The Poly Little Pony

by Chatoyance

BLIND

I was tooling around the 'discussions' tab here on Fimfiction, and I came across a silly little writing challenge from a soul here who calls themselves 'Artist'.

"I want you to write a short story about a pony or one of the EQG girls having a disability.
The story must be raided E, and it must be written in an hour or less."

While it is possible that Artist may not agree with me that words like 'Christ' and 'Damn' are for the rating 'E' for Everyone - what child or adult does not hear them regularly? - I somehow felt inspired and created the short-short story below. I really wish I had a solid inspiration to write, but I don't. I am grateful for this one. I finished his challenge with time to spare. Thus, I offer you... BLIND.

The corridor felt like hide stretched over stone.

I had worked out what the 'skin' was, it was old neoplastic flooring, probably in some kind of a tile pattern. The stone was plascrete under the thin flooring. The building was probably only about forty or fifty years old, before that, they used to use concrete and flooring made of petrochemicals. There are no petrochemicals anymore - well, not enough for anyone except for the elites, of course. Concrete is long gone too. But then, they say plascrete is better. Stronger. It almost feels like bone.

I felt bone once. Buttonwillow let me use my earthpony senses on her foreleg. She used to be a cosmetic nanosurgeon for the Elite, so she had all kinds of knowledge about bodies and senses and such. She reckoned that if earthponies could send their senses into the earth, there was no reason they couldn't learn to send them into other things too. She'd heard of earthpony doctors in Equestria, so they had to be able to do something as well as unicorns. It made sense to me. I sat down and put my forehooves on her leg and did the thing I do with the ground. That was my first lesson in overcoming my blindness. Learning that, in a way, literally everything was 'earth'. Everything was dirt or ground, sort of. Stuff is stuff. Like I said, it made sense to me.

I extended my 'ground radar' - that's what I call it - up. Normally, earthponies can't do 'up'. We can sense into the ground, with effort we can learn to 'feel' the stones and roots and even the burrows of little creatures under the soil. It's our 'other' power, that helps with our main one: making things grow. I'm pretty good at growing now. I made a strawberry plant grow to maturity in only a single hour. It took everything I had, mind you, but that's what I can do now. I couldn't do anything like that back when I was human, before my Conversion.

I was pretty happy, for a while. But then the HLF showed up. Human Liberation Front. They don't like ponies, they don't like Equestria, and they don't like the Worldgovernment. They absolutely don't like Conversion Bureaus, and we, well, our little village built out of the favela, it was next to a Bureau. I was one of the newfoals that weren't killed, but I lost my eyes. It was pretty terrible, especially because our eyes are so large. You don't want to imagine anything about it.

The good news is that they can fix things like that in Equestria. Their doctors can use their powers to regrow body parts like eyes. Apparently, earthponies are especially useful for that - we do, after all, make things grow. But I can't fix myself. I haven't a clue how. I even tried, several times. I just don't have the know-how. So, I'll have to wait until I get settled in Equestria.

I can't leave earth yet. Not while my son is here. Not before I at least try, one more time, to get him to see reason. I have to make him see.

I think I can feel the door. I think it is his door. I've gotten pretty good at 'pushing' whatever it is that I do to 'feel' the ground with the magic that flows out of my hooves. I can push it up into walls pretty high. Not as high as the ceiling. I'm a lot shorter as a pony than I was as a man. Also, I'm still new at this. But... at least that strange earthpony ground-awareness lets me do better than I would if I had been a blind human. I can feel ahead of me, around me. And now, after a lot of practice, a little into anything attached to the 'ground' - such as walls and doors. I've counted the steps, and I've counted the doors. Unless I got turned around, this has to be his door.

My hoof makes a deep, solid sound on the metal, reinforced security door. After the Collapse, security doors became the norm. And security buildings. Pretty much security everything. Only reasonable.

