Snow Flurry - 1 - The Story Actually Begins

Part I – Now With 10% More Introduction to the Actual Plot

Everything hurts.  It's a terrible, unceasing pain throughout your entire body; never dulling, never fading.  You can't possibly remember what's happened to you in the past few hours.  Days?  Weeks?  After your meeting with the boss he showed you into the back of the warehouse and everything went blank.  Your life since then has consisted of periodic bouts of agony between intervals of incalculable lost time.

You take the only reasonable course of action.  You lie perfectly still, hoping not to worsen your situation until you black out again, but this time the merciful slip into unconsciousness fails to arrive as planned.  You pry open your eyes with considerable effort and take stock of your surroundings.  It seems like you're still in the same warehouse you started in.  You're lying on top of a mattress of some kind, which is itself thrown on the floor haphazardly in the corner.

“Oh, look who's finally awake.”

Shit.  You can still recognize the boss's voice after your first encounter.  This cannot be good.

“Collins really outdid himself with this one.  Goddamn.”  He sounds rather pleased with himself, or, at the very least, with whoever Collins is.

You can see the feet of the boss walk in front of you.  He leans over and pulls what feel like needles from your back and limbs.  At long last the pain begins to recede, however it is replaced with far more troubling sensations.  As your mind sharpens in the absence of constant torment, you become keenly aware of your body feeling strange.  It's as though your limbs were displaced and rearranged while you were out.  You try adjusting your arm but can't get any sensation in your fingers.

“Go ahead and take a second to get adjusted Snow.”

Snow?  Who the fuck is Snow?  You try to ask but realize that your throat is burning and can't manage to make a sound.

You lift your head off the mattress with considerable effort and manage to turn it towards your arm.

Nothing gets a person moving like sheer panic.  Within moments you've lifted yourself off the mattress and clumsily thrown yourself against the wall, your eyes transfixed on the stumps that have replaced all four of your limbs.  Your skin seems to be a sickly pale blue, which only serves to add the horror of what you're seeing.

“Now, now, no need to be so alarmed.”  The voice of the boss breaks through your racing thoughts, disturbingly calm amidst the other input being processed by your brain.

“I told you that our associates were very particular.  I think you're our finest work yet, though.  You won't have any problems at all once you've adjusted.”

You try to speak once again but only succeed in wheezing.

“Don't worry,  your speech should return momentarily.  However, we've got precious little time before our associates will be here to collect you so we must get moving.”
You attempt to right yourself on your truncated limbs but only succeed in slumping against the wall in a more awkward pose.  You try to speak once again and this time succeed in squeaking out a weak, high pitched, “What the fuck did you do to me?”

“I could explain, but, a picture in this case is most certainly worth a thousand words.”  The boss leans down and picks up a mirror from the floor and positions it on the wall opposite you.

What greets you in the mirror is something which should not be possible.

Which cannot be possible.

You find yourself in the body of a pony, with a power blue coat and on each side of your body you find a feathered wing.  Your mane and tail consist of long, curly strands of darker shades of blue and cyan.  Your flank is adorned with a pair of snowflakes.  A bulky black collar encircles your neck.

You are now almost certain you've simply lapsed into some pain-induced hallucination.  You touch forelimbs together.  You can feel the contact.

“You see,” the boss continues, either oblivious to or remarkably unaffected by your panic, “our associates cater to a very specific clientele.  I don't claim to understand it, but there's money to be made off ponies these days.  Plenty of people are willing to pay well for some private time with a pony.  This is a service that our associates have invested a great deal in developing.  As I said at the outset, all you're required to do is act the part – as I understand, this should be no trouble for someone such as yourself.

“Now, because we're short on time we're going to cover the basics.  The rest of your training I will leave to your new owners.”

“Owners?!”  Your voice catches you off guard.  It's definitely returned to full strength but still sounds distinctly feminine.  You right yourself at the sound of the word and are now once more leaning upright against the wall.  For the first time you look downwards and confirm your suspicions, the waves of nausea and dismay rapidly returning.

“You can't expect us to let a pastel pony go wandering around free, can you?  Just think of them as permanent employers, if you prefer.”

“What the fuck?  This was just supposed to be a job!”

The boss pulls a remote from his pocket and flicks a switch.  Instantly, pain courses through your body, causing you to collapse back to the ground.”

“Quiet now.  Up on your feet.  I can't go around selling defective merchandise and keep my reputation.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Such a mean mouth for a pretty little thing.”  The boss flicks his switch once again, causing the collar to send repeated shocks to your body.  “Now, are you ready to listen?”

