Hello, names Seth, and I want to tell you something.

Do you know what is most remarkable about being a cat? No one pays attention of what you do as long as you remain a cat. And I'm really good at being a cat, five thousand years of experience being a cat. It's easy for me, because no one can understand me when I talk to them. Because if you speak like a cat, walk like a cat and look like a cat, then you are definitely a cat.

Well, not that I had a choice in this matter. Even if I want to talk to them as a intelligent creature, my stupid mouth still makes only cat sounds, and the dexterity of my paws prevents me from making any kind of non-cat complex gestures. I really tried, I tried again and again, hoping for someone to understand that I was not really a cat, but all they see is just another funny cat doing funny things. They laugh, they make cute sounds in your direction, they try to stroke you, but no one even tries for a second to imagine that you may not be a cat.

So after a few hundred or even thousands of attempts, I gave up and just roll with it. Free food is free food you know, and petting is good too, and some of them very good at petting. As a result, I even began to like being a cat. Yeah, a strange cat that lives longer than any cat has the right to be. But everything has drawbacks, for example, I had to look for new caretakers when the previous ones were too old, or change the village, or skip the city, but this does not happen very often, and sometimes you can live in one place for several decades.

You may ask that someone must have noticed a long-lived cat that lives longer than any other cat, but when you daily see how a third of your population uses magic to the right and left, things like long-lived cats are not as noticeable. And they have magic, I kid your not. Magic is completely different from fairy tales, which all these primitive aborigines from primal worlds like to imagine, and not highly developed technologies that look like magic, but real magic with spells, light shows and charms. I know this for sure, because magic was the reason why I am a cat. Because I was a stupid, arrogant and self-assured idiot with an ego the size of a sun, who was sure that if I could do magic now, then everything would be under my control. It really isn't. Conjuring high-level magic without any serious preparation, backup plans in case of failure or outside help is really a bucking stupid move.

Take me for example. We have one ancient grimoir about the magic of biological transformation, and we have a newbie in magic with excessive self-confidence in the size of a mountain, who decides to use this transformation on himself, foolishly believing that this spell will allow him to turn into some kind of imperceptible animal for reconnaissance or escape in case of a bad luck. And this novice wizard never thought that cats could not speak chants, because cats do not speak, they meow. And you cant meow the magic chants. They are just not meant for that. And feline brains will have difficulty maintaining high level intelligence of ex-spacefaring snake-worm parasite life form.

But thanks to the last drops of my meager luck and magic rich environment, the brain of my recently acquired feline form slowly developed to the levels necessary to support my intellect, even if it took many, many years. I'm not complaining, not at all. It could be worse. I could well choose to turn an insect or a bird and would be another victim of some nasty predator, but I survived and prevailed because it turned out that my cat form is very cute, and therefore even being out of my mind I managed not only to find the source food, but also to find a new home.

You might be wondering who I was before? Oh, you just will not believe it. I was a God! No, really, I was a god. Yes, not real one, but, nevertheless, God. I even had my own cult and followers. They were bipedal upright creatures from some backwater planet, which my ancestor and co-god conquered, and made these primitives believe that we are gods because we arrived on space ships from the other side of the galaxy.

These primitives were called Tau'ri, and they were savages living in the wild, having nothing even remotely resembling civilization. In short, we defeated them, enslaved them and decided to use some of them as our new hosts. That's right, my species was in dire need of new hosts, because our own bodies are too fragile and weak and cannot exist for a long time without a host or water.

By ourselves, we are aquatic creatures called Goa'ulds, which resemble a hybrid of fish, a worm and a snake with very sharp teeth, gills and fins. Without hosts, we are not so intelligent, but since we can partially or completely merge ourselves with the host's brain, and since we have an absolute genetic memory, when we merge, we become much smarter than the host itself. And our super-perfect immune system allows us to improve the host body to the maximum. We never get sick and may well live forever.

Initially, our first hosts were a race of bipedal upright reptiles, called Unas, but they had some significant drawbacks, such as slowness of mind and too ugly faces. Therefore, we decided to find new bodies for us, and when we defeated these Tau'ri, we were able to choose from the best representatives among our newly acquired slaves and to get ourselves more mentally developed hosts with a much better appearance than Unas.

It was our blessing, and it was also our curse.

Yes, Tau'ri slaves were smarter than Unas. With much more dexterous hands. But they were also cunning little bastards. And then one day they planned and successfully accomplished a coup. You can say that we deserve it, being slavering scum. But let me stop you right here. First, yes, we were slavers, but at that time slavery was a universally accepted system. Secondly - we gave them knowledge of agriculture, science and technology. And finally, the third - we suppressed this uprising in the bloodiest way. Yes, they lost, because it is impossible to fight orbital bombardments with inspirational speeches and pointed sticks.

