After the third time trying to penetrate her fianceé's dream Rosetta was about ready to throw in the towel. Luna was crazy to think she could do this where the alicorn couldn't.
"Excellent progress, you almost had it this time. I was not wrong in thinking you were the pony for this job," Luna declared.
Luna could go fuck herself.
Luna walked in front of Rosetta's limp form and Rosetta scowled up at Luna's smiling face. It was just the two of them and an endless expanse of stars going in all directions, including down.
"Now that we have established that you are capable of getting into Phobia's dreams...," Luna continued.
Rosetta was pretty sure that was very far from established.
"...I think it is time to start giving you some exposure to the nightmares of others before you actually attempt to start helping your loved one," Luna finished.
Great, more opportunities to want to puke and not be able to. Rosetta thought to herself.
"I have a pony that has frequent nightmares that I exposed Phobia to early on. I think that she'll be an excellent starting place for you. Your training will be a bit abbreviated, as your primary focus is getting my student back to sound mind," Luna said as she walked past Rosetta.
Rosetta calmed herself as much as she could and repeated in her head a few times that this was for Phobia. That Luna was an expert on these kinds of things and wouldn't be doing this if Rosetta couldn't do it.
It still was an terrible experience though. Trying to go into Phobia's dream was like trying to go face first into some twisting black hurricane, and if there was some eye of calm in the center it was far too deep for her to reach. Luna insisted that she couldn't even get into the swirling mass of darkness like Rosetta could, at least not without hurting Phobia in the process. Getting into that mass didn't seem to mean much if she couldn't penetrate through it though.
"Come with me, I have other tasks I must attend to yet, and I need to have your lessons for today finished promptly," Luna said as she beckoned Rosetta to follow her.
Well, maybe this wouldn't be too bad this time around. Phobia had never mentioned anything like these black twisting masses of...whatever they were. So maybe that meant whoever this pony was she wouldn't be dealing with that at least.
She got up and followed Luna. It was hard to express what following entailed. From her perspective she was walking, but she knew she had no actual physical form here. It was just something her mind projected. Luna, or even Phobia, could probably explain why her mind gave her this projection of herself, but frankly she could care less about the details at the moment.
They approached another light that had a shadow over it, though nothing compared to Phobia's darkness.
"As expected she's having a nightmare. She is asleep fairly late in the day so she must be staying up late to avoid sleeping again. She'll do for tonight," Luna said as she looked at the dream.
"And who exactly is this pony?" Rosetta grumbled as she sat down beside Luna.
"A former protege of Sunset Shimmer that is still having a lot of struggles coping with the association she had with her," Luna explained.
"Some sort of guilt dream then?" Rosetta asked as she looked at the dream in question. You had to feel at least a little guilty if you were involved with Sunset Shimmer, unless you were a die hard Shimmerist of course.
"Perhaps, there are many twisted emotions in her concerning Sunset Shimmer," Luna said. Without any warning that she was about to do it Luna moved the two of them into the dream.
They were in some woods and a young pegasus mare, who couldn't be any older than Rosetta's own sister, sat crying as the sounds of gunfire could be heard in the distance. She looked absolutely miserable, and Rosetta couldn't help but let some of her frustration with her abrupt dream walking training go as she looked at the mare, feeling nothing but compassion.
"It seems you guessed well," Luna said with a hint of satisfaction. "This is definitely a dream born of guilt."
The gunfire just kept going. It wasn't continuous, it was like a line of guns being fired at once. Every few seconds the sound of the guns went off again and each time the pegasus flinched like she had been struck.
"This dream is not severe. Since it's my intention to have you trained only as a basic dreamwalker I'll have you step in and start trying to help her on your own. I'll watch and see what your strengths and weaknesses are in this regard. The experience will help you when we finally penetrate Phobia Remedy's dreams," Luna said in a casual tone.
Rosetta turned and gaped at Luna. "Wait. I get no explanation on what to do? I don't even get to watch you in action first as an example, and you're just going to let me loose in some other pony's mind without so much as a hint about how not to screw it up? Are you crazy? I know this isn't how you've been training Phobia."
