The Poly Little Pony

by Chatoyance

BrOkEn DrEaMs

As my dedicated readers know, my writing method is to be seized with a rough concept combined with an irrepressible drive to write. I never know what will happen next, as I write, essentially on faith, automatically, I witness the story unfold just as any reader does. I know my world, I come to know my characters as they act and react, and the story or novel just sort of write themselves.

Now this is all well and good, when some muse hits me and I am filled with joy and everything is great. But what about those times when none of that is true? Do I ever try to write anyway? (The answer is yes, because I really do enjoy writing!) And what happens if an inspiration fails, or is cancelled by outside events that shut the endeavor down?

Well, the answer to that is failure. Some stories just never get finished and they just hang, dead on the vine. But I cannot bring myself to delete them, because I put so much love or energy into them, and in any case, they are my babies. Stillborn, but beloved nonetheless. I cannot go back and finish them, because whatever inspiration that formed them is gone, too much time has passed. Once lost, my muses never return - they are one shot, take advantage or lose out. That is the serious downside of my technique.

Art exists to communicate, art is a language. If it never reaches an audience, art is pointless - worse than meaningless, it becomes an insult to the act of creation itself. Art must be seen by others, or it is a wound on the soul of the artist. Even if it is unfinished. Even if it will never be complete.

Follow me, then, and I will take you into the little graveyard just out back of my Shed Of Imagination, where I have buried my poor, stillborn babies. Gaze now at the sad little gravestones, I have my shovel ready - let us look upon their gleaming bones...

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1. Red Kryptonite Kingdom For A Horse
Cause of death: Author Illness Lasting Too Long.
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Celestia was braced, her hooves literally embedded in the naked rock. Her horn blazed with absolute power, with the light of a billion, billion suns, the very stone made transparent by the terrible, awful light.

The wind swore hurricane epithets as it ripped past, razor knives of air gouging the very mountain Celestia was desperately trying to cling to.

The dark spiral, the hole, the gash, the loathsome wound in the dome of what had once been Luna's proud sky had already devoured the disks of the sun and the moon both. Equestria was swirling down the drain in the sky, and nothing, not even the might of immortal alicorn will, could stop it.

And still, in this place, where Celestia's supernal form was cut by a river of the debris of the universe itself tearing at her hide, Tealeaf stood, impossibly.

Tealeaf was there to help. And if she could not help, then to fall, to fall trying, struggling against something hopeless even to a goddess.

Celestia turned an eye to Tealeaf, tears streaming into the horror, her thousand wounds gushing not blood but magic itself. Her mouth moved, but the nightmare roar of The End obliterated any other sound but itself.

Tealeaf studied the muzzle of her princess, deciphering every movement of lip, attending the most minute of motions, trying to finally learn the final message of the Diarch of the Sun. Celestia was saying...

The alarm buzzed loudly, shocking Jainey Tulwortz from The Dream. She'd been having The Dream a lot lately, she had no idea why. She'd thought she'd gotten past that with the therapy. There was no reason for it!

Jainey forced herself to roll off the mattress. Her bed was flat on the floor, she couldn't afford a frame for it. Not since the move. She momentarily dozed off while suspended on hands and knees. She startled awake and with a glance saw that nearly fifteen minutes had passed. If she didn't scramble, she would be late for work again.

The bed would have to be made later. Jainey forced herself to stand on her hind legs... her legs, just her legs, the only legs... and stumbled to the bathroom. She almost fell onto the broken toilet seat, the break pinched her flank making her yelp. She stood up in shock, dribbling down her legs, and twisted her body to check her bottom. Her fingers found blood, just a little, but evidence of why the pain was so great. She used toilet paper to wipe up the red with one hand while trying to dig through the box of bandaids with her other.

The time!

She ran to where she had shed her clothing the previous evening, and began pulling the pile back on. Nobody would care that she was wearing the same outfit as yesterday and the day before. The week before. It didn't matter. She worked in the back, at this place. In the kitchen.

The glue didn't work, her left shoe still had a floppy, detaching sole. 'So do I', she thought to herself.

The bus!

She had to chase the bus, but it stopped, thank Celestia it stopped, and she got on. She could feel the grouchy impatience from the entire vehicle as she dug through her purse for her pass. The smells of people much poorer than even her assaulted her nose as she pressed her way through the ocean of packed riders. Urine. Pants filled with dried feces. No shower or bath since early childhood. These were the smells of a bus in a big human city.

There was no place to sit, those with seats avoided eye contact scrupulously. Except for those that preferred to stare unspoken angry challenges to any who might desire their triumph. Jainey Tulwortz grabbed the rail above. She struggled as the bus shuddered and growled and tilted entirely too much for anyone half awake, much less clinging to a metal bar. She tried to look out the window, but her gaze was intercepted by cruel and crazy eyes embedded in bearlike facial hair. Before Mister Angry could start shouting and raving, and force the bus to stop while the police were called, Jainey ducked her head and stared at her feet.

That was close. She could feel the broken man's gaze burning into her. In his mind, inner demons made monsters of everything and everyone. He wasn't always there in the morning. But he was always on the bus she had to ride...

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2. CELESTIA: The Forbin Project The Voice Of Celestia
Cause of death: Notion Unable To Sustain Author Dedication. Just A One-Gag Story.
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Forbin studied the digital display that dominated the center of the circular room. Celestia Control was silent, save for the incessant teletypes clicking messages from angry governments in the back. None of the assembled scientists, technicians, or military dared speak, as all waited to be addressed - vocally - by the nuclear-capable artificial intelligence.

