This is my first attempt at a pony story, and I really don't write much, if you couldn't tell. This is just the beginning, with more to come, so it doesn't go very far yet. The introduction is admittedly quite long, and while I like it how it is, I know some people won't, so scroll until you see the next chain divider to skip ahead. You will be able to understand everything anyways. Thank you for reading. 
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Is winning the lottery really all it’s cracked up to be?

	(You) were recently fired from your job-- you think. Has to be the case, as you haven't shown up in weeks. Since the ticket you bought on a whim just before you stopped clocking in happened to be a big hitter, a job was the least of your worries. You were low maintenance enough for $200,000 to last you until you felt like working again, even if that wasn't for a while, right?

	That much is true. The thing is though, being a NEET is some boring shit. 

	At least, when you're a boring person, it is. Your life wasn't ever all that exciting, but idle conversations at work and the fulfillment of actually doing something were nice enough, even if it was all just a means to the end of not starving and not being homeless. It was decidedly more entertaining than the routine of waking up and clicking around the internet until you felt tired. At least your perusal of the internet felt like a reward when it had to wait until you got home. Unfortunately, though, it wasn't like you had lascivious tastes, and winning the lottery wasn't something you'd ever daydreamt about, so the whole thing really caught you unawares.
	
	Likewise for what broke the monotony of this lifestyle, about a month deep: an accidental click on an advertisement while you were looking at a forum thread outlining the steps to fix a very specific problem with your OS. What were you, a rookie? When was the last time you clicked on an ad? Your face was lit up by the blinding white of the pop-up, a steep contrast from the easier-on-the-eyes green on black theme of the forum page, and once it loaded, you actually hesitated before clicking the 'x' on the tab.

	"PONIES FOR CHEAP" had successfully piqued your interest, the slogan assaulting your eyes even worse than the blank page had done. It was an ornate typographic art plastered across the top of your browser's display, reminiscent of an old-timey carnival sign with the flashing lights around the border flickering in tandem with each other. Just below, there was a giant graphic, a photograph of the most ridiculous looking horses, three of them stood next to each other.

	The three horses stood shorter than a normal one, which made sense since the site called them ponies. Their eyes were also giant, glistening and totally unlike the beady black balls that sit in an actual horse’s head. Speaking of heads, the one in the middle even had a horn sprouting out of theirs. To its right, the second pony didn’t have a horn, but instead had a wing nestled on either side of it. The third didn't have either, but its colors were more than enough to set it apart from a normal horse, with its coat shining a disgustingly sweet bubblegum pink that complimented the deeper, hot pink of its enormous, poofy mane surprisingly well. The other two's colors were more- well, could you even call them more normal? The one with a horn (a unicorn, you suppose) was a minty green on her body, her sleek and spiky mane sporting a more pale green that alternated with white. The one with wings, to the right of the unicorn was a slate gray that contrasted with the yellow of her mane and tail, which were styled similarly to the green horse’s. 

	You didn't bother trying to decipher the meaning behind this impressive photoshop job. The horses, or, ponies as the site called them, really did look real, real enough for you to scroll down and see just where this supposed vendor would be "selling" them, or if there was a number to call, or what have you. As you scrolled down, the sides of the page were lined with smaller images of a wide variety of other technicolor horses, again some with wings or a horn. Who the hell would have taken the time to photoshop all of these? Each image was captioned with a ridiculous name befitting of such ridiculous animals, first and last, and a number that you gathered was a price tag, as well. Hefty price tags, at that. You didn't see one cheaper than $15,000, and even that was one of just three that were less than $20,000. And the site was called "Ponies for cheap". Who did these hacks think they were fleecing out of tens of thousands of dollars for such an obviously fake product? Your interest had been snuffed out by the audacity of the person who put this scam together, and you closed out of the tab before returning to trying to figure out your OS issue. 

