//------------------------------//
// 5. By Means Of Very Strong Light 
// Story: I.D. - That Indestructible Something 
// by Chatoyance 
//------------------------------//


I.D.  INJECTOR  DOE
That Indestructible Something


                                                                                              By Chatoyance


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5. By Means Of Very Strong Light
"One can disintegrate the world by means of very strong light.
For weak eyes the world becomes solid, for still weaker eyes it seems to develop fists, 
for eyes weaker still it becomes shamefaced and 
smashes anyone who dares to gaze upon it." 
- Franz Kafka



Rachel had run downstairs to grab a few slices from the Greek place. While pleased that her friend had utterly adored the daisy sandwiches, she herself hadn't really liked them very much. With many apologies, she had left Gregoria, who had wanted to sit and think, on the overstuffed armchair with the promise that she would hurry back.

The armchair, though well padded, was not entirely comfortable anymore - Gregoria was well and truly stuffed with sandwiches and pop. She moved to the floor and folded her legs without thinking. It was becoming quite natural to use her body now, and laying down as a pony would was just so comfortable. Flashes of cartoon-like imagery, strange dreams about Equestria, especially the character called Celestia - Gregoria worried that her friend might well be on the way to becoming a pony too.

She had mixed feelings about it, and those feelings needed sorting. It was true that Gregoria felt very alone and freakish because of her transformation. The idea of having even one other creature like herself, to have her best friend be like herself was very desirable. To not be alone. To have somepony to share the situation with, to have even one pony that understood, to confide in, to face the nightmare with... who would not wish to be saved from being a singular, lonely freak?

But it was hard. Life as a pony was difficult, because everything in the world was built for humans. Gregoria was an alien now, a creature not of the earth, forced to find bizarre ways to accomplish even the simplest things because the world had not been constructed for her new species. Even going to the bathroom was a chore. She felt it mean to wish such a thing on poor Rachel.

Rachel was going through a pattern Gregoria recognized. She had ignored it at the time, it had seemed trivial, even silly. Little flashes out of the corner of the eye, odd dreams about a show she barely knew - who would see such things as a sign of such a monumental transformation? It had been only rational to discount them. Anypony would.

If only she had known, she might have been better prepared, and spent less time in shock and terror. She might even have... been able to stop it. If she had known what those symptoms meant, maybe there would have been a way to halt the transformation, or deflect it, or stop it entirely! Gregoria had no idea whatever as to the actual 'how', but at least she could have tried something. Anything. Anything at all!

She owed it to her friend, she owed it to Rachel to warn her. But how could her friend ever believe such a thing? How could anypony ever believe that they could be transformed, overnight, just like that - BAM! You're a pony! Deal with it!

No, Rachel would never believe her. Why should she? How could she? Even as obsessed with 'My Little Pony' as Rachel was - perhaps even because of that obsession - it was entirely likely that she would see any attempt to suggest real transformation as some personal mockery of her. "Oh, you are so crazy, I bet you would actually believe you could turn into a pony, wouldn't you?" It would probably end their friendship. It certainly would if Rachel did such a thing to her.

Or... it would have. Before. 

Gregoria scanned the room, trying to think of any way to explain the reality of spontaneous physical transformation to Rachel without losing her as a friend. It was such an insane thing, it seemed impossible. Yet Rachel deserved to know, so that she would not end up alone in her apartment, terrified out of her mind, horrified at her body, completely taken by surprise. And... again the thought surfaced that perhaps the change could be interrupted in some manner, even prevented altogether, somehow. Anything might work - for all anypony knew, maybe just saying "No!" at the right moment might have stopped it! Gregoria began to feel frantic. She had to warn her friend, but how?

How did she know she was still Gregoria? It was because she could remember before, and after. Because she could feel when her new pony brain conflicted with her memories of who she used to be, and how she used to act. Memory conflict. Perhaps that was the answer.

