I had the option of heading to either Holiday and Lofty’s house after school, or visiting Caramel, and I chose the latter. I didn’t know why, other than the fact that Caramel was an adult and understood more than most of these other ponies did when I talked to her. It turned out to be the more interesting option today, especially given what happened during the conversation.
She looked just about the same as she did when I first met her, although she now tried to present herself more like a mare. I’d gone the opposite route as her and copied her as I presented like a mare, too. She thankfully got it in a way that even Silver Spoon couldn’t get it, and talked to me about it a little bit that day.
“If I was trying to do what you’re doing, I’d try my best to fit in with being a stallion,” she said, her voice higher pitched than it used to be as she perfected something called ‘voice training’. “I’m not as strong as you though. I guess that’s why I’ll never be a business pony or a politician.”
“Eh. I’m just more apathetic, I guess,” I said with a long sigh. “Three years is more that enough time to get used to all of this. It’s easier to push down now than before. I guess I’m okay with being a mare… or rather, I can tolerate it. Not like I have any choice anyway since nothing’s gonna be changing any time soon.”
“You never know. They’re coming up with new spells all the time. I’m sure someday they’ll have a spell for ponies like us.”
Maybe that was the case, but I’d never be able to use something like that on account of me trying to be a politician. Besides, being in a position where dysphoria was muted and in the background was way better than where I was during the first few months I was in Equestria. It was downright terrible back then. Maybe with more work, in another three years, I’d actually feel okay with being a mare.
Yeah, right.
“Oh hey! Speaking of which, I have to ask you for a favor!” Caramel started excitedly. I raised an eyebrow, and she continued, “Since you’re gonna be on Celestia’s council in a year and a half and since you go to Canterlot even more often than I do, do you think the next time you see her you could propose a law that establishes term limits on elected officials and creates more regular elections?”
“Um, what?” Out of all the things I could’ve expected the favor to be, this was not it. I was honestly surprised for once.
“Is there not already term limits on the mayor and district representatives?”
“No– well, sometimes there are, but they only hold elections as part of tradition, and only if they want to. We haven’t had an election here in Ponyville in a long time, I believe, and there doesn’t ever need to be one if Mayor Mare or the governor of our area or our district representative doesn’t want to hold one. They’re technically positions that you can just continue to have for life.”
“Okay, yeah, I can see how that can be an issue, but why are you asking me now about this and not before?”
“Because the traditions of Equestria are terrible. If I ever wanted to put my work down as a business, the committee that collects taxes on Equestrian citizens can refuse to acknowledge my business if I’m a mare and not give me the appropriate tax breaks because I’m not classified as a business.”
“Okay, but a whole lot of mares I know own businesses already here in Ponyville.”
“Well, Ponyville isn’t an issue, but Canterlot will be. They’re ridgid about tradition and social rules, and I can’t stand in line for hours waiting to talk to Princess Celestia like other ponies can. And even though it’s not an issue here in Ponyville, the representative for our district is someone who was born in Canterlot and refuses me every time I try and bring it up to her. And we only have one representative because our district doesn’t have to hold elections if they don’t want to. Which is why you should propose term limits to Princess Celestia if you can.”
"But there's plenty of mares with businesses here already," I countered. "Like Rarity. She owns that dress store, right?"
"Yeah, but she doesn't call her business a business and just goes without getting tax breaks. She likes the tradition of Canterlot, too, and is rich enough that she can get away with it. And all the other mares with businesses here either had them passed down to them or bought them outright, so they couldn't be said to not be businesses. I can't do that for me though."
That sounded like an awfully complicated but completely legitimate complaint, one that I knew for myself I would want to pounce on. There was no reason something like that wouldn’t affect me sometime down the line.
“I’ll see if I can bring it up, but I’m not gonna be on her council for another almost two years, when I’m fourteen. But I can tell her about it. About both things.”
“Thanks, Asher. It’s okay if it takes a little while, as long as it happens. I think soon I wanna start receiving hormone–”
All of a sudden, the very last thing in the world– or rather, the second to last thing– I ever expected to happen to me happened right then.
I was turned into a stallion.
“Oh my gosh!” I suddenly screamed, gasping loudly, able to immediately feel the difference. “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! What the heck happened?”
I didn’t know– not immediately anyway. I’m sure if I thought more about it, I would’ve made the connection to that lizard-snake creature, but I didn’t bother right then. I was much more preoccupied with the feeling of just plain relief washing over me. I was still a pony, but one of my two issues were now fixed.
