Mattie was somewhat miffed as she flew around the area of the hospital and the university. There was no sign of Haley being on patrol. So much for Mattie's declaration that guarding over ponies was in Haley's blood. This particular area was much larger than the church complex, and she realized it really did need more than one pony watching over it at night. There was simply too much to watch over. This made her doubly annoyed that there was no sign of the other night pony.
The ponies here had been hard at work, and those that owned the properties nearby were going to have their work cut out for them putting things back together. All the parking lots had been stripped of concrete to try to make way for farms, as had the university's fields for baseball, football, and track. The stripped slabs of concrete had been used to erect walls, not only around the green areas and newly planted farms, but also making barriers in the streets in places. The entire area was going to take a lot of work to be usable again by humans, and she could already imagine the anger that would be directed at the ponies. Further, with those barriers in the streets it was going to be that much harder for the military, FEMA workers, and other relief to get through here. Thinking about it all gave her a headache due to the stress.
This kind of thing was likely being played out in every area with a large amount of transformed, so there wasn't much to do about it all at this point. At the time it seemed the logical thing to do, ponies were not at fault about doing what they thought they needed to in order to survive and adapt. Hopefully there would be enough humans who saw it that way too.
The ponies needed some charismatic spokesponies who could do a good job of playing up the conditions they had been operating under. That wouldn't be her. Aside from being a night pony, she also had a skull for a cutie mark; she doubted that combination would make her the most trustworthy looking pony to the humans. This was somepony else's headache to explain. Being largely unimportant had its advantages.
As she made another pass by the hospital, she spotted movement near one of the formally glass covered windows. It looked like one that had been deliberately cleared of glass, and the marks near the window indicated it had been one of the ones that received gunfire the other day. It seemed somepony had chosen to just kick out all the glass from the window, rather than have a bullethole ridden pane of glass in it.
She hovered for a moment, watching, and saw what she was looking for. Haley was there, that window was apparently her quick exit and entrance from the hospital. The other mare didn't seem to be making any effort to come out, but she was watching Mattie from the shadows within. It seemed a quiet night again so she decided it was worth her time to go fly over and see exactly how Haley was holding up.
She flew over to the window and the other mare within just watched her approach. When Mattie was right outside she looked within but Haley continued to just sit silently staring, not ordering her away, not inviting her in, just staring. It was kind of creepy.
"Can I come in for a minute?" Mattie finally asked, breaking the silence.
Haley continued to stare for a few seconds, and Mattie was about to just give up on the endeavor, but finally Haley nodded.
"I am wondering why you aren't out watching over ponies right now," Mattie said as she entered.
"What's the point?" Haley said dismissively as she jumped up on a hospital bed and laid down.
"It is kind of our job as night ponies," Mattie said flatly.
"Yeah, I am kind of over that whole thing. I thought if I threw myself completely into this, then things would be better than when I was human. I was sorely mistaken. Humans, ponies, all a bunch of jerks that I shouldn't bother caring about," Haley said coldly.
"I heard about what happened with John. I know he hit you, and I know you two were a thing," Mattie said sadly, but getting straight to the point.
"Yeah, that was a wake-up call for sure. Screw being a pony," Haley sneered.
"I know, ponies shouldn't do that to other ponies," Mattie replied.
"Ha! No pony or human should do that to one another, but guess what? They still do it. It was supposed to be different when we were all ponies, everything was supposed to be sunshine and rainbows. Then guess what? He hits me again, after I thought being a pony would magically just make him better! Oh, we're in these nice new bodies, and can do all this other stuff, but it doesn't matter, because despite the new coat of fur and accessories we are still the same sorry excuses for humans we were before we transformed," Haley snarled before breaking down in a sob.
"He hit you before this? You seemed so confident and the one in charge when I saw you two together," Mattie asked in confusion.
"Oh, that was only the first time he hit me as a pony. I thought everything was better when we finished transforming. He was so much nicer, and we had this whole new experience to explore together. I embraced it completely, and was eager to keep pushing to be the best pony I could be. For the first time in my life I did feel like I mattered, and I was doing something great," Haley said through tears, wiping a foreleg across a clearly swollen eye.
"Why were you even with him before all this if he treated you so badly and abused you? Why put up with that?" Mattie asked, completely confused by what she was hearing. This was not the same mare she had met before.