Gregoria unfolded her front legs, placed her forehooves solidly, then shifted her weight and raised her hindquarters while lifting herself to standing. She ambled about the room, hooves clomping on the linoleum, ill-fitting boots floppity-flapping. That was a thought. Bare human feet make almost no sound at all. They're soft. But hooves are hard and clop on a hard floor! It would be quite the anomaly. Gregoria began trying to extricate her rear hooves from her tall boots. She had to lay down and push with her other limbs, but she managed to remove her well packed boots. She piled the scarves that had filled them on top of the boots with her teeth. Gregoria clopped about the apartment, making quite the racket. 

Rachel would have to notice that!

What else? Gregoria searched the room again. The bookcase! As a human, she had been as tall as the bookcase, almost exactly as tall as that Ikea structure. Now, she was half that height, coming up to only just past the third shelf, barely to the fourth. She could force Rachel to confront the fact that...

Wait. When Gregoria had first arrived, there was something odd on the bookshelf that had caught her eye, but then lunch was ready. The picture. The picture on the fourth shelf, the one of Rachel and Rick at the Williamsburg Bridge.  

Gregoria stared at the image. She had thought it was a silly photoshop job. Something goofy, an attempt to make it look as if Rachel and Rick had been visiting Canterlot, the capitol city in the My Little Pony cartoon. The Williamsburg Bridge behind them in the photograph had been replaced with a painted version of what the same bridge would look like if it had been designed by the art team working on the show. Gregoria had thought it a pretty good job, properly shaded and everything. Maybe even rendered using 3D software.

On closer examination, the Equestrian-styled version of the Williamsburg Bridge was not just pretty good. It was frightening.

Gregoria had gone to the shelves and studied the photograph in its frame. Rachel was hugging Rick in the picture, and behind them was the bridge. There is always some giveaway in a rendered image, especially one done of something unearthly. Software had come a long way, but it certainly wasn't perfect yet. The lighting might be just slightly wrong, the contrast not exactly right, the shadows off just a bit, the colors or textures just a little false, but something always gave a fake image away. Not even Hollywood could do truly perfect rendering. If you know what to look for, the technology always has flaws. So far, anyway.

The Equestianized Williamsburg Bridge was perfect. It was real in a way that no professional artist, however talented, could ever equal. Gregoria blinked, turned away, then stepped back to face the impossible image. The bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, was a cartoon bridge. No, that wasn't quite right - the design was in the style of the cartoon, it was as if the real bridge had always been built in pony style, with curving arcs and pseudo-medieval stonework and impossibly fanciful decorations of gold and marble. Banners hung from it, banners showing the supposed flag of Equestria, the one with the stylized shapes of Celestia and Luna curving round a half-sun-half-moon and stars.

And it was real. It was not photoshop, it had not been painted, it was absolutely, undeniably real. There was no flaw, no fault, no little subtle indication. The lighting was right, the texture correct in that strange way that hit deep in the gut and shouted "Authentic."

But it was worse than that, because Gregoria knew the person who had taken that picture, and who had put it in a frame and given it to Rachel and Rick. That frame had not been touched, the picture had not been altered, and Gregoria knew that Rachel would never have replaced the photograph within it with a ponified version. It meant too much. 

It was the last picture ever taken of Rachel that had Rick in it beside her, and Gregoria had taken it just eight months ago.

The door opened and Rachel was back with a bag that smelled of cheese and bread and olive oil - and death. "Greggie! I'm back! Sorry I took so long, but there was a line. I'm so glad you're still here! Hey, I got you a slice of pepperoni with extra, extra meat just like you like - I don't know if you're still hungry, but it's here if you want it!"

The last thing Gregoria wanted after that enchanted feast of daisy sandwiches was a slice of pizza covered with disks of dead animal flesh, but she forced herself to smile and nod even as her stomach rebelled at the thought. 

Rachel locked her door solidly and set her bag down on the kitchenette table. Beside it she placed the cans of coke she had also bought. "Hey... whatcha' lookin' at?"

