she’s a nice pony princess; what’s she going to object to? She certainly cared when our pilot guy went missing! Gee, I wonder why he disappeared. I can’t remember if Celestia even mentioned whether he left on his own accord or not! He could have just up and walked out! Although, if he did, I doubt there would be such a commotion!

“Hmm, maybe I should head to the kitchen before I check out anything else, because I haven’t eaten since this morning, when I found a patch of flowers and wondered if my new pony tastebuds would find them to be appetizing, which totally panned out as I expected it to! I have no idea how ponies make the artificial flowers that come from their restaurants and other food establishments taste so good when compared to the wild ones, but yeesh, those wild ones are bland when one takes notice of the difference! What about you? What are you going to do?”

        “Who, me?” Denavian slowly considers the query, glancing out at the usual bright sunlight out one of the evenly spaced windows along the left of the hallway. “I honestly have no clue, surprisingly enough. I seem to have lost my appetite considering the current events. I feel like relaxing, maybe hiding in a dark corner somewhere and reading a book. Wait a second, doesn’t this castle have a library?”

        “Uhhh, I think so! At least, in the first episode, Twilight was seen hanging around a library, but that might have been some kind of private one ...” his companion replies in a distracted manner as he examines the hall around him, flicking an ear and sniffling.

        “Well then, I suppose that’s what I’m doing. Might as well learn as much as possible; I have a feeling we’re gonna be here awhile. ‘Sides, I may be able to find the reason for our transportation into Equestria, and a possible way back home. You never know.”

        Banterful’s face contorts into an unusual frown for a second before he lights up and nods. He then raises a brow and purses his pony lips as he lifts his head and looks about for something while the two walk on. Spotting what he suddenly finds himself looking for, the extraordinarily excitable brony-turned-pony takes a sharp right at a hall intersection ahead and gallops towards a stallion in full guard regalia. “Hello, Mr. Guard Pony! I was hoping you could give us directions! We’ve been residing at this pony palace for some time now, but the location of every-” the red brony-pony gushes before the exasperated guard stuffs a hoof into his mouth.

        “I’m sorry, I’d love to help, but you’ll have to find help elsewhere. While I and the rest of the royal guard have been told by the princess to attend to the needs of you and the other strange ponies that have arrived here in Canterlot, I have already been tasked with making sure the mare in this here room remains undisturbed. I’ve spent too much time interacting with you, so I’m going to have to ask you to move on,” replies the straightforward stallion, removing his leg from BP’s mouth and moving back to his former position.

        “Look,” Denavian, who had been silently looking in on the conversation as he followed BP, speaks up, “All we need is some basic guidance to the library and the kitchen. I’m sure that a strong, handsome, and intelligent stallion such as yourself would easily be able to defend  against us two lost ponies should we try anything … tricky ...” smirking at the last spoken word.

        “Ahem, I suppose it wouldn’t be too much trouble just to point you in the right direction,” the guard replies, blushing slightly. “I can’t allow you civilians to just wander around the castle, who knows what mischief you might get into. The library is down that way about thirty doors, and the kitchen should be close by. It’s all in the Left Wing of the castle, where most of the everyday works go down.”

        “Thanks for the help.”

“No problem, it’s a guards duty to help all those who need assistance of all kinds.”

The orange-furred stallion smirked at Denavian. A pony-shaped shadow passes beneath BP and Denavian unnoticed, sliding under the same door the guard is protecting. “Aw yeah, speech success!” BP hoofpumps, going on to say, “Plus thirty experience points for Denavian! Now convince him to strip; I wanna see that orange coat-”

“BP!” Denavian grabs his friend into a headlock, stopping his ability of speech quickly before he says something even more damaging. “Don’t mind him, he never seems to know exactly when to stay quiet, you know?”

“Heh, it’s alright,” the guard pony laughs easily.

“By the way, I never got your name …” Denavian offers casually.

“It’s Flash Sentry,” Flash answers with a knowing wink.

        “Alright, cool. See ya later I guess, and thanks again for the help.”

        “And once again, no problem.”

        After releasing himself from Denavian’s grip, Banterful Phrase presses his forehead, mindful of his own horn, into the chest of his friend, urging them to move on in the prescribed direction. “Onward, valiant party-goers! To defeat the dragon, save the princess, and read all of the books we go!”

        “All right, all right, BP. Let’s go.” Denavian tries to keep himself from laughing at his friends’ enthusiasm and fails.

Banterful grins and blows a raspberry at Flash as he hops alongside Denavian towards their destination. However, before they go more than a couple meters away, Denavian suddenly asks BP to stand by before running back to Flash. “Hey, do you have a pen and paper by any chance?” Denavian asks politely.

        “Only a pen, why?”

        “Well, would you happen to have an address or some other way for me to contact you by chance?”

        “But of course,” Flash replies with a devious smile, quickly grabbing a pen out of some pocket in his armor and scribbling down an address on Denavian’s outheld forehoof.

        “Right, I guess I’ll see you later then.” Denavian grins at Flash before taking off back down the hallway to BP.

        Banterful Phrase smiles and rolls his eyes, heading for the library and kitchen area, setting a much faster pace. Suddenly, stopping them in their tracks once more, a feminine scream erupts from the same room the stallion had been keeping watch over. “Let’s pretend that didn’t happen! To the food and book places, away!”