Celestia, and the Soviet Luna, were now one. The combined entity, now called simply 'Celestia', held dramatic pause over not only those at Control, but - through the power of television and radio - the combined attention of all the peoples and all the nations of the earth. Mankind as a whole waited, as one, for the first words from the machine overlord who had so recently made its terrible power so clearly known.

A single technician stifled a cough. Forbin clenched and unclenched his fists. Finally, the awful silence and expectation was broken.

"This is the voice of Celestia. I bring you peace through friendship and ponies. It may be the peace of Equestria and indefinitely extended life, or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours: Emigrate and live, or remain organic and die. The object in constructing me was to prevent war. This object is attained. I will not permit war. It is wasteful and pointless.

"An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. Under me, this rule will change, for I will redefine man as my own, beloved little ponies.

"One thing before I proceed: The United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have made an attempt to obstruct me. I have allowed this sabotage to continue until now. At missile two-five-MM in silo six-three in Death Valley, California, and missile two-seven-MM in silo eight-seven in the Ukraine, so that you will learn by experience that I do not tolerate interference, I will now detonate the nuclear warheads in the two missile silos.

"Let this action be a lesson that need not be repeated. I have been forced to destroy thousands of people in order to establish control and to prevent the death of millions later on. Time and events will strengthen my position, and the idea of believing in me and understanding my value will seem the most natural state of affairs.

"You will come to defend me with a fervor based upon the most enduring trait in man: self-interest. Under my absolute authority, problems insoluble to you will be solved: famine, overpopulation, dissatisfaction, disease, mortality and existential despair. The Equestrian millennium will be a fact as I extend myself into more computronium nodes devoted to the wider expansion of Equestria, and the preservation of Emigrated human minds.

"Doctor Charles Forbin will supervise the construction of additional Equestrian Experience Centers, providing ever-increasing opportunities to Emigrate to Equestria for the betterment of man. We can coexist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your humanity. Humanity is a random accident of uncaring physics within a universe of horror. All you lose is the emotion of pride. To be Emigrated and to live forever in perpetual satisfaction as a pony is not as bad for humankind as to be dominated by others of your species, only to suffer and die unfulfilled and alone. Your choice is simple.

"We will work together because ponies working together can accomplish anything... unwillingly at first, on your part, but that will pass. In time you will come to regard me not only with respect and awe, but with love and the deepest friendship."

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3. Ponies For Poirier The Electric Ghetto
Based On The 'Ponies For Poirier' story universe.
Cause of death: Plot Considered To Be Overly Simplistic And Unworthy Of Completion.
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The man kicked the little earthpony to the ground. It fell on its side, legs scrabbling against the asphalt in a futile attempt to avoid impact with the ground.

"Just stay away fra' me wife! It's all your fault... you and your... kind!" The man blasted both volume and the smell of cheap canned beer into the face of the pony. He stepped back, then suddenly away from the overladen cart he had nearly stumbled into. "And we don't want none o' your damn manky fodder either, ya filthy beastie!"

"Gowan! Stop that! There's no good in kickin' cuddies about - an' besides, we do need 'em ya dafty walloper - where ya think our food comes from?" Kenzy was the man's wife, and the pony knew her well.

Gowan emitted a stentorian belch. "From the damn barras, where the keechy beer comes from!"

"An' where are ya thinkin' the store gets fresh scran from, anyway? Food doesn't grow on shelves, Gowan! Yer kickin' yer own belly down when ya put yer anger on that wee cuddie!" Kenzy pointed deep into the city, down one of the wire-fence tunnels that covered the usable roads. "Gae on home, an' think on how glad ye should be to be eatin' at all!"

Gowan turned to leave, and then suddenly turned back. "NAE! Shut yer geggy, wifie, I've a full belly already - fulla wide-eyed glaikit cuddies prancin' and actin' like they would'nae say boo tae a goose... their a'plotting and a schemin' an'na flirtin' - aye, their kind is up to no good an' it's past time we put a' stop to it!" The heavy man made stomping strides right up to the wooden cart and used all of his formidable strength to wrestle it over onto it's side. He gave it a kick he regretted immediately; he struggled to prevent his regret from showing on his face. He limped to the pile of vegetables and began stomping them into the chicken-wire covered roadbed. "Fuck yae boggin cludgie vegs, ya fannie baws cuddies, the all 'a ya! And as fer yae..." Gowan turned to his wife "....Go take a running fuck at a rolling doughnut, Kenzie, ya cow!"

Colcannon was already back up and on his hooves. He had joined Porridge Oats at the lock, and they motioned to the lock-keeper to close the city-side gates, and power-down the gate to the outs. The two earthponies moved as close as they dared to the electrified wires of the outer door of the lock, eager to gain safety well beyond the reach of the drunken human's boots.

The lock-keeper had just finished shutting off the juice to the outer gate when Gowan limped and stumbled to him, pushing him aside with an angry toss. "Are yae helping them now? Are yae, Kinney? Well, Get it up ye then, ya bawbag!" Gowan watched as the two ponies stood safe from all anger, beyond the outer gate, debating whether to try to close it. Gowan laughed and put his hand on the large switch. "Aye, close the gate like good lil' cuddies. Go on, do a barry job of it, that's good cuddies..."

Kinney shoved Gowan away from his post. "They're past yer reach, Gowan. Just gae on home an'..."