	In the morning, you groggily arose and tossed aside your blanket, and for no reason other than the routine, you glanced at the alarm clock next to your bed. A bright and early 2:26 PM. For some reason, your mind flashed back to the ponies you’d looked at last night. You weren’t particularly interested, but the fact still stood that someone spent a ridiculous amount of time crafting the scheme, and for that reason you decided to look into it again.

		google.com
		“ponies for cheap”

	It didn’t take long for you to find what you were looking for. It was the sponsored result at the top, as well as the first actual result. As you always did in such a case, you clicked on the one that wasn’t sponsored, and the browser instantly lit up with the now familiar carnival sign and three horses you briefly studied the night before. Seriously, whoever photoshopped these should put that effort into something else, something more profitable than the obviously fake endeavor of selling these ponies.

	The site said to log in for more information, but didn’t give you the option to register, leaving you to assume accounts were created and distributed at the discretion of the vendor. That seemed like the sort of thing they’d do if the entire operation was actually legitimate, as opposed to letting anyone and everyone sign up for their scam, but come on. Despite how uninterested you wanted yourself to be, you found yourself fiddling with inspect element to try and see if there was anything poorly hidden enough for you to uncover. After a few minutes, to your surprise, you managed to find an address. A plethora of them, actually. The site was supposed to read the logged in user’s location, and give them the nearest address, but you went through the list manually, and found out that there was one just an hour away. Not a short drive, but there was nothing closer. 

	And so what? Just because they have places for someone to pick up their pony doesn’t mean they actually exist.. Right? What did it matter, anyways? You weren’t actually interested, this was just an ad you happened to click on.. Is what echoed through your head until you stood at the door, freshly showered and dressed for the first time in weeks. Nothing fancy, just somewhat presentable while still being comfortable. Stepping out, the sun made anything your monitor could muster up look like nothing in comparison, you physically recoiled and shielded yourself before you recovered, stepping out of your small home that’d been passed down to you in a will. Lucky break. After recovering from the sun’s attack, you made your way to the car backed into your driveway. Despite being a lottery winner, it was still the same cheap hatchback that drove you to and from work, and finally to that gas station the lottery ticket was bought from. You hadn't felt particularly inclined to replace it, what with your complete lack of interest in cars and all. 

	With your fingers brushing against the door’s handle, you chuckled. This was the first thing to get you out of the house since you won it big? An address listed on a scam site that you swore to yourself you had no interest in? Even as you laughed, you continued moving, and before you knew it, you were heading up the winding driveway out of your property at a brisk pace. As bumpy as it was, and always had been,  you weren’t surprised at the ‘low tire pressure’ warning that appeared on your dash, but you decided to ignore it for now. It seemed the sensors for your tire pressure were sensitive as all get-out, since you’d driven much longer than two hours with that light on before filling them back up again.
	
	Your phone’s robotic voice guided you this way and that way, and it didn’t take as long as you expected to get there. If memory served, you had left just fifty minutes ago, and now you were on the opposite side of the road to a nondescript, dusty looking warehouse that was enclosed by a tall, wire fence, sporting yellow signs with lightning symbols every twenty feet or so around its perimeter. Were you really going to go in there? There was an intercom at the gate, where they’d probably ask for your credentials, or worse yet, you may have had to make an appointment after logging into the site. But could it really just be a scheme, if the address that just so happened to be closest to you really looked like it could house all those horses? They had to have something in there, anyways. 

	These thoughts were all set overtop the idle humming of your car’s engine as you sat parked on the shoulder. Surprisingly wide, for how far out this road was. 

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	For some reason, your mind was replaying the moment that there was a giant, unwieldy camera shoved in your face a couple days after you had bought the winning ticket, since you regrettably said “yes” to an interview from the local news station. How unlike you. Regardless, you remembered what you had said down to the exact words, it had felt that embarrassing. 

	“I never play, no, I just had the thought in my mind for whatever reason- I mean, my mom always told me not to waste my money on things like that when I got older, but here I am- Sorry mom, if you’re watching this. She’s always got the TV going in her house, so she might actually be..”
“But no, I didn’t expect it, which makes me wonder why I even did it, you know?” you stammered out into the microphone that was held out to you before the reporter took it back to ask the obvious question. 

	“So do you have any idea what you’re going to do with the money? Two hundred thousand dollars is quite a lot, and I’m sure you’re ready to spend it, if you haven’t started already!”

	“Uh, I..” you started. “To be honest, I haven’t spent anything of it yet.” 