"Because I am completely unlovable. He at least wanted me, nopony..nobody else was going to want me. He wanted me and I could put up with a few flares of temper, if it meant I wasn't going to lose him. Then ETS happened, and I became this super powerful magical creature like you might daydream about in your spare time, and I thought that it made me worth something. I was fooling myself," Haley said as she glared at her hooves.
"Haley, you can't expect to be happy if you think of yourself like that. I don't know anything about who you used to be, but it couldn't be that bad," Mattie insisted.
"It was that bad. The things I care about no other person cared about. I just bored everypony that came near me. No pony wanted to be around me because I bored them so much. I wasn't dumb, but I wasn't really smart enough to keep up with the nerds. I wasn't pretty, I wasn't funny; I really didn't have much of a sense of humor at all. There was nothing to like or want about me. It was all supposed to be different now, but it is just the same with a new paint job," Haley lamented.
"I can't believe there was absolutely nothing to like about you. Were you mean to anypony? Were you nice?" Mattie asked. She had no idea how to deal with this. Haley clearly had no self confidence. She had built a little bit up after becoming a pony but the incident with John had brought that crashing down before it actually became legitimately strong.
"I wasn't mean to anypony, but nopony cared. I always watched as other mares who were just plain cruel to others still had ponies wanting to be around them, but everypony ignored me," Haley cried, continuing to find ways to show she didn't matter.
"So what were you into that you couldn't seem to find anypony to care about?" Mattie asked, looking for something to get Haley into a better mood about.
"History, but not the kind that anypony cared about. I would read about things like ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Harappan Culture, Hittites, Etruscans, Minoans, all those ones. Really old history that didn't matter to anypony else. It was just my thing. Ponies might seem interested, for like five minutes, and then they just got bored. I tried to show interest in the things they liked, but I just couldn't ever really get into anything else. Don't go acting like you are interested in any of that just to try to cheer me up. It ain't going to work. I know that trick well enough at this point," the mare laid her head down in her forelegs.
"At least you had something you were really passionate about. I never really had that. I was completely boring growing up too, and was just as boring after I grew up. I guess, to tell the truth, I am pretty boring now," Mattie said, trying to show some empathy. Not sure if she was doing it right. Was she just playing the who had it worse game?
"I see you have a mark on your flank, pretty interesting looking one, you couldn't be that boring," Haley said dismissively as she looked at Mattie's flank.
"This?" Mattie said as she gestured a hoof at the skull on her flank. "It isn't as interesting as you would think. It just means I try to understand what causes fear, and try to get others to address the things they fear. It is completely utilitarian. It isn't anything interesting about me," Mattie insisted.
"So then work your magic on me then. Tell me all about what I should be doing. Tell me about how I am just scared of the world, or failing, or some other crap like that fresh out of some TV movie. Better yet, let's not do that. Let's have you do that to yourself since you seem to believe you have issues worse than mine," Haley sneered.
Mattie wanted to scream at the other mare. That wasn't what she was trying to say at all. Haley clearly had some serious issues. But if that was what Haley wanted, that was what Haley was going to get, at least Mattie could say that she was listening to the other mare.
"Fine, let's do this then. You, as an observer, what do you think my issues are?" Mattie demanded.
"I don't really know you, so that is really impossible to say. I know you didn't realize you were a mare until a few days ago. I have no idea how you manage not to know that, but that seems a thing. I know you seem to care about your mother. I know you are a night pony, so you had something that was really scaring you all the time. Maybe you were some little mama's boy afraid of disappointing his mama," Haley said with contempt. She gave Mattie a considering look before softening her expression and then continuing. "That was probably mean of me. But the truth is I know very little about you. So tell me about yourself, and I will tell you what I think your issues are."
"I told you about me," Mattie insisted.
"No, you just said you were boring and had a mark that was boring. Tell me about you as a human. Tell me about who your friends, if you had them, were. Tell me about your hobbies. I told you about mine, you tell me about yours," Haley said.
"I really didn't have any hobbies," Mattie said.
"Bull. What did you do with your free time?" Haley snapped.
"I just got on the internet. I never really went out and did anything," Mattie said while letting out a breath and taking a seat.
"What internet sites did you go to?" Haley asked.
"I had been going to the site about the night ponies," Mattie replied.
"Way to avoid the question. Before ETS started up. Stop avoiding answering. I can already tell you one issue you have, you're apparently afraid to say anything about yourself," Haley said with a sigh.
"I went to a lot of different things. I would watch random top ten lists on YouTube, I'd read news articles, I would read books," Mattie listed off.