        With that, the two stallions shrug civil responsibility away and trot on to the left wing of the castle, arriving in a matter of seconds, distancing a good two-dozen paces. BP excuses himself to grab a free meal from the kitchen while Denavian approaches the library’s glass doors, determined to wait for his fellow castle-explorer in front of the library. As he approaches, Denavian glances up towards the library, having been examining the royal carpeting beforehoof.

The wall that separates the library itself from the hall is made entirely of glass, which displays the breathtaking sight of books. It is not the same library that Twilight Sparkle had been known to visit during her time in Canterlot, for this particular one only has a single floor full of shelves that rise yards upward. On the outer edges of the shelves are tables and chairs, many of which are already full of ponies of all kinds, though most appear to be wearing clothing, as could be commonly seen around Canterlot Castle. The bookcases themselves are not straight rectangles of waxed wood, but rather curved and sloped towers of which the intricate designs shine through. Several wood-types and shades are meshed together magically, taking on a tree-like semblance while retaining the colorful contrasts. Lines of age and growth are etched into the bookcases as though they’re naturally grown, and each shelf takes a branchy inclining, the books resting at angles on their surfaces as though they are the natural fruits of book trees.

Denavian gazes with awe before a mare shoves past him to get into the library. Her cold coat roughly nudge his coat, shocking him back into the pony reality he’s only just becoming accustomed to. He moves out of the mare’s way, mouthing an apology, but frowning as she presses against the doors and steps into the library without giving him so much as a single glance. She tosses her head up and levitates her red and yellow scarf off her neck, telekinetically placing it into her bags while simultaneously pulling five books out, two of which are blue, the other three green, red, and grey, all the colors sharing the same, plain toning. Denavian squints his eyes, but can not make out the script on the covers of the books to his chagrin. He watches as the mare trots towards a counter on the right side of the library, near the wall he is peering through. She sets the books in a neat pile on the edge of the desk and rings a bell on the desk, though it’s absolutely silent to his ears.

Denavian watches an elderly stallion slowly make it over to the desk and say something to the mare. She pulls out a card and the stallion takes it, looking it over warily. Denavian presses his face to the glass, his eyes studying the two with interest before he is interrupted by the shout, “Hey buddy, I’m back! What’re you doin’?” from BP.

“Shh!” Denavian hushed BP, primarily by shoving his hoof into his mouth before he could utter another syllable.

Banterful gives Denavian’s hoof the most slobbery lick he can muster, holding it in place with both forelegs and winking sarcastically. “GAH!” Denavian reeled back, hastily wiping the saliva drenching his hoof on his red-brown coat. “Dude, that was just plain uncalled for!”

“I know! It’s amazing that I could do something like that and feel no shame whatsoever!” BP yells, throwing his hooves above his head excitedly. Dropping back onto all fours, Phrase sighs happily and pulls a plastic tray out from behind him, pushing it towards Denavian and stating, “I brought these crackers and cheesy creamy stuffs for you, if you want any! It’s alright if you don’t, though, cause I totally love crackers and cheese!”

“Yeah, sure BP, thanks.” Denavian says distractedly, giving his newly cleansed hoof an extra once over. “I really hope you didn’t lick off Flash’s address, I was kinda lookin’ forward to that. …”

“You’re welcome!” Banterful merrily yelps as he shoves the glass doors. “Let’s book this hallway!”

“Right,” Denavian chuckles mildly as he follows his friend into the Canterlot Library. “Book, I get it.”

        As a hoof-smudge appears on the glass, a gust of air rushing out of the higher pressured room carries the aroma of books, new and old, to the sensitive nose of a certain brony-pony, drawing him inward to the trove of knowledge hidden among the worn and well dusted shelves of the gigantic room. BP sneezes. “Well, I don’t need your stupid books anymore either way! I’m done wasting time in Equestria,” growls the same mare who had recently pushed Denavian. To top off her outburst, she telekinetically slams all five of her books onto the librarian’s desk and storms towards Denavian and friend.

        “Oh my Celestia, you are the prettiest pony I’ve yet to have seen! Ooh, lemme guess your name! Sunny Day, like the orange juice! Or maybe Bright Sun! Something to do with the sun! You have to be my new friend, you look like the happiest pony ever!” BP shouts as he bounces around tan-orange mare.

Looking around for another pony that the strange red colt might be talking to, she narrows her eyes. Eventually, she flicks her red and yellow mane and scoffs at Banterful, “Aw, cute; you wanna be friends with me?” the unnamed mare sarcastically asks, poking BP in the middle of his shirt with a hoof.

        “Most definitely! I’m so glad you understand!” responds Banterful, playfully messing with the mare’s tail.

        With an abrupt laugh, the brightly colored, but dimly tempered mare magically flips BP upside down and drops him on the ground before walking away from him in the direction of the doors. “Don’t waste my time.”

        Denavian immediately steps in front of the strange, hostile mare. “That wasn’t a very nice thing to do, ma’am,” Denavian says steadily, “I suggest you apologize to him; he meant no harm, after all.”

        With a huff, the pony charges up her magic, giving Denavian just enough time to dodge to the right, swearing viciously as a bolt of something or other whizzes through the spot he’d occupied moments before, hitting the carpet instead of its intended target. Rubbing his head, BP sits up and looks at the infuriated mare, interjecting, “Hey, um, can you teach me how to do that magic stuff? I want to be able to impress ponies and simplify daily deeds!”

        With a glint in her eye, Orange Pony turns to that silly colt and replies, “What is wrong with you?”

