Chapter Text
All he could see was black, it was dark and cold. It took a while before he was finally able to open his eyes to take in the surrounding scenery. He was surrounded by trees and greenery, as well as beautiful flowers and a flowing stream. Night felt as though he was half asleep, and his eyes were half-lidded, making it difficult to take in the gorgeous scenery nearby. His head felt faint, he felt like he might pass out. Night could barely remember anything at all after he took a bite of that apple.
Night made a sound in between a sigh and a groan as he tried to remember further. He looked down at his hand to try and focus on pushing himself off the ground. His almost completely closed eyes shot open finally as he looked down and instead saw hooves as opposed to the expected hands. He had to do a double take to make sure it wasn’t some exhaustion-induced hallucination. But yes, somehow, he had hooves. How was that even possible?
He had to have been imagining things, so he shook his head as if to banish the confusion and tried to stand like normal on his back legs. It did not work. He instantly fell, face-planting into the dirt. This must be some powerful hallucination if he’s this disoriented. His back feet appeared to be hooves as well. He decided that instead of attempting to walk, which would definitely not work at the moment, he would crawl. But where too?
He had no idea where he was, well that was a lie, he thought he might be with Mother, but the stream nearby was far too thin and full of rocks. Ah yes, the stream! Since he clearly doesn’t appear human he can see what he looks like currently in the reflection of the stream.
As Night pathetically crawled over to the river that he wasn’t even sure was there considering his limited vision and brain power, he listened very carefully for any sounds that would indicate movement. It might have been a habit he picked up when trying to feed the wildlife in the forest, as a way of not startling them.
However, most likely he picked it up from the villagers who would beat him till he was bruised and bloodied in a way he couldn’t just describe as ‘tripping’ or ‘falling out of the tree’ to Dream. Night would often try to crawl away to safety, to find a place where he could tend to his wounds if only slightly so that he could downplay it more to his brother.
He had to do this often. Every time he was cornered in an alleyway, behind a fence, or even at the tree, he had to pitifully crawl away, sometimes barely making it a couple of inches. And every time his injuries were more severe.
It was as if the villagers were getting bored with the basic verbal bullying, so they slowly escalated to the physical kind, and then the restraint kind, then the threats toward his brother kind [though Night knew they wouldn’t ever follow through on those, considering Dream was their special little ray of sunshine that would always help when he was needed] and then a little bit of everything all at once.
Night developed the habit of listening to his surroundings as intently as he did currently so that nobody could sneak up on him. Most of the time if he did sense someone, he was already far too weak to fight back in any way, so it was more of a warning, so he could just be aware when someone was about to attack him.
His usual crawl was extra pathetic since he had to fumble his movements like a newly born fawn, Night wondered if the humiliation he was feeling was the kind that most felt when they so something embarrassing, rather than that humiliation he mostly feels when interacting with anyone, since they all make him feel like the devil, and an awful person.
Finally, he made it to the river. It probably hadn’t taken terribly long to crawl over, but it had felt like centuries. Night desperately tried to open his eyes to look at his reflection. What he saw was shocking, bringing back that faint feeling from earlier.
He looked like a small horse, with a white coat, purple eyes, and a purple mane. He also had a symbol of a black apple from his side of the tree in his rump. He focused his vision on his forehead specifically, where he found a horn.
Night had read about unicorns in a few books he had gotten from the library. Didn’t they have magic? If this wasn’t a hallucination and was reality, Night took comfort in the thought he could still use magic. Not that he had much practice with his magic before…
Another thing of interest that was on his forehead, was his golden circlet, with the moon engraving. Night reached up and straightened it with his hoove, which was a very awkward movement, to say the least, and smiled, happy that he at least still had this even if he wasn’t sure where Dream was.
Night decided to give walking another shot after staring into the water for a long silent moment. It couldn’t be that hard, it was just hard before because Night was going about it all wrong. Don’t walk like a biped, walk like a horse!
Night thought back to a beautiful Clydesdale horse that lived behind a fence next to the church. He always liked to visit her and give her apples. [not ones from his tree of course] Even if he hated going anywhere near the church, since all his abuse could most likely stem from its walls, he still stopped by her yard every once in a while and would lie on her back as he read his books.