At least, for that moment. I was the exact same color in both coat and mane, except a stallion now, one with shorter hair only to my neck, a deeper voice– still not mine, but like I might have sounded as a teenager– and a slightly larger body. A glance to Caramel showed that she changed too. She was still larger than me, but no bigger than Twilight, and exactly the same as she was before, except a mare now with a longer, slightly more curly mane. She screamed, too, and squealed excitedly, smiling just as widely as I was. Honestly, after so long, I never really expected myself to be turned back into a male. Maybe soon I’d be a human, too.
Except just a few seconds later, reality snapped back, and both Caramel and I were forced back into our respective bodies.
“What?” I said aloud, blinking and looking at my usual self again, expecting to revert back a second later. When nothing happened, I got angry.
“What a– ahh! What a fucking tease!” I clenched my jaw and stomped my hooves angrily, closing my eyes and hoping the change would come back. However, nothing continued to happen, and I screamed angrily again.
No way is this not– wait, I thought silently, taking a breath to try and get relaxed again. As if such a thing would ever happen since now I knew I could be changed again. But I tried to get myself back to calm. Before I was able to though, I heard Caramel gasp again, and watched her change back into the mare she was turned into a few seconds ago.
She sighed and started to get teared up, and I just stood there an aching mess of dysphoria that’d I’d managed to push down up until this point. I’d specifically worked on keeping myself from spiraling like I’d used to and not letting dysphoria get to me as badly. But oh boy, right then it was particularly painful.
Come on, please God, let me change back. Let Celestia or Discord or whatever the heck happened change me back. I want that more than anything. Or at least to be a human. The only thing I think I’d want more would be to go home, but if I had to stay…
Nothing happened again, and after standing there silently for a minute while Caramel cried, looking perfectly happy with herself, I flopped onto my back and covered my face with my hooves to breathe. Why? What was the point of that? Watching Caramel change would be annoying and upsetting, but the fact that for about thirty seconds I was changed too was the worst part of that. What point did it serve to change me and then change me back a few seconds later?
“Asher?” the pony started tearfully, her voice higher pitched than before. “Can you believe– oh, heck. What happened? I thought you changed, too.”
I didn’t say anything, and instead kept my eyes closed and tried to breathe. To say I was pissed off was very much an understatement. I was absolutely seething about what just happened, and was still hoping that whatever it was would happen again. Why shouldn’t it happen again if it happened out of the blue for a first time?
Because someone is intentionally trying to mess with you, I thought. Probably it was Celestia, though how or why, I didn’t know. What I did know was that I was once again gonna make it known to her that I didn’t like the trick she was trying to pull on me. But first I needed to take a breath. I was gonna try and not let this get to me, even though it badly was.
Discord. I need to talk to that weird lizard thing, Discord, I thought, remembering him again. He said he was a god of chaos, and this certainly was chaos, even if I didn’t believe he was a god. Although I had to admit, right then I was shaky about whether or not he was being truthful and not just trying to mess with me. If he could do something like this, then maybe what he said was real.
No. Nope, I’m not entertaining that line of thought. I’m being messed with again, right now. It’s so obvious what the heck is going on. The only question is whether or not Celestia is involved in this.
I didn’t know, but I hoped to find out soon, and stood up to try and do so, brushing myself off before wordlessly heading out the door. Caramel called after me and followed for a few second, but I didn’t reply and she remained, probably more caught up with what just happened than she was in going after me. Good, because I didn’t think anything good would come out of the conversation I was about to have with a being that claimed to be a god.
I tried to remember where Twilight said she’d be this afternoon, but I couldn’t remember, and so just wandered around the town looking for her group and the long lizard-snake thing. As I did, I ran into Silver Spoon and the rest of the TDA, who were eager to chat about what just happened. It seemed like none of them noticed my anger, what with the excitement of what just happened.
“It was weird!” Scootaloo said, the whole group all walking beside me as I remained silent, looking for who I wanted to speak to. “I think being a colt is kind of cool, but I’m glad I’m a filly. I much rather be a cool mare than a stinky colt.” The rest of the group agreed, thankfully, although I remained silent for obvious reasons.
“Oh wait, did what happened to us happen to you, too?” Silver Spoon asked. “I bet you loved it! Was it amazing?”
“I cain’t see how you’d wanna be a colt, Asher,” Apple Bloom said. “It felt gross. Yuck!”
“Yeah, it was nice,” I said, “although I wish it wasn’t just taken away like that. It feels mean, honestly.”
“Yeah, that sounds terrible,” the girls agreed. “How do you think that happened? That was weird!”
“I don’t know,” I said, not exactly a lie. As I said it, Twilight, her friends, and the lizard thing all came into view as they stood around talking in the center of Ponyville. I stopped for a moment to take a breath and keep my emotions level, not wanting to come across in a way Celestia might not like.
“But I think I’m about to find out,” I said, starting off again a second later.