"Um... Rachel? This picture, here - " Gregoria gestured with a hoof at the last picture of Rick and Rachel by the bridge "you haven't done anything to it, have you?"

Rachel looked puzzled. "Like what?" She hadn't a clue. It was clear from her expression that she couldn't see anything strange at all.

"The bridge." Gregoria felt a need to press.

"Uh huh?" Rachel's expression was blank.

"Does it look odd to you... at all?" 

Rachel studied the picture for a moment. "No. Why?"

Gregoria swallowed and felt her ears dip low on her head. "The bridge looks normal? Like the Williamsburg Bridge?"

"Yeah?" Rachel started to laugh, then stopped, looked unsure for a moment, then began to half-grin. "Did you do something?"

Gregoria's ears went flat against her skull, then rose slowly. "No, no, no. No, of course not. I just wondered. It must be the lighting is all."

Rachel lifted up the photograph in the frame, looked it over, wiped the dust off with a finger, and put it back on the shelf. "Looks fine to me. We were all there, I think if something was wrong with the bridge Rick would have..." Rachel looked very sad for a moment, and stared at the image of Rick for a short time. "Um... pizza." She returned to the table and began unpacking her bag. Gregoria followed, but draped herself over the soft armchair nearby.

"Rachel?" 

Rachel was chewing her slice of double cheese, occasionally taking a sip of her just-opened coke. "Mnn?"

Gregoria tried to think of any way to breach such a subject, or even if she really should. She needed a confidant. She needed somepony else, she felt so alone, so incredibly alone and if anypony in the world might possibly help her, it would be Rachel. And Rachel needed to be warned, too. But this - this matter of changing into another creature, it was just impossible to work out the best way to begin discussing it. But seeing the bridge in the picture had thrown Gregoria over into realizing that she needed help desperately. This change thing wasn't just about her, or even Rachel. 

If her family, and all the humans out there in the world, if Rachel - the biggest pony fan she knew - could all be perfectly blind to what had happened to her, then it must also be true that she, when she had been human, must have been blind to such things as well. The Williamsburg Bridge had appeared perfectly ordinary when she had taken that picture of Rachel and Rick. Perfectly, completely ordinary. But it hadn't been, it couldn't have been. Eight months ago, when that picture was taken, when Gregoria had been completely human, that bridge must have already been changed. Altered. Transformed, and not one of them had noticed or seen it for what it really was. 

Now Gregoria could imagine what it must be like for everypony else. She had apparently experienced the strange perceptual blindness herself. That bridge had seemed perfectly ordinary. Every part of her memory told her this to be the truth. Yet that photograph, the one she had taken and put into a frame and given to Rachel as a present, said otherwise. And now, changed herself, Gregoria could see the truth she had been blind to eight months ago.

It wasn't just her. The bridge had transformed before she had, only she had been incapable of knowing it. And if a bridge could change, and if she herself could change, then it was unlikely she was alone in the world. There might be any number of transformed humans - or bridges - out there, somewhere in the world. They couldn't be commonplace, not yet - that thought hung in her mind sending a shiver up her withers - but there could very easily be others out there. What was the chance that she, Gregoria Samson, was the very first human to be transformed like this?

No, this was big. This was bigger than just some strange curse, or some passing wizard or some bizarre alien ray from a flying saucer or any of the other thousand insane explanations she had been grasping at. It was more than one little pony on her own could handle. She needed Rachel. She needed... a friend.

"Greggie? Are you OK? You kinda seem out of it there. Did I take too long? Do you need to leave or something?" The look on Rachel's face clearly showed she didn't want her friend to leave, but she was trying to be good about whatever was going on.

"No. I don't want to leave. I came here to see you, I..." Gregoria halted, completely unable to think of what to say next. How do you tell somepony, anypony, something utterly impossible, something totally insane and have them not toss you out on your ear?