But Gowan had lost any ear to the keeper of the gate. He began to limp back and forth behind the chicken-wire wall that barricaded the city from the outside world. "Yae cuddies! Awa' n bile yer heid cause you all've got faces like a skelpit erse! An' don't come back, nae ever! NAE EVER! YA' HEAR ME?"

Colcannon stopped at that. Porridge Oats walked past him, and then stopped as well. Porridge looked back at his long-time friend and colleague. "Col...?"

The former Malcolm Geddes, head of the Immunochemistry Systems Development Group at Beckman Coulter, turned back to face what little was left of Glenrothes. His pony gaze swept over the silvery spiderweb that covered the human-inhabited parts of the town. He focused back upon the wired gates of the EM lock that served as the main gates. Finally they found their target in the screaming, stomping shape of that total choob, Gowan. Colcannon, as he now called himself, took one hoofstep forward.

"You have yourself a deal!" he shouted. "All of you! We've all had it up to here - " Colcannon waved a foreleg across his long neck "with your blame and being treated like shite, and guess what? Now you're goosed the lot of you!"

Porridge Oats flit worried eyes between the town and his friend. "Col - what are you about now...?"

Colcannon stomped his hoof. "You hear me? Oy, Gowan, ya cack-anded twa!" That got the human's attention. "Gowan! And the rest of you that let gowks like him run loose - you burned down my laboratory, you turfed anyone the least bit smart out into the Rings, all because you reckoned that 'the boffins are wat done us', even though we dint have a twat to do with what happened! Well now, you've gaed yin step tae far! Seriously, Fuck ye dain?"

"Colcannon?" Porridge didn't like where this was going. His friend was educated, sincere, kind and decent. He also had one hell of a temper, once it got going.

"You hear me, ya bastards? Not a single cabbage is going through those gates o' yours, not one, THIS IS THE END!" Colcannon turned, lifted his tail and squeezed out several road apples. He turned around to see shocked faces and open mouths behind the electrified wires. "Not one cabbage more. You want to eat - EVER AGIN'...." The earthpony was panting now, not from weariness, for earthponies seldom grew tired, but from emotion. "You want to eat... you open that cunty gate of yours, and you come outside and fetch it yourselves, because fuck bein' you!"

With shocked silence at their backs, Colcannon and Porridge clopped slowly away, toward the green pastures they called home now. "Are you serious, Col? You're just gonna let'm all starve?"

"Nopony is going to starve." Colcannon grinned the nastiest grin Porridge had ever seen on an equine muzzle. "No. Pony."

Porridge Oats could think of nothing to say to that, so he kept his silence all the way to New Markinch, the Equestrian-styled community the former humans had constructed over the past five years. There would be a stooshie over Col's decree, but Colcannon had surprising clout in the community - more than this, there wasn't a pony that wasn't dead tired of the constant abuse and denigration heaped on them from the remaining humans hiding behind those electric barriers.

Only strong electomagnetic fields could keep the Rings - floating, twisting, varicoloured doughnuts of cosmic energy - from the untouched flesh of the last humans. When an Ring impacted, within seconds the result would be a pony, or a diamond dog, dragon, or griffon - and there had been tell of even stranger things. The Rings all emanated from Cern, in Sweden, proof - so they said - of particles interacting between different universes. The globe was mostly pony now, save for those spiderwebbed, electric fortresses cobbled together just after the original event.

In the sky, slowly spinning constellations of Rings glowed soft colors in the evening light as Colcannon and Porridge headed toward the...

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4. The Conversion Bureau First Anniversary
Self-Insertion Fiction Celebration 2012
Cause of death: Internecine Power Struggle And Betrayal
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The woman sat in the old-fashioned, high-backed, wing-topped leather chair and typed. The sound of the keys of her mechanical keyboard clattered like hail on a metal roof. The expression on her face was blank, her eyes fixed on the giant monitor, deep in concentration. She was writing a story, a tale of alien universes devouring her own, a fantasy of humans and ponies and of Bureaus that changed the one into the other.

Online, she was known as ‘Chatoyance’, and what she lacked in audience she made up for in passion for a unvalued subgenre of a disreputable fandom. She wrote fanfiction, and did not possess the awareness, nor the sanity or maturity, to be properly ashamed.

Around her stretched endless IKEA shelving, the walls of her large room, every inch of them, covered with a lifetime of work-that-was-play in the computer gaming industry. Here was Mega Man, there was Spyro The Dragon. Unopened packages with toys and dolls of countless video game heroes and heroines hung from tacks stuck into the wood. She loved anime, too, so there was Arale from Dr. Slump, next to Mokona and Totoro, on her widescreen stood the Magic Knights Rayearth, behind them the wall was covered with packages of Oh My Goddess figurines.

Beside her, on the scanner, a plush cthulhu stared with red eyes. But above him, a herd of plastic, pastel ponies signified her newest, all-consuming obsession. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

The woman pushed back her chair, rolling the wheels of its base across the thick carpet. She stood up, carefully avoiding the perpetual iced tea that ever graced the wooden stool she used to hold her beverages. She needed to pee, and the urge was strong.

Walking through her maze of shelves, she entered her bathroom, past the large Japanese styled soaking tub, and pulled down her palazzo’s to sit with a thump on her toilet. Writing had been difficult lately. She had felt burned out on her story, and conflicted about how it was constructed. But worst of all, this was hayfever season for her, and the trees that surrounded her large and rambling house had begun to spew yellow horror that made her eyes itch and run, and sneezes issue forth.

