Transspecieality

by Chatoyance

Five

FIVE

My new home was in East Palo Alto. In the 80's, 'EPA' was a part of the San Francisco Bay Area that was home to people disadvantaged by poverty, race, and species. It was notorious for being a very rough place, with not too few jokes about cops flat out refusing to respond in the region. It had its issues, to be sure, but the existence of ponies greatly reduced the actual violence that occurred there. I can't imagine how dangerous it would have been if only humans alone had ended up there.

Sandy Shores was staying with a transequine friend, Tralala Haha, who had taken her in. Sandy had had a difficult time of things, and was fortunate to have found someone in the Bay Area to provide her with shelter and emotional support. Tralala Haha lived with her - human - lover at the time, Ginna, and my introduction to their home was rather interesting.

My first meeting with Tralala and Ginna was also a deliberate character test. As I entered their home, my first image of them was one of a mare and a human woman engaging in something I could just interpret must be some form of sex. Tralala had her foreleg all but up to the foreknee inside Ginna, and used the other one to jauntily wave a hoof at me from the fairly spacious living room floor. Waving at me was fine, I really did not expect, nor particularly desire, a hoofbump.

I was utterly nonplussed. I think the reader will completely understand this. At this point there was little that could shock me, and I was beyond any capacity for surprise. I waved back, as merrily as I could, and did a little half-bow to Ginna. They welcomed me to their home. I said thank you very much, I appreciated their kindness. I smiled. They smiled. They returned to imitating a piston. I followed Sandy to her room.

Tralala’s household was a very comfortable place. It was a surprisingly large and rambling house, with very solid bars on all of the windows and several beefy locks on the doors. Tralala had a waterbed, the first I had ever seen, and I fell in love with the thing immediately after getting to briefly sit on it one time. Ginna, originally from the south, was an amazingly wonderful cook, And I tasted my very first hush puppies, among other treats - though I must admit that grits were not to my liking. Ginna was always making delicious treats. She also was very fussy, even neurotically obsessive, about cleaning - which was not a bad character trait for a surgical anesthetist.

Tralala worked in a mixed human and pony machine shop. She and Ginna were both highly intelligent, and exceptionally well read. They had strong political and social views, and my evenings were filled with fascinating intellectual debate. They expanded my concepts of the world, and helped me overcome much of my remaining human narrowness.

The household was a clothes-optional one, though that meant little to me, because I was always dressed in my coat of fur. My permanentization was imminent, and everypony was excited for me. Sandy Shores and I slept cuddling on her little cot, and although it was pretty cramped, it was also very comforting.

My day of departure came remarkably soon. Sandy Shores took me down to the train (a human train, nothing like the Friendship Express), and saw me off. I waved to her from my seat, watching her shrink to a point on the depot. As the miles of beautiful countryside rolled by, I missed her so much. I constantly daydreamed that she might come to love me, for I was already hopelessly in love with her. Sandy Shores had become everything to me.

Riding on a train is wonderful fun. The view is gorgeous, and the clickity-clack strangely soothing. At night I prayed to Celestia. The moon, out the window, was absolutely full, just like it was on that night, seemingly ages ago, when I was ready to take my own life. Now it shone on me as I traveled to my ritual of permanentization and the proper beginning of my true life.

I needed to go to the restroom, yet again. I was pretty excited, and that necessitated more trips than usual. On the way back, I was stopped by two human train men. They seemed very friendly and asked me where I was travelling to. I answered that I was going to Trinidad.

By the time I finally made it back to my seat, I had managed to stop crying. Apparently absolutely no ponies went to Trinidad by the train, except for one kind of specific kind of pony. The freakish, ungodly, Satan-spawned, monstrous, shapeshifting kind, who exist solely for the purpose of providing sadistic entertainment for bored hyper-religious locomotive operators. Someday, I hope to personally thank their God for the teachings of Christianity they learned. I have a teddy bear all picked out, to shove down His god-damned throat.

After several days, I made it to the depot in Trinidad, Colorado. It was snowing slightly, and the high, thin, icy mountain air itched my lungs. I could see the incredible mountain peaks that enclosed me, shining in the moonlight. It was stunning.

I was all alone in the dark of an unfamiliar, very small town. There was nothing but a very few, distant and dark buildings, and the depot. One lone streetlight shown across a vast expanse of snow. A dog barked. The wind whipped at me, and I could feel the cruel and biting cold even through my silken coat of fur.

