Hands
A My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
By Andrew J. Talon
DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fanbased work of prose. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is the property of Hasbro, and the reinvention of the lovely Lauren Faust. No copyright infringement is intended, please support the official release.
- - - -
Back to slice of life shorts. Maybe I can get things back on track this way.
- - - -
So, the aftermath of my little misadventure out of the hospital got me put under house arrest. Nurse Redheart actually petitioned the Princesses to make me stop pushing myself, and for once they responded to her calls.
But, unicorn magic being what it is, I was soon healed and well enough for some limited physical activity.
"Ahhh! Oh God, no! No, don't!" Gasped Queen Chrysalis. Andrew Shepherd cackled.
"Ahahaha! Foolish fool! You will be defeated by my kickass unicorn girlfriend!"
"That's right!" Twilight said, as she slid forward. "Eat my magic blasts! Doom! Doooom!"
"Oh that's cute, having your girlfriend fight for you," Chrysalis said mockingly. "Does she do everything else for you?"
"You're trying to provoke me into fighting you so you can crush me," Shepherd said. "Which is clever, but foolish! For killing me off would only enrage my kickass unicorn girlfriend to... To Super Saiyan levels!"
"I don't know what that is!" Twilight whined.
"I do! Because I just defy all common sense and rules of reality!" Pinkie Pie laughed.
"Oh just marry my brother already, everypony can see it," Applejack scoffed. "Also take out the Bug Queen already Twilight! Or Shepherd, just so we can get onto the freaking selling of my apple treats! Capitalism, hooo!"
"That's my line!" Rarity interjected.
"This has really turned kind of weird, hasn't it? I thought we were in the middle of a battle, not an argument!" Pinkie Pie pointed out.
"Don't point out the plot holes, Pinkie Pie!" Shepherd said flatly. "And how do you do that, anyway?"
"I don't know! Maybe I'm an Eldritch abomination in pony form!" Pinkie giggled.
"Does that come with tentacles? Because I'm all for that, if-if that's okay Shepherd?" Fluttershy asked. Shepherd twisted back and forth.
"... I'm both scared and aroused by that. As usual when dealing with you."
There was a knock on the door, and I coughed. I quickly shoved the action figures into a box, and hid them under a nearby chair.
"Come in!" I said cheerfully, sitting as casually as I could with an elbow on the table. Twilight entered with a smile, and a stack of forms.
"Hey sweetie, I..." She frowned. "Huh..."
I blinked. "Something wrong?"
"The Princess said she was sending some action figures this shop in Manehattan is releasing... To give us a preview and make sure everything meets our standards," she said. She looked at me curiously. "Have you seen them?"
"Ah... Yes, actually," I said quickly. "I mean, action figures you said?"
Twilight nodded. I turned and pulled the box out from under a chair. I set them in front of her. She examined them with a bright smile.
"Aw... It's how we looked during the Changeling crisis! You especially!" She frowned as she turned my action figure over. "Your feet are kind of wrong, though. Like they were broken off and re-attached..."
"Well, they probably are just far too used to making pony dolls to get it right," I said quickly. Maybe a bit too quickly judging from the look on her face.
"Uh huh... Is this peanut butter?" She sniffed the Fluttershy doll. She eyed the remnants of my lunch on the counter nearby, including a bit of crust from a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
"You know, why don't we just talk about... The forms! The forms you brought along," I said quickly. I reached out and took them, setting them on my table with a smile. Twilight smiled back, and sat in the chair across from mine.
"Good idea! It's pretty simple, just... Well, an application for the citizenship test, and for health insurance."
"... I thought I already was," I said with a frown. "Didn't saving the kingdom entitle me to that?"
"Well yes, but there's an official test and application to take, too," Twilight said quickly. My frown deepened.
"So... What am I right now? I mean, legally... Aside from 'illegal alien'," I snickered a bit. It was rather funny, you know? “And… Wait, how have I been paying for my health needs until now?”
