>You wake up.
>Your heart is beating out of your chest.
>After a second of figuring out how to move your muscles you fall out of... somewhere.
>Your head makes contact with something hard.
>Pain pulsed through your body as you find yourself on the floor.
>An expression adorns your face with the only emotion you feel right now.
>A smile.
>You feel happy.
>You are alive.
>You have a body.
>A head to hit onto as many nightstands as you want.
>A mouth to smile with to your hearts content.
>You are alive.
>That thought keeps going through your head and you couldn't help but giggle at it.
>It was the voice of a woman.
>You are female.
>This struck you as odd, yet you can't put your finger on why.
>You assume you had originally been male.
>But you don't mind at all.
>You had a body, even if it's female, it's yours now.
>And you were going to live life to it's fullest.
>Muscle memory sets in and you raise your hand to cover your mouth.
>Whoever's body you hijacked must be a quite contained person.
>For a second you feel sorry for her.
>She had your fate now.
>Stranded, bodiless, in another plane of existence.
>But the second passes and stop caring.
>Worries wouldn't do you any good.
>Again you remind yourself that you will realize every second of life and not look back.
>This is your life now.
>And yours to do with as you please.
>Even the pain in your head is something you cherish.
 
>The appendage before your mouth wasn't a hand.
>It was a hoof.
>You had assumed you were human.
>You had been human originally, that much you know.
>Right now you were...
>something with hooves.
>She had to have been a sentient creature though...
>Otherwise she couldn't have left behind an empty vessel to be taken.
>You look around the room and take in your surroundings.
>This definetely was the room of a person.
>You weren't a pet, right?
>No, you giggled earlier, you have a voice.
>That means you posess language.
>Do you?
>You try to remember how to talk.
>Not like you had ever done it in this body.
>You take a deep breath.
>but then stop.
>What words to utter?
>Who can say of themselves that they remember their first words.
"smaeb laets tlem t'n?ac leuf tej?"
>Okay.
>Memo to self: This voicebox does not support human language.
>However, during your experiment your(?) brain had called up how it's done.
>Like the muscle memory from earlier.
"Quite Interesting."
>You were sure you did not have her memories.
>The things who make her who she is, the information which is transcriped on her soul, not inside her brain.
>You are no expert.
>Far from it.
>You are lucky you pulled off what you had right now.
>Further experiments have to be conducted.
>But right now you are content by simply exert your muscles to stand up.
 
>Time to take in your status quo.
>First, your body.
>You had seen a mirror on your first take of the room and walk over to it.
>To your surprise you had no trouble walking.
>Once you reach the mirror a horse looks back at you.
"Equine. white coat... horn, wings... pastel multicolored mane?"
>You've gazed upon monsters before, so your appearance doesn't even strike you as weird at all.
>Quite the contrary, looking upon this form puts you at ease.
>It was just, by far, not what you expected.
>So you continue.
"Female, mature...", you continue to say your observings out loud.
>After a moment of flexing you spread your wings out.
"Too small to sustain flight, but there is always magic."
>Looking back to them, you fix a few feathers and put them in place more properly.
>You're grooming yourself.
>No, the proper word you're looking for is 'preening'.
>Another piece of information which just fluttered into your mind.
>And the act of fixing your feathers?
>Once more, muscle memory.
>Something tells you you were a pretty mare, who keeps up appearances out of habit.
>Moving to the mirror in the morning, and spreading your wings and going to preen them.
>Both were things which were usually acted out by this body.
>After you were finished with one wing you fold it back and repeat the process on the other.
>You hope people don't believe you are vain.
>Folding the second wing you lift up the brush by the mirror with your magic and float it to your-
>wait.
>You stare at the hairbrush suspended in mid air.
>It is engulfed in a golden aura.
>The same aura which was around your horn.
>So you can casually cast magic in a literal sense.
>She had the ability to separate her mind from her body, so you knew she had to have a sort of aptitude for magic, but actually casting it...
>Again you smile, and float the brush closer to you to comb your mane.
 