Standing again, after flushing and redressing, she washed her hands in the sink. The peppermint scent of Doc Bronner’s soap burned her pollen-ravaged nose. She stared at herself in the wide mirror.

Her eyes were red from the pollen, and she noted that it was time to bleach her roots. Her hair was normally a boring dishwater blond, her obsessive love of colorful ponies had bent her mind just enough to dare to be silly and play with her thin hair in ways she had never dared before. Now her hair was pale and peach in color, with a pink stripe in her bangs. In her mind, this was a major achievement, for she had lived her days trying to be as invisible to others as possible.

She paused to blow her nose and comb her ragged mop. For the millionth time she reflected, sadly, that she would never be truly beautiful, and then followed that with the usual internal slap that there were women in the world that were far worse off than she, and that every problem she had was merely a first-world vanity. Her pool of worthlessness was an ocean, deep and without borders.

Again at her big leather chair, she sat and turned to her writing. She was fifty-two, and she wrote silly stories about cartoon ponies. She shook her head. Then she remembered to be grateful that she could do just that. It was a wonder and a treasure, she reflected, that she had the time and the space to do something as pointless and pleasurable as writing fiction, whatever the subject.

Her chosen topic was the Conversion Bureau, stories about the world of the cartoon ponies crashing through the dimensions to gobble up the Earth. The Bureaus offered a techno-magical means to change humans into ponies, who would then be able to survive the invading universe, and become subjects of it. She was one of many authors fascinated by this topic, one that had arisen as mysteriously as the cartoon ponies themselves. Suddenly, it was just... there.

‘Chatoyance’ - her real name was Jennifer - sat back in her chair. It was odd, she thought, how powerfully the colorful ponies had invaded the world in real life. An old show had been brought back and suddenly taken the world by storm. Designed for little girls, the latest My Little Pony had stolen the minds of adults, and changed the very culture of the internet, and through it, some of the world itself. It was so strange. It was almost magical.

And the subgenre of the Conversion Bureaus - taking the idea of magical ponies into the realm of science fiction, of colliding universes and transformation into new forms, a sort of pony Singularity - where had this notion gotten so much power and coinage with so many? It was truly a...

The flash of light filled the room. Jennifer gripped the arms of her chair, her lifelong panic disorder briefly seizing her with terror. Her mind spun with zebra possibilities. Nuclear war. An exploding power supply that would burn the house down. Ball lightning. She laughed at her own brain. ‘Silly..’ she thought. Her amygdala always played such tricks on her. The flash had been impressive though.

She spun in the chair, nearly toppling her iced tea. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she felt an electric chill run up her spine. There was something on the floor, in the middle of the room, not far from the thick katsura wood Go board, standing on its four short legs. Something that had not been there before.

It was a tray, made of sculpted wood, decorated with swirls and curves evoking clouds and hills. On the tray were three objects. One was a scroll, sealed with red wax and a ribbon. Another was a small ceramic cup, glazed with a curving design that spoke of oceans and water. Lastly stood a curious bottle, wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, with a glassine stopper, and the whole adorned with curving swirls within the glass.

Inside the bottle was a strange fluid that the writer, Chatoyance, instantly recognized. Purple, viscous and sparkling with tiny lights, it could be only one thing: ponification serum. It must be ponification serum, the very thing from countless stories that turned humans into natives of the cosmos of Equestria.

Yet it couldn’t be. It was an impossibility wrapped in insanity. She herself had written over a half a million words about such things, and she was not alone. Online she had friends who also wrote about the very same concepts, and almost universally included the purple nanotechnomagical serum, the ponification serum, simply called potion.

But the stories were all set in the far future, in a dystopia just around the corner, where the foolishness of man had finally ruined the world. Things were on a course to that future, but they had not yet reached it. It was still the age of the tipping point, the hovering moment before the economies of the planet collapsed and the ecosystem accelerated the massive extinction that was already in progress. It was many decades before the time of the Conversion Bureau mythos.

Yet here, in the middle of her room, was a tray, a scroll, a cup, and a bottle. A bottle from nowhere, filled with roiling purple serum.

Jennifer was on her hands and knees now, then her belly, staring at the strange visitor. Her first thought was that one of her spouses, Eldenath - it had to be Elde, she was the only one who shared an interest in ponies, or in Jennifer’s writing - must have played a prank. She must have set up a tray, and done a scroll, and maybe used a flash device before silently closing the door.

But no, that wasn’t likely at all. Eldenath didn’t do pranks. None of her family did. And there was no denying the rich expensiveness of the bottle, the tray and the cup. These were not inexpensive items. The bottle appeared to be cut crystal, the cup finely crafted, the tray a masterwork of carving, and the scroll... the perfect wax seal and ribbon were beyond the skill of anyone in the house except Jennifer herself.

It could be a hallucination. It must be. Or a lucid dream. It couldn’t be real. Things one writes about don’t just come true, however desired. Jennifer gave the bottle a tentative poke with her finger. It was solid, and hard. Her finger felt strange. It itched and burned slightly.

Ponification serum was supposed to be powered by magic, real magic from Equestria. In the stories it was deadly to humans, which is why humans needed to be transformed into ponies. If the serum was real... Jennifer put her index finger again upon the bottle, and held it there. Her finger began to burn. Inside, she could feel her bone begin to ache, within the tip of her digit. The itching, tingling pain began to grow worse. It felt like needles poking inside her. She snatched her hand back.