“Er, well…” Twilight smiled. “Let’s not worry about that!”
“Twilight,” I said warningly. My purple marefriend nuzzled me.
“We can go to the dentist and have you checked out, and then you can understand everything you need to do,” Twilight said. “Fair enough?”
I worried my lip. She looked so sincere… I nodded.
“All right. But you’re putting it into your schedule. In ink.”
“Already done,” Twilight said, presenting me with a scroll that did indeed have a dentist’s appointment set up for me. I sighed and shook my head.
“You are entirely too smart for your own good, Twilight Sparkle,” I said. Twilight huffed.
“Impossible!”
“Clearly,” I said wryly.
- - - - - -
It was long and exhausting, but every step of the way Twilight helped me with the forms to fill out for the Equestrian equivalent of their national healthcare market. In essence, it made healthcare providers compete on an open market with a tax-subsidized standard for all citizens of certain tax brackets. It was remarkably elegant and well thought out.
In other words, absolutely nothing like any current medical system on my planet.
"All right, now that that’s done, let's begin with the citizenship application," Twilight said cheerfully, organizing the forms into two neat stacks and setting them down like cards about to be shuffled. She had donned glasses and put her hair up into a bun. A move I found to be very attractive, but uh... Right. Had to focus.
"Name?" Twilight asked.
"Andrew... Eugene Shepherd," I said.
"Date of birth?" Twilight asked. I made a face.
"I haven't done the conversions from Earth years to Equestrian yet-"
"Relax, I've taken care of it," Twilight said, waving her other hoof as she scratched down the answer. "Let's keep going. Place of birth?"
"Earth..." At Twilight's look, I shrugged. "You want me to be more specific?"
"I guess that will do for now..." Twilight sighed.
The question and answer session continued... And got more and more ridiculous.
"If a white mark is painted on your forehead and you stand in front of a mirror. Do you A, touch the mark on your forehead. B, touch the mirror. C, scream angrily at the other you in the mirror and smash it-"
"A, and what the hell?" I asked in disbelief. Twilight looked up and gave me a sharp look. I scowled right back.
"What do you mean, what the hell?"
"If I can comprehend the question relating to the test, why ask it in the first place?" I demanded.
"It's completely standardized-"
"It's completely retarded," I said angrily. Twilight's cheeks flushed in anger.
"It is not! And do you want to finish this test, or not?"
"Fine!" I said angrily, standing up and stretching. "Nngh..."
"We aren't done yet!" Twilight said. I stopped and stared at her in disbelief.
"I'm just getting up and stretching," I said flatly. "How is that a bad thing? I've been sitting in this chair for hours!"
"But the sooner we get this done, the better!" Twilight said urgently. "I mean, Princess Celestia herself gave me this assignment and she told me it had to be done as soon as possible and I can only conclude that the deadline is absolutely vital!"
"Why?" I blurted out. Twilight blinked.
"What?! What do you mean, why?!"
"Well... She seemed to make it clear it was important-" Twilight began, but I cut her off.
"Yes, and so it is. But is it really something to stress out over? Like..." Realization hit me. "Everything else you get directly from your mentor?"
Twilight scowled. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean, whenever Princess Celestia is involved, you seem to kind of..." How to put this delicately? "Freak out."
Okay, so that wasn't delicately, given Twilight's indignant look.
"I do not freak out! I-I am perfectly focused, responsible-"
"Time travel incident," I said dryly. Twilight flushed a bit.
"Th-That's completely different!" Twilight said quickly. "This is just a missive, given to me by Princess Celestia and..."
"And?" I rested my hands on her hooves and looked her in the eyes. "It's just paperwork, Twilight. Relax, okay? We just need a break."
Twilight worried her lower lip. She looked at the stack of forms, and then back to me. "But Princess Celestia-"
"Oh for crying out loud," I muttered. I sighed, resigned, and grabbed Twilight's flanks. She squeaked and struggled as I began to give her a massage.