"It's alright, Greggie. You can tell me anything. You know that!" Rachel smiled, clearly relieved that Gregoria was staying.

'You can tell me anything' - oh, if only that glib phrase had any truth to it! Gregoria swished her tail. Humans said it so easily, but they never really meant it. Not truly. It was more like 'you can tell me anything so long as it fits within certain parameters which...'

Gregoria's ears went flat, and her eyes narrowed. 'Humans said it so...' That was how she was thinking now. Humans. They. Them. The not-pony creatures. Anypony, everypony, somepony - it was impossible to ignore anymore. Her brain and body and self couldn't deny the reality of her existence. She was Gregoria - she had to be Gregoria, that was an absolute - but she was Gregoria-the-pony. Gregoria AS pony. It was there, it was always there. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't un-see the gorilla anymore. The proof was in her every thought.

Proof. 

That was what would work! Proof. Extraordinary claims demanded extraordinary proof. That was the rule, wasn't it? There was no way to just start talking about this without sounding insane. Gregoria realized she needed to start out with proof. 

But what proof? How? Every sense was fooled by the weird blindness. Touch, sight - and apparently hearing, too. Taking her boots off had clearly been pointless. She should have realized that - Rachel hadn't noticed her new voice, why would she notice bare hooves clopping about on the linoleum? Besides, Gregoria had no boots on her front hooves so she'd been making clopping noises already anyway.

Smell? Taste? That was silly. What could possibly cut through such profound perceptual blindness?

Perhaps... contradiction. Maybe sufficient contradiction could do it. "Rachel, would you come over here, there is something I want you to see." Gregoria had gotten off the armchair and moved back to the bookcase.

Rachel was mostly done with her pizza. She shrugged and followed. "OK?"

When she had been human, Gregoria had been just about the height of that Ikea bookcase. Maybe a little bit taller. Now she was half that height, standing on all fours. "Rachel, you've seen me stand by this bookcase many times, right?"

Rachel seemed mildly amused. Maybe she expected a trick or a gag. "Yeah, so?"

"I've always been about as tall as the bookcase, right?" 

Rachel giggled. "Are you being silly?"

"I've always been the same height as this bookcase." It wasn't a question now, it was a statement. Gregoria said the words with force.

"What is this, a joke?" Rachel half laughed, but the laugh died in her throat. For a moment she seemed far away. "Your head barely just reaches the top. The bookcase is taller. What's the deal?"

"Barely... just?" Gregora noted that Rachel was looking down at her, not above her head. Rachel was looking down to meet her pony eyes. "Just how barely close to the top am I?"

Rachel looked up at the top of the bookcase, then down at Gregoria's face, then back up again. She did this several times, as if trying to estimate correctly. Rachel had a funny look on her face, as if she were confused. "I don't know, maybe... maybe just a little."

"A little." Rachel nodded. "How much is a little?" The way this worked was just fascinating to observe in action. If it weren't so important, Gregoria felt she could have endless fun just playing with the effect.

Rachel held out her hand and made an estimate of distance with her thumb and forefinger. "About this much, maybe?"

Gregoria shook her head. It was less than five inches. Is this what Rachel saw? No, it couldn't be - Rachel looked down to meet her eyes when they spoke. So it wasn't what she was seeing. It was more like what she was believing, in spite of what she was seeing. Perhaps some part of Rachel noticed the vast difference in height, saw it clearly, but processed that information in a way that tried to bridge the gap between what once was, and what she was experiencing now?

"I want you to try something. It may sound odd, but will you try?" This just had to work.

Rachel had no idea what any of this was about, but she was game. "OK. I'll try."

Gregoria stood as close as she could to the bookcase, facing Rachel. "Put one hand on the top of the bookcase."

Rachel smiled, then tried to look serious. "Ohhhh kay?" She put her left hand on topmost shelf.

"Now, put your other hand on the top of my poll." 

Rachel giggled. "You used a pony term! Is this something to do with 'Friendship Is Magic'? You said you wanted to talk pony stuff!"

