Drifting stared at the little pill, her stomach doing little flip flops. The appointment hadn’t been bad at all. A bit of blood draw, a quick going over of notes from both her mother and her therapist. Then the doctor had talked with her for a few minutes, asking if she was aware of all the dangers and the issues that might arise, but it honestly felt like a formality. She already KNEW all that. She wouldn’t have been there if she hadn’t.
And she was more than willing to accept ANY risk, no matter how dangerous it could have been. And the risks themselves seemed relatively minor.
So now she stared at the little pill, a small glass of water besides her. It was finally time. The first step of many. She tossed the pill into her mouth and drank it down. She then…
Felt nothing. Drifting blinked and looked down at herself. She’d expected to feel SOMETHING. Some warm glow flowing through her chest. Or a bit of a tingly feeling. Or really, anything. She then sighed and shook her head.
No, that was just being selfish and unreasonable. Even if she WANTED it to be done already, it was going to take a while for there to be any real effect. No matter how badly she wanted it to all be done RIGHT NOW!
Drifting plopped back down onto her bed, staring at the bottle of her new medication. She wondered if she could jump start the process by downing half the bottle and--
“NO!” she snapped at herself. “Stupid. Don’t be stupid. If you do that, they won’t let you have any more. And you’ll probably end up just delaying the process, because you’ll get sick and throw them all up or something!” she said, audibly scolding herself to try and remove the desire and need. Though it didn’t help much. She wanted to--
A resounding knock on the door made Drifting jump up with a shriek. “Who? What?!” Aeon? Neon? She cut the thought out of her head quickly. Those two were taking care of some other matters, otherwise they would have come here by now to check up on her. So who could it be? She trotted to the door with an odd, growing sense of dread.
Only to have it washed away when she opened it to find the Princess of Friendship in front of her. “Y-your highness!” she said, quickly backing away. “I didn’t know you were coming! Err, come in, come in.”
“Thank you, but I’ll only be here a minute. I heard this was a very important day for you. Aeon and Neon sent me a letter and asked for me to check up on you.”
“Oh? They did? I’ll uhhh… remember to thank them for it, later. But it’s fine. I’ve got the pills and… huh?” Drifting said, eying another mare who was with her.
“Oh, this is Fluttershy, she’s one of my friends. Don’t worry, I’ve already told her about your condition.”
Drifting nodded, before glancing to Fluttershy. The pegasus looked shy and nervous, as if she wouldn’t hurt a fly. And she had the most gorgeous, pink mane that Drifting had ever seen. She’d have given anything to have a mane like that. So pretty and soft. She yelped when she realized she was staring. “O-oh! Sorry! I ummm… yeah. Err. So you… know? Err. Wait. No. Of course you know. All of her… Oh! You were the one who didn’t come to the slumber party. Well, one of them...”
“Oh… Y-yes. I’m sorry. I had a prior commitment with Discord. And I hope everything went well...”
“Err… yes,” Drifting said. “So… errr...” she coughed into a good and then motioned towards the bottle on her dresser. “Those are the pills. So… ummmm… t-there? Is… that all you wanted to check in on? I’m not like. Going to do anything stupid like take all the pills at once…” she mumbled with a soft cough.
Twilight snickered. “Oh, you definitely shouldn’t. The effects would be disastrous! But no, we’re only going to be a few minutes, or rather. Only had a few minutes. I just wanted to remind you that you’re not alone and… ummm...” She paused, pulling out a notebook and flipping through it. “… No. That’s it. Everything. Oh, and you look really great. Okay, we really got to go now. We need to prepare for Dis… err… don’t worry!”
“Oh… uhhh. It was nice… meeting you?” Drifting said, cocking her head to the side and watching the two mares trot away. She really wasn’t sure how to react to all of that. It felt very rushed. Whatever it was that dragged Twilight off had to be important. She snorted and looked at her pill bottle. “Nope. Not going to do that,” she said with a roll of her eyes, before trotting to her bed. She prepared to jump into it, before the blankets suddenly lashed out and wrapped around her, making her topple over with a muffled shriek. She tried to scream, but with the blankets covering her mouth she couldn’t. “MFFFFF!”
