Chapter 4: Oh Fiddlesticks!
Didn’t sleep well last night. I had nightmares involving Octavia, Vinyl and Discord, and I just laid there on the bed thinking about it. My memory of exactly what went on during the dream was hazy at best… all I remember clearly was that Vinyl Scratch and Octavia had both disappeared, and then the dream stopped.
I didn’t want to get up, but we needed to drive to Jed’s ranch. I went to the restroom to brush my teeth, and use the toiletries, but my feet were making a clopping sound against the hardwood floor every time I took a step. I pondered looking in the mirror. Something seemed off but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
Remembering why I came in the first place, I walked over to the sink and brushed my teeth in the same way that I did every day. I then turned to face the toilet, pulled down the tip of my pants, and got to work. To my surprise, I heard a splash, looked down, and… The puddle on the ground grew until I realized what happened and stopped myself. I peered between my legs… and stopped myself, cleaned up the mess I had made, and silently walked back into my room. I proceeded to put on the only clothes that would fit me, which were the clothes that I had saved in memory for me and Rachel from last year. Dropping all facades, stoicism and all, I began to panic.
Rachael heard my scream and came bursting through the door. She saw me running about my room knocking, kicking, and flipping things over and hearing me rant to myself about my most recent change. She ducked as my nightstand flew over her head and into the wall.
“I lived my whole life as a guy, why did that have to change, how does that even happen?!?”
“Women have different needs! How in God’s name am I supposed to know what they are?”
“Maybe men will hold doors open for me. Wait, why am I worried about men holding the bloody doors open for me? I wasn’t meant to be a girl!”
I continued for nearly half an hour before Rachael was able to calm me down.
“Adam!” She shouted, finally drawing my attention away from my insane panic attack.
I stared at her. She’s rarely, if ever, serious. But, when she is… you better not do anything to tick her off!
“Look, I know you’re scared right now, you’ve just gone through a very big change.” She said pausing for a moment. She gazed across the room, staring at the wreckage I caused. “I need you to pull yourself together, I know that this is the biggest deal in the world for you right now, but before we address it entirely, we need to get somewhere less, hazardous." She said, taking a few steps forward opening her arms for a hug.
As she stepped towards me I heard a clopping sound again. My gaze fell to her feet, or, what used to be feet. What stared back at me where a pair of white hooves. My mind wandered. Then I looked at my own feet, which had become hooves as well, only grey.
I began to think to myself “is this normal, are we the only ones experiencing this, WHAT DO I DO ABOUT THESE HUGE HOOVES!?” to which I blacked out, my head falling to the floor
ooOOoo
When I regained consciousness I was in the passenger seat of a car, and It took me a few minutes to realize it was my car. I looked out the window and saw only wide open fields. I looked to my left and saw Rachael in the driver’s seat. She looked at me and grinned.
“Sooo… Sleeping Beauty is finally woken up. I have to admit, I’m kinda sad, I was gonna kiss you when we got to the ranch to see if you would wake up.” Rachael frowned though it didn’t stay that way for long.
“What time is it?” I asked
“About 2:30” she replied “You were out for a while”
I felt very hungry. I hadn’t eaten anything since I had gotten out of bed that morning.
“Do we have any food?” I asked
“Stopped at a fast food place on our way out of the city” she said “I ate all the fries, but the burger’s still there.”
There was a fast food bag at my feet, oh right…hooves. I looked at the sandwich sitting in the bag, and immediately dismissed the thought of eating it. I grabbed the bag and chucked it in the back seat, where I found a bag of lettuce sitting all by its lonesome. I grabbed the bag and pulled it to the front seat and started to chow down.
Rachel looked at me, but when I looked at her, she hastily looked back to the road. I saw a grin cross her face, then she let go of the wheel and propped herself back. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING, WHY’D YOU LET GO OF THE WHEEL!?” I screamed, wanting to grab it, but she stopped me before I could.
“Chill Octy, I got this.” She said as she pulled back her bright cobalt blue with a few stripes of a very bright cyan, to reveal a horn. I looked back at the wheel and for the first rime noticed that it was glowing with the same aura that covered her horn.
“Very funny, Vinyl” I said and tried grin the most realistic grin that I could, but I couldn’t. I looked back down at the bag of lettuce and harrumphed, tossing it to the back seat again. I’m not hungry any more.
ooOOoo
The sun had begun to set when we reached the house. The lights in the windows told me Jed was home. We left the car walking had become difficult. It wouldn’t be long before we would need to walk on all fours. I knocked on the door. I waited a few seconds and knocked again. The door opened and I was greeted by the barrel of a shotgun.
“Who’re you?” Shotgun asked.
I took a moment to take in the woman’s appearance. She had a cowboy hat on with long navy blue hair flowing out behind it, her eyes were a little lighter than her hair and she were wearing cowboy boots that looked like they didn’t fit right. from the voice I realized that the speaker was a woman. I would look more closely, but first I needed to address the shotgun assulting my face.
“Is Jedidiah Braun home?” I asked
“Who wants to know?” she replied brandishing the shotgun, she looked angry, but the features looked very familiar.
With my nervousness mounting and the risk of getting my face blown off increasing by the second, I had nothing to lose so I went for the Hail Mary.
“Don’t shoot! I’m Adam, his brother.” I said nervously.
The shotgun was lowered but the woman said “Ya’ll don’t look like Adam. Prove it.”
I thought about it, I needed to tell her something that only I would know about Jed.
“When we started taking music lessons Jed said that my cello was “big like my head.” I told her, hoping that it was enough.
I whispered, trying to prevent Rachael from hearing, but both of them started snickering. Then the woman wrapped her arms around me in a hug.
“Boy am I glad to see you, brother.” She said
“Sister now, but Wait, Jed?” I said completely perplexed, half from talking about myself as a girl so easily.
“Who’d you think it was? And if you’re now mah sister, then that means that you went through the changes too.” She said, taking off her hat, revealing a pair of yellow ears and a hairstyle identical to my own, along with ears and grin.
“Oh my God! There’s two of you.” said Rachael, pointing at both of us, before what little color was left in her face vanished, and collapsed to the ground.
“Who’s that?” Asked Jed, pointing to the now unconscious form of Rachel.
“Long story.”