Then you may ask, why is this our curse? It's simple.

You see, it turned out that they are not a planet of smooth-skinned primitives. They were the planet of the remnants of the ancient race, which plunged into savagery due to some kind of apocalyptic event many eons ago. And not all of them were savages, among them were survivors of ancient times. And these guys had very big guns, and they really don't like it when someone starts the orbital bombardment of their home world, even if they left it a long time ago. They also had very advanced friends from a nearby galaxy who gladly came to help them on their crusade. Therefore, our great leader decided to cut his losses and run as fast as he can. Yes, even if it meant leaving those who did not have time to evacuate.

And I was one of those unfortunate fellas who were left on a backwater planet surrounded by angry primitives and their equally angry friends from deep space.

So, if you ever fall into a similar situation, you will have several ways to survive:

- You can run like hell, find some hole, hide in it, and pray that they won't find you.

- Or immediately change the host and run as far as possible.

- Or finally, the option that I chose - Improvise.

I used my big brain and the knowledge of warp technology that I gained from my absolute genetic memory, some leftover parts of hyperdrive, plus a powerful source of energy and as a result I built a homemade copy of the Stargate. I entered the coordinates of the nearest safe planet and praying to all the spirits in the hope that everything will work and I will be able to escape from the damned planet, pressed the start button.

Did I mention that my luck is miserable? Yes, it was one of those moments when my luck fulfilled my desire, and this abomination of the technological miracle did not explode in my face when I pressed the button. It even created a stable wormhole from point A to point B.

But that was it.

It was also the moment when my luck kissed my ass goodbye, and instead of allowing me to transfer myself from a planet in revolt, to some kind of safe and pleasant refuge, my invention simply threw me onto some uncharted planet so far from home, that the size of the distance I realized only many years later. And as if the final buck you, the wormhole did not transport me from place to place, but literally threw me onto the planet, from a very great height, right on the head of some unfortunate denizen of this world. Instantly killing my host and almost killing this fella.

Perhaps my story would have ended at this very moment, if I had not been so stubborn bastard, so I got out of my dead host and bit my way into the skull of another surviving member of our little circle of the unluckiest creatures in the universe. And that's how I got another chance to survive, overcome and adapt to live in this new bizarre world.

Much to my surprise, my new host body was much sturdier than even Unas, managing to survive even after receiving a powerful blow from space, and continuing to live. Of course, it wasn't without emergency repairs using the capabilities of my parasitic body. Even if I was forced to completely merge with this brain to speed up the process.

And this is how I made the biggest discovery in my life. Just imagine for a second - the magic was real.

You see, my new host belonged to a race that was very close to the phenomenon of magic, and even he himself was magical. He was born in magic, he lived in magic and flourished with magic. Like everyone else in this incredible world. My host race was called 'unicorn pony' and was closely related to the races 'earth pony' and 'pegasus pony'.

And all of the subspecies could use their unique branch of magic, but only this type of pony could perform magic on a completely different level, like those shamans and wizards of the folk tales of tau'ri.

Naturally, I was delighted.

After all this time of bad luck, failures and submission to my elder kin, after all this time of being a false god, I was now closer to being a real God than ever. Closer than any of my kin ever was and will be. I could even become the new Goa'uld emperor, kill Ra and take his mantle of the supreme lord, I can overthrow them all and elevate myself to the absolute height of power. All I needed was just to learn all the possible magic, conquer this world, make my new slaves build a spaceship, and no one could stop me.

Unfortunately, I did not succeed.

Learning magic was not so difficult due to my superb intellectual abilities, but conquering this world was. Attempts to seize power thanks to scientific knowledge and technological advances that I presented them to an almost primitive society ended in failure, because all they care about is the simplicity of things. An attempt to gain power through politics was blocked due to the absolute mistrust of the pony subspecies to each other.

It was so stupid. You cannot find supporters among earth ponies and pegasi, simply because you are a unicorn, and any attempts to reach an solution immediately turned into a bloodbath at the slightest disagreement. They hate you simply because you have a horn on your head. And each attempt to start a peaceful dialogue with any of them immediately led to confrontation if I proposed the idea of uniting tribes or coexistence.

So I decided to use magic and conquer them by force. This led me to start experimenting with magic, search for lost and hidden knowledge, and that unfortunate transformation spell.

What the funny thing about all this horseapples is that I gradually learned to be a good person, because no one will feed angry feral cat, got used to being a cat, because fillies like their live plush toy, and I became quite calm guy, because the alternative was to go completely bonkers.

And I had a lot of time for this. There were good and bad years, but I was still content with my life.

Five thousand of years of being a cat.

Five thousand of years of being an idiot.

Five thousand of years, until I met those little fillies.

Five thousand of years, until I heard something that changed my life.