Gregoria winced slightly. The verbal slips her new brain made annoyed her. "Um... yeah. It's fun. Now go ahead and put your other hand on my... head."

Rachel gave a false look of being miffed, but complied. "I thought it was fun when you said 'poll'."

Gregoria sighed. "Alright then. You have one hand on the top of the bookcase, and one hand on the top of my... uh... poll." Grin and bear it, grin and bear it. "How far apart are your hands?" This should work!

Rachel looked quizzical. "Just... just a little bit. Like I said."

Of course. Rachel's brain could overlook this easily, she was staring right at Gregoria, and Gregoria's pony-ness was the cause of whatever the blindness was. No, no, this would never work. Not this way. Wait! Maybe there was a way to still use this! "Fine. Good." Gregoria tried to keep an even tone. "Now I want you to follow my instructions really perfectly, as exactly as you can, OK? Keep your hands exactly the same distance apart, don't move them one bit, alright?"

Rachel had gotten into the spirit of the thing. If it was somehow pony related, she was entirely on board. "Now what?"

Gregoria thought quickly. "Um... now... I want you to close your eyes, just for a moment, not long. I'm going to walk away, but you just stay there, stay right there and don't move a muscle. Then I'll tell you when to open your eyes. Don't move now! keep feeling where your arms are, and don't move one inch!"

Rachel was a very good friend indeed. She promptly closed her eyes and grinned. "Alright? Like this?"

Gregoria moved away and trotted into the kitchenette, around the small corner, and behind Rachel. "You're doing great. Now, Rachel, I want you to remain still, but slowly open your eyes, wait! Don't do it just yet, hear me out, alright?" Gregoria's heart was pounding, she wasn't sure this was going to work, but it was her best guess, and her only decent idea at the moment. "I want you to try to forget, to let go of the fact we were measuring my height, just let that all out of your mind. I want you to just think 'Hey, I'm standing here just... um... measuring my shelves. Forget I was part of this at all, OK?"

"Forget you were..." Rachel giggled again, because this really did sound like some kind of magic trick or something now. "Sure, whatever. Just measuring the shelves. That's me, Rachel the shelf-measurer! Can I open my eyes now?"

Gregoria's tail kept hitting the kitchen cabinet as it swung. She felt nervous. What if this worked? Then what? But she needed this to work. Oh sweet Luna, but this was a mess. "Go ahead, open your eyes - don't move even a bit, just open your eyes." Moment of truth. 

Rachel stood silent for too long, then she laughed. "How'd you DO that? I didn't feel a thing!"

Muffin! Her mind was inventing explanations. Perceptual blindness was a slippery thing. "I didn't move your hands one bit. Rachel. Not a bit. They never moved." This wasn't going to work, was it? Gregoria began to feel despondent. What would break the hold of this thing?

"Come on, you must have! You aren't this short!" Rachel was standing in the middle of the room with her hands still widely apart.

An idea came to Gregoria. It just might work. "Rachel! Go back to the shelf now. It's the best part of the... um... trick! Keep your hands the same distance apart, and go back to the shelf. Just stand exactly like you did, please? Exactly the same, with your hands the same distance apart! Exactly the same, alright?"

"Ohh... Kay...." Rachel crab-walked back to the shelf, trying to keep her arms the same wide distance apart as they had been. "I'm back. At the shelves. Same position. Now what? And what does this have to do with anything pony?"

"If it works, you'll see. If it works." Gregoria felt both hope and dread with regard to Rachel actually being able to see her. How would she react? How would anypony react? Gregoria knew how she would have reacted, and it wouldn't have been very nice or very positive. "Stay right as you are and whatever happens, don't move. Don't move an inch!"