>Each time the comb goes through your mane you put a little pressure on the bruise you got from the nightstand.
>You can't believe just how much the pain excites you right now.
>Pain.
>Your proof to be alive.
>You have been something else for far too long.
>Don't dwell on the past.
>Smile.
>Smiling felt good.
>As does seeing someone smile.
>Even if it's just your own reflection.
>Right now you just let yourself float.
>Brushing your mane and paying attention to the little details of your telekinesis in the process.
>Magic like this was a delicate thing.
>Micromanagement of many motions.
>You define an arc in which you'll send the brush.
>Then make up the next motion, seamlessly letting them blend into one another.
>A mediocre thing like brushing your mane brings such joy to you.
>Being alive is the best.
>In your glee you feel your eyes go moist with tears of joy.
>All because you were brushing your mane.
>But good things must come to an end, and your mane could only get so brushed.
>With precision you float the brush back to the table before the mirror and align it perfectly.
>Not because you have any need for perfection, but because you want to play with your telekinesis more.
>You feel out for the table, define a square at its edge with length of the tables width
>You place the brush down in its center, and angle it 15 degrees outwards.
>There is other grooming gear inside the mirrors table.
>After you corrected your eyelashes and brushing out the fuzzy coat covering your face you still feel like something's amiss.
>It's your mane.
>something...
>Something you knew she wouldn't leave her room without.
>And it wasn't the crown.
>Your eyes focus on it for the first time.
>Judging by the rooms size and regalia you are royalty now.
>But getting dressed didn't solve your problem.
>Horseshoes, yoke, and crown.
>The problem was with your mane.
>Something wasn't right yet, but you had no idea what it was.
 
>For the moment, it was just hanging down idly.
>It's not supposed to be that way.
>It has to have some sort of style.
>But muscle memory is not kicking in for it.
>You're not simply starting to do your own mane...
>Maybe she has her mane done?
>She's-
>You're royalty after all.
>You take off the regalia again and align it neatly where you've found them again.
>From what you can tell it's still night.
>It's dark out.
>Even though there was a clock, you're unable to read it.
>It has much more than 12 markings for time units and but two handles like you're used to.
>However, one of the handles spans the entire face of the clock with a sun and a moon on opposing sides.
>The moon currently resides significantly higher.
>Even though that doesn't represent how the orbits of celestial... objects work.
>It doesn't take a genius to figure the clock out.
>Celestial objects however...
>Something inside of you reacted when you think about that issue, but you can't put your finger on what.
>Come to think of it, you should better not use that expression around other ponies.
>Ponies...
>Not horses, ponies.
>Another thing learned.
>One tiny piece of trivia of a thousand.
>...
>Were you going to pretend to be this pony, or are you going to run away?
>It would have been much easier would you not suddenly be royalty.
>As opposed to your disappearance might being the talk of the... nation
>Was it a kingdom, empire, duchy? You don't know even that.
>Either way, ponies will notice if you'd disappear.
>On the other hoof, you won't be able to easily hide if ponies know how you look like and are searching for you.
>Would you be any random person, you would not have that issue.
>...
>What you need to do is investigate.
>As fun as it was to preen yourself and brush your mane you need to think about your survival.
 
>You're royalty.
>Depending on your status you have chores.
>If you slip up majorly, you will be found out.
>If anyone knows of her having delved into astral projection, they'd immediately know that she lost her body.
>It will be hard to convince anyone that you're not...
>You don't want to think about the other things who lurk there.
>The memories come flooding back in anyway.
>Fragments of bodies, left behind by people who use it as a shortcut to teleport from one place to another.
>Entire crews of space faring vessels, merged into one being, clumped together after discovering, what they thought would be a good way to travel faster than light.
>Travelers, mages capable of astral projection, but unable to return, loosing their minds after milennia.
>Some spirits of the dead, without a way into heaven or hell, trapped for all eternity in a limbo.
>And the natives...
>No...
>No! Don't think about it!
>That mare can be lucky!
>Lucky that you were the one who are here, in this world, together with her loved ones.
>Would you rather get conned by a demon who'll tear the skin off of everyone you ever said hello to or some guy wanting to live a regular life.
>Okay, given, you're royalty now, you're not going to have a "regular" life, per say...
>Never mind.
>Back to the issue at hoof.
>You have to avoid being found out for at least as long as it takes to convince everyone that you mean well, but best if you can fake it perfectly.
>What you need right now was a way to bail on your duties and get the time to learn more about yourself.
>Just like when you're stranded on a deserted island or in trapped in a blizzard.
>You need to take care of your immediate survival to be able to look for long term survival, and only then should you see what you can do to get rescued, or rescue yourself.