"I don't mean to be harsh in saying this, but it's Phobia I'm focused on properly training and she will have far more ability and freedom than you when her training is complete and she becomes one of my Dreamwardens. You on the other hoof are a means to an end that only needs to know enough to accomplish one task and will continue on as a plain dreamwalker of little consequence," Luna said as she stared down at Rosetta with a flat look. "Don't fear, I won't allow you to do any damage to this pony's mind, though it is unlikely you could without intent. I need to see what you do on your own though before I know how you can be utilized best."
Alright, so she just had to fumble her way through this and hope Luna stopped her if she was about to do something really bad. How much worse could this be than everything else so far? All she could do was wreck some pony's mind by accident; nothing to worry about at all.
She sighed as she looked over at the pegasus. Rosetta had never been a lucid dreamer who could control her own dreams, and being in somepony else's dream didn't give her any new insights into that. Her first instinct would be to turn the sound of that repeating gunfire off, but she had no clue how to do that.
Instead she did the only thing she could think to do. She walked straight over to the pegasus and sat down, startling the pegasus out of her crying, and flapped her wings so she hovered in the air. Apparently that stopped the mare from dreaming about the gunfire, because it abruptly ended.
"Who are you?" The pegasus asked with suspicion.
"Rosetta Stone is my name, who are you?" Rosetta countered.
"You don't know who I am?" The pegasus said in confusion. "I thought every pony around here knew my name at this point. Though I guess I've never seen you around before. I'm Laura Tanner."
"Never heard of you, but I think I live a long way away from here," Rosetta said as she looked at the mountains in the distance. "We aren't really here though. This is a dream."
"I kind of guessed that after the first few rounds of gunfire," Laura said as she hung her head and sighed. "So now I'm having conversations with made up ponies in my dreams."
"Oh, I'm not part of your dream," Rosetta said, causing Laura to look up at her with narrowed eyes."This is night pony magic, dreamwalking to be precise. I'm here to help you with whatever is bothering you."
"Night ponies can do that? I have heard of them banishing nightmares, and Josie does that for me sometimes, but not going right into a dream," Laura asked in fascination.
"I'm getting kind of a crash course," Rosetta said with a grimace. "Anyway, what's on your mind? What's up with the gunfire?"
"You've really never heard of me and know nothing about me?" Laura asked with a hint of disbelief.
"Nope, not a clue. Probably will never meet you in the waking world either," Rosetta said with a sad laugh at this ridiculous situation.
"So why are you in my dream then?" Laura asked, still sounding suspicious.
"Because I was taken to this one and told to just do my best without a clue what to do or much background information. I don't even know how to leave either, so I'm left just trying to do my best," Rosetta said with a flick of her tail. Then gestured around her. "So talk to me about all this. Was somepony shot?"
"I don't want to have this conversation," Laura said as her expression hardened.
"Well that's just great. I guess we'll sit here staring at each other till you wake up. What an invigorating dream," Rosetta said with a roll of her eyes. "At least it's an improvement over what I was dealing with even trying to get into my fianceé's dream. I don't know what's going on with her nightmares, but trying to even get in is a horrible experience."
"You could just leave and go focus on her," Laura suggested with her ears laid back. "I didn't ask for some random pony to show up in my dreams."
"I told you I don't know how," Rosetta said with a groan as she gestured around them with a hoof. "I just got put in here and told to figure it out by Luna. As I said, I have no idea what I'm doing at all. I don't know what kind of crap you're dealing with, and I'm sorry that you got saddled with a dreamwalker who doesn't know crap about what they're doing for trying to sort it out."
"Do you honestly have no idea at all about what happened here? I know I asked already, but figured it was big enough news everypony would have heard about it." Laura asked as she flicked an ear.
"Not at all. I heard gunfire in the distance when I got here and see you sitting here crying. My best guess is somepony that you cared about got shot," Rosetta said as she looked behind Laura in the direction the gunfire had come from. She softened her expression as she looked back to Laura.
"She didn't care about me, not really," Laura muttered as she looked down at the ground.