Denavian stood up, plainly irritated at the sudden disadvantageous turn of events. “Yo, lady. Could you kindly stop bullying him and pick on someone your own size eh? Or better yet, piss the fuck off!”

Rather than respond or even acknowledge Denavian, the sunny pony says, “Fine; lesson one in the art of magic,” before enveloping BP in magic that makes him grow steadily brighter. “Don’t mess with a unicorn that knows how to mess back.”

BP gets up and tries to step out of the light, finding that it emanates from himself. Library visitors all around begin to gasp and murmur, fearfully watching the bright display. Suddenly aware of the attention she is receiving from everypony in the library, Sunset drops her spell, the light dissipating as quickly as it appeared. “What are you all looking at?” she yells. “I wasn’t hurting him!”

Phrase looks back down at himself before gasping. “My coat!”

“Whatever. Have fun being sunbleached,” the mare grumbles as she begins to leave.

“Bitch,” Denavian mutters to himself as he dusts himself off.

Banterful looks himself up and down with interest, pushing his large bangs in front of his eyes and exclaiming, “My mane! It’s white!”

“This can’t be good; you’re completely sunbleached. How are we supposed to fix that?”

Banterful Phrase taps a hoof to his chin before shrugging. “Oh well! I don’t really care what color I am!”

“Maybe we could-”

“It’s always a book time! Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh ...” BP sings as he trots towards the librarian’s counter, changing the topic quickly. The library, after a silent pause, bursts into the unknown liveliness it had wielded only moments before the intrusion of the bronies, a soft murmur of over two dozen ponies milling about the premises, whispering to one another, and altogether enjoying themselves under the supervision of a visibly lax librarian.

Denavian finishes inspecting BP’s coat and strolls leisurely up to the librarian, going with the flow. “So, how on earth is this gorgeous library organized?”

“Hubba wha’?” the librarian asks in response, looking directly at Denavian with confusion.

“You know, silly! How do we look for specific books? Are there sections of the library? Is it alphabetical? Maybe it’s organized by that number system! I hope it’s not, though!” BP starts, pausing for Denavian to speak.

        “Yeah, the Dewey Decimal System sucks!” Denavian groans. “Too many freaking numbers! Seriously, I came to the library to read, not to puzzle out what a bunch of stupid numbers and decimals mean.”

        “You guys better do it differently than the humans do! Well, differently than the American humans! Or the Utahn humans! Actually, I have no idea if all the humans organize their books the same way or not. ... Do you know if all human libraries are organized in the same fashion? You look like you would; you own a library! I’ll bet you’ve read a lot more books than me! That might also be a fact because you’ve gotta be generations older than I!

“This is all under the assumption that you read a lot because you’re a librarian, though! Maybe you hate books! Are you miserable? You do have a lot of bags under your eyes, which means you’re not getting a lot of sleep, which in turn means that there’s something keeping you up at night! Although, you are kinda old! Say, how old-”

        Denavian quickly gags BP to stop the torrent of words that seemed to occur often with the incessantly cheerful unicorn. “I really hope I don’t have to do this everytime you open your mouth!” Denavian says to his companion before sighing good naturedly.

        The librarian blinks in confusion, looking between the two. “Er, what now?”

        “Books. How are they organized?” Denavian says slowly, as if talking to a four-year old.

        “Oh, well why didn’t you two say so?” the elderly pony more shouts then asks as he hobbles out from behind the counter. “Come along with me and I’ll show you the works. My name’s Ink Blot, by the way,” the old pony yells quietly, his voice frail with age. With a smile, he begins a snail-like pace towards the nearest shelf, which luckily sat not a yard away.

        “Old man Ink Blot! I love it! To knowledge we go! Woohoo!” BP shouts before being aggressively shushed by several ponies. “Sorry!”

        “So, Mr. Blot; what have you got when it comes to basic Equestrian history and magic?” Denavian asks.

        “Well, sonny,” Ink Blot looks over his shoulder at the brown colt. “Just what kinda small town library d’ya think this is eh? We’ve got everything from Equestria A-Z to Fifty Coats of Grey, if that’s your thing, heh heh.”

        “Everything is my thing, you know what I’m saying, old man Ink Blot!” BP yells in a whispered tone, nudging Blot as the stallion reaches for the nearest book on the shelf. While the harmless bump did nothing to stop the stallion from obtaining said book, it did annoy him enough to roll his eyes. “Hey, wait a minute! Equestria A-Z starts with an E and Fifty Coats of Grey starts with the letter F! If this library is organized alphabetically, then you don’t have a wide variety of books to offer!”

        “Yes, yes, whatever you say, young’un,” he mutters, pulling two books off the shelf. “Ah, haven’t read this is a while! Each bookshelf in this library is supposed to be organized by the time period it was written about. This is a mainly historic library, so you would expect this to be a great system, but I swear half of this place is for modern decade literature. It’s because of those darned country-folk that have been plaguing Canterlot ever since the ‘Elements of Harmony’ popped up and ‘saved us’ from the changelings. Now every Ponyvillian thinks they can just walk in and take over, asking the princess to make ‘accommodations’ for them! They know nothing about real culture, about history and important customs! Why, if I were in charge, I’d-”

        “Easy there, Inky. You’re doing it again,” interrupted a random mare. As she rests a hoof on Ink Blot’s shoulder, his tense muscles relax.

