( you wake up, alone in the dark. )

[habitformed]

CHARACTERS: EVERYONE.
LOCATION: The Medbay, the Locker Room, the Passenger Quarters. Pick your poison.
WARNINGS: I didn't write this. The wonderful wonderment that are the mods did. I'm only borrowing so we can get this party started.
SUMMARY: You wake up. Now choose your own adventure. (Start a new thread, tag someone else's. Whatever, people.

Comments

[umuh]

>When her eyes flew open to register that the something she felt all around her wasn't just some strange sudden wave of humidity in Arizona (Oregon? Where was she supposed to be?) cocooning her away in her sheets, Bella's first instinct was to scream. She couldn't, if her mouth was open -- held open, actually -- by a tube she couldn't remember having inserted. She'd never been so badly injured to warrant one before, and speaking of:

She didn't appear to be injured now, as she collapsed forward out of the opening and found herself on a cold floor dressed in her bra and not-exactly-sexy underpants. Coughing, she had the distinct impression that today wasn't going to be a good day, somewhere buried in the confusion and shock of finding herself so unexpectedly where she exactly didn't mean to be. (Here, where-ever here was.)

"What was that?" she managed after a moment, concentrating on getting to her feet. She felt herself blush as her own lack of apparel made itself known. What kind of hospital--? "What is this?A towel, a coat,

[generarity]

A few metres away, a similarly under-dressed woman lay on the floor, limbs tucked in as much as they possibly could as though the owner thought herself to be some kind of animal. Imitating a sphinx, perhaps?

"H-Hello? Is somepony there?!"

Rarity couldn't see anything yet, but she could have sworn she heard someone. Or was she only hallucinating? Not only was her head swimming but her body felt... off. She was feeling small appendages she didn't own, her tail and ears weren't responding the way they should, and she was cold, so cold...

[umuh]

Bella clasped one arm over her chest (pointless or not, anything embarrassing was already as covered as it was going to get), focusing on the voice she heard call out. Not just a voice, but a person. A woman? Thank goodness. Things were disorienting and frightening (and making her sick to her stomach, for more than the obvious fear related reasons), but at least it wasn't all of these things and co-ed too.

"Uh, yeah. I mean, hello." She shoved some of her hair back over a shoulder, frowning slightly at the heavy weight it had. What was she even covered in? Bella wasn't sure she wanted to think about it. "Who are you? Do you... no, you probably don't know where we are."

Bella took a few steps toward the other woman. "Are you injured or anything? "

[generarity]

"Oh, thank goodness! I was worried I was all alone..." Rarity blinked a few times, her the world around her finally coming into view, albeit incredibly blurry. Ugh... She was going to be sick, she knew it. As long as she was able to get away from prying eyes and didn't get anything in her mane. Which, she noticed with a shake of her head, was sopping wet.

"I don't believe I am injured. Merely... disoriented." She tried to push to her hooves, which she noticed felt nothing like hooves. Her strength failed her and she sank back to the ground, inwardly wincing at how terribly pathetic and undignified she must have looked.

"I am Rarity. And you, are you alright?"

[umuh]

Bella was oddly relieved someone moved as awkwardly as she tended to, in situations she didn't expect. "I'm fine," she said, bridging the rest of the distance between them to offer Rarity her hand for assistance in standing up. "Gooey, but that's nothing a good shower won't fix."

She started to smile, then grimaced. "Um... if we have any of those here. Where-ever we are."

The fear slithered back to the forefront of her mind.

[generarity]

"Oh, I hope they do have some here." She squinted a little, her vision finally focusing on the... creature before her. What was she? Fluttershy must know; it seemed she was knowledgeable on every animal imaginable. Wherever Fluttershy was...

Still, whatever this stranger was, she seemed nice and helpful enough so far. Hadn't Rarity learned not to judge a book by its cover, anyway? She lifted a hoof to accept the outstretched hand and--

Wait.

That wasn't a hoof.

What was this thing attached to her body.

The best way to find out was by SCREAMING.

[umuh]

The best way to react to screaming is, of course, to cringe away and look over her shoulder, expecting to see someone with a knife (or maybe a giant alien creature drooling while it waited to chow down on some part of Bella) standing directly behind her.

When nothing was there, she ended up blushing again, this time angry at letting herself be so jumpy. Turning back to Rarity, she asked for an explanation. "What is it? Why'd you scream like that?"