	“Well, I bought gas this morning, and the balance is in my account, but that’s- you know, I already had that much money, and..” you trail off as the camera seems to get bigger and bigger in front of you. Why did you even say yes to this in the first place?

	“You don’t have any idea of what you’re gonna do with it? I know I’d probably take a nice vacation if I got that lucky!” The reporter tried to help you out a little, but it was no use. 

	From there, you actually don’t remember exactly what you said, and you don’t feel much like trying to recall. It certainly wasn’t, though, a declaration of your desire to go try and buy a totally-not-fake pony from a warehouse that looks like it’s a set for drug busts in movies, that you learned about from an obviously fake advertisement the day before. You brought your hand to the gear shift and depressed the brake, bringing your car back into drive so that you could get yourself turned around somewhere and go home. This was stupid. 

	As you were checking your sideview mirror to see that you were safe to get back on the road, though, you saw a little mass of yellow and red lumbering across the street, as though it was unaware of the giant metal death machines that hurdle across the asphalt and regularly kill unsuspecting things like itself. Most animals that lived near roads learned that much, at some point. What animal was it, anyways? You slid the gearshift back up to the ‘P’ and squinted at your sideview mirror, trying to get a better look at it, but you honest to God couldn’t tell from this distance. Whatever it was, though, it would make you sad if it got run over, so you unbuckled your seatbelt and hopped out of the car, jogging down the shoulder to go scoop it up and deposit it on the other side of the road.

	Luckily, you heard no cars coming in either direction as you approached the thing, probably because this really was an out of the way road. When you got close enough to make out what it was though, you froze, blinking and rubbing your eyes in response, much like a cartoon.
	
	It was one of those ponies! Well, this was a lot smaller than any of the ones you saw on the website, but it certainly fit the bill otherwise. It was horse-adjacent, with colors you’d never see on a horse, or any animal for that matter. Its coat was yellow, contrasted by the bright red in its mane and tail, which were puffy and almost lumpy in the way the hairs formed together. The thing didn’t have wings, or a horn on its head, but it was sporting a pink bow clipped onto the back of its mane. It was walking with its head down, dejectedly and with its hooves almost dragging on the road below it. At its pace, it’d get across sooner or later, but you sprung back into action when you heard the familiar hiss of tires treading on the road, getting louder at a pace quicker than you’d like. 

	“Hey!” you yelled as you were now bounding towards the little pony, “Get out of the road!”

	Why did you think it would be effective to yell at a horse in English? Heat of the moment. To your amazement, however, it seemed somewhat useful. The pony cocked its head towards you, its giant pupils catching a shine in the sun as you could just barely make out the deep, fiery orange of its iris. The sight of its eyes made you stop in your tracks, and when you made eye contact with it, you certainly didn’t feel like you were staring into an animal’s eyes. A short moment later, it opened its mouth and-

	“Git out of the whut?”

	You were floored. The thing just spoke. What’s more, it has an accent like it just moseyed in from three states south of here! Your shock subsided, or more accurately was replaced by terror as the sound of tires lapping on the road replaced every thought in your head. 

	“Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit” exited your mouth under your breath as you resumed hurdling towards this little thing, which resulted in it widening its eyes and turning in the opposite direction, scrambling into motion as it started galloping towards whatever vehicle was advancing your way, over the hill. Luckily, it wasn’t very fast, or maybe you were faster than usual due to the adrenaline. Whatever the case, you swung one arm under the pony’s yellow belly and scooped it up, backing into the shoulder as each of your ears was assaulted- your left with the screaming of the creature, and your right with the blaring of a horn. 

	It was a fucking semi truck speeding past you, the driver probably about to pull into the next rest stop to change his pants after that near miss. He didn’t lay off the horn until he was about a hundred feet down the road, and part of you worried that someone from the warehouse would come out and see what the commotion was about. What was more worrying, though, was the shrieking of the creature you held in one arm almost like a football, paired with the warm sensation you felt sinking into that side of your clothes. Did it..? Yep. It pissed all over you. ‘It’ also seemed to be a girl, upon closer inspection. You didn’t see its junk, but the face looked quite feminine, as far as weird colorful horses go.