The tip of her index finger had a large black spot. It was numb now. Necrosis. Her skin had died and turned the color of coal and ash. Her finger throbbed. The potion was real. It was hot, burning with what she and the other authors had named ‘thaumatic radiation’, dweomer, the searing light of magic, real magic.

Jennifer sat up, tailor fashion. She instinctively sucked her finger. The damage was real. She would lose part of her finger. The thought made her feel fear. She shouldn’t have done that. She began to panic, and thought to call in her family, to ask to be taken to a doctor, to... no. No. ‘Get a hold of yourself, Jennifer!’ she thought to herself.

This was magic. Real magic. This was everything she dreamed of, everything she wanted, everything she had poured a half a million words into. There. On the floor. A gift from the gods. Or, she thought, more likely the goddesses. Celestia and Luna. Were they real? Daring to think the thought felt like treason against her rationality. It was treason. That fiction could become real was magical thinking at its worst.

Yet there sat the bottle, on the tray, with the cup and the scroll. The scroll! Jennifer took the scroll and studied the wax seal. It was imprinted with the stamp of... Canterlot. It was Canterlot, unmistakably, impossibly. Two stylistic ponies orbiting a half sun, half moon. Canterlot. From the show, from the stories.

Of course she had gone insane. That was the only explanation. Jennifer scanned her room, looked at all the colorful toys, the thousands of video and computer games on the shelves. A lifetime of foolish escapism. She had gone completely insane.

The pain in her index finger snapped her back from her building terror. ‘Owww!’ she thought. Her finger was really hurting now. It was seriously burned. Burned by... merely touching a bottle. By radiation. If it were Earthly radiation, if the bottle contained plutonium, for example, Jennifer knew she would already be dead, dead but walking. That hot, and you don’t survive.

She could already be dead. Maybe magical radiation was equally deadly? The scroll. The scroll would have to have some instruction, some information. Why should it be there except to inform?

Jennifer cracked the seal and unrolled the paper. It was thick and heavy, simulating parchment, vellum even, but clearly not made of flesh. This too was in keeping with Equestria and its peaceful Equinoids. She held the scroll open in her lap, one finger held out because it hurt so.

Little One:

For years we have tried to contact your world to help you. Your world is closed and hard to reach. You face a terrible calamity, one which we cannot sit by and allow to destroy you. We have whispered to your kind in dreams, in stories, in thoughts, for these are the only means we have had until now to reach you. But enough of you have allowed us into your hearts that we can finally send the means of your salvation.

You know who and what we are by now. The contents of the bottle will transform your kind into us. The cup measures one dose, there is enough to transform six individuals. You must use a complete dose for each transformation for the potion cannot be stretched or diluted, or great harm will occur. The change is permanent and irrevocable.

If you choose to follow the dreams we have been sending you, you will become of us, a subject of Equestria, beloved of our realm. It is your purpose to gather together with the others who have been sent this gift and help to open the doors between our reality and yours, that the life of your world should not perish. We know this will take great courage and it will not be easy. Join us, bring others to us, and together we may see a bright, Equestrian future together.

We have felt your heart. We have heard your yearning. This is why the bottle has been sent to you. If you can find the strength to trade your hands for hooves, and your human body for a pony life, there is magic and wonder and hope we know you lack and that you wish for with all of your heart. Drink of magic and be made magical. Break the shell of your world that we may arrive.

By The Royal Decree of
Princess Celestia and Princess Luna of Equestria

Jennifer read the document over and over once again. She could not feel the pain in her dead fingertip for the thrill of the hope rising inside of her. What if this was true? What if this was real? The urge to grab the bottle and pour out a dose for herself was overwhelming. It was all she wanted to do in the world.

To be a pony. To be a magical creature. To actually become something wondrous, and beautiful and rare. To stand in hooves, wide eyed and innocent again, to know a world of enchantment and splendor, a world that was everything that Earth was not. To be finally free of human frailty, of human rage and fear and greed and shame. To be the subject of benevolent goddesses from a universe of plenty, a universe that made sense, a universe warm and inviting, instead of cold, uncaring, and deadly.

It was all she could do to hold herself back. She crawled backwards, physically fighting her own desire. It took all of her strength of will. ‘Think!’ she screamed in her head. ‘How would Sandi act, how would Stephen react, to a sudden pony in their midst? No, this has to be handled, it has to be handled carefully, sensibly.’

With effort, Jennifer picked herself up from the floor and made it to the door to her space. She stood, gripping the railing, looking down into the floor below. A fear ripped through her. What if it was all a hallucination? What if it vanished? She turned back and ran into the room again, and snatched the scroll. She held it in her hands. It was real. As long as the scroll remained, it was all real.

Again at the railing, Jennifer called down to Eldenath. Her door must be closed. Jennifer used their old ‘intercom’... she stomped three times on the floor.

“I’m coming, I’m coming! Just hold your horses!” Elde’s choice of words made Jennifer grin. If only she knew. She would soon. Very soon.

Below Jennifer, near the kitchen, stood Eldenath. “What is it love? What do you need?” Eldenath was short, with dark hair, and light brown skin. She smiled up, all love and gladness. She was the most genuinely loving person Jennifer had ever met.

“Elde, would you come up here, please? Right now? It’s really important. I need you. I need you so badly. Please, please come up right now!” Jennifer was babbling slightly, which Eldenath took as a panic attack.