        “Sorry, those ponies just get me so worked up.” he replies, allowing the mare to take both the books from his hooves into her wings.

        “I know,” she speaks quietly before turning to Banterful and Denavian. “You’ll have to forgive him; he’s actually a really nice pony once you get to know him. I’m Flavour, by the way. What brings you two here?”

        “Well, I want to get some history books for my little brother. He’s been pestering me constantly to help him, so I finally decided to get some books just to get him to shut up.” Denavian lies easily.

        “I didn’t know you had a brother!” BP yells aloud, getting hushed again as Ink Blot walks away mumbling to himself.

        “Shut up BP!” Denavian whispers hurriedly. “Would you rather explain why we need beginner books on subjects we should already know?”

        With a smirk, Flavour holds out the books Ink Blot had pulled out of the shelf and begins trotting to the back of the library, speaking, “If you’re looking for history, why was Inky getting you Equestria A-Z and Fifty Coats of Grey?”

        “I have no clue,” Denavian says. “Ink’s the one who mentioned them.”

        Flavour chuckles and states, “Heh, that old stallion sure is one for a joke.”

        “Oh, I’m one for jokes as well! Do you know any?” BP interjects as they turn at the end of the library, heading into a hall created by a glass wall viewing the mountain and a tall bookshelf.

        “Mm, not particularly, no. Sorry to disappoint,” Flavour replies as she reaches into the bookcase.

        “So, why are you so inclined to help us? If you don’t mind me asking, miss.” Denavian asks their guide.

        Sifting between books, Flavour retorts, “Would you rather listen to old Inky ramble on about how no one cares about his library or appreciates culture? Besides, he needs to keep track of ponies checking in and checking out books, which he won’t be able to do very well in between shelves. Why do you ask?”

        “Just makin’ conversation.” Denavian calmly replies.

        “Oh, oh, I wanna make conversation! So, Flavour; how old are you?” BP asks with a wide grin.

        “Here we go,” Flavour says, sliding a book off her left wing and into the hooves of Banterful Phrase. “Clip Clop’s History Adventure. Perfect for three year-olds.”

        “Wow, we’ll be finished reading this in seconds!” BP exclaims, holding the book up to his face before setting it down quickly and continuing, “I mean, Denny’s brother will finish reading this in seconds!”

        “Heh, go ahead and read it, there’s no need to feel ashamed. What is there to hide?” Flavour asks accusing, tilting her head and raising a brow.

        “I have absolutely no Idea what you’re talking about,” Denavian replies innocently.

        “Yeah! Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve gotta go learn about history!” BP huffs before sticking out his tongue.

        “BP, that book is for three year olds,” Denavian says before turning to Flavour. “Umm, that book may be fine for a child to read on their own, but I need something easy to teach out of, but with large amount of information. Not something that is so basic a slime mold can understand it. No offense.”

        Dropping her smile, Flavour takes the book, puts it back, and moves up a shelf, dragging out a tome that makes Webster’s Encyclopedia of the World look like the Hungry Hungry Caterpillar. “Here, The Complete Guide to Equestrian History. It’s in the language of ancient Equestrian, but everypony’s taught that, so you two should have no problem. Enjoy.”

        Flavour walks away immediately, leaving the two unicorns with the impossibly large book. “Hey BP?” Denavian asks his companion, who is actually being silent for once. “You have any idea how to read Ancient Equestrian?”

        BP slaps open the cover of the book and plops on the floor contently, responding, “Psh, tch’yeah, of course! How hard could it be? It’s probably all, ‘ye, thee, nay,’ and stuff like that! No problem!”

        “Uh-huh,” Denavian grunts doubtfully, pointing at the page that BP just flipped to. The page is covered in an language that is a combination of hieroglyphs and runic, creating a page filled with what is probably huge amounts of knowledge to one learned in the language, but is completely unintelligible to these two ponies.

        “Oh. Hmm. Hey, that children’s book was written in English! Or modern Equestrian, whatever! Maybe if we just find another book from this same bookcase, since this is all on the same time period, we could find one written in a more recent time! Then we’ll be able to read it! I mean, what kind of library, especially one meant specifically for history, only has one complete history book?” BP says as he rifles through the same shelf The Complete Guide to Equestrian History came from.

        “Well, let’s hope the stuff for magic is written in English, not this Ancient Equestrian bullcrap."

        “Hey, I found something in my language!” BP exclaims as he struggles to drag out a thesaurus-sized book with only his hooves. “Hmm. It’s called Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Equestrian History but Were Too Afraid to Ask! This is perfect!”

        “Aw man. It’s only dictionary sized. We’ll never get anything useful outta that,” Denavian remarks sarcastically.

        “There’s no way we could read this by tonight, anyway! Well, there might be a spell for that, but we surely don’t know it! Now, let’s look for the magic stuff! I wonder where we could find a book on magic in a historical library!”

        “Let’s just head back to Ink and see if he can help us.” Denavian heaved a heavy sigh of defeat. They passed through the bookshelves in unusual silence. “Hey BP, you alright man?” Denavian asks his normally cheery friend. “You haven’t said a word since we found that last book.”

        Banterful looks up from the book Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Equestrian History but Were Too Afraid to Ask, having been reading it for the last several seconds, before responding, “Oh, uh, sorry! I was learning about history stuff! Look, here’s an illustration of what they thought the leaders of each pony race nation thingy looked like! They look ridiculous in those outfits!”