With a bit of searching, I found a payphone, standing alone in the dark. A moonlit look through the ragged remains of a phone book offered me Trinidad’s one and only cab company. A few coins later, I reached a nice sounding, clearly human, young girl. She could not have been over 18 by the sound of her, but she was ever so happy to help me. I called for a taxi to meet me at the depot. I was assured one would arrive right away.

Some forty minutes later, shivering uncontrollably - even unicorn fur is insufficient against earthly cold - I called to see what the delay was. Trinidad is not a large place at all, indeed it is one of the smallest towns I have ever been in. It was hard to imagine that taxi work could be very demanding here.

“Are you still there? You stupid weirdo, Jesus - will you get a clue? Fuck off and die!” she laughed merrily, “I ain’t sending anyone out for no dammed barnyard freak.” She seemed to be having a lot of fun.

I hung up the phone. The distant, lone streetlight beckoned. It was the only light I could see, other than the moon. I trudged through the thin layer of snow, my saddlebags and blanket my only warmth.

Behind me, a car pulled up. An elderly man and his wife asked me if I needed a ride. I was freezing. Yes, I would appreciate it very much! The man and his wife had been born in Trinidad, they had a daughter out west. The wondered if I had come for the skiing competition. It was hard to imagine a pony on skis, but I decided to use some of that supposed statistical intellectual advantage for a change. I said yes, that was why I was here. They relaxed and smiled. I smiled back.

The hotel was the biggest in town. It had three whole floors. Inside it looked just like a wild saloon set from out of a western - not the usual gunfight kind, more the 'fancy linen on the tables' kind. I got my key and checked in to my room. I was exhausted and cold. I warmed myself with a shower (it takes forever for fur to dry!), and settled in. I set the little bedside clock to wake me; I did not want to miss my ten-in-the-morning appointment with Dr. Biber and Tagtail the Obsequious. I tried calling Tralala's house to no avail. After I hung up the phone, I missed Sandy Shores all the more, and eventually I fell to sleep.

I awakened in darkness to the phone ringing. My heart leapt. Sandy Shores was calling me back? I looked at the clock. It was three in the morning. I eagerly picked up the phone.

“So, are you lonely? I have what you need. I have some nice dick for you to suck. You pony-fuckers love that don’t you?”

My head reeled. This wasn’t possible, I was in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere.

The rough voice continued “So, you want to get together with me, horsefucker?”

I was unable to think clearly. This was too twilight zone. I found myself asking why on earth this stranger was calling me.

“I know some folks at the hotel. They let me know when the fake horses check in, I get the phone numbers. I can be over anytime, ponyfag.”

This was beyond tolerances. I could not even get angry. It was just insane. I politely said no thank you, please leave me alone. I think my voice displayed no emotion at all, for I was quite beyond feeling at this point. I hung up. I checked the locks on my door. I checked them again. I piled my suitcase on the chair which I wedged under the doorknob. Then I checked the window. I checked the air vent. I went to bed. I checked the door again. I even ran my hornfield over the fixtures to try to telekinetically 'feel' any hidden spy devices.

At 8:30 I dragged myself down to the breakfast they offered. I had pancakes and what pony appropriate food I could find that was associated with them. Other diners filled the place, locals for the most part, come for a breakfast out in one of the only restaurants in town. I carefully studied my food. It was hard to levitate my fork (there was no way I was going to eat muzzle down in the plate here) with so many humans openly staring at me. I checked my mane and fur. No, I looked fine. Clearly it was just because I was a unicorn. A loathsome pony in their town. A pony in a very small town whose primary financial base was Equestrian Permanentization.

9:45 brought me, at last, to the steps of a horrendously dilapidated multistory building in the heart of town, one of eleven ramshackle buildings in total. 'First National Bank Building', it read. On a cracked sign listing the businesses inside, I found Dr. Biber’s and Tagtail's offices. Their office was the only actually remaining business, the faded others having long ago failed. Inside, the peeling wallpaper somehow matched the oily puddle that filled the middle of the entirely empty, lower floor. A pile of garbage framed the stairway.

At the top, I finally came to a slightly less decrepit floor, this one inhabited. A few locals sat on the ancient couches, and a young human woman sat at a desk apparently found at the salvation army. I timidly asked if this was Dr. Biber’s office. Yes it was, Take a seat.