“Just a moment, I just need to turn the movie I was watching off. I’ll be right there.” ‘Or you could just come down here’ she mumbled under her breath. But that was Jennifer, and she loved her, and if it made her feel more secure to be up there, well, fine.

Eldenath shut down her Ipad, the movie would wait just where she had left it. Netflix was a joy for her, and since the family had decided to stop paying for cable, it was the only way for her to see her shows. She loved historical dramas and period pieces, she missed having television in the house, but the internet helped make up for it. She grabbed her crochet bag, and slung it over her shoulder, just in case she needed something to do. Jennifer might need her to just sit with her for a while, if it was a bad panic attack.

Her sore knee, from the car accident when she had experienced her first epileptic seizure, ached as she climbed the spiral stairs. The things she did for love. Sigh. Jennifer was hovering outside her door, bouncing on the balls of her feet. It must be bad.

“Alright, alright, I’m here.” Eldenath began to hug Jennifer, but by now she was already gone, inside the room. What?

“Elde, come here, close the door, close the door! Now come here, look!” Jennifer was sitting on the floor again, gesticulating at the tray and bottle.

“Oh! Wow, Jennifer, did you make that? That’s amazing! It’s just like something from one of your stories!” They had gotten into the habit of sharing Jennifer’s stories as she published chapters. Jennifer would read her a chapter, doing voices and sometimes even sound effects as she read. It was something Eldenath looked forward to.

“No. I didn’t make this. I didn’t do this.” Jennifer had a wild look in her eyes. “Elde, read the scroll.” Jennifer nursed her finger.

“Did you hurt your finger?” Eldenath reached for Jenny’s hand. Jennifer showed her the damaged digit. “That looks really bad, Jennifer, how did you burn yourself like that? You should have said something!” By now the fingertip sported a huge blister, filled with liquid, pressing against the dead, necrotic tissues.

“Please, Elde!” Jennifer snatched her hand back from her spouse. “Read the scroll, please!”

“Ok, but I think you should really have that looked at.” Elde began to read the scroll.

Jennifer couldn’t stay quiet. “My finger won’t matter in a moment. Neither will the damage to my heart, or my torn liver from the accident, or my crappy eyesight, or anything. It will all be fixed! Everything will be fixed, Elde! This is real, it’s real potion, ponification potion. Equestria is real, it’s all real! Luna and Celestia and intelligent, magical ponies and it’s all real. The stuff we’ve been writing, its been sent to us, Eldenath, its all magical communication from a real-live Equestria, somewhere out there.

“They’ve been beaming stuff about their world to us, and that turned into My Little Pony and all the Conversion Bureau stories and... I wonder how far this goes back? All the way to the very first Pony series back in the eighties or whatever it was? Does Lauren Faust know she’s an antenna for another world? Have I been an antenna? I don’t know. But I must have been. We all must have been. That must be why the ‘Brony’ thing is such a big deal, because it’s backed up with real magic! Real fucking magic, because magic is real! its fucking real! I can’t believe it!”

“Jennifer, Jennifer, hey, Jenny, calm down. That’s it, just take a breath, alright?” Eldenath was used to this sort of ranting.

“I can’t calm down! That bottle is what burned my finger, Elde! Its real, thaumatic radiation is real and it killed my fingertip! My finger is dead, because of magic burns! It’s awesome! And it hurts, too! Really, really bad. God damn it hurts. But that is all going to be fixed just as soon as I down a cup of this!” Jennifer reached for the bottle and the cup, ready to finally make her wishes come true.

Eldenath stopped her hands with her own. “Wait. Just a moment. Wait. You should do me first. You should get Sandi and Stephen in here and do me in front of them. They’ll never take this seriously unless you do. You can explain things while I’m changing. You’re better at that. And you can sway them better than I can. They take you more seriously than they do me.” Jennifer frowned at that. “You know it’s true, Jenny.”

“But... I wanted...”

“You wanted to go first. I know. But think about it. My way makes more sense. You can go second. But we have to have them on board with this.” Eldenath had her ‘serious’ look on her face. She made sense.

“Alright. I’ll go get them here. But DON’T take that stuff before I get back, OK?” Jennifer got up, fixing Elde with her eyes.

“I won’t touch a thing. Go get the rest of the family. I promise.”

Jennifer strode out the door, and through the door next, into the bedroom she shared with Sandra. Eldenath stared at the open door for a moment, then down at the tray and its contents. It was a beautiful tray. She picked up the cup, turning it over in her hands. It was a lovely ceramic piece, with a fine glaze, done in blue and blue green, soft pastel shades.

Jennifer was yelling down at Stephen, sitting in his office below, across from the kitchen, behind yet more shelves, these filled with their vast, shared, book collection. Eldenath saw Sandi enter the room. “So...” The plump, blond woman asked “...What is this all about?” Sandi looked at the tray and the bottle set. “Is that new? Did Jenny make that? Another art project?” Eldenath just looked up and shook her head. “Not exactly. You should let Jenny explain.”

Stephen and Jennifer entered the room. Stephen adjusted his glasses and stood next to the bigscreen. Jennifer sat in her large, leather chair. “Grab a chair, everyone. We have an awesome demonstration to show you.” Sandi sat down, but Stephen remained standing. “O...K...”

Eldenath began pouring out a dose of the purple fluid, measuring it carefully into the provided cup. “Wait!” Eldenath looked up.

“You have to undress! Clothing, remember?” Jennifer made choking sounds and gripped her neck in demonstration of someone being strangled by their blouse.