Please say Bella hadn't missed the serial lab killer who ducked away in that time it took her to turn around.

[generarity]

"My hooves! And my legs! And-- and--" She was afraid to look down, even though she knew that not looking wouldn't make her altered body any less real. Curiosity got the best of her anyway, and she chanced a glance down at the strange, naked bipedal form.

"Even my tail...! What's happened?! I'm so ugly!"

[umuh]

Uh, Bella had dealt with her fair share of body image crisis-ed female friends, but it usually had a lot less mention of pretty animal traits tossed in with lamenting over what made them less than perfectly beautiful. "It's not so bad," she offered, a bit irritated that Rarity had screamed over something like that. "You'll feel better after cleaning up, really." More irritated because she'd let it get to her. "Besides, you're make it sound like you were expecting to be a horse, or a goat, or something."

They all had hooves and tails, right? Or wait, was this one of those costume thingies? Bella had heard about something like this once, from some of the kids at her school in Phoenix.

[generarity]

"Not a goat!" How could she even think such a thing?! "A pony! A unicorn!"

Her stomach sank as she put a hand to her forehead, knowing precisely what she wouldn't find. How was she supposed to use magic without her horn? What was she going to do? This just brought on more over-the-top sobbing.

[umuh]

All right, so Rarity thought of herself as something unique. A... unicorn.

Bella chose to ignore that particular bit of crazy in favor of trying to calm the sobbing woman down. With a name like Rarity, maybe sanity was its own rarity when applied to her. "Hey! Hey, it'll be okay. Look at me, all right?" What to do? Bella tried for a reassuring smile. "We'll figure out what happened. Let's just get us both into something warmer and drier, and we'll find out why you're not the... unicorn you, um, expected to be. Okay?"

[generarity]

"Y-yes, you're right..." Rarity took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, giving the fingers on both hands an experimental wiggle. Ugh, what an awful feeling. "Sitting around weeping isn't going to solve anything."

There would always be time for more self-pity after she cleaned herself up, anyway.

She sniffed, once again holding a hand out to Bella for assistance. "What did you say your name was again, dear?"

[umuh]

Bella took her hand, then braced and helped haul her upward. "Bella," she said, grimacing in effort. It cleared away into a friendly enough smile, if it was still a small one. "Bella Swan. The whole human thing is what I was expecting," she added, as if that would help make this situation be more grounded in reality.

She could empathize with the urge to weep. She wanted to after making her decision back home. If fear and the rest wasn't driving her now, she'd probably have given in to the urge until she kicked herself in gear to get something done.

Like maybe find her abductors.

"Most the room looks like... these things over here," she said, gesturing to the tubes. The far end had a doorway, and she nodded toward it. "Maybe we try that direction? Or we can see if there's any other way out." And then she'd wake up at home in her bed for the last time before she flew out of Arizona to the dreary rainy hell of Washington.

[generarity]

"Thank you, Bella." She instantly thought of her similarly-named sister, and she frowned. Hopefully Sweetie Belle was still safe in Ponyville instead of in this dreadful place.

"I'm sure whoever is responsible for this is expecting us to go through those doors. That's exactly where we should go if we hope to meet them and persuade them to bring us back to our respective homes." Yep. It would totally be that easy.

For a moment she wobbled, unused to balancing on only two legs. But if Bella was any indication, that was the way humans did it. She'd just follow after Bella's example and hope she could pick up on walking just as quickly.

[umuh]

Suddenly Bella seriously didn't want to go through those doors. Meeting the people who did this? Yeah, it sounded great, and she'd personally love to unload some of how she was feeling on them, but even assuming they'd just let her (and Rarity) vent? She was angry enough that she knew she wouldn't be able to stop from tearing up in rage.

Bad enough that she wanted to cry for completely unrelated reasons, she didn't need anger provoking her into it right now."Yeah," she said, opting to sound more outwardly optimistic. No point in raining on Rarity's parade. It was special enough as it was. "We'll explain they have the wrong people, and they'll send us home with an apology and a gift basket. Then I can get back to getting to... Forks, and you can go back to..." she trailed off, realizing she had no idea where Rarity was from

T-threadjump time?!

[generarity]

AND THEN THREAD OVERLAP HAPPENED. And minor paradoxes but shh.