In time I was admitted. The inner offices were slightly better, but still seemed like a clinic in a barely demilitarized zone. Things moved quickly now. I was weighed and measured. I was interviewed briefly. Dr. Biber asked me if this was what I really wanted to do. I found the question a little facetious. He took “Before” pictures of every part of my ponification serum supported body. It was invasive and embarrassing. I did not want to do this bizarre photography session, but after all I had been through, I was not going to say boo, now.

He told me to take a taxi to the hospital outside town, and what I should have ready when I went. He took the rest of my money for the ritual. I explained a little about my problems with the taxi before. He said that his word carried weight in the town, not to worry. A taxi would be there in the morning.

The taxi was indeed there, and I was wordlessly driven. As we came up the hill, I was amazed to see one of the most modern hospitals I had ever seen in my life. Here it was, Mount San Rafael Hospital, the sole financial support of Trinidad, Colorado.

Mount San Rafael was shining white with tall arches and polished marble everywhere. It was beautiful, gargantuan, and utterly out of place in the crumbling, decaying little town. It was the hospital of the largest metropolitan city, sitting at the top of a hill in Pissbucket Colorado. It is ultimately a monument to the determination and financial resolve of over 15,000 transspecieals. The gold mine of Trinidad.

Soon I was led to a temporary room, awaiting placement in my actual room for the duration. Sister Roberta Marie explained to me the rules as we went. Although Dr. Biber held a lot of sway in Trinidad, this was a proper Catholic Hospital, and When Biber was not there, it was incumbent upon his ‘special’ patients to behave properly. I was not supposed to leave the ‘special’ - read 'pony' - wing for any reason. I was not to talk to the good and decent local human people who had to use the hospital for real, respectable human reasons. I would be taken care of, but none of that wild ‘Los Pegasus’ stuff. Here was my welcome book, here was my list of services, here was a room to wait in. I chatted with the earthpony I shared my temporary room with, a Dressclub dancer who was here for the same reason as I.

In came Father Stevens. Father Stevens had come to explain all about how we were wrong and it was a good time to go home. Father Stevens had once been a transequine too - but he had gotten better through faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ. Not actually better, it seemed, but whenever those evil pony yearnings came back, more prayer would always keep them at bay. He prayed many times every single day. We too could be just like him! He still had the physical remains of a pony tail, which stuck out of the back of his pants. It looked gray and shriveled, and half bald like the tail of a rat.

I reflected on all I had been through, especially lately. I told him how much I thought of his ever-so-loving efforts to save our immortal souls, and our ever-so-sacred human forms for the service of His Lord Jesus Christ. I was very specific, and chose my words most carefully and precisely.

He turned several shades of the most darling crimson before he left. It really was so terribly pretty that it made me feel much better. My temporary roommate seemed to feel better too.

Finally, at about eight in the evening, I was almost fed with a light wheatgrass broth and a whole, entire cracker (all to myself!), and had finally been settled in my true room. I shared it with Cumulus, a kindly pharmaceutical salespony, who regaled me with stories about how almost all commercial drugs get their names. For instance, ‘Potion’, the common slang term for ponification serum, is actually a portmanteau that describes what it is. POnification TransformatION. Distilled and purified blood from Celestia and/or Luna. Yummy, and all natural too! Interestingly, after those years of use, I am deathly allergic to earthly horses now. I literally don't even know how that works. Even so, I am convinced that having the literal blood of alicorns inside me surely must make me at least somewhat a true Equestrian.

Dr. Biber stopped by to check on us, and even the ancient grand mage Tagtail briefly wandered in with a curt nod. I gave Sandy Shores a call, which made me both happy and sad. I missed her even more now. I thought about the possibility of something going wrong. Very rarely, the permanentization spell can result in what amounts to a horrifying Star Trek 'transporter accident'. I might never see her again.

In the early morning I was awakened for my thaumatic purification. I was cleaned and brushed down, enchanted and prepped with runic charms. A whirlwind of activity ensued. I was wheeled into the ceremonial chamber.

I lay on a heavily carved, arcane stone dais, in the middle of a largish green and white room. I was absolutely, utterly, alone. It was Wednesday, November 3rd, 1982, at exactly 9:30 AM.

I heard no sounds. It was dead quiet. I looked around. Nothing. No magical artifacts, no ponies, nothing. I looked out the large entrance arch. It was like a Twilight Zone episode, where everyone in the world just ‘went away’. What the hell was going on?

