I grimaced painfully at that question and looked away, only feeling more upset by it. “Unfortunately,” I whispered, taking a breath before turning back around to face her again. “But look at you,” I continued, giving her a smile again. “Here I thought you couldn’t possibly get more adorable, and yet you somehow managed to anyway. Now you have a body to match that unbelievably feminine personality of yours.”
She put a hoof up to her mouth as though it would stop her from crying. “This is amazing,” she said. “I knew I was going to cry, but I didn’t think it’d feel this amazing.”
“It is,” I smiled as she sniffled. “You deserve it. I told you before that you deserve every good thing in life.”
She shut her eyes and took a breath as she started to get completely choked up. I got out of the snow to wrap my hooves around her, still crying, too. It was no longer that frustrated, bitter cry of sadness though. Now it was happiness for someone who finally got the thing they wanted most in life.
Everything they want, I couldn’t help but think as my lip started to tremble. Everything she wants while my happiness was stolen from me. That thought almost got me choked up for myself.
It’s not fair that I have to live like this again, especially when she…
I stopped that thought right in its tracks. Selfish. That’s what that was. My thinking that while Shorey was finally happy with herself for the first time ever was nothing but selfish. I shouldn’t have thought of that in the first few minutes she was here, no matter how unbearably painful it felt to see who I wasn’t anymore. There was absolutely no way I was going to talk about what happened to me, no matter how obvious it may have been to her. She didn’t deserve to hear my problems when all of hers had finally washed away. She didn’t deserve me even thinking like that.
“What happened to you, Rally?” she asked as she pulled away after an extremely long moment of tight hugging. “There’s no way you would’ve asked to be a stallion, is there? You still sound the same.”
Unless, of course, Shorey asked first. Her eyes were filled with concern, and she could probably see in mine just how much I was hurting.
“No, I didn’t ask for this,” I got out, my voice cracking. “I only sound the same because I’ve been voice training the whole time I was walking, not that it matters since I look absolutely terrible. I would never ask for this. I hate living like this with my whole being…” I could practically hear my tears hitting the snow as I spoke. Or maybe they were Shorey’s, because she was still crying, almost certainly over me now.
“But don’t let me ruin your moment of happiness,” I said, forcing myself to smile again and putting a hoof on her shoulder. “You deserve the happiness you have now.”
“It’s amazing,” she whispered again. “Absolutely amazing.”
She reached out to hug me again, much more brief this time, before she asked, “What are you doing out here? Where are we?”
“Apparently we’re in the Crystal Empire,” I explained as we both used our hooves to wipe our eyes. “Rusty Bucket said that the mountain behind us is Mount Everhoof and that the border between Equestria and the Crystal Empire is about halfway up.”
“Who’s Rusty Bucket?”
“He’s the stallion from season nine that Cozy Glow talked to when she was trying to get Grogar’s bell. But yeah. I was at the top of that mountain like six days ago, and I’ve been just walking to the Crystal Empire for the last three.”
“Wait, you’ve been out here for six days?” she asked, shocked.
“Yeah,” I answered. “Tomorrow’s the seventh.” I closed my eyes and took a breath to keep from tearing up again. “It’s been lonely…” I whispered. “I mean, I stayed with Rusty for a couple of days, and he said it’d only be like five days until I got there, but other than seeing him, it’s just been… all of this…”
“What did you ask for from Lord Zulu?” Shorey questioned, raising an eyebrow. “He gave me exactly what I asked for.”
“I only asked to be a pony in Equestria,” I said. “I didn’t ask to be a stallion or out here in the middle of nowhere. But apparently because I wasted a tiny bit of his time, he thought it’d be okay to nearly kill me on that mountain and stab a knife through my heart every time I look at myself.” I took another breath and closed my eyes as I continued painfully, “He… he said in my dreams this was what I was born to be.”
“I- I can’t imagine how much it must hurt,” she told me, now starting to tear up again herself. “I don’t know one person who’d be that cruel to someone.”
“Apparently Lord Zulu,” I said. “But I don’t wanna keep bogging you down with my problems. You don’t deserve to hear them, at least not right now. I’m happy for you.”
There was one more hug between us before I said, “Anyway, welcome to Equestria… err, the Crystal Empire technically. Apparently, there’s a difference since Luna doesn’t visit the dreams of non Equestrians.”
“How did you learn that?”
“Because she came to my dream on the first night when I was having a nightmare,” I said. “I tried to ask her for help off the mountain but she said something about international laws preventing her from doing so. I couldn’t really understand her because her voice was cutting in and out, but Rusty Bucket said the same thing. He said they were all sticklers for laws.”
“That doesn’t sound great… you said you’re going to the Crystal Empire? Because I told everyone else that we should all meet up in Ponyville if we can. They haven’t asked Lord Zulu for anything yet, but they will once they see I’m gone.”