"An-Andrew! Andrew Eugene Shepherd, y-you quit that right now!"
"No."
"Stop it right now!"
"No," I said, as I proceeded to tickling. She giggled, and nuzzled me as she patting her hooves against my chest.
"S-Stop it! You're... Heeheeeheehee! Th-This isn't fairrrr...!"
"No, it isn't," I agreed with a smile. I squeezed her rump. She squeaked... And bucked her head. Her horn flashed with magical power, and I was suddenly thrown into the nearby wall. "URK!"
"Oh! Oh, Andrew! Oh no, are you all right?" Twilight asked, suddenly concerned and hovering over me. I groaned and looked up at her.
"I... Am fine..." My eyes narrowed a bit as an idea occurred. "But you have to take a break."
Twilight worried her lower lip. "I..." She sighed, ears drooping. "All right..."
I smiled. "Good! Let's read a book or something. Together. On the couch."
Twilight almost immediately brightened. "That sounds lovely!" She enthused. She summoned a large tome covered in archaic script. "I know just the one!"
"Er... Elementary Spell Physics, Volume Nine," I read off the title. Twilight nodded.
"It's one of my favorites! Why don't we read it..." And here she blushed, "together?"
Now, reading a textbook is not exactly my idea of a relaxing time... On the other hand, making my marefriend happy? That is.
"All right," I said with a smile.
After all, it couldn't be as boring as paperwork, right?
- - - - - -
Actually, it wasn’t boring. Far better than paperwork. Which I resumed almost exactly on the dot, despite Twilight’s clearly desperate desire to keep reading.
“I’ll just have to save strange quarks for later,” she sighed, closing the book up around a neat bookmark. “Now then, let’s get back to it.”
I made my way to the desk and resumed filling out the forms, one at a time, Twilight looking over each one. It seemed endless, really… But by and by, there were only four forms left. Then three, then two, and finally, with a flourish of my aching hand, I stacked the last one into the finished pile. I smiled over at Twilight, who smiled back.
"So, any other forms I have to fill out?" I asked Twilight warily. My unicorn girlfriend tilted her head curiously.
"Well, you've filled out all the forms I brought along..."
"I don't like that modifier," I said flatly. Twilight rolled her eyes.
"Honestly, you're so melodramatic! It's just forms! You told me you filled them out all the time on your planet-"
"And I hated that too," I replied. "It was tedium, turned into a means of supporting lazy bureaucrats."
"There's a lot more to it than that," Twilight huffed. "And you are an undocumented lifeform on this planet, a newcomer. You want to get paid and health insurance, right?"
"Yeah, but..." I grumbled. "It just seems so... Mundane."
"Mundane?" Asked Twilight, raising an eyebrow. I raised my hands up and waved them around.
"Well... This is a world of magic ponies, killer monsters, goddesses who raise the sun and moon..." I looked down at the stack of paperwork with a disgusted expression. "And you still have forms to fill out?!"
Twilight snorted.
"Would you prefer we fill out the forms while we battle a dark unicorn king for control of an ancient empire?"
I thought about it, and smiled. "Well... Yeah, I would."
"Too bad! There isn't any such adventure and I wouldn't let you fill out forms while we were doing it!" Twilight stated, putting her hoof down. "... Unless it was really vital. Like, if you'd left it to the last minute." Her eyes narrowed. "As you often do."
"I'm always on time when it comes to the important things," I stated. Twilight glared.
"Paperwork is important!"
"Only because you have a fetish for paper, books and information in that form," I stated. Twilight blinked and tilted her head.
"Fet... Ish?"
I blinked. "... I could have sworn we covered-"
"What is it?" Twilight asked happily, eager to learn something new. I coughed.
"Ah... You know what, maybe we should get to the dentist’s office-”
"What is a fetish?"
"I'm not telling you," I said. Twilight's eyes narrowed.
"Not going to tell me?"