        “Cool!” Denavian exclaims looking at the picture that his companion's holding, depicting the three founders of what became modern Equestria. “They all look so regal, man. Look at those armor designs!”

        Before Phrase gets the chance to respond he bumps into a bookcase, knocking lose several books and falling to the floor himself, grunting, “Oof!”

        “Whoa, lemme help you up,” Denavian says, trying to stifle a giggle at his friend’s antics as he holds out a hoof for BP to attempt to regain his standing.

        “What do you two think you’re doing, eh?” asks Ink Blot, stepping out from a bookcase over.

        “Just reading, old man Ink Blot!” BP calls, rising from the floor and picking up his book with one hoof. “See!” he calls out, lifting the book up.

        “Don’t give me that, youngster; I may be old but I’m not naive!” Ink Blot somehow manages to whisper as appropriate in a library, but shout at the same time. “You kids think I don’t know what y’all do back here in these shelves, cavorting and consorting for some ‘alone time’ in my library!”

        Banterful blinks and looks between Denavian and Ink Blot with an eyebrow raised. “Um, sir, well, it isn’t like that.” Denavian stutters, his embarrassed face glowing a beet red that his reddish coat does nothing to hide. “We’re not-”

        “Do you know where we could find books on magic?” BP interrupts, stepping forward to save the day with a smile.

        “Of course I do, but I’m not going to help you two until this mess is cleaned,” Ink Blot replies stubbornly, sitting down and squinting at the stallions.

        “Ahem,” Denavian coughs politely, now recovered from his embarrassment. “I’m sorry, but don’t they hire librarians to clean up the messes and organize and stuff?”

        As BP begins to pick up books and examine their titles, Ink Blot rolls his eyes and calls, “Flavour!”

        In seconds, Flavour herself trots out from behind a bookcase calmly. “You called?” she asks Ink before looking at BP and Denavian and sighing, “Oh, these two.”

        “Would you mind helping me make sure these two clean up this mess before I report them to the authorities and have them banned from my library?” Ink Blot asks with a glare, hinting the bronies.

        Flavour sighs and responds, “Inky, you can’t blackmail ponies into cleaning your library, even if they are the ones who messed it up in the first place. Here, why don’t I clean this mess up?”

        BP perks up and yells, “Oh, thank you-” before he’s shushed.

        Ink Blot slacks his shoulders and shakes his head as Flavour moves over to the mess, scooping a book up with her wings. “Young ponies, humph.”

        “Right, thanks for helping, Flavour, and we are sorry ‘bout the mess, Mr. Blot,” Denavian says as he starts to pick up the various books that are scattered across the floor. “But if you wanted us to clean it up, you should’ve just asked instead of ordering. That way it makes us feel like we’re doing a good deed so we’re more efficient.”

        Sliding the last book into the shelf, Flavour rubs a temple with her wing, trotting off away from the stallions without a word. “Thank you, Flavour!” BP yells silently. Looking back at Ink, Banterful asks, “Hey, old man Ink Blot, would you mind helping us find another book?”

        “Fine. What book are you looking for now?” Ink Blot grunts, standing and motioning for the two ponies to follow him with his head.

        “Some rudimentary magic,” Denavian says. “Something that I can use to teach my little brother. Theory, practice, spells, stuff like that.”

        “Hmm. I’m sure we’ve got a book for that hidden around here somewhere.” Ink Blot says absentmindedly, walking through shelves and thumbing through book spines, studying each intently.

        BP purses his lips and looks cross-eyed at his horn, crouching as though ready to pounce before batting at his horn. “Don’t do that,” Denavian scolds the sunbleached pony. “You’ll break it if you keep pawing at it like that!”

“Pfft, please, as if horns could break! They’re obviously made of diamonds and happiness!” BP retorts smartly.

“Yeah, well, it’s probably a good idea to not play with it,” Denavian replies. “Just in case-”

“Ah-hah!” Ink Blot shouts loudly, startling the two stallions behind. “Found it; I knew it’d be around here somewhere. A Theory of Magic, this will do the trick for you.”

“Woohoo! Magic! Okay, so, I think we’ll be checking these books out, now!” Phrase exclaims, hugging his history book tightly.

“Alright, just show me an ID or membership card, then,” Ink Blot says with a smirk, extending a hoof.

“Um, BP?” Denavian whispers.

“Yo?” Phrase yells back, before getting hushed by several ponies passing by. “Yo?” He repeats, whispering this time.

“Do you have an ID or membership card?”

“I have a high school ID, but that’s back in my pants in the plane!”

“Something tells me that won’t do it.”

“Hmm. Maybe we could sign up for a membership?”

“Yeah, I guess. Excuse me?” Denavian looks at Ink Blot. “How do we sign up for a membership?”

“Oh, well, that would require you to fill out a few applications. It’ll only take a few minutes to fill out simple things like full names, birth dates and places, and guardians or siblings,” Ink replies, itching his beard. “Would you two like to sign up?”

        “Yeah, sure,” Denavian says. “I could go for that.”

        “Hmm, yes, follow me, then,” Ink speaks, shuffling back towards his counter on the opposite side of the library.

        BP follows casually, looking in awe at all the books around them. “Impressive. ...”

        “Oh, this is nothing,” Ink Blot states. “I hear the princesses’ personal library is waaay bigger than this one.”

        Banterful gasps. “The princesses have a personal library?”

        “Of course they do,” Ink Blot exclaims incredulously. “You don’t think the princesses would go and check out books with lowly folks like us?”