"It's a she? Well, that's a little bit of information. Care to share a little more?" Rosetta asked with a smirk.
"No, it doesn't matter I don't care about her either," Laura huffed as she crossed her forelegs in front of her as she continued to hover.
"Well, I think you definitely cared about her, whoever she was, otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here crying about it," Rosetta pointed out. Score one for Rosetta.
Laura gave Rosetta a stricken look. Then lowered her self back down to where she was sitting before with a slumped posture. She sat silent for a minute again as she seemed to be struggling with what to say.
Rosetta got up and sat down next to her, wrapping a wing around Laura's shoulders and spoke calmly to her. "You'll probably never see me again after this. You don't have to worry about me talking about this with any pony else. Talk to me about it and let it out."
Laura looked at her and seemed to consider that. The pegasus took a deep breath before speaking. "When I was transforming still I met Sunset Shimmer. I didn't know it was her at the time, I thought she was just another person transforming. Somepony who encouraged me and seemed to be my friend. When we were being held in the shelters, after we finished transforming, I stepped up and took a stand about our rights, and derailed a lot of potential fights between humans and ponies at the same time. She was there encouraging me and giving me advice the whole time."
Rosetta was told this pony had an association with Sunset Shimmer, but hadn't expected anything like this really. It just wasn't the way she pictured Sunset Shimmer behaving. She kind of imagined Sunset Shimmer being some cross between Saruman and Lex Luthor. Of course she had never met the unicorn, this pony had been friends with her.
"She sounds like she was doing everything a good friend would do. It's okay to be upset that she's dead in that case," Rosetta said with sympathy.
Laura shook Rosetta's wing off and took into the air so she was hovering away a few feet away before turning around to face her with tears in her eyes again.
"But don't you see? She lied to me about who she was. She was responsible for forcibly transforming millions of humans into ponies. She was almost certainly trying to use me for something. It was all a lie," Laura sobbed.
"Really? Oh what dastardly use did she have in mind to use you for?" Rosetta said sarcastically with a raised eyebrow. "From her perspective she must have thought that she had already succeeded in all her plans and was just waiting for them to finish themselves out. If she was encouraging you it was probably because you were worth encouraging. She didn't need to be anything more than a pony in the crowd after ETS was unleashed."
"Maybe she couldn't stop herself from meddling. And I was just a potential new project to meddle with," Laura said as she stomped into the air as if she was trying to stomp the ground.
"I don't think you believe that. The fact that you're crying over her death says that," Rosetta said as she stood up and walked towards Laura again. "In fact, now that I think about it, you seem terrified of the fact that she actually cared and feel guilty for it."
"Why would I feel guilty for her caring if she did?" Laura asked in confusion.
"Think about it, she had no reason to stick around after her plan went into action. She put herself in danger by staying in one place after ETS started. Maybe the reason she did that was because she was too attached to you, and you're terrified that is it. You don't want to be the one responsible for her death," Rosetta said as she stood as straight as she could and locked her eyes with Laura's.
"Even if she really cared, even if she really put herself in danger because of me; that doesn't make me responsible," Laura said as she turned and started to fly away.
Rosetta rushed into the air and in front of Laura to block her path. "Exactly, that's on her. That doesn't mean that you didn't really appreciate that care and encouragement. If she cared enough for you that she put herself in that kind of danger to stay and help you that seems like a pretty clear sign she gave a damn about you, no matter what her other faults were. The fact you're crying over her death shows you gave a damn about her as well."
Laura teared up as stoped and laid down where she was. A moment later she began sobbing into her forelegs. Not exactly the response Rosetta was looking for, but maybe it was progress. This would be better if Phobia was doing this; though if Phobia could be doing this right now Rosetta wouldn't need to be here at all.
She took a breath before go finishing her points. "You knew the real Sunset Shimmer. To me Sunset Shimmer is just a pony I heard about, somepony that might as well be a legend. Ponies are complex beings and even the most terrible ponies have many sides to them. You should meet my future mother-in-law, she's a piece of work herself with a nasty streak a mile wide, but she has a surprising amount of care and compassion in her as well. I believe Sunset Shimmer, despite all her many...many faults, cared about you because of you, and not some bigger plan or desire to use you. And you should be glad to have a pony care about you like that."