Gregoria took a deep breath. She let it out, and trembling more than a bit walked to the bookcase, slowly and carefully. She parked her head right under Rachel's lower hand, making sure her tall, golden yellow ear was right up against the side of Rachel's palm. Gregoria began whisking her ear back and forth against the side of Rachel's hand, and also started sweeping her tail back and forth as well. Sensory overload. Flicking pony ear. Whisking pony tail. Height difference. Slow approach with eyes open. Maybe, maybe it would work, maybe it would be just too many contradictions to ignore, all happening at the same time.

Gregoria carefully rotated her head to look up into Rachel's eyes, all while keeping contact with her friend's hand. She wanted Rachel to feel her coat, to feel her thick inhuman mane. 

Rachel stood, frozen, like a robot unable to process instructions. Her eyes seemed glazed, and her pupils were changing size, sometimes small, and sometimes large as if the light was shifting somehow. The expression on her face was slack-jawed and empty. Like Gregoria's mother almost, in that moment before she 'adjusted'. That must be what Rachel was doing, that must be what her brain was working on right now, right in this instant! That couldn't be allowed to happen, if that happened, then things would be 'settled' and probably nothing would work after that!

At the top of her funny, cartoon voice, Gregoria Samson shouted at her friend. "I'M A PONY! I'M A REAL LIVE, YELLOW EARTH PONY WITH A BLACK MANE AND A BLACK TAIL AND I EAT GRASS AND I HAVE HOOVES AND I. AM. A. PONY!!!"

Rachel's eyes suddenly focused, clearly and sharply on the unearthly creature before her. The unearthly creature she was touching, the creature that she could feel the fur of, right under her hand. Huge - oh sweet Jesus such big huge purple eyes! Scary giant eyes, oh god they were so big and ears and tail and yellow all over and oh my fucking goddamn...

Rachel leapt back, crashing into the cheap reading lamp, knocking it over with a bang and a crash. She pinballed off the overstuffed arm chair and fell into the kitchenette, not even noticing the blow to her head from the edge of the table. Rachel was on the floor now, scuttling on all fours, backwards into the cabinets, whimpering. That was the worst part, Gregoria thought, Rachel wasn't screaming, she wasn't shouting, she was whimpering, like a beaten puppy.

Gregoria had followed her to the edge of the corner that turned into the kitchenette. She stopped there, afraid to approach any closer for both of their sakes. "Rachel... Rachel? I know this seems really weird. I know this is scary and I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. But I need your help. I need your help so much! You aren't crazy and this isn't a trick, it's me, Gregoria, I'm a pony now. I've turned into a pony and I need your help. Please, please try to calm down, please..."

Rachel wasn't calming down. She wasn't even looking now, she was crying, whimpering and crying, pressed up against the cabinets with her eyes tight shut, mumbling about Jesus and her mother and other things that couldn't be made out.

"Rachel... please. I know this is really difficult, but imagine what it's been like for me. I woke up this way about a week ago. I was scared out of my mind. I didn't know what had happened. I didn't know what to do. I don't know about ponies like you do, It's just a cartoon to me, and then suddenly I am one and... Rachel? Rachel?" Gregoria shuffled her hooves on the linoleum. This wasn't working. Rachel was trying to run away inside herself, run away to some place where this wasn't true. She wasn't listening.

Gregoria stepped cautiously into the kitchenette, trying to make as little sound with her hooves as possible. She crept past the table, past the fallen chair that Rachel had knocked over in her mad scramble. Animal comfort. The most basic thing in all of life. Simple animal comfort. Temple Grandin would be so proud. Gregoria stood beside her friend, beside Rachel pressed up tight against the cabinets, eyes shut, whispering and weeping. 

Gregoria pressed the full length of her body into Rachel, leaning in, a living Hug Box. She just stood there, silent, pressing against her friend, letting her feel her warmth, her soft golden coat, her slow breathing, her heartbeat. After a while, Rachel stopped crying and whispering. She still clung, muscles taut as iron cables, to the cabinets. She still kept her eyes shut tight, but she wasn't making terrible noises anymore.