	You swung your arm out and held it at a distance as she dribbled a little still. Definitely a girl. Her neck was craned upwards while she wailed towards the sky like you’d just killed her family, and she was swinging all four of her legs in an effort to get you to drop her. This continued for a few more seconds, before her forelegs wrapped around your arms and she clamped down with her teeth, which hurt much less than you expected. It didn't seem like her heart was in it. You just watched as she gnawed at the flesh of your arm. It might leave a bruise, you thought, but it hurt less than when your cat would playfully do the same when you were younger. 

	After a little while of you maintaining your grip on her unflinchingly, she sniffled for the last time as her cries tapered off. She looked up at you with her teeth still clamped around your arm, almost in bewilderment as she seemed to be wondering why you hadn’t dropped her yet. If you did, she probably would run off and get hit by a car elsewhere, or get eaten by some bigger animal in the woods. Her survival instincts didn’t exactly seem sharp. 

	“Hello..?” you threw out, trying to see if she’d respond in her current state.

	“Put me down! Ah don’t wanna go back in there!” exited her mouth as soon as she freed your arm from it, and her hind legs started wiggling again, pathetically kicking at the underside of your arm.

	“So.. you came from that warehouse?” you nodded towards the depot with your head.

	“No! Ah came from Ponyville! Yew went and put me in that there house with everypony else! Stupid hooman!”

	“Ponyville..?” you inquired, almost wanting to laugh about how on the nose it was. That, and “everypony” really threw you for a loop, but it did make sense, you supposed.

	“What’s your name?” you asked next, since just repeating “Ponyville” didn’t elicit a response.

	For a while, this didn’t either. She looked around and seemed to be evaluating the scenery, her chest rising and falling as she regained her breath after exerting herself so. Following her eyes, you decided to, too. The area you were in was kind of drab, for autumn. The sun was shining bright, but it hardly felt like it because of the depressing grays and browns that met your eyes. All the leaves had long fallen off their trees and browned, and it wasn’t far from winter. Eventually you looked back at the pony in your grasp to see that she was already staring at you.

	“Ah’m Apple Bloom,” she started, before continuing, to your surprise: “Mah sister is Applejack, mah brother is Big Macintosh, and mah grandma is Granny Smith. And ah have a cousin named Babs Seed.” 

	For a moment, you just stared, perplexed at why she decided to add all those other family members, as well as why she skipped her parents and went straight to her grandma. Kids, though, tended to do inexplicable things, so you didn’t question it.

	“Okay, Apple Bloom, if I put you down, will you stay here and chat with me?” you asked, lightening your grip around her slim, yellow barrel.

	“Ah..” she started as her head swung in the direction of the warehouse, then again in the opposite direction, into the expansive and drab nature off the side of the road.

	“Do ah have to?” she asked in earnest.

	Again, probably since she was just a kid, she seemed to place some semblance of authority on you, a stranger, due to your age, and maybe your species, which was kind of amusing given she had no obligation to listen to you.

	“I’d like you to,” you started as you handed her to your other hand since your arm was getting tired. “It doesn’t seem like you want to go back to the warehouse, but it also doesn’t seem like you’ll make it far on your own.”

	“Ah will too! Ah’ll make it so far yew won’t even be able to see me!” she retorted, clearly taking offense to what you said as she crossed her forelegs and looked away from you.

	“If I hadn’t grabbed you, you’d have been run over by a semi truck.”

	That seemed to defeat anything she could think of saying at the moment. Her body relaxed a little and you took that as a cue to put her down.

	“So.. whut do yew want?” she asked as her hooves touched the ground. She wasn’t running for now, at least.

	You looked around, specifically towards the warehouse, as you grew increasingly weary of someone coming out to see you talking to escaped merchandise, before looking back at Apple Bloom.
	
	“If you don’t want to go back in there,” you started, shoving a thumb in the direction of the warehouse, “then why don’t we go somewhere else to talk? Someone from the warehouse might come out and see you.”

	The gears in her head turned, weighing the risk of leaving with a strange hooman elsewhere, in comparison to staying so close to the place she just barely escaped. Apple Bloom didn’t respond, and it seemed like she was zoned out, staring ahead at nothing in particular.

	“Go, git on through there! Yous can fit, Apple Bloom! Me and.. Me and Big Mac, we’ll find a way out soon, and we’ll be back with ya’ as soon as we can be!” 