"So where does that leave me now?" Laura asked as she looked at Rosetta with tear filled eyes.
"Sunset Shimmer is gone, you aren't. She gave you encouragement to be the best you that you can be. You're still that pony that was worthy of that encouragement. Let the dead rest and don't worry that you're some pawn. Accept the good things she gave you and accept that she was a flawed pony too. You're your own pony who can do great things on her own. Let her sun set and let your sun rise," Rosetta affirmed with a play on Sunset's name as she bent down to where she was almost touching snouts with Laura. It sounded corny to her ears, but maybe not to Laura's.
Laura brought a hoof up to wipe her tears. Then stood back up and gave Rosetta a small smile.
"You aren't as bad at this as you think. Thanks for the talk. I don't think it fixed everything, but it gives me a different perspective on things," Laura said gratefully.
"That's score another one for Rosetta," Rosetta cheered as she pumped a hoof. She then blushed as she realized that was probably highly inappropriate at the moment. "Sorry, got excited, but I'm glad I helped. I'm not making a habit of this. Not my thing. I'm a history buff, not a psychologist."
"History buff? You should meet my mom. She loves history," Laura said with a chuckle.
"Maybe. I don't think that I'll be meeting any pony out here any time soon...," Rosetta stopped as the location and Laura's last name clicked together in her mind. "You're mother is Sarah Tanner, the archaeologist and anthropologist, isn't she."
"Um, yeah. How'd you know about her?" Laura asked as she blinked in confusion.
"I'm a big fan of hers. I just discovered her work the other week and have spent time reading everything she wrote. I'd love to work with her, though I have no idea how I would find time to. I have a foal on the way," Rosetta said, dropping into straight out excited fanfilly mode.
Laura gave a hearty laugh in response. "I'll let her know about you. Rosetta Stone, right? She's always happy when anypony gets interested in her work. Maybe someday something can work out where you two can work together."
"I appreciate you doing that for me," Rosetta said with a happy smile as she tried to restrain her excitement.
"And you gave me an idea for a name by the way. Sunrise Storm. Something to pay tribute and to say I'm moving on," Laura, or Sunrise Storm now, said as she looked over at her cutie mark. Rosetta hadn't paid it much attention before and could only get a quick glance now. It looked like a sun poking out from a hole in some clouds from the angle she saw it.
The dream then abruptly faded away, leaving Rosetta standing again in the star filled expanse.
"Not how I would have done things, but not bad," Luna said with satisfaction from behind her. "I think this is enough for now. Tomorrow we shall try again to penetrate Phobia Remedy's dreams."
Great, back to nausea tomorrow again. At least she had the satisfaction she had helped somepony.
It was an interesting group that walked together down the main street of Riverview. One human, two earth ponies, one night pony, one pegasus walking, and one pegasus flying low level along with them. Groups of ponies traveling together was not that uncommon a sight, but their group still stood out amongst those on the street.
Devon kept looking down every few seconds to check on Jessie who followed close to her. She had decided that since the crowds had indeed died down that she would let Jessie walk instead of being carried. She had also decided that at the first sign of Jessie wandering off or possibly being in danger of being trampled the little filly was going right up in her arms again.
To her other side walked Amanda. Amanda had Jackie walking beside her as well, though Jackie was still leashed. The filly had suprisingly made no attempts at flying thus far, and Amanda had commented that she was going to be cautiously optimistic that the surges were coming to an end. Though the presence of the leash indicated she was taking precaution still.
Robby walked just opposite his little sister. He also kept an eye on his sister and kept her corralled between Devon and him. Devon had stressed to him that he needed to make sure Jessie stayed between them to keep her safe. The little colt had instantly latched onto the duty of protecting his little sister and took his assigned task extremely seriously, much more serious than would normally be expected of a five year old.