You can't even begin to process what's occurred here but decide that it's in your best interest to play along until you're able to.  You certainly won't have a chance at fixing whatever was done to you if you die in this warehouse.  You push yourself with all your willpower and manage to plant your forelegs solidly on the ground.  Unsteadily, you lift yourself upwards on all fours.

“Much better.  You're learning already.”  The boss extends his arm towards you and opens his palm towards you, motioning you forward.  “Now, walk over here Snow Flurry.”

“Snow … Flurry?”

The shocks come in waves again, knocking you back to off your hooves.

“You don't ask questions.  You obey.”

You get upright once again and resolve to play along until you can get away from the boss.

You attempt to step forwards, stumbling over your own foreleg onto your face.  Once again, you make it to your hooves and continue forward slowly.  Eventually you reach the boss's feet and are struck for the first time by exactly how small you are in comparison to him;  your eye level is barely above his waistline.

“Follow.  Your new owners will be here shortly.”

Fuck.  It doesn't look like you'll have a moment to yourself to concoct a plan.

You stumble after the boss as he leads you out of the warehouse.  It looks as though several people, or perhaps ponies, have been through here recently, although you can't see any currently.  All signs point towards this being a considerably large operation.

Up ahead you can see the partition on which you sat during your last conscious memory before this.  You're taken aback by the thought as the full extent how your life has been changed dawns on you.

“Hurry up Snow.”

The boss's voice snaps you out of your introspection as he brandishes the remote.  You attempt to quickly cover the ground between you two with limited success, tripping and falling once again.  As you struggle back to onto all fours you can see two men round the corner of the partition.  Within an instant you recognize the intruder from your flat and the man who was sitting beside you when you first met the boss.

The look of terror is easily visible on his face as soon as his eyes meet yours.  A moment later his fists crash down on the back of the boss's neck, knocking him to the ground.  Like a cornered dog he savagely tears at the boss's accomplice until he lies in a pool of blood on the ground.  Grabbing the keys out of the accomplice's pocket he makes a mad dash for the door.  Still in shock from the entire event you chase after him in an attempt to reason with him.  By the time you reach the door you can see him disappear into the surrounding forest.

You consider what to do for a moment.  Considering that you're a pastel pony in the middle of fuck knows where you don't have many options apart from chasing after him or waiting to be picked up by whoever was coming to get you.  Deciding on the former, you stumble off into the woods.
- - -
You find your quarry resting against a tree.  Luckily he'd run in a nearly perfect straight line in his panic; it seems his adrenaline finally ran dry after several minutes at as close to a full sprint through the brush as humanly possible.  You approach him slowly, trying to appear as normal as a talking pony can.

“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, get the fuck away from me!”  he stammers in a weak shout under his labored breath.

“Just listen to me, please!”

“Oh fucking hell.  What the fuck are you?”

“Think back to when you first came here?  Remember?”

“What the fuck are … you talking about?”

“Look, just, please … I don't have anywhere else to go.”

You can see his posture relax slightly.  It seems you've made it past the fight or flight reflex.

“You're him, aren't you?  The guy from the meeting.  I always knew these sons of bitches were up to weird shit out here.”

You can only wonder how he immediately jumped to a conclusion like that.  Talking ponies demand a rather incredible explanation, you suppose.  He now visibly relaxes, at least content with the knowledge that you aren't his enemy.  You step out into plain view of him.

“I'm Ryan.  Ryan Collins.”  He offers his hand but immediately thinks better of it.

Collins.  Is he one of them?  You decide to play your cards close to your chest and not give up any personal information.

“I'm, uh, Snow Flurry.  Apparently.”

He quirks his eyebrow as you state your name.  Not exactly the reaction you'd expect from a guy speaking to a technicolor equine.  You're still suspicious of his intentions and knowledge of this whole affair.

“Well then, Snow Flurry.  We can't exactly go running to the cops with you looking like that.  Can't let you get hauled off to some research facility or some shit in good conscience.  Unnnnfortunately, that pretty much shoots down my master plan.”

Ryan begins collecting downed branches.

“Guess that means we're roughing it this fine evening.  I'd ask you to help, but I don't think hooves are too great for building.”

Your head sinks.  For a minute you'd almost been able to forget your situation while conversing with an actual human.

“Don't look so down about it.  I'll take care of everything.”

- - -

The last daylight is rapidly fading over the horizon, and the temperature is dropping quickly.  Ryan crawls inside the lean-to he has been constructing over the past few hours, visibly shivering in the cold.

“It's not much but she'll do.  Might as well come on in.”

You crawl into the open end of the makeshift structure, settling yourself on the side opposite Ryan.

“Thanks.”

 “Don't mention it.  We're in this together now, one way or another.”