	Apple Bloom even felt the phantom sense of the metal scraping her body as she squeezed her way through a small hole in the wall of her room- really more of a cell. It hurt, but didn’t break her skin. After making it through the hole, popping out onto the short, dry grass outside, she had pressed her eye back up to it to see her siblings. 
	
	“Whut now, Applejack?!” her voice squealed even in her hushed tone, careful not to alert anyone that she was there. 

	“Just, scram! Git! Far way from here!” her sister insisted until her head swung to the entrance of the cell, her attention being stolen by the jiggling of the doorknob.

	Applejack’s hoof slammed against the hole, spooking her sister into falling back right on her haunches on the cold surface of the grass, and a low voice boomed, just barely out of range for Apple Bloom to make out all the words.

	“These’re the work horses. Lookit the muscles on the red one, the stallion. He’ll do nicely, and the mare’ll, failing that, put out some good kids wittem’, too, if ‘ya need more. Since ‘yer a return customer, I’ll do thirty five for the two of ‘em. Give ‘ya a good deal, there.”

	Apple Bloom’s heart was pounding, feeling as though it’d pop out of her chest. She didn’t dare move a muscle and end up making a sound. Not while there was a human right on the other side of the wall, saying something she couldn’t quite make out in that scary, gross voice. Through the hole, though, Apple Bloom’s wide eyes caught sight of Applejack’s orange coat moving past it, as well as her brother’s big, red body, and she heard the echo of a sound that’d been melted into her brain: chains clattering and clinking as a collar was slammed on either pony.

	“Hello? You there, Apple Bloom?” you said after she had been staring ahead for a few seconds too many.

	She blinked and looked up at you, her lower lip trembling as her eyes shone with a thick layer of tears, which quickly began running down her face, before her mouth barely opened for a whisper to come out:

	“P-please- hic! Take me somewhere far from ‘ere..” was all she managed to get out before she started wailing again, which you responded to by scooping her up under her barrel again and carrying her, bringing your thumb back and forth to gently pet at her withers while you walked over to your car, a bit hurriedly. Best get out of here. 

	You left the car running, so you don’t need to start it. You just set Apple Bloom in the passenger seat and put it in drive, before pulling back into the road, looking for a place to turn around and go back in the direction of your house.

	“Are you hungry?” you ask, setting a hand on her back as she weeps into her forelegs, curled up into a shrimp of a pony as her head bobs up and down with each sob, “When was the last time you ate?” 

	She doesn’t respond, but her body does. On cue, the cabin of the car is filled with the sound of her stomach gurgling, and that’s all you need to hear to know that it’s been too long. You continue petting her and a little while later, you figure what she might want to eat, although you’re not too familiar with pony diets, you take a guess.

	“Would you like some apples?” you ask, glancing in her direction long enough to see her ear twitch before returning your attention to the road.

	Her sobbing slows and she gives a feeble “Mhm” before she raises her head, wiping snot from her muzzle with one of her hooves as she looks up at you. “Do yew have some?” she asks, laboredly through her crying.

	“Uh, no, I,” you start as you’re caught off guard with her sudden directness, and how the mention of apples seemed to have lifted her mood a bit. “I can stop at the store and get you some, though,” you finish.

	She flops her head back into her forelegs, giving a resigned “Okay” before her tail flicks away from her, shortly returning back to her side. 

	The car ride is nearly silent for a while after that. Your hatchback’s never been too loud going down the road, even though it’s old and a bit junky. Well, on the inside at least. It’s probably making some ugly noises to anyone on the outside. You drive on, not needing the GPS since the route there was essentially a straight shot after leaving town from some obscure road. You remembered the way. After a while, you nearly forget that Apple Bloom was in the passenger seat, her crying having subsided, but she reminds you of her presence by piping up:

	“Whut’s yer name?” she asks, wiping her eyes and standing up on all fours so she can get a look out her window.

	“Oh, my name? Sorry I never introduced myself," you say, it having slipped your mind to give your name after she gave hers earlier. "I’m Anonymous, but you can just call me ‘Anon’ if that’s too much trouble.” 

	“Anon, ah needa go ‘ta the bathroom.”