All he had to do was mimic her movements, easy right? Not easy, Night decided approximately 12 minutes of struggling, falling, and fumbling later. However, he still managed to grasp the basics and could finally walk rather than miserably attempt to crawl everywhere he went. He still hobbled and failed to walk in a straight line, the exhaustion still getting to him slightly.
Once he got the hang of it, he decided to start walking toward the vague outline of a town that he saw peeking through the gaps in the dense greenery and flora.
As he clumsily walked through the forest he heard someone shout energetically behind him “Hello!”. He would have jumped if he wasn’t so debilitated. Instead, he slowly turned around, being careful where he stepped. When he stopped his movements, he saw three ponies about his size standing there. He wasn’t sure which one said hello.
After a moment of thinking of possible responses, he settled for the basic choice. “Hello?”
One of the ponies had wings with an orange coat and purple mane.
Another was just a normal pony with a yellow coat and red mane with a large pink statement bow lovingly tied up in the hair.
Finally, the last one had a horn and white coat like Night did but with a purple and pink mane.
“I don't think I've seen you around here before, you must be new around here right?” The pony with a pink bow said. She must have been the one who said hello to him.
Night nervously nodded along, if this wasn’t a hallucination, it would be best to just go along with everything until he could find a way back to Dream.
“Well I'm Sweetie Belle and these are my friends Scootaloo and Apple Bloom,” The one with the horn said as the two waved with their hooves, which they made look very easy much to Night’s dismay and growing frustration with his new body.
“You can call me Night.” He said simply as the one named Scootaloo tilted her head, “Just Night?” She asked and he just nodded in response.
“You know, if you’re looking for new friends maybe some-pony we know can help! They know a lot about friendship. We know a lot about friendship too, but you should hear from an expert!” Sweetie Belle suggested.
“If you wanted to of course if not it's completely fine” Apple Bloom added as Night pondered over the thought, letting it jumble around in his head before making his decision.
“Sure.” He said as the three smiled, if he was gonna be here for a while he might as well know someone in this place.
He followed the three into the town, and out of the woods. The town was much bigger than he was expecting from what he saw in the forest.
“Hey, Fluttershy!” Scootaloo called out. Night turned to where she was looking and saw an older pony with a yellow coat, pink mane and wings as well.
“Hello girls, Who's the new friend?” She asked, her voice quiet and calm.
“This is Night, he just arrived here in Ponyville and we're helping him find new friends!” Sweetie Belle said.
“Oh, how sweet of you girls,” Fluttershy said with a smile as she looked down at Night and the other three.
“We were hoping you'd help us find him some buddies!” Apple Bloom said.
Fluttershy seemed to be thinking about it as Night stood there somewhat awkwardly.
“I think I have an idea if he's okay with it of course,” Fluttershy said. She had a soft smile as well, While Night still didn't trust anyone here yet it did make him feel a little comfortable.
“I…. guess I wouldn't mind,” He said nervously, not looking at anyone. He probably should have asked for more details about the idea, but he was too scared to talk more than a few words at a time.
“Now girls, how about you just give him some space alright?” She said as Night heard the three leave, not before an energetic goodbye, however.
“Are you okay?” She asked Night as he looked up at her.
“Yeah i-i'm fine,” He said back and she simply smiled softly. It was a lie, he was not fine. He was panicking on the inside now that he was awake enough to feel basic emotions.
“If you say so, now come along. I know a pretty good place to help you find some friends.” She said as she began walking. Night followed, only due to the fact he didn't know this place very well of course, and not because the prospect of ‘friends’ was gnawing at the back of his mind a bit. He just hoped this wouldn't end up badly.
They walked to a very large building of sorts. Night couldn’t exactly tell what it was just by looking at it, but it was a gorgeous building; with complicated landscaping including waterfalls and ponds.
“Well, Night I would like to introduce you to one of the schools here in Ponyville,” Fluttershy said as he looked over at her. Night was confused, this was a school? The only school Night had seen was the one in the village, and it looked much smaller than this, most likely only being one room. This however was gigantic.
“Welcome to the School of Friendship,” Fluttershy said.