I waited. Half an hour passed. I was still alone, with nothing in sight. Fear was mounting. Was there some emergency? Had I suddenly gone insane? This was a busy hospital. Where was everyone? Everything had been all fast and busy, now nothing. I called out. No answer. Should I get up and try to find out?

I lay there and I thought about death. This could kill me. This could actually kill me. This was major, high-level thaumaturgy. One slip, and I could have my flesh twisted into a cthonian nightmare right out of Lovecraft. Nothing could stop such an eldritch non-Euclidean deconstruction. This was fact. I remembered the stories I had heard, stories of the mutated, the dead, the horrifically de-souled. Transequines die - or worse - on the altar sometimes.

Everyone was so rude, too! They already had my money. Look at this hospital. Maybe my life was not worth an Equestrian bit now. I thought of the movie ‘Coma’, and wondered how much used transspecies corneas and livers brought on the open market. Fear rose in me like a tsunami.

I consciously grabbed at the arcane dais with my full telekinetic force. All four of my legs made motions like they were trying to gallop away on their own. I literally began to shake with terror. I even gripped at the enchanted stone with my tail!

I realized this was my only chance, the only chance I would ever, ever have. I had been unbelievably fortunate just to get to this point - most transequines never do. Everything was paid for. If I backed out now, it would never, ever happen again for me. I thought about the future. I knew one thing with absolute certainty.

If I could not have my permanentization ritual, I would not live another day. Not another damn day.

Knowing that, I felt a slight relief! I was already dead in the future where I got up and galloped away from fear. That future, without question, led to the grave. But staying here, I had a chance. It might work out. Maybe they were on the up and up. I would have a permanent and self-sustaining unicorn body, or I would choose death. I relaxed. Nothing, nothing could make me leave that altar. This was the moment of truth, the moment that my pony soul was defined. I was an Equestrian, in life or in death. This was my stand.

Of course, that’s why they did it, to give me the option of running away without shame.

Suddenly, almost comically, the room burst to rushing life. An entire hour had passed in absolute silence. Now it was a dozen humans and ponies, and ancient artifacts being wheeled in. It was thaumaturgical chit-chat and snapping magepunk electrodes. Where they all came from I don’t know, but suddenly the room was filled with activity.

Where before was an utterly empty room, now was a fully equipped thaumasurgical arena. Dr. Biber was there, and gave me a wink and a squeeze on my shoulder, and Tagtail himself came up to ask me to chant a spell he showed me, backwards. The magical runes on the parchment glowed, and I made it from the first written word in ancient Equestrian all the way to a third after that, before I sank into sweet oblivion.

I could not stop shivering. I was cold to the bone, cold to the very soul. The terrible cold was beyond imagining, it was cryogenic. It felt like the Wendigos had won. A blurry face - human or pony, I could not even tell - came by and had me state my name and where I thought I was. Apparently I passed this supreme test of my vast intellect. The blurry face went away. While eons passed, stars were born and came to burning ends, while endless gulfs of eternity faded into timeless void, I chattered and shook in agonizing cold. Eventually the dim light brightened, and I was being wheeled.

I knew I hurt, I knew I was different, but it was hard to comprehend. Somehow I ended up in bed.

Cumulus was congratulating me, as best as she could, for she was little better off than I. The sun was setting. I was informed about my pain options, and was told not to move about, for I was bolted into a frame of sorts. Dr. Biber eventually came to see me. He removed my runic charms and I got my first look at my newly permanentized form.

Glowing lines of thaumatic force ran across swollen gibbous hunks of bloody meat. Purplish swelling and raw gory hamburger was penetrated by eldritch energies and streaks of lightning, and a strange arcane metal loop that came out of my flesh and went back beneath it. For all the world it looked like clothes hanger wire. The wire loop was attached to a thaumatic grounding armature that lifted it. I truly was a monster now.

“Looks great! I think you’ll do fine!” pronounced Dr. Biber, obviously suddenly struck blind. “You call for the nurse if you have any problems, OK?”. I made a mental note of that invaluable information. I sank back exhausted from the Olympic effort of craning my now much longer neck. I thanked my doctor very much, and even managed to get in my prepared joke “Did you get all the humanity out?”. He half-heartedly laughed. I did not know at the time that it is probably the standard of all transspecies post-ritual jests.