Slowly, carefully, Gregoria folded her legs and lay down, still pressing against Rachel. She lay still, trying to control her breathing for a long time, until the light from the windows turned golden with sunset. Rachel suddenly let go, slumping into herself, exhausted. Gregoria startled at this, and without warning, Rachel's hand suddenly reached out and began patting Gregoria's rear, stroking her coat as if comforting a large dog.

It actually felt good. It felt really good. Gregoria began to realize that the whole experience had been emotionally difficult for her, too, and she suddenly felt overwhelmed with the release of her own tension, her own fear and worry. She slumped, and lay her head on the floor. The patting and stroking continued. Gregoria began sniffling, then crying softly. The tension flowed out of her. The petting turned into scratching, which felt even better, and began to work its way up her back. Now Rachel's hand was in Gregoria's withers, scritching around her mane. That just felt heavenly. Gregoria had stopped crying and found herself sighing. 

"Oh... oh, right there. Oh Celestia... that... that's the spot. Yeah. Oh... yeah..." Gregoria's tail wagged with pleasure. The spot just at the base of her neck, that felt so very good. 

The scratching turned into long, slow strokes down her golden back.

"Rachel?" The stroking stopped. The hand hesitated.

"Y-yes... Gre... Gregoria?" It sounded like Rachel wasn't entirely sure what she was dealing with. 

"It's me. I'm really Gregoria. This just happened. About a week ago. I'm sorry I scared you. You bumped your head on the table. Are you OK?"

There was a pause, then the hand began stroking her back again. "I'll live. I got myself pretty good though." Another pause. "Maybe you could take a look at it? I think it bled a little."

Gregoria felt tears run from her eyes. "Y-yeah. I'd be happy to. Now?"

Rachel was running her hand along the length of Gregoria's body, from her poll to her tail, all along her back. "In a while."

"Sure." Gregoria sniffed, then smiled.

"You're..." Rachel began, then trailed off.

"What?"

"I like your color. You're a pretty pony."

Gregoria laughed, softly, though not with glee. "You're the first person to ever tell me that."

"Does anybody else know?"

"No. Nopony can see. That's why..." Gregoria stared at the linoleum tiles for a moment. "That's why I had to do what I did. There's some kind of block. Some kind of thing that keeps humans from seeing."

"'Nopony', 'humans'. You're kind of getting into the whole pony thing, huh?"

Gregoria lifted her head. "I'm kind of a pony now. It seems to go with the territory."

"Yeah." Rachel slid down from her slumped position until her head was closer to Gregoria's. She tried to move her legs to be more comfortable, Gregoria shifted to allow Rachel to lay on her side, back to the cabinet. Rachel supported her head with one hand, and delicately examined one of Gregoria's yellow ears with the other. Rachel stopped after a bit and studied the profile of the golden pony pressed up against her. "I can kind of get that."

"Are... are you... will you still be my... are we...?" Gregoria felt very insecure all of a sudden. She was afraid to turn her head and look at Rachel. She was afraid of scaring her, she was afraid of being rejected.

"I'm still pretty freaked. But... this... is also kinda nice, too. You're warm and soft, and that's not bad when your whole world crashes down around you. Smart move that, it helped." Rachel was stroking Gregoria's mane and back again. "Yeah, we're still friends. That doesn't change. Just because I got scared out of my head, doesn't mean I stop being your friend."

Gregoria's pony brain won this round, and she hadn't any wish to oppose it. The tears of relief felt wonderful, and she found Rachel holding her tight while she cried out her lonliness, and fear, and shame, and grief. When the little storm had passed, and she had wiped her eyes and muzzle on a soft yellow leg, Gregoria sniffed and finally smiled and looked into Rachel's eyes.

"Purple eyes!" Rachel put on an air of mock upset. "Lucky! Purple is complementary to yellow, you know. You're quite the color coordinated pony. Did you get to choose or something?" 

Gregoria's head sunk down, and her ears sagged. "No. I had no choice at all."