Tonya didn't walk, she flew along with them at a pace that matched their walking. Devon really didn't understand how Tonya managed to casually move through the air at a casual pace, but the answer as it almost always was with ponies was no doubt magic. Tonya also seemed to keep and eye on the foals and would give off an almost chirp like sound if one of them started to veer more than a step or two away.
The adults casually talked as they walked to their first destination, which would be the school building that served as area one. Devon needed to eat and Amanda wanted an opportunity to eat something that wasn't hay, as well as get a good look at the school the two of them might end up working in together. Tonya had explained that she needed to speak with Amber, who not only worked the information desk there for the time being, but also lived there so she could be found quickly if any human needed something.
When reached the school building they walked in together and were greeted by a confused look from Amber as they entered.
"Tonya? What can I do for y'all? Are we moving all these ponies and Ms. Middleton in here? I have space if y'all need to, will just take me a minute or two to make assignments," Amber asked quizzically.
Devon watched Tonya shake her head as she finally landed on the floor. "Nope, just having a meal together at the cafeteria. I personally am here to make you an offer."
Amber gave Tonya a skeptical look. "What kind of offer? Ya say offer and I hear more work."
"Well, it would be more work, but you might still be very interested. It means a promotion for you," Tonya explained with a hoof brought up to cover a grin.
"Promotion how? I'm already the pony that gets left doing things whenever ya have something else to do. I don't really have anything to be promoted to," Amber said as she creased her brow.
"There is one position you could get promoted to," Tonya said with an innocent smile.
Amber sat and looked at Tonya with a baffled expression for a moment. Then she blinked and gasped as it occurred to her exactly what Tonya was speaking about. Devon felt like chuckling herself at Amber's gaping expression.
"Ya mean...," Amber began after she started breathing again.
"I could offer the job to some other pony if you aren't interested...," Tonya tried to cut in.
"No-no-no-no, or yes, or whatever--what I'm saying is I'm interested. If ya're offering me that job I accept," Amber said hurriedly.
"Good," Tonya said, suddenly taking on a very serious expression. "Tomorrow you start as the town outhouse repair and maintenance pony."
"Wow, information desk services must be really low on the job totem pole," Amanda whispered over to Devon. Devon hoped that Tonya was joking, that seemed like an outright cruel thing to do to Amber. Amber seemed to be a very friendly and helpful pony from the little she had talked to her.
Amber sat and looked at Tonya with a stricken look for a long moment then lowered her head down and put her forehead on the desk.
"I've been flummoxed," Amber muttered.
"I'm not the best speaker, but I don't think that word means anything like the word you were looking for," Tonya said thoughtfully.
"If it's not that's just a sign of how bamboozled I am," Amber muttered after that. Devon wondered if this was some kind of joke or if Amber really didn't know what these words meant.
"And after you are done with the outhouse cleaning tomorrow you can permanently take over my job," Tonya added on.
"I'm a straight mare, I'm not sleeping with Sunset Blessing," Amber said with her head still firmly planted on the desk.
"If you did I would be very upset with you good madam and would have to challenge you to a duel," Tonya said in overdone haughty tone. Okay, at this point Devon was sure they had to be playing some sort of game with each other.
"Ya're a scrawny bit of feathers and wings who's mama didn't feed her enough, I'd win," Amber said as she turned her head to gaze at Tonya.
"Well, I'd still do it. It's the principle of the matter," Tonya explained with a still serious expression.
"Ya know, it's supposed to be the stallion who does that, not the mare," Amber said in a bemused voice.
"That's just plain misogyny. Equal rights for mares to go kick another's flank. And we are all mares in this situation any way," Tonya said in an offended tone. How long were they going to keep this going?
"That does complicate matters. Still, it goes against the way I was raised to have a southern lady fighting, so I figure I must concede Sunset's hoof to ya--not that I wanted it," Amber said graciously. Amanda seemed to be having trouble beside Devon containing her laughter and was turning from pink to red in the face.
"That's kind of you," Tonya said with a smile. "So, ready to be lead pegasus?"
"I don't know, are we still talking up our asses or are we being serious now?" Amber asked as she raised her head up.