"Watch porn?" Haley asked.
"No, never, why would you even ask that?" Mattie said as she was offended.
"What? You are like late teens early twenties. Ponies that age have huge sex drives. You had to be getting your hard on somewhere," Haley said with a scowl.
"No, I wasn't," Mattie said with her own scowl in return.
"So you were sexually repressed too. Add that to your issues," Haley said with a smirk.
"I am not sexually repressed," Mattie sneered.
"So tell me what turns you on then. Did you date any mares? You weren't that bad looking as a human male. Or were you into stallions instead?" Haley continued on.
"I didn't date anypony. I wasn't into anypony," Mattie said, shuffling her hooves as she spoke.
"Sounds pretty sexually repressed to me. But let's not dwell on that. You said you read books, what kind of books?" Haley said, now sitting back up partially with her head resting on a hoof.
"Fantasy mainly. A few other things like the old Anne Rice novels," Mattie said.
"So escapes from reality. I read Anne Rice too, they had some ancient history stuff mixed in them. I think you were reading them for a different reason than that though," Haley said knowingly.
"What would that be?" Mattie asked, again confused. What could Haley possibly be reading into with those.
"I'm just thinking about Tale of the Body Thief, and how you could imagine just going into another person's body. Think that might have appealed to you. I don't think you had no clue about the whole transgender thing. I think you had fantasies all the time about having a woman's body, but you are too ashamed to admit it. They had all kinds of movies and shows like that. Did you ever watch them?" Haley asked. She wasn't sneering and didn't seem mocking anymore. She seemed legitimately interested in the answer.
"Yes," Mattie answered with a twist of her mouth. "I remember when I was young, like eight or so, my parents were watching some science fiction anthology show. The plot of that episode was about this business that would switch your sex back and forth as you wished for a price. I was supposed to be in bed, but I sat on the edge of the bed and tried to watch it around the corner from my room."
"Did you do that kind of thing much? Try to watch what your parents were watching on television?" Haley asked.
"No, it was just that one time. I just was really interested. I still remember doing that and that show vividly," Mattie said thoughtfully.
"Anymore stuff like that?" Haley asked.
"Yeah. Okay, I admit it. Pretty much every time the subject came up on anything, for as long as I remember," Mattie said.
"Yes," Haley did a hoof pump. "Score one for Haley! I knew there was stuff. And did you fantasize about switching bodies with others, like I said? I am putting money on that you did."
"Maybe," Mattie muttered.
"Woohoo! Two for Haley!" the mare on the bed said, now putting both her hooves into the air in an exaggerated cheer.
"Okay, so what is your diagnosis?" Mattie said, glad that at least Haley was now showing energy and enthusiasm again.
"I think you were just so ashamed of what anypony would think you just shut down expressing your gender or anything else for that matter. I think you are still doing it even if you don't have the ability to hide the fact you're a mare anymore. You've been doing it so long that you don't even know how to not do it. You got that shell pretty hard around you. But you really are wanting to get out of that shell. You are also like me. You drink the pony kool-aid because you think that it will suddenly make everything better," Haley said as she flew down off the bed and landed close to Mattie.
"I enjoy being a pony," Mattie said flatly, looking Haley in the eyes.
"It has its charms. I can admit it," Haley said looking herself over, now smiling.
"You seem to be feeling better now," Mattie said, now breaking into a small smile of her own.
"I am," Haley responded with a grin. "Thank you for coming to see me. I know we spent a lot of time talking about you, but it mattered to me that you came. You also helped me see that I do have some value."
"I don't know how. As you said, we spent more time talking about me, and the time we were talking about you I wasn't doing a good job at making you feel better," Mattie said tilting her head.
"You helped me by letting me try to help you. I think I might have made a little progress too, if just a little. I didn't need any magic pony powers given to me from a space pony from another dimension to do that. It was all me helping," Haley said with a sincere smile.
"Well, we'll see what comes of that. You gave me things to think about," Mattie said with a little blush.
Haley gave Mattie a sly look and took a step towards her. Bringing her muzzle into contact with Mattie's making Mattie go bright red.
"Suggestion," Haley said with a purr, then gave Mattie a quick kiss on the lips, making Mattie's wings to snap open. "Don't spend all your time thinking, analyzing, and considering all the consequences. Sometimes you just need to do things. I'm bi by the way, and think I need to explore new options in partners."