Time came and went, as did consciousness. By the next morning, I was awake, jovial, and constantly in pain. Pain like that almost transcends perception. It gradually becomes background noise, because it is difficult to fully appreciate the true depth and rich complexity of it. It is sublimely horrendous. Medication does help, but even with magical pain potions direct from the Everfree, there is no escape from the constant news that a large Nerve Faction has decided to violently overthrow the current regime for mismanagement of Bodily Affairs.

But oddly, the pain of having my entire body “Ontologically skinned out like a cosmic rabbit and magically forced back together” was not as severe as what was to come. Worse, it was something that could have been avoided.

Dr. Biber was a bit old fashioned for a species-change specialist. He had gained his skills doing thaumatic equine-relations duty in a M.A.S.H. (Magically Assisted Surgical Hospital) unit in Korea, and from all reports was a real-life Hawkeye Pierce. My entire ritual took just under two and one half hours. I got to play guinea pig too - I was one of the first to receive a pseudo-carbuncle (the source of higher magic in native-born unicorns). My only complaint with Biber is that he had Tagtail use, according to my roommate Cumulus, rather out-dated stasis spells.

The third night I discovered the meaning of this. The overly ancient stasis spell that had knocked me out, had also caused my bowels to be temporally paralyzed (locked in time), as well as to dry out severely. I have always suffered from constipation, so the sum of this was the worst intestinal cramps I have ever experienced in my life. Indeed, it was the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life period. The breaking of my arm one summer was nothing to this, neither was my broken clavicle in first grade. The nightmarish ritual on my entire body was utterly insignificant now. This was REAL pain, true hell pain from some Dante’s inferno of eternal damnation. I could not even scream, it hurt so bad. I could barely breath through the intense agony. I was not allowed any more Everfree pain potion, I was at maximum already.

I tried to sit up. I tried to use the bed pan that the nurse supplied. My intestines clamped down with enough force to crush freight trains. Individual villi inside my intestines began boxing with each other like thousands of enraged Mike Tysons. I tried to lean, I tried to scream. I desperately dug through the drawer by my bed with my hoof in an insane attempt to find a pair of entirely imagined scissors to levitate up and stab through my own heart. I truly would have done just that, if there actually had been any.

That shocked me. I really would have attempted to stab myself to stop the pain from the cramping. That woke me up. I genuinely had intended to do myself harm because of the pain. It had literally driven me to madness! I forced myself to settle down with every speck of my remaining will. I Concentrated on how much I had to live for now. I reminded myself that this too would pass, even if my bowels could not. I actually began laughing maniacally, because the pain had gone beyond any capacity for tears. I somehow endured.

Eventually, by morning, I was so exhausted that my entire pony body was ready to collapse. I fell into a dreamless state. Utterly devoid of any remaining strength, my bowels finally began to unclench. The searing, yet lesser pain of my magical reconstruction was almost a comfortable relief.

Over the next two days, I required almost no pain medicine at all, indeed I asked to have it lessened. I began to realize that I was liking it too much, and feared addiction. After that supreme pain of my intestinal cramps, my ritual-derived pain seemed easy to tolerate by comparison. The nurses were amazed at how courageous I seemed. They had no idea as to why.

Nearing day five, it was time to get me off the catheter they had put into me, and to remove the thaumatic grounding wire that kept my reforming body from magically shorting out. The funny wire loop that impaled me just around my pony sternum was unhooked from the grounding armature. Two rune-protected nurses came in with a serious pair of pliers and a wire cutter. They informed me this might feel a little funny.

They cut the thick wire, with some effort. It made a loud metallic twang, and that felt like nothing I ever hope to remember, even for a moment. Thaumatic bolts of magical energy arced through my flesh and jumped to whatever they could reach. There was a brief flash of supernal light. They then clamped the pliers onto one end of the severed clothes-hanger wire loop. Together, both nurses muscled the wire out of my barrel. One end dived into me as the other was pulled straight up. I could feel it running like a metal snake around and under my sternum bone. After several million years of this, the wire came free from my body in a slippery, bursting, pop.

There are some things Man Was Not Meant To Feel.

Unfortunately, I am a unicorn mare, so I definitely felt it. With the grounding wire gone, the circulating purple lightning running through my flesh gradually discharged into the hospital bed. This too was a sensation better left beyond the reach of memory. Much wrapping gauze, which had made me look like a mummy, was also removed. A lot of it was black and soaked in clotted blood. The smell made ‘crematorium’ sound like an ideal name for a new perfume.

Finally, for the most part, I was fully Equestrian.