"We could do both, but it would be unpleasant, so I guess I'm serious," Tonya said with a laugh.
"Sure, why not? I already do the work because ya're such a lazy bum. Why not get the credit?" Amber said with a big grin.
"Good, you're lead pegasus now, because I quit," Tonya said as she spread her wings and did a little dance. Devon had to step back and Jessie almost fell over stepping backward as she did. "Though you'll have to find some lieutenants; I'm not getting involved and I pawned Joy off on Tattered Wing...you're welcome for that second one."
"Momma, is Aunt Tonya crazy?" Robby whispered up to her in a worried voice. Devon just looked down at him and shrugged her shoulders. At the very least Tonya seemed fun loving.
"Thank ya for that," Amber sighed in seeming relief. "I mean it to. Joy is really efficient, but I get the impression that when she heard the story of How the Grinch Stole Christmas she was criticizing the Grinch for not burning the Whos' houses down too. That should be her cutie mark, just the Grinch's face."
"This has all been very entertaining, but are we done with all this?" Amanda asked with a bewildered expression. "I know Devon has several things she wants to get done still, and I want to eat quickly so I can get Jackie here back to the tent and settled for the night."
"We definitely can head to the cafeteria now, I'm a free mare and Amber is the mare with the cutie mark saying she is going to be stuck doing paperwork the rest of her life," Tonya said with a whoop.
"Wait...what?" Amber said as she quickly whipped her head around to look at her flank. After seeing it was still blank she turned and looked back at Tonya with a scowl. "Not funny."
"You never know," Tonya said with a giggle before the party finally departed the lobby and moved on to the cafeteria.
They found the cafeteria about half filled at this hour. The majority of them were humans though there were a fair number of ponies present here as well. Seating areas were long tables that in a school setting could have each held a full classroom of students and their teacher. There was an actual lunch line like a school would have. The line was mostly filled with humans, though a few unicorns seemed speckled in.
"Well, guess getting the food falls on you Devon," Amanda observed as she saw some people walking around with school lunch trays. "If one of us was a unicorn we could probably carry trays with ease. I can grip one in my mouth and carry it fine, or possible balance it on my back, but I'd be scared that I'd get bumped and spill everything."
Devon counted out the meals she would need to pick up, just four. She'd have to make two trips as the trays looked like they could hold two meals a piece. That wasn't a huge deal. Maybe those running the line would let her get it all in one line trip and let her leave one tray sitting at the line for a moment while she delivered them back one at a time.
"We'll find somewhere to sit together and save you a seat. I'm sure Robby and I can keep Jessie from wandering off between us," Tonya said with a gesture at the earth pony filly. The little filly seemed very caught up trying to look at all her surroundings with wide eyes.
"Are you sure?" Devon asked uncertainty.
"Aunt Tonya and I got her, Momma!" Robby said with enthusiasm as he draped one of his wings over Jessie protectively, a second later Tonya draped one of her wings over both Robby and Jessie to show she would watch both.
Devon forced a smile onto her face despite her misgivings about it. Jessie should really be fine between having two adults and Robby watching her while Devon was only a few feet away. Nothing was going to happen to her. She had to trust those in her support system or she wouldn't have much of a support system.
"Does anyone...anypony have any requests?" Devon asked, trying to consciously acclimate herself to pony terms.
"As long as it is not meat and not just more hay I'll take anything," Amanda said right before grabbing Jackie up in her teeth by the scruff of her neck, cutting off any further talking from her.
"I want a hamburger or pizza!" Robby declared excitedly with a little hop.
"Honey, you can't eat hamburgers, they'll make you sick. I'll see if they have some cheese pizza or something though. That might be okay," Devon said as she looked down at him with sympathy.
"Believe me kid, you really wouldn't like the taste of the hamburgers, they'd be the worst tasting things you ever had," Tonya said with a look of disgust at the thought of eating hamburgers.
"Even worse than lima beans?" Robby asked skeptically with a raised eyebrow.
"I think at this point you might start to feel lima beans are alright, even if not great, and hamburgers are really icky," Tonya explained.