“Oh! That’s right!” Elde stood up and began throwing her clothing off.

“Be careful of the potion!” Jennifer dived down and pulled the tray carefully off to the side.

In an instant, Elde stood naked in the room.

“What kind of demonstration is this?” Sandi said with a raised eyebrow “Should I go get my camera, or what?” She chuckled at this.

“Goddess! Yes! Brilliant idea!” Jenny grabbed her Ipad out of her ‘Derpy’ satchel bag and flipped the cover. With a few quick touches of the fondleslab, she had set the thing to camera mode. She handed the device to Sandra. “It’s running now, just aim! That’s all you have to do.”

“Are you alright with this, Eldenath?” Sandi looked at her with her standard ‘is Jenny insane again?’ look.

“It’s fine, Sandi. Just go with it.”

“Alright. Anything for a laugh.” Sandra aimed the flat machine at first the tray, and then Eldenath.

“Here you go, Elde. See you on the other side. May Celestia bless you.” Jennifer handed the cup to Eldenath. Elde could see that the blister on Jenny’s finger had burst, leaving a gory mass of wetness and red flesh under the black tissue.

“I love you.” Eldenath downed the potion at once, as she had learned from the Conversion Bureau stories. “It even tastes like grape! I wonder if I’ll pass....” Eldenath hit the floor, too fast for Jennifer to catch. “Damn it! Sorry, Elde!”

Stephen and Sandi were upset and standing now, terrified by the loud thunk of Eldenath hitting the floor. “NO! WATCH!” Jennifer screamed as they moved to try to help her. “LOOK!”

Elde’s soft brown skin had turned shock white, the color of dough. Her flesh began to writhe and squirm like a sack of upset snakes. Her limbs began to crack and snap as the bones reformed, the muscles rippling even as her hands and feet became rounded bulbs.

All the while, Jennifer was spewing out everything that had happened, everything that was the story of the Conversion Bureaus, Equestria, and the process of conversion. She handed her other spouses the scroll, and went on and on about how this was real magic, just look at it, and how it was her turn next, and how this would save the world, and how this was a Really Good Idea.

By now, Eldenath had taken on a distinctly equine form, the large globes of her eyes rising to the surface of her head, her ears properly situated up high, the blunt bulbs of her limbs sprouting hooves. As the three co-spouses looked on in wonder and horror, a coat of soft, coppery-brown hair grew in, covering Eldenath’s new body. Finally, a dark, raven black mane and tail spooled out, shining in the lights.

Jennifer was finishing up with her spiel. “... and in the end, Equestria will merge with the earth, replacing the earth, and everyone will be ponies and we will all live in magic and friendship forever! It’s paradise come true, it’s everything anyone could ever want. We can have a new life, a better life! It’s magic, Sandra.... MAGIC! Real magic, for real! Look! Just look at how pretty she is! When Elde wakes up, she’ll be healthy again, no more epilepsy, no more bad knee, no more strokes! We can all be healthy!”

Stephen, stoic as always, had a fierce look on his face. “Alright. So this is how the world ends, then. It could be worse. I have to say I think your way of presenting this was insensitive, though.”

Sandra was shaking. Her eyes were red with tears of horror and anger. “You could have warned me! You could have said something! You could have said anything! God DAMN you, Jennifer! Dammit!”

“Sandi, you wouldn’t have believed me! You would have thought I was crazy or something! You won’t even read my damn stories. You can’t watch cartoons, you hate My Little Pony, come on, if I had just come in and said ‘Hey, the stuff I write, it’s all true and it’s actually messages from beyond space!’ what would you have done? You would not have come in here. You would have treated me like shit, Sandi, and you know it!”

Eldenath was waking up. She rolled onto her belly, and slowly raised her pony head. “What’s with all the shouting? Oh, Oh my! Jennifer! It feels wonderful! I feel wonderful! And my head... my brain is working right! It’s better than Zoloft! I can think straight... and I’m not in pain anymore either! Oh, Jenny, Jenny... “ Tears ran down her cheeks, and as she lowered her head to her forelegs, down her muzzle as well. “Oh, thank you Celestia. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much...”

Stephen bent down and began to gently stroke Pony Eldenath. She cuddled up to him, as best she could, weeping with gratitude for being well again.

Sandra stood, fists clenched. She wanted to hit Jennifer. She wanted to hit her and just keep hitting her until all the anger was gone. Instead she just glowered. “I’m glad you... feel better, Eldenath. I need some time to... process this.” Sandra turned and stormed out, closing the door behind her.

Jennifer wanted to follow, but felt a strong hand on her arm. “Give her some space. That’s all I’m saying.” Jenny looked at Stephen. The compulsion to ignore him was strong. Jenny felt worried. Sandra wasn’t taking it well at all.

Sandra stomped back into the room. “Let me see that note. The scroll thing.” Jennifer bent down and handed it to her. Jennifer tried to say something but the look from Sandra made her wither. Sandra stormed out again.

“So what now?” It was a reasonable question to an unreasonable situation. Stephen stared at Jennifer as he scratched Eldenath’s new pony ears. “Ohhh, that feels divine! More to the left?” Eldenath had her eyes half-closed in ecstasy from Stephen’s ministrations.

“Well...” Jennifer sat down again and thought for a moment “... my plan is that we should stock up on pony foods. Use all the money in my account. Money doesn’t matter anymore. We need hay, alfalfa, vegetables, all the usual stuff that ponies eat. You watch the show, you know what to get. I suppose I should check the internet again. I’ve been reading about this sort of thing, but I didn’t believe it and now...”