“That’s where I was going, so I could see Twilight and see if she could fix my ugly mess of a body.” Then I yawned and said, “But for now, I was going to stop for the day so I could sleep… err, have a near mental breakdown because of all of this. I guess it’s a good thing you got here when you did.” I looked away embarrassedly for a second as I said it. “Not to mention, my head hurts from trying to get my dumb magic to work all afternoon. But I can keep walking if you want to. The sooner I can stop sleeping in the snow, the better.”
“I mean, I just got here, so I’ll do whatever you want,” Shorey told me. “You have supplies, right?” she asked as she looked at my back. “Do you have a tent and stuff?”
“Yeah, but I need help setting it up. I haven’t been able to get this stupid thing up one time. I’ve just been letting it lay on the ground and stuffing my sleeping bag inside of it to sleep.”
I took the stuff off my back to show her everything I had. Everything was still intact since I hadn’t been using much of it, although the food was starting to dwindle. I hoped it would last with two people until we got to the Crystal Empire.
I explained that Rusty Bucket said the empire should be about two days from here, and she agreed that it would be best if we rested now and started off again in the morning even though she wasn’t tired yet. I told her about how Rusty Bucket said there was a train station to Ponyville in the Crystal Empire, something she agreed would be a good idea to take. She also chipped in the idea of seeing if there was something in the Crystal Empire to teach us how to do magic, like a book or a magic instructor.
“I’d rather learn magic sooner than later,” she told me, grabbing the tent in her teeth as she spoke. She was somehow better at manipulating it to do what she wanted it to do than me. With her help, it was actually coming along and getting set up the way it was supposed to be.
“I didn’t ask to be a unicorn so I could spend time doing things with my mouth,” she continued. “The sooner we can learn how to use it, the better.”
“You’ll probably learn faster than I will,” I replied. “Honestly, I’m surprised he even made me a unicorn. With everything I’ve gone through so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was disabled. I haven’t even made a spark yet.”
“It’s only been a few days. There’s no way you can expect to learn how to do it with no instruction.”
“It’s felt like years looking like this,” I sighed bitterly, before forcing myself to take a breath and not get worked up. The less I could think of exactly what was wrong with me, the better.
I went back to focusing on assembling the tent. I could see her smiling out of the corner of my eye as we worked, looking like there was not one thing wrong with the world. It was honestly very cute to see and made me smile, too. But only up until I remembered the reason why.
Stop being jealous, you selfish prick, I told myself, going back to working on the tent. You should be happy for her, not angry.
I turned my attention back to the tent for a few more minutes before turning around to her to ask a question. When I did though, I got an eye full of something that made my face burn bright red.
“Uh, Shorey?”
“Yeah?”
“I understand that you’re a lady now,” I started, “but you might want to lower your tail instead of showing off your mare bits to me.”
The words came out way more aggressive and bitter than I intended. It wasn’t even the reason I was asking; I only wanted her to know that she was effectively presenting herself looking like that. Of course, now that it was in my mind, it was the reason I was asking, a thought that made me feel ashamed of myself. I shouldn't have been acting like this.
Her head was still turned, but even in that position, I could see her cheeks turn scarlet colored as her tail lowered. “Sorry,” she said quickly, quietly, clearly in a voice that said she felt bad for me.
“Ignore me,” I responded just as quickly. “I’m just being bitter as fuck when I shouldn’t be.” I was certain she could hear the obvious hurting in my voice based on the look of pity she gave me. It only made me feel worse.
“Help me put this spike in the ground?” I asked, trying to change the subject. “You’re better at this than me.”
It still took quite a long time of working in the cold, but with the two of us combined, we were eventually able to get the tent set up. I was yawning by that point, ready to drop dead and go to sleep after nothing but walking all day.
“There’s only one sleeping bag,” I said, “so how are we going to do this?” As I asked it, a particularly strong gust of wind blew past us, chilling me to the bone. Shorey didn’t look like she was much better because of it.
“I’m not that tired yet, but it’s probably not a good idea for me to stay up all night,” she answered. “We could take turns sleeping if you wanted to, but it’d probably be best if we just shared the sleeping bag with as cold as it is out here. My face is going numb.”
Shorey’s suggestion made my heart flutter. Yeah, I was in love. Although it would probably be wise to not look so dang happy about it, even if she did already know how I felt about her.
Speaking of looking happy, the mare with me still looked absolutely so. I said many times before that she was going to give me a heart attack with how feminine she acted, but I felt like I might actually have one in real life if she kept this energy up.
“You know, I tell you every day that you’re adorable and that you never stop, and it seems that’s the case now. Actually, it looks like you turned it up to eleven.”
“I'm only being myself,” she said, trying to portray seriousness but failing to do so with the big fat smile she still had on. I just about fell over right there.
“Erghrgfld, I’m gonna drop dead if you don’t stop saying things like that. Don’t kill me with adorableness.”
With that, I quickly got into the tent and the sleeping bag, Shorey explaining that she was going to walk around for a while and try using her magic until she got tired. I gave her a basic rundown of what I was doing that gave me my headache, hoping it would be helpful before she left, still wearing that smile.
It made me happy to see her happy. I just wished I wasn’t so jealous that I couldn’t be as happy as she was.