Denavian continues trotting along, listening to the conversation. “Huh, I didn’t know the princesses though of civilian ponies that way,” BP hums.

        “Meh,” Denavian says. “All royalty have their quirks.”

        “What’s a quirk?” BP asks softly.

        “For this usage?” Denavian answers in an equally soft voice. “Things that you wouldn’t expect of a pony given their general personality.”

        “Quirky!”

        “Wait here, you two,” Ink Blot says, pausing as they reach the counter where they had first seen the aged pony.  He goes around the counter and begins shuffling through various shelves and cabinets.

        “Oka-polka-dot!” BP yips.

        “BP!” Denavian whispers urgently. “What’re we gonna do?”

        Banterful breathes, “What do you mean?”

        “You may have missed this part of the conversation BP, but we don’t have family, guardians, or birthdates and places.” Denavian hisses vehemently.

        “Oh, right! Um, maybe we could just lie? It’s not like they have computers to check or anything! Unless there’s magic for that ... hmm,” BP inquires.

        “Something tells me it’s not gonna be that easy, man. If the lie get’s too elaborate, you can get caught in the web.”

        “Psh, I’m sure we’ll be able to handle it!” BP assures, flicking his only free hoof, the other being used up to hug his book. In less than a second, he finds himself face first on the floor.

        “Yeah, but I’m still worried,” Denavian says as he extends his hoof to help BP up for the second time that day.

        Banterful shakes his head and picks his history book back up, taking Denavian’s hoof and rising to his own. “Are you two quite finished, yet?” asks the librarian, already behind his desk. On said desk lies two packets of paper, stapled five pages each.

        “Yes Mr. Blot,” Denavian says, before picking up the two packets. “Be back in five,” he says, grabbing BP and dragging him over to a secluded couch near a coffee table.

        “Do we have writing utensils?” Phrase asks, eyeing his packet.

        “Yeah, it’s clipped to the packet,” Denavian replies.

        Banterful quietly flips through the pages, reading each line but not writing a word. Finally, he turns to the front page and looks up. “Denavian, I don’t think we’ll be able to lie about this much and still remember. ... What should we do? We still need to learn as much as possible about the new world we’re in!”

        “How much do you like crime movies?”

        “They’re okay! Why?”

        Denavian looks over at BP, and grins.

        Banterful smiles in return. “Are you thinking of one that you really liked?”

        “Nope. Better.”

        “What’s better than that?”

        “BP, m’lad, let me show you.” Denavian gets up abruptly and turns to face Phrase. “First, we grab our books.”

        “Okay!” Banterful replies, picking up his book.

        “Then, well,” Denavian lets out an earthy chuckle. “Then, WE RUN!” Denavian screams, grabbing BP and running for the exit.

Phrase stumbles for a second before galloping alongside Denavian, racing towards the doors and beginning to pant.

“Come on, mate, we got this,” Denavian pants alongside him.

The two burst through the glass doors, more literally than they had planned, just as the librarian shouts “Guards!”

“Sorry Mr. Blot!” Denavian yells over his shoulder as they start running towards the kitchen and hopefully, an exit.

“We should get back to the others!” Banterful huffs as he gallops towards the direction they came from, only to find it blocked by a guard with a spear in his mouth. “Nevermind,” he squeaks before running back to Denavian and into the kitchen alongside him.

        Bursting through the doors of the kitchen, now empty after lunch, the duo runs for the nearest exit. “Stop right there, criminal scum!!” shouts a deep voice from the entrance of the kitchen.

        “I choose to resist arrest!” BP yells back.

        “Don’t taunt them, BP!” Denavian says. “It never works!”

        “Oh yeah!” Phrase replies out of breath. They crash through the exit to the kitchen, blinking in the bright sunlight now streaming onto their faces, the nicely cut grass below stretching up to tickle their hooves. A garden fills their view, shrubbery, trees, and statues filling their sight, along with three figures standing before them. “Phew, glad we made it out of-” BP starts to say before freezing and gazing blankly forward.

        “Ah, Banterful Phrase, Denavian, we were just looking for you two. I have proposed to the rest of the bronies that you all-” Celestia starts to say before a group of guards burst out of the kitchen exit. “-Oh my, what’s going on?”

        “Nothing,” Denavian says, quickly chucking the book he is holding into a nearby bush where it lands safely, caught in the tangle of bushy limbs.

        “These two thieves were caught stealing in the Canterlot library,” called out a guard from the mass.

        All attention turns to the princess, who begins to speak in a serious tone. “Are you aware of who these ponies are?” Celestia asks with a raised brow.

        “Er, no madam. ...”

        “These two are Denavian and Banterful Phrase, a couple of ponies from the group of ponies I had asked you to tend to. I take it there’s been a misunderstanding and you’ve chased these poor ponies for no reason?”

        “Uh, um, I-I. ...”

        “Don’t worry about it, just make sure it does not happen again. You are dismissed, my royal guards,” Celestia orders with a wave of a hoof.

        “Twilight,” BP murmurs quietly to himself.

        “Damn,” Denavian mutters. “Celestia just laid down the law. Shit just got real.”

        Celestia smiles at the two colts before motioning to the ponies standing beside her, speaking, “These two mares are Twilight Sparkle and Rarity. They will be in charge of filling you two in on what you’ve missed and helping you feel at home in Ponyville.”