It takes a lot of pounding, but eventually, the door opens. I can feel the change in air. My pony nose is so much more sensitive than a human one. I can smell the man standing there, I can smell what he ate through the flesh of his stomach. He ate a Branston Nanodinner. Restructured waste, nanoconverted into synthetic chicken and simulated rice. He's living large! I feel happy he is eating well, whoever he is. I don't like the smell of the half-digested chicken. Equestrians are compulsory lacto-vegetarians. Meat smells like death to us.

"Oh holy... I cannot frickin' believe it. You came to the wrong door, freak."

I know from the voice it is my son. My heart leaps. I love my son. "It's me! Dad! It's me, son! I've... I've had a little trouble, and I know I probably look scary, with the bandages, but it's me! I'm so happ..."

"Oh god. No. God no." My son doesn't sound happy to see me. "How did you even get in here? How did you find my place? Are there more? Is this a raid?"

I don't have a clue why he sounds so afraid. "Son... no! I... don't know what you mean. I came to talk to you, before I ship out. I'm going to Equestria next week, to get my eyes restored. I'm blind. The HLF attac..."

"Jesus. Not... not you. You aren't my dad. You're one of them. You're not my dad. My dad is dead. Stop talking like you're my dad."

My pony nose is incredible. I smelled his fear. I smelled revulsion. Horror. Shame. Anger. It all smelled like bitter chemicals to me. I could smell it through his skin, from his blood, in his sweat.

"Son, please listen to me!"

I just kept smelling fear. He didn't move.

"Son, I don't understand why you haven't Converted already. You know the world is ending. Even if Equestria hadn't come to save us, the planet will be dead in three generations - that's what the scientists say! The oceans are dead, the plants are gone. The air is running out. There's not enough resources to do anything about it. Earth is over. But Equestria is our lifeboat, a second chan..."

"SHUT UP! Shut up, shut up, shut up!" I could smell his tears in the air. "You aren't my dad! YOU ARE NOT MY DAD!"

"But I am, son. Remember our time in the favela? It's a very pretty village now. We all worked together and brought a little life to..."

"I said SHUT UP!"

I smelled iron. Iron and carbon. Steel. I had a faint sense... maybe it was my earthpony power, I'm not sure, a sense of something sharp in front of me. I don't know how I knew that. My son was threatening me with something sharp, made of metal. Something large, too.

"I... I can't handle this. I can't cope with... whatever you are. Demon. You demonic thing. You sound like my old man. God, but you sound like him. You even sort of look like him somehow, under those bandages... god. I just... god. Listen. Listen to me."

I felt wind near my nose. I think the sharp thing was pulled away from my face. I couldn't smell it as strongly now.

"You have to leave. You have to run. I guess you can't run. Dammit. But you have to leave as quickly as you can. I... you aren't my dad... but... if you were my dad somehow... you have to leave. Now. They're supposed to come today. They could be here any moment. My friends are coming. You have to leave before they show up. Just go. Leave. Get away from me!"

I was glad my son had friends. "It's okay, son. Any friends of yours are friends of mine! I trust you to choose good friends! Are they newfoals?"

There was a surprisingly long silence. "No. No dad.... not dad. You arn't my dad. God this is weird. No, you have to leave. Now."

"Why, son? I won't embarrass you, I promise. I just hoped that we could get you Converted, and then go to Equestria together! I could use your help, until I get my new eyes. And we could be together, just like when you were growing u..."

"NO! No. No, that isn't possible." I smelled sadness... and now regret. "Dad... damn, you just feel like him so much, even though you are one of them. Listen, and listen carefully. Understand what I am saying. I am HLF. I am part of the Human Liberation Front. We kill freaks like you. All the time. If my friends see you, you're dead. I don't want anything to do with you. I don't want to be a pony. We're gonna overthrow the government. We're gonna kill anyone who tries to stop us... oh, Christ. God... you cannot be my dad. But if you are, just go. Just go. As fast as you can."

I felt numb. It felt like losing my eyes all over again. I felt my bandages getting wet. "I... I'll always love you, son."

"GET OUT!"

The door slammed millimeters from my nose. The door smelled old and metallic and hard, somehow.

My son... I thought I was blind. But my son was more blind than me.