"I'll let you try just a bite of whatever meat I get and try some vegetables too just to show you. I don't want you swallowing the meat though, okay?" Devon said as she looked at her son. If he didn't swallow he should be okay.
"You want me to spit the food out?" Robby asked with wide eyes. Devon typically would scold him for that kind of action.
"Just this one time. I want you to taste the meat so you know it isn't good for you," Devon explained patiently. She hoped it tasted as bad to ponies as Tonya made it out to.
"Okay, if you say so," Robby said, still looking completely skeptical that meat would taste bad.
Amanda and Tonya shepherded the foals over to the sitting area while Devon got in line. Directly in front of her in line were a human couple with many pony traits between them. The man had what was clearly a red mane and webbed wings on his shirtless back. The woman had yellow hair with orange streaks running through it in a very regular pattern. Both had holes cut into their pants to let tails that matched their manes fall out and both sported pony ears.
"Evan, can you rub my back again? It's getting real tight again," the woman said to the man.
The man, presumably Evan, turned to the woman and Devon spotted that he had yellow eyes that were a close match to her son's. He began rubbing her upper back gently as the woman let off a contented breath.
"I wish these things would just sprout. I'm getting really tired of this constant ache," the woman said.
"I don't think it's going to happen, Kira. We haven't had any further changes in nearly two and a half weeks. Don't think there will be any more," Evan said with a touch of pity in his voice.
"I'd wish they hurry up with that damn rehumanization spell then, or did something to just let me get past this one stage so my back didn't hurt so much. It's not fair leaving us in this freaky in-between crap," Kira complained.
"The clinic said that it was getting close and to keep checking back and they'd let us know as soon as something became available. Just a few more days hopefully, we just have to be patient," Evan said calmingly.
"I know," Kira sighed. "I'm just so sick of being uncomfortable. I just want to be one thing or the other. I don't even care at this point which one it is as long as it doesn't have this constant ache."
Just then Evan's wing did a quick flap and smacked Devon's arm by accident. She winced in pain. She made a note to herself never to get popped by one of Robby's wings, those things hurt.
"Sorry, really sorry. I didn't mean to do that," Evan said as he turned to her looking extremely embarrassed. "They do that sometimes when I get moody. It's like they have a mind of their own."
"It's okay," Devon said as she rubbed the red area on her arm where the wing had struck her and gave them a friendly smile. "I know it wasn't intentional. My little five year old colt is a night pony and you just taught me never to get smacked with one of his wings."
"Well, I still apologize all the same," Evan said as he tried to tuck his wings a bit more.
"Can I ask you a question, if it isn't too personal?" Devon asked cautiously.
"Sure, we don't mind. What is it?" Evan asked.
"Do you feel more human or pony? I mean if given the choice of what to be which would you take?" Devon asked.
"Human," Kira said without hesitation.
"I really could go either way on my own, but my wife wants to be human and I'd follow her. That tips the scales to human for me too," Evan said as he went back to rubbing his wife's back.
"Why are you divided, Evan?" Devon asked then worried she was getting into inappropriate questions. "Sorry, I'm just trying to figure some things out for myself. I know I can't get ETS at this point, but I have two foals and I am trying to figure out their mindsets and my own."
Evan stopped rubbing his wife's back and scratched one of his wings absently. "Well, I guess when these things came in I kind of the hoped that I would actually get to use them. Didn't really work out that way of course. I think Kira would feel a little less certain about wanting to be human if her wings had actually come in."
"I prefer human, but as I said, I'll take anything but this," Kira mumbled. "I'm not really a human anymore, not close to being a pony either, just some freak that has a body that doesn't work right."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you," Devon said as she took a step back.
"You didn't upset me. This body upsets me. Don't feel bad for asking questions. Just be glad you didn't catch ETS late and end up like me," Kira said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
Devon hadn't even considered before tonight how miserable she could have been if she had indeed caught ETS and not finished transforming before the counterspell happened. It was a whole new perspective on what might have been.
This didn't make her feel better about what might be still when her foals got older and started possibly viewing her as something apart, but it definitely made her appreciate that things could be worse.