“So, you’re the appointment that Twilight was so hush hush about? And here I thought it was about a surprise party for me...” a strange voice said. One she SWORE she heard years ago. She writhed in the blankets, trying to escape. Eventually, she managed and took a breath, intending to scream… only for bubbles to come out of her mouth. “Oh, please don’t shout. It’s so very annoying,” the voice said.
She finally caught sight of the strange creature, only a few inches tall and leaning against her pill bottle. What a strange creature it was, seeming to be made of an amalgamation of a number of different beasts. Even she could identify such a creature at a glance. “Discord? W-what are YOU of all creatures doing here? WHY are you here? No, what. No, whatever! W-why are you here?”
“Because I was curious, namely,” the creaturesaid with a shrug. “Twilight--”
“W-wait, this isn’t about that wish I made, was it? Y-you couldn’t actually hear it, could you?”
Discord blinked a few times, before chuckling and disappearing. Only to reappear in a portrait, pulling out a pear from it and chewing it with wanton abandon. “Oh? A wish, you say? Why… Indeed it was,” he lied, eyeing the mare with a cocked eye. “Though, you should know the old saying… oh, never mind. It’s not important. Do go on.” He popped the pear in his mouth and blew a bubble from one of the seeds.
“… Well… could you? I mean. Turn me into a girl? Err...” Drifting gulped. If he could do it, would that be okay? He wasn’t really evil, right? After all, the princesses used him for all sorts of things. And she’d heard of him going all over, using his chaos to fix things.A deal with him would be well worth it. Probably.
“Turn you into a...” Discord stared at her for a few moments, before bursting into laughter and disappearing, landing on her bed. “Ohhhhh. Oh, that’s rich. That was your wish? Something so ea… difficult?” he asked, shaking his head. A malevolent smile on his lips. “It almost makes me wish my other plan hadn’t already paid off. This would have been so delightful to rub in their faces. But no, little pony. I won’t be granting that silly wish of yours. All I wanted to know was who little Twilight was sneaking off to see. You ponies really are quite humorous with your little--”
His words were cut off when something big and heavy SLAMMED into his face, knocking the spirit of chaos backwards. He toppled out of the bed, shaking his head. It hadn’t really hurt, but it had taken him by surprise.
Drifting was staring at him through tear filled eyes, wielding a metal bad in her magic. She couldn’t believe it. How could he say he was here one second to do it, then take it back the next? Was this all just a joke to him? The unicorn’s entire body just shook with hatred and rage. “Get out of my room! Get out get out GET OUT!” she shrieked. How could she have actually let herself have hope for those few seconds? She felt like an idiot.
Discord merely laughed, shaking his head. The bat came at him again and he snapped his fingers. He then ducked, eyeing the still transformed bat. For a moment, he was confused, then burst into laughter. “Oh, I see. Already transformed, then?” He snapped his fingers again and the bat turned back into a small, stuffed bear. “To turn to me in such a way, it must truly be… un-bear-able,” he said with a laugh. Though he watched her for a few moments, smirking. “But you know… perhaps you can help me with a little something. You’ve given me something absolutely delightful to think about,” he said, before disappearing with a strange slurping sound.
Drifting stared at the spot the spirit had been residing, searching for any sign of the foul creature. With a flash of her horn, she tried to turn the bear back into a bat, but it refused. She blinked a few times, then sighed. “Right… stupid… chaos… spirit thing,” she muttered, before tossing the bear into the corner of the room and dropping onto the bed. Only to shriek and dash to the bottle of pills.
No no no no. If he’d altered them in some way, she swore she’d find a way to end him. She didn’t care how long it took. She’d find a spell to turn him into a cockroach or something! However, when she popped open the bottle of pills and took a quick look, they looked exactly the same. She gave a quick sniff, but they didn’t smell like candy or anything else. She sighed and lidded them back up, before crawling back into her bed. “I’m way too paranoid...” she mumbled. “Stupid spirit of chaos.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. Soon. She’d be back in that virtual world. Back as a mare. A real mare. She’d be a girl again. She just had to focus on THAT, and not this… prank.