“You know how ponies say when you reach a certain age, you start to stagnate?” I asked Silver Spoon. “I think I get that now. I’ve stagnated.”
“What do you mean?” the gray mare asked, raising an eyebrow. We were both lying on the floor in an apartment her father had gotten her recently for her birthday. It seemed like fourteen really was what constituted adulthood here, and it made sense. She looked a lot closer to an adult than a filly now. I was just the same as her despite being two years younger, my own body looking closer to an adult’s than a child’s in my estimation.
“I mean that I left Earth when I was like twenty five– no, I was a few weeks away from there, so twenty four– and I haven’t really developed much since then.” Sure, I’d changed. There was no way that wasn’t going to happen after being in Equestria as a filly-turned-almost-mare for so long. But while most people grew and changed over the years, spending the last decade in Earth time in Equestria as a little kid didn’t really offer much room to change, outside of a couple of things.
“Like, I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be over thirty five by now. Maybe I’m even pushing on forty. But I still feel like I’m twenty four. Is that weird?”
“Uh, yeah Asher,” she laughed. “It’s really weird, especially since you’re not even thirteen yet.”
“Yeah, not yet. Only about four hundred more days.” I let out a breath, then asked, “Do you think they’d let me move to Canterlot? Or do I have to stay in Ponyville until I’m fourteen?”
“I don’t think Twilight Sparkle or Mrs. Holiday or Lofty would care, but I’m betting they’ll just have you go out to Canterlot every so often. Heck, even when you’re fourteen, I don’t think they’ll care if you stay in Ponyville, since it’s not an every day thing you’d have to meet with ponies.”
“That’s good, I think, since everypony I know lives out here. Well, all my friends anyway.”
The friends that were the same five ponies I’d had since… well, since I showed up in Ponyville originally. Although to me, it seemed like Scootaloo, Applebloom, and Sweetie Belle hadn’t grown a day, despite being around as old as I was. Silver Spoon, Diamond Tiara and I were turning into mares, and yet they still looked like they were little fillies. I asked Twilight Sparkle about it before, and she told me that until you got your cutie mark, your body wouldn’t grow, describing getting the thing as the start of puberty. That meant until they got it, they would look like little kids.
Hurray for me. I got to be a mare and deal with all that came with that because I had a cutie mark.
But heat didn’t start until spring, thankfully, and we were still a few weeks away from winter. If I didn’t have to think about that right now, I wouldn’t. Not that I wasn’t beyond used to being a mare by now. I’d mostly resigned myself to my fate and almost completely given up on trying to say I was a stallion. My friends understood, but outside of them and a couple of others, I didn’t even bother. After a few years, it became just another thing to deal with. How long had it been so far? At least ten years. I might as well have been a grown woman… err, a half grown filly.
“Or, um, you could stay in my apartment with me, too, if you wanted to,” she offered, sounding a little bit shy as she turned her head to me. “Or I could get an apartment in Canterlot, too. I mean, since you can’t get one yourself yet.”
“It’s fine,” I told her. “I think I’ll just stay in Ponyville. Everypony’s already here anyway, so why leave?”
That, and I wanted to avoid her subtle attempts at trying to get involved with me. In ten Earth years, her romantic feelings hadn’t changed, and neither had mine. I didn’t like women before, and I certainly didn’t like mares now. Who knew?
“Well, if you ever wanted, I’m sure my dad could get you an apartment like he got for me,” she said as she turned back around. “I can’t believe that I’m actually an adult now though. I have an apartment and everything.”
“Yup, that’s how being an adult is. Everyone tells you that being a kid is the best, but once you’re an adult, you realize it’s all a lie. Being grown up is the best since you can do whatever you want.” Doubly so if you had four or five times a normal human lifetime. What did anyone even do once they got past thirty in Equestria?
“Speaking of being a grown up though,” Silver Spoon started, “if I don’t work as a jeweler, I think I wanna be a teacher. Or a professor! I could probably teach ponies about different kinds of minerals, since I know all about them. And you could teach foals about business once you got bored of politics. Or be a professor somewhere, too.”
“Your first mistake was assuming I like kids,” I smiled. “Besides, I’m not very keen on being called ‘Miss Ashley’ every single day.”
“That’s why they’d call you ‘Mister Ashley’, dummy,” she laughed back. “Seriously though, I think it’d be pretty cool, and you’d do a good job.”
“Eh, I’d rather actually be a business owner, although I guess teaching ponies wouldn’t be that bad. Or maybe Princess Celestia will come down from Canterlot and turn me into the new princess of Equestria or something and I’ll completely change the face of the world and live happily ever after.”
“Or even better– she’ll turn you into a stallion.”
“Nah, that would be too easy, wouldn’t it? Can’t have everything I want, otherwise, I’d be a Mary Sue… although I guess that assumes I wanna be a prince when I don’t. I certainly don’t wanna be a princess.”
“You're the one trying to get into politics,” she smiled. “But it’s okay. We’ll make Sweetie Belle the princess since she’s the most filly-like out of all of us. Or, no, actually, it’ll be Diamond. She knows how to get ponies to do things. And you and I would be her advisors: you’d advise her how to govern, and I’d advise her on what to wear for the day.”
