Title:           Saddled – Chapter 6
Author:          Anonymous
Pastebin link:   http://pastebin.com/sYEjB3ZU
First Edit:      Wednesday 12th of August 2015 10:51:18 PM CDT
Last Edit:       Wednesday 12th of August 2015 10:51:18 PM CDT

        Rarity shivered. She hadn't made note of it earlier, but in addition to being thicker, the air seemed colder as well. Finally putting the pieces together, Rarity shook her head in astonishment. It seemed as though the whole universe had been slowed down. But if that was the case, why wasn't *she* affected? Nothing was making sense anymore. Now that she at least had an idea of what was going on, she lifted the clock with her telekinesis, moving it more effectively now that she'd had some practice, and secured it to the wall more quickly than she'd detached it, remembering where all of the latches were.       
        Realizing it had been a while since she last washed the tablecloth, she turned and walked over to the sink, picking up the spoon and carrying it with her, angling it to cut through the air more effectively. When she reached the sink, she dropped the spoon in, lowering it to the bottom herself so she wouldn't have to wait for it to slowly fall. When it reached the bottom, there was a loud clonging sound that rang throughout the kitchen and the spoon bounced. Fearing the worst, she leaned over the sink and looked where the spoon had hit. She winced when she saw the small dent in the bottom of the sink.
        Shaking her head, Rarity decided to further test her hypothesis by turning on the faucet. Not wanting to break anything, she turned the golden handle slowly and carefully, and indeed the handle wasn't any more resistant to being turned than it usually was. Several seconds after she started turning the handle, water began to ooze out of the faucet, not reaching the bottom of the sink until several seconds later, where it splashed in slow motion, droplets seeming to hang in the air for several seconds before they fell back down. And then the sink started to pull away.
        No, it wasn't just getting farther away; it was actually *growing*. Thinking fast, Rarity began to turn the faucet off, wanting to be able to finish while the handles were still in her line of sight. And she was just in time too, because sure enough, before long she found herself unable to see over the edge of the counter as the sink grew out of sight.
        Looking around, she saw that it wasn't just the sink. *Everything* was growing. Except for her, of course. Or rather, it seemed more likely that *she* was *shrinking*, and everything else was staying the same. Of course, "more likely" was a relative term; ponies didn't usually just suddenly start to shrink, at least not without a cause. Then again, time didn't normally slow to a crawl either. She considered the possibility that time hadn't slowed down, but rather she had somehow been sped up. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to tell the difference.
        She thought of the time Applejack had shrunk after their first run-in with Zecora. However, from her understanding, the effects of poison joke tended to be the same whenever it effected the same pony, and her mane and tail seemed normal. She knew Twilight had insisted that there was no such thing as curses, but she couldn't help but suspect that somepony had placed a hex on her. She briefly considered Discord, but his pranks at least tended to be *interesting*, and whatever was happening to her was fairly rudimentary.
        Strangely, as she shrunk, she felt herself seem to get *heavier*. This further ruled out poison joke, because she knew Rainbow Dash had been able to hold Applejack in her mouth without dislocating her jaw. Her legs soon began to ache, and she decided to go to Twilight for help while they could still support her weight. However, soon after she started to walk, the shrinking stopped when she was just an inch or two tall.
        Before long, it became very apparent that something was very wrong. She began to feel even more lightheaded than she already had. Her vision was blurry. She was freezing. Her lungs seemed useless; she could still breathe in and out, but it wasn't helping any. She felt like she was drowning on dry land. With her legs already struggling to support her weight, this certainly didn't help matters, and it wasn't long before she collapsed onto the floor. Her lungs burning and blackness closing in from the edges of her field of vision, her life flashed before her eyes and she found herself confronting her mortality.
        If she did die here, at her size, what would happen next? Would her friends come looking for her? Would they search the house from top to bottom, not knowing what had become of her until they smelled something foul or heard a sickening crunch underhoof? Of course, there was also the possibility that they wouldn't find anything but a satisfied cat, having just enjoyed a rather hearty mouse-sized snack, but she tried not to think of that.
        As Discord covertly watched the scene unfold, he shook his head. He had no intention of letting his prank turn fatal, especially because Rarity's death would mean the death of his spawn, as well as the premature end of his prank. Oh, and because he cared about Rarity too. With a snap of his talons, he created a field around her about to shrink the air molecules she breathed in to a size she could actually use.
        Just a few seconds after she blacked out, before any permanent damage was done, Rarity found herself gradually regaining consciousness, gasping for breath as she found that her lungs were suddenly functioning again. She was still freezing cold, and she felt very heavy, and her vision was rather blurred, but at least she was alive.
        Inside her, Self was getting impatient. Nothing. There was a momentary change in the concentrations of different Varieties of Unit in the Structures of the Passage, specifically a reduced prevalence of the Eightfold Unit, but the vibrations were simply refusing to reoccur, and just waiting for them to do so was becoming very boring. To keep things interesting, Self decided set aside the Vibrations for the time being and focus its attention on experimenting with controlling different Interactions.