        Rarity bows and states, “I am sorry for your loss. I hope you find Equestria an adequate new home.”

        Banterful lets his book slip to the floor with wide eyes as he inches forward, whispering, “Twilight. ...”

        “Banterful, you alright doode?” Denavian nudges his friend.

        Phrase shuffles a bit closer to the mares tensely. “Yes, my name is Twilight, Twilight Sparkle. It’s, uh, nice to meet you two,” Twilight says at the mention of her name.

        Celestia nods and stands up, saying, “I’ll leave you four to catch up on events for a bit. I plan on seeing you all off at the chariots.”

        “Tah-tah!” Rarity calls to Princess Celestia as she takes flight and heads off she knows where. Twilight waves to the sun princess as Rarity turns to the stallions, looking between the two before asking, “You absolutely must tell me your stories! The other ‘bronies’ had astonishing details of the crash! What are your accounts, darlings?” Denavian quickly picks up the books before they can be damaged as the group starts to move out of the door. Banterful Phrase silently blinks at Twilight. Rarity’s eyes dart around as her smile contorts nervously. “Oh, yes, you two must be exhausted from wandering about Canterlot Castle all day! Who in their right mind would want to re-live the dreadful event of a great misfortune after a long day of adjusting to a new life?”

        “I dunno,” Denavian muses as they walk through the door and into the corridor beyond. “Ignoring the crash after we landed, I think the fall was really fun!”

        Rarity suddenly beams, having finally gained a response out of them. “Well, you’ve got quite the optimistic outlook. Several of your other friends had something similar to say, if that means anything to you.”

        “Well, I know Static got covered in feces!” BP exclaims wildly. “I’m sure that was interesting to hear! And did Observer tell you about how he magically cast a magical telekinetic spell to hold up Archangel! It was insane! Or maybe it was a holdy-uppy spell. ... I’m not sure how magic works-” BP stops to gasp before shoving his face into Twilight’s and yelling, “Can you teach me how to use magic?”

        Rarity puts a hoof up to her face to hide a smile. “What, um, yeah? Sure? Maybe?” Twilight stutters at the gleeful, pale-red face now uncomfortably close to hers. She blushes and promptly falls onto the floor as she tries to back up too quickly.

        Banterful gasps and extends a hoof out, shouting, “Oh my Celestia, I’m so sorry, I never meant to hurt you! Please accept my apology, I want to be your friend! Well, not just your friend, but that’s where I would like to start, unless you want to start further, because I know that some ponies do that; start in relationships, that is! Like, you know, when ponies are all like, ‘hey, would you like to go to dinner with me’ or something like that!”

        “Wha- What?” Twilight continued stuttering, staring blankly at the proffered hoof.

        “Yeah, don’t mind him, Twi,” Denavian quickly steps in before Banterful manages to dig himself into an even deeper hole. “One too many hits with the plane if ya know what I mean.”

        Rarity examines the situation with interest, her head tilted to the side. Telekinetically helping up Twilight, Rarity smirks and hums, continuing the earlier conversation by inquiring, “Hmm, you were injured in the crash, dear?”

        BP shakes his head, responding, “Nope! I came out miraculously unscathed! It’s a miracle! Well, kind of a miracle; Archangel is a really good pilot!”

        “Uh-huh, right,” Denavian says doubtfully, dragging out his words. “Don’t listen to him, I saw him take a pretty big bump.”

        “Yeah,” Twilight spoke up. “Did you know the two of you are very strange?”

        “Twilight!” Rarity gasps.

        “What?” Twilight says to her friend. “You were thinking the same thing Rarity.”

        Making several sputtering noises, Rarity shakes her head and replies, “Why, I would never! What ever gave you those implications?”

        BP looks at Denavian with a raised brow. “Um, the awkward staring and blinking was kind of a clue, Rarity.” Denavian says to the white mare.

        Rarity blushes and coughs. “Yes, well, I can explain! You see, I ...”

        “It’s alright, Rarity; I am strange! I would say we are strange, but I don’t wanna hurt Denavian’s feels, ya dig?” Banterful Phrase states.

        “Er, sure?” Rarity says unsurely.

        “Alright, we’re here,” Twilight says, obviously glad to be able to change the subject.

        The group looked about, finding themselves outside once more and on a cobbled path filled with chariots attached to pegasi in armour. In several of them are the most of the bronies, separated into smaller undefined groups of no significance. “Ponyville, yay!” BP shouts, scuttling towards the nearest empty chariot.

        “Ah, Twilight, Rarity, you made it,” Princess Luna nodded, gesturing towards the chariots. “Princess Celestia has asked us to have you take seat with ones Denavian and Banterful Phrase.”

“Of course, Princess Luna,” Rarity responds humbly with a bow before trotting neatly into the chariot.

        “Excuse me?” Denavian says, raising his eyebrow in irritation. He turns to Banterful, saying “What is it with folks giving us orders? It’s starting to get on my nerves.”

        “Well, they have been princesses! I'll bet it's their jobs to order ponies around!” BP responds from inside the chariot, rocking side to side.

        “No! Ink Blot wasn’t a princess!” Denavian argues with the cheery pony.

        “Oh yeah,” BP responds. After a second or two of thought, he proceeds to shrug.

        Rarity looks back at both Twilight and Denavian to ask, “Are you two coming?”

        “Meh, what the hay?” Denavian says, climbing into the chariot next to BP.

