Your name is Anonamiss, which isn’t your original birth name. Thankfully, you’re the only human in Equestria, a mostly unspoiled, nearly literal, Eden world. You are the dictionary definition of elegance, beauty, and whimsy. Salsa dancer, and by the grace of God, salsa eater. You just love spicy foods, what more is there to say.
It's getting to be late Summer, nearly time to trim the lower pompadour into a Brazilian. The open sky was refreshing and the grass was a lush green hue, or pokadoted when Eros becomes bored. You could hear birds singing their brave little heartsongs outside your window. Your selfish wish was they would do their beautiful birdie business somewhere else. You are currently resting in a cot with too few pillows in the Ponyville Hospital and there was an amber colored pony wearing a Stetson talking to you. Nurse Glitterwing, you made sure to get her name, had just picked up your diagnosis clipboard and trotted his way out of your room, leaving you alone with your favourite farm pony.
“Just stay calm, Anon. Y'all just rest easy, now. Sometimes these things just happen," Applejack said while he gently pushed you back down. "Dusk Shine is working on a spell ta fix everything."
Well, second favourite farm pony. Apple Seed was obviously the most adorable. And Rainbow Blitz didn't farm, let alone do any actual work. If there was an award for being the most lazy, that skittle-shrimp pony would sign up to participate, then drop out for it being too difficult, but still somehow win by default. His napping schedule was so legendary that if it was a loot drop in Borderlands 3 it would be a level 72 Golden Anointed Hyperion SMG. It made you a little bit jealous, not that you would ever tell anyone.
You watched Applejack's dry, cracked lips forming words, tongue slapping about, doing wet noises, but you had no idea what he was talking about. You weren't sure in what way Dusk was supposed to fix everything. Given his track record, the flippant lavender nerd was usually the Chosen One which caused the problems in the first place. You were convinced that the stampede of giant stoats that appeared last week, which ate the roof off of Sugarcube Corner and collapsed the stone bridge leading to Butterscotch’s cottage, was somehow his fault. You tried your best to tell every helpful hospital horse that everything about you was fine and supremely sexy, as it should be. They were dead-set to do their little horsey best in the horseiest way they knew how whether you wanted their help or not. You knew your own body like the back of your hand. Except for that one scar on the side of your right hand. You still don't know how you got that one. You were pretty sure that Zelcor had something to do with it. Maybe you got drunk and started running your hand over his bristley mane without permission, which you don’t need to get because you’re a woman and you can pet whomever you want.
You are a human, not just some hairless, damn dirty ape. Your body is supposed to be proportioned like it was. There was nothing that the Prince of squeaky burrito farts needed to fix. But, like a fluffy kitten, an idea sank its claws into the leg meat that was your brain. You deftly unraveled the twisted ball of yarn that was this conversation. You had figured out what he was talking about and reluctantly closed your mouth and settled your face into an angelic, satisfied smile.
You lay in the cot and let your thoughts drift back to yesterday morning. Worst prince, Artemis, first of his name, had commissioned Dusk Shine, worst of his name, to gather census data from the border towns. Thinking back on it, you couldn't remember why Dusk had picked you to help him and not Barb, or one of his friends, or any of his castle staff, lest they do their actual job for once. But how he restlessly badgered you to help him. You distinctly remember telling the purple bookworm 'no', repeatedly, often before he even opened his chompy cake hole. As it turns out, in Equestria, when boys hear 'no' they decide that they'll do what they want anyway because ‘you just don’t know what you really want’ or some such bullshit, in the same way human boys think back home.
That morning you decided to get an extra hour of beauty sleep because your feet still hurt from kicking metaphorical ass all day every day, and ended up being late for your early morning meeting with the appointed Prince of Friendship. In your haste you had barely enough time to eat a handful of chocolate covered espresso beans for breakfast before you spirited yourself away to meet the self-proclaimed Duskainator at the crystal castle on the outskirts of Ponyville. The two of you then spent the day doing simple secretary work that any smooth brained idiot should have been able to handle. It was just a bunch of shuffling around papers, a little writing, placing the correct forms into the correct folders, applying labels, sorting the folders into boxes, labeling the boxes, then stacking the boxes into one of several stacks. Dusk usually loved this type of task and would normally do it on his own for several hours around his own library just for fun. You had no idea why he was so reluctant to do this simple task or why it was giving him so much trouble. If someone tells you to do a thing, you do that thing, in the way they tell you to do it. It’s as simple as reading an instruction manual or asking for directions, really
For some unfathomable reason, Dusk had felt the need to schedule visiting every town on the same day. He probably did it on purpose in a desperate need to get back to what he loved doing the most, finding new ways to gas-light his baby dragon, Barb. The twitchy lavender nerd didn't schedule any breaks for snacks, low tea, brunch, lunch, high tea, dinner, or dessert. Now, after teleporting the two of you around for most of the day, hardly staying in any place longer than thirty minutes, you fainted. Not from the casual blinking round in space-time, but from Dusk’s stupidly jam packed schedule. Who in their right mind does a week's worth of government contract work all in one day? You’re being paid a daily wage to do the job. Why do it in one day when you can do the same amount of work in seven? Then you get to eat more ice cream on the government’s dime. It’s not rocket surgery.
Now, here you are, twenty-two hours later. Your Superwoman-like human physique finally had enough of running solely on caffeine and collapsed from starvation and low blood sugar levels. Now you're laying in bed, hooked to an IV drip, recovering in a ponylander hospital, thankfully not the vet like last time. You were staring awestruck, deep into this handsome farm stallion’s emerald eyes as he tried his best to mansplain something ... truly amazing. So amazing, in fact, that you think some aspiring chimpanzee on a typewriter could easily pound this into a twenty-four-thousand word story like they were questing to win a Booker prize.