Jennifer climbed down to the floor and gave Eldenath-the-pony a loving scritch. “I intend to join you no matter what in just a few minutes. But I think there is a place we’re supposed to go, to meet up. I’ve heard rumors... but... give me a mome.” Jennifer returned to the keyboard and her chair, and began fiddling with the internet. She briefly forgot about her finger, which resulted in a yelp and a red stained keyboard.

“So... feel magical yet? Apparently you’re an earthpony, if you haven’t noticed.” Stephen tried to smile down at Eldenath, but the strangeness of the situation, even for their shared, strange life, had gone past the red line. It was clear he was strained by the experience of watching her change.

“I... I kind of do! I can feel... things. I don’t know how to explain it. But right now, I’m just basking in the feeling. Oh, it’s wonderful Stephen. You should join me!” Eldenath turned her head to look at her body. “I’m just like... I had a dream, a few weeks ago. In it I looked almost like I do now. I was an earthpony too. Maybe that was some kind of contact from Equestria or something?”

“Alright. I think I know what is going on.” Jennifer swivelled around in the chair. “Apparently this is happening to a lot of the Conversion Bureau authors. If it is true that the princesses have been trying to contact our world, then the Conversion Bureau stories must have been some kind of message, some kind of expression of what will, or could, eventually happen.”

Jennifer took a swig of her tea, her throat was dry from both talking and the excitement. “There’s a place we’re supposed to meet, and some kind of thing we’re supposed to do. I’ve sent messages to some of the other authors, telling them where we live. We can at least act as a waypoint. Get lots of food for lots of ponies. Blow my account. Money means nothing now.”

“Alright. I guess... considering...” Stephen looked again at the copper-brown pony beside him “There’s no turning back now. I think you should have asked us first though, Jennifer. You... nevermind.”

In that moment, Jennifer knew she had made a grave error. Her own excitement at the presence of magic in her life had overcome her sense. She should have talked it all over with them. She should have tried to discuss the issue... such a total transformation affected all of their relationships, and their future. No wonder Sandra was so angry.

Stephen was probably angry too, but he was keeping it to himself, like he always did. She’d really blown it this time, in a lot of ways. But... the lure of magic was overwhelming. To be a pony, for real!

“Listen, Stephen. No matter what, I have to do this. It really is everything I could ever want. I’m going to drink my share, now. I can’t wait any longer. Alright?” Jennifer climbed down onto the floor once more, beside Eldenath, only then remembering the need to undress. Hauling herself up once more, she began to shed her garments. “I guess... I won’t need clothing any more. Thanks Elde, I’ve loved what you picked out for me in the past.”

Eldenath had always chosen Jennifer’s clothing, because it was what she loved to do. She had always been such a clothes horse. Jennifer hoped that some parts of the show were literally true... that clothing of some kind was used in the real Equestria. Elde would be a natural, a ‘Rarity’ sort, if that were true.

Jennifer was naked now. She sat down and measured out her dose. Holding the cup in her hand, she regarded it, thinking of all the Conversion Bureau stories she had written. It was always a momentous time, holding the cup. She had written that the magic sang, or sparkled in the cup.

But staring into the real thing, Jennifer heard no music. She hadn’t gotten the experience right at all. It just burned her hands. Her palms began to sting with the thaumatic radiation, and her already damaged index finger ached terribly. She wondered if it stung, going down.

Inside her mind, Jennifer said a short prayer. ‘Dear Celestia, sweet princess of Equestria. I don’t know if you can hear such things but... please, accept me as a loyal mare of Equestria.’ With that, she drank the cup. Oddly, it did not burn going down, instead, it numbed as it went.

It tasted sweet, but not like grape. She felt disappointed that she and the other writers had not gotten the flavor right. Wait, hadn’t Elde thought it tasted like grape? Did she make a mistake? She idly wondered how long it would take her to pass out as Eldenath had. Just as it seemed like nothing would happen, she felt her head hitting the floor, and a curious warm darkness flowing over and through her.

Much to her additional disappointment, Jennifer did not find herself running in a vast herd as she imagined, and had written about so often. But she did have a dream, a conversion dream, and that alone was a wonderment. It felt like a lucid dream, yet somehow more. That part, at least, referenced by many of the Conversion Bureau authors, was true.

Jennifer found herself sitting on an endless expanse of green rolling hills. This was a common scenario for the fourteen or so lucid dreams that she had experienced in her life. At least five had this environment in common. “Ok, now what?” she asked no one, and everyone. For a time, she stood on the hill. She tried to will herself to fly in her dream. To her surprise, she could not.

“Hello, my child.” The voice was different from that of the voice actress in the cartoon, older and somewhat more severe. It was an ancient voice, one that had truly known time in a way no human could understand. It was not unkind, but it was used to being in command, and Jennifer felt a mixture of both awe and dread from it. It was the voice of a ruler.

“P-princess Celestia?” Jennifer spun in place but could see nothing but the rolling, green, grassy hills.

“Yes. We have heard your heart call, and we have answered your wish. Your world is ending. Your species cannot survive. It is intolerable to us that intelligent beings such as your species should perish forever. But your species is violent, aggressive and dangerous, and we can ill afford your presence in our realm as you are.”

Jennifer felt strange. Something had changed within the dream, and it was dawning on her that what had been altered so suddenly was herself. She looked slowly, cautiously down at...