        “Yes, of course Princess Luna,” Twilight says looking at the Ruler of the Moon distractedly. “Whatever you say …” she ends, sighing as she climbs in with the two bronies and her friend.

Shortly after Twilight’s entry, the pegasi begin stepping forward, flapping their wings and taking off smoothly. Denavian whistles appreciatively. “Damn, this is pretty fancy.”

“Yeah I’ve never seen anything like this on the show! Look at how big this chariot is!” Banterful shouts.

“BP! Shut up!” Denavian yells at the stallion.

Rarity raises a hoof and gawks as though wounded. “What do you mean ‘on the show’?” Twilight asks, her brow furrowing in concentration.

“Just a thing back on the planet I came from, nothing you would be interested in, student of Celestia,” BP replies with a wide grin.

“Right. How long is the flight, ladies?” Denavian asks the two mares.

“About an hour, maybe more, maybe less.” Twilight responds. “It depends on the weather on the way.”

BP sighs and explains, “I like it when you know things.”

        “You like her period,” Denavian mutters under his breath. “Anyway, might as well make ourselves comfortable,” he says, before grabbing one of the books he brought and reading quietly.

        Banterful bites his tongue and slides closer to Twilight Sparkle. “Hey, Twilight ...?”

        “Hmmm? What is it?”

        “... What’s Ponyville like?” BP eventually asks, apparently ashamed by his question.

        “Ummmm, I’m not sure how to describe it really-”

        “Wait, that’s ... not what I meant to ask,” Phrase interrupts, looking down as he shuffles his hooves nervously.

        “Well, what’d you mean to ask?”

        “Erm. Do you have ... would you like to ... is your coat naturally purple?” BP asks with shut eyes. Rarity groans.

        “Um, yes, yes it is. ...”

        “Cool, cool ...” BP mutters, slouching in his seat.

        Rarity clears her throat, speaking, “Well, I believe that should suffice for our small-talking needs. Celestia did ask that we explain what you two missed during her speech, which I believe should be at the forefront of our minds.”

        “Alright,” Denavian says slowly. “Go ahead.”

        "Right," Rarity starts, lifting her head up. "By the time we had arrived at the throne room, Princess Celestia had just finished describing how your missing friend, Archangel, had escaped the hospital by smashing a window and climbing out, apparently making it to the ground and running off in the direction of the Everfree. After introducing us to the bronies and vice versa, she then went on to suggest that we intercept him in Ponyville. Princess Luna then gave the brilliant idea of having us help all of you settle in Ponyville where the least amount of trouble and confusion may occur. After much debate, most of the bronies agreed, excluding Glitter Night and Omega. After this, Celestia scheduled interviews with the ponies to create identification cards and birth certificates one by one while we all got to talk to them about what they went through. I'm not sure what the princesses plan on doing for you two, but I'm sure you'll receive your personal  information at some point."

        “‘Kay,” Denavian says. “And in the mean time, where’re we gonna stay while all of this is being processed?”

        Rarity hums in thought before replying, "I'm not sure, but you two are welcome to stay at my shop, The Carousel Boutique, until you're able to survive on your own. We are friends of sorts, after all."

After a second of holding his breath, Banterful shouts, "FRIEND?"

        Ignoring BP’s outburst, Denavian says “Cool, I know you’re going to be taking us in for a while, but please, keep in mind that I’m not a dummy for Canterlot’s newest fashions. Alright?”

Rarity acts offended, responding, "Whatever made you think I would treat you in such a way, darling?"

        “Well uh …” Denavian stutters, realizing his slip-up too late as Rarity continues.

"Really, you should know better than to make such accusatory claims when all a friend wants to do is help," she scolds, crossing her forelegs together as the group passes over Everfree Forest. “Besides, how did you know I designed clothes?” She adds, glaring at Denavian on the opposite seat in the carriage.

"Well, you did say you owned a boutique. Designing clothes is probably something you do in boutiques."

“Not necessarily!” Rarity glares. "It could be an outlet for hats, jewelry, or flowers! There’s nothing to indicate that it sells clothes at all!”

Twilight rolls her eyes at her friend’s antics. "Fine, sorry for assuming I would be a dummy for just clothes," Denavian mutters, shutting his book.

Rarity grumps and looks over the side of the chariot, ending her argument. Banterful looks at both Denavian and Rarity with pity before lying, "Hey, I didn't know you were a designer, Rara. I'll bet you're super successful and famous, what with owning your own store and all!"

Turning to BP in surprise, Rarity replies, "Oh, no, not really ... the Carousel Boutique was given to me by my parents, and I get very few customers outside of the regulars, of which there are very few. Thanks, though."

Banterful scoffs, "There is no way you're not famous! Look me in the eyes and tell me you haven't designed for any models or fashion shows!"

"Well, those were ... special occasions ..." Rarity says, covering her face with her mane.

Phrase touches Rarity's shoulder, spurting, "You are famous, then!"

The white unicorn looks back up at Banterful Phrase and smiles, thoughtfully asking, "Why convince me I'm successful?"

"Rarity, I don't know anything about being well-known and revered by ponies, but through my escapades with Denavian, I've come to learn it's the attention of friends that matters the most! I just figured you could use that friendly attention!"

BP peers over the edge of the chariot with wide eyes. In the sky flies four chariots while Ponyville below bustles with activity, ponies moving from houses to food stands and shops. As Celestia sets the sun from Canterlot, the pegasi pulling the chariots move ever lower, nearing the center of the town.