The Prince of broccoli stuck in his teeth, in his infinite purple privilege, somehow got his dirty little hooves on a copy of your full body magic medical scans. He had decided that what he read in your charts should have not been what it was, though it be like it is 'cause it do. That, somehow, one or more of his multiple long-range teleports had caused a vanishing of body tissue and a not small amount of cell damage.
When your tiny horse doctor, Doctor Horse, told you what Dusk thought he had found, you definitely weren't worried. You are a human from a different universe and they are tiny chromascoped horses. Multiplying one and one together equals one because it’s the same as saying that you have one group of one thing. Nothing happens to the other one because there is only one one. It’s simple math and you are in your own group of one because you’re a human. There is only one of you and you do your best not to multiply with the locals despite their best efforts. You are who you are. Their medical knowledge lacks the nuance to properly define what you are. You’re built different.
You tried to tell the doctor this. That you weren’t going to put up with his anti-human nonsense but when you tried to leave she had one of the larger, definitely sexy, male nurses sedate you and strap you down to the bed. You may have panicked a little. You’ve seen too many scary movies where the hot girl always dies first. You desperately hoped that bondage was her fetish and was not seeing how many organs that they could remove before the patient expired.
The lumberjack of a nurse had left you alone with your applejack of a pony, Applejack. With his gravely country accent lulling you into a false sense of security, you finally clue in as to what Dusk thought he found and his pending magical solution to fix everything. According to what Dusk thought he had discovered, your multiple rapid teleports had caused your overall muscle mass to deteriorate to dangerously low levels. Applejack always looked so cute when he was thinking thoughts in his normally empty head.
Some careful groping under your hospital gown had revealed to you that everything was the right size, where it should be, and functioned properly. At least as far as you could tell without some pony removing the canvas straps holding you to the bed.
But Dusk was dead-set on returning everything to its ‘original state’, which, when directly compared to a pony mare’s Body Mass Index, your noodly appendages were no longer to-scale with the rest of your body. Dusk Shine, the alicorn of magic and Prince of Friendship, was creating a spell to give you bigger abs and all you had to do was to shut your pretty little mouth and try not to give away the game too early.
But you knew that colt’s track record. While magic was totally Dusk’s thing and he was literally the Element of Magic, you knew for a fact that he didn’t think his actions has consequences. Which means you had to be the responsible one, like always, and do the deep-brain level of thinking that human females are known for. You have one, teeny, tiny suggestion, a simple tweak to make, then the Alicorn of magic induced drama could give you all the muscles he wanted. Why work harder when you could work smarter?
Everything went wrong because of course it did. Thankfully you were sitting on an Adirondack deck chair, sipping iced tea and eating popcorn, on the balcony of the tallest tower of the crystal castle, several miles away, watching the events as they unfolded. When you told Barb the what and why she decided to join you for some sun. It’s common knowledge that dragons, like other similar lizards, loved to be toasty warm. Be it lava baths or baking themselves under the bright noon day sun.
Your tiny, yet brilliant, suggestion was to have Dusk Shine test his spell on a volunteer at twenty percent power just to make sure it worked the way he intended. His victim slash volunteer was none other than the local grey mail stallion, Bumble Hooves. He and Dusk had met at the Ponyville fountain square in full view of the telescope you had borrowed from the guest room of the castle and had set up to give you a better view of events so far away. A telescope which had not been needed.
"Oops, sorry!" You hear, as a giant quivering monster of a pony smashed through yet another unfortunate pony's home. "Sorrysorrysorry!"
You could see Dusk galloping alongside, shooting off counter-spells at the enormous creature that once delivered your mail. It was shaping up to be your very own Fourth of July event complete with fireworks and destruction of property. The rumble of hooves nearly drowning out the townsponies screams of terror.
“You know, that was almost me.” You tell Barb as you reach for another handful of popcorn. “Does Dusk ever test his spells?”
“Nah. Not since he became the Element of Magic. He just powers his horn and fires away. Kind of careless, if you ask me.”
A stray zap from Dusk caused Bumble Hooves to trip, falling onto town hall, crushing it flat under his giga-butt. A huge shockwave of dust uprooted many of the trees decorating the town square.
Sunning herself on a beach towel beside you, Barb lifts her sunglasses to look over at you. “We probably have a couple of hours before the guards get everything under control. We’re all alone in this big castle. Just you and me. I was thinking strawberries and whipped cream.”
You chew on your mouthful of popcorn. “Murf?”
“In the bedroom.” She continues, batting her eyelashes at you.
It’s not the first time Barb has invited you for some, uh, extracurricular activities. The first time you saw her lick a glass mixing bowl clean with two quick swipes gave you some interesting dreams that Prince Artemis dream-walked into one night. There were some awkward questions. Maybe Barb caught you staring. You’re not really sure but what ended up happening later you wouldn't change for anything in the world. Who are you to turn down another invitation from a fellow sapient adult who just happens to have a two foot long prehensile tongue. You do your best not to multiply with the locals but this specific dragon woman gets a pass for many very good reasons. And, yeah, sure, a couple of hours may seem like a long time, but that’s when she is just getting warmed up.
Your name is Anonamiss. You’re a strange creature, with even stranger friends in a world filled with even more strange things. You may be the only human, alone, but you’re not lonely. And sometimes you're allowed to have nice things.