“Haha, maybe. That’d be pretty funny if that happened.” Then I stretched and yawned, telling her as I stood up, “I need to get back home though. The rest of the TDA and I have school tomorrow, and I did not do any studying for late Equestrian history. Or writing in Ponish.” Man, was I bad at writing in Ponish, even still. Thankfully everything else was fairly easy. Math was still math, and the universe still operated in roughly the same way as it did on Earth despite having magic in it and Celestia raising the sun. And despite turning me into a pony. But what could I do about those things?
“I’ll see you later,” I said. “Thanks for letting me stop by. Your apartment looks great.”
“Thanks for stopping by!” she waved. “We should have a sleepover this weekend with everypony! It’s kind of weird being all alone, so I’m gonna need help getting used to it.”
“Well, I’ll certainly be there,” I assured her with a wave of my own. “Bye, Silver.”
It was chilly outside, but thankfully I had a hoodie Rarity knitted for me on my birthday, basically the same as the one she first got me but larger and with a few more flowers on it. It was nearing winter, the leaves on the trees red and yellow and brown just like they would be on Earth. If I had to guess, this would be considered about November if they had actual structured months rather than seasons, and the scene looked and felt not much different than Delaware would during fall. Other than all the horses anyway, but it was still a scene I could still appreciate. Autumn might have been my favorite season, although any season was better than spring. Man, I hated spring.
Other than about half my classmates looking like they were in the middle of various stages of puberty, nothing really changed since I got here, not that I expected anything to change. Silver Spoon was the oldest by far, with Diamond Tiara right behind her, and everypony else being between eleven and thirteen years old. Apparently though there was more to being an adult than just turning fourteen. You also needed a cutie mark and to be a fully grown mare or stallion, not that you’d grow into the former without the latter. There must have been a mental component to having a cutie mark, too, because Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara acted more like adults than the rest of the Talent Discovery Association. It was extremely strange.
I certainly was changing, and more than just physically. I didn’t think I was mentally the same person I was when I was a human, or even who I was two years ago– Equestria years anyway. I think the main difference is that I found a serious lack of caring about things I used to. What was the point of trying to say that I was a stallion when I wasn’t? Or saying I was an adult when I was still twelve years old?
And God. I was lacking a significant amount of the faith I had before. Not that I thought he didn’t exist– I was literally turned into a horse. He definitely existed, unless I was having the longest schizophrenic episode of all time. But it felt like he just didn’t care. It was terrible thinking, but so what? That’s how it felt. These days it was hard to even muster up a prayer, it was frustrating to think about. And all I was gonna do was ask for what he could do for me, which wasn’t a healthy attitude to have. Better to just ignore it and focus on what I could do to change things. It was useless to try and change things I couldn’t.
That was the attitude I had with Princess Celestia, too. Staying all pent up and angry at her was difficult to do for ten years in a row, so why even try? It wasn’t even about trying to change things anymore and more to have something to do to not go crazy during the summer. Although maybe I could subtly make the world less sexist since mares weren’t known to open businesses. And change the fact that politics was almost entirely unicorns. I didn’t know if that constituted racism, but it seemed like it did, casually anyway.
I tried before to talk to Twilight Sparkle about it, but she did not get it. I didn’t bother now as I pulled up to the library, not daring to interrupt her excessive pacing as she read a letter that almost certainly from the high princess herself. I was fairly certain she met the clinical definition of OCD, and probably had an anxiety disorder on top of it.
I tried not to bite and ask what was up, but her muttering to herself about how bad whatever she was reading was finally got me to ask. Almost certainly though it was going to be something that she had multiple years to prepare for, or something so minor that it hardly mattered.
“It’s Princess Celestia! She wants me to awaken the dangerous draconequus, Discord, and show him how friendship works!”
I had no idea who or what the heck that was, and only blinked at her with a confused expression. I had no idea what the heck a ‘draconequus’ was, and could barely recall that Discord was a web app I was starting to get into using a few months before I turned into a pony. My dumb look got her to stop pacing around at least.
“Discord is the spirit of disharmony,” she started, her anxiety washing away as she rolled a hoof while talking to me, looking at me like it was a hassle to explain as she magicked a book down about Equestrian history for me to look into. Although she knew that even after so long, I was still awful at trying to make out Ponish. It wasn’t like learning French as an English speaker. It was like trying to learn Arabic or Mandarin as an English speaker. Thankfully, she didn’t expect me to open it up immediately, and continued to explain.
“He caused unrest and unhappiness throughout Equestria, and his reign resulted in mass famines and deaths because of his power! It was only until Princess Celestia and her sister rose up against him and used the Elements of Harmony that peace was finally able to come to the continent. And now she wants to release him from his stone prison so I can teach him the meaning of friendship!”
I still had no idea what all that meant, but I thought I was getting a better picture. “I don’t see how making friends with someone is a bad thing,” I said. I mean, I knew Celestia had… well, an interesting philosophy in terms of how she ran Equestria, but I wasn’t going to question her motives. I’d learned way better than to do that for as long as I’d been in Equestria. That would be inviting nothing but pain.
“Well, if you know a creature like Discord, you’d understand. He’s the God of Chaos, and might be even more powerful than Princess Celestia. You don’t want to underestimate him.”
I assumed she meant “god” in the same way ponies switched phrases like ‘Jesus’ and ‘God’ for the name ‘Celestia’, and wasn’t worried. I already knew creatures here could do things well beyond anything anyone on Earth could do, and assumed it to just mean the same thing as what Celestia already was. As unappealing as two Celestia’s was, I didn’t think I’d really care.
Oh, boy, I was wrong.