"Nope," I said. "You'll have to figure it out for yourself."
Twilight's eyes flashed... And she smiled. I gulped. You'd think I would learn... But that was her thing, not mine.
“All right. Dentist’s office it is,” she said with a broad smile. “And after that? Research.”
“Indeed,” I said with a nod, frantically thinking of a way out of this.
And as you might expect? I didn’t.
Human intelligence, yeah...
------
Getting a dental appointment was about as much fun on Equestria as it was on Earth. Though I suppose I didn't have to deal with someone's hands in my mouth, given it was a unicorn handling the tools. The glow of her magic on them was a bit distracting. I kept feeling a buzzing in the back of my head as my mouth was held wide open. I laid back in the dentist's chair, which was essentially a heavily modified couch.
"So, I don't get a lot of primates," the dentist said conversationally. "Your dental formula is very interesting. And you take such good care of them! Flossing and everything! How often do you do it?"
"Hwar hraff," I replied, rolling my eyes. What, did she expect me to be intelligible?
"Very good indeed," she said. "Hrm..." She looked at the chart nearby, scrutinizing some forms. "Something strange though."
"Hrrf?" I asked. The dentist frowned and tilted her head.
"Your incisors... They're a bit dull for an omnivore, aren't they?"
"Hwahmf?" I asked again. The dentist beamed.
"Oh, that's all right. A free tooth sharpening is included in your plan!"
"Waahf?" I tried. The dentist held up a tooth polisher of some kind, which buzzed loudly.
"Don't worry, I'll have it all fixed in a moment!" She said. I shook my head and tried to get out of the chair... But belts snapped in around my limbs.
"MMPH?!" I cried out. The dentist advanced, still smiling.
"This won't hurt a bit!"
"HWAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
------
I was met in the office by Twilight. She smiled at me. I didn't return the favor, which made her frown.
"Everything all right?" She asked. I sighed... And bared my teeth. Twilight blinked, and smiled.
"Oh! Your incisors-You got them sharpened!"
"It was free," I said flatly. "Now I can't talk without risking cutting my tongue."
"I'm failing to see it as a problem," Twilight teased. I crossed my arms over my chest and huffed.
"Funny..." I turned to the receptionist at the counter. "So, how much?"
"Ah, eheh," and suddenly Twilight was in front of me. She gave me an entirely unconvincing smile. "Wh-Why don't you let me handle this?"
I frowned. "Twilight, I think I can handle this. I'll just pay out of pocket-"
"Now now, I've got it all handled," Twilight said quickly, turning to the receptionist. She gripped a pen with her telekinesis and began to scribble on the paperwork. I scowled and leaned over to try and see what she was writing. She moved it aside. She was grinding up against me, which would normally be kind of pleasant but right now it was just annoying.
"Let me at least pay the co-pay... What are you doing?"
"Nothing!" Twilight said. I glared.
"Twilight, you're really not good at lying. What's going-On-HEY!" I kept trying to snatch the papers up, and she just kept me at bay. "TWILIGHT!"
"Mr. Sparkle, perhaps you and your wife can handle this outside?" The receptionist suggested. I rolled my eyes as Twilight froze.
"Ha ha, very funny, haven't heard that one before," I muttered. I reached down and snatched the papers. "Now if you'll just... Just..." I stared. "Twilight, you've signed on the line for 'spouse'."
Twilight didn't look at me, her hooves tapping nervously. My eyes narrowed.
"Twilight... Why did you sign on the line for spouse?"
"Um... Well, you see," Twilight began, "you didn't fill out the forms to get single health insurance in time for this fiscal year, and it's far cheaper to just file jointly... So... Legally..."
I stared at her. She giggled nervously.
"... And you were upset with Fluttershy for wanting to have my children," I said, feeling like I was in shock.
"Well, she did classify you as her pet under her health insurance, so you really shouldn't be that upset with me," Twilight said matter-of-factly.
"I'm what?!"
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