//------------------------------// // At the Hospital // Story: Planes, Plans and Pony Music // by River Road //------------------------------// I pick up my phone to check the time; 8:38 AM. That means I have about twenty minutes to figure out magic. Squee Before I can get to that I should probably check myself for other changes, though. I trot back to the bathroom and take off the hospital dress to examine the rest of myself. Two more changes are pretty obvious; for one, my… well, uhm… my genitals have changed. I’m not sure how to describe it, but my genitalia are definitely different and I don’t think they are in any way human anymore. I groan. I’m not concerned with size, like some people are said to be. I don’t have anything going on, by choice, and I don’t really miss anything. Frankly, I feel that the whole thing gets in the way more often than it is of any use. Now it seems slightly bigger – probably the side effect of having equine reproduction organs – and if I turn into a full pony it will be a lot harder to cover up. The whole ponies-don’t-wear-clothes shtick seemed a lot less problematic in the show. The second change is even more obvious and not completely unexpected: At some point during the night my feet turned all the way into hooves. Dusty red fur has spread a few inches up my legs. I raise the right hoof and experimentally clop on the tiles a few times. It makes a nice, calming sound that I could really get used to. I walk out into the bigger room to test the softer material on the floor and walk a few circles, listening to the muffled clip-clop of my hooves. I almost forget about the doctor that is supposed to turn up in a few minutes. I quickly put on the hospital gown again and check myself in the mirror one more time. Magic might have to wait if some sort of unicorn instinct doesn’t spontaneously kick in. Still, I can at least give levitation a try before someone shows up. I focus on the tiny, prepackaged bar of soap on the sink and imagine it floating up… Nothing happens. I try concentrating more and feel for some kind of connection, or some kind of power. Staring intently at the piece of soap I try to push some kind of energy from my horn. … Eee–nope. Well, so much for that. I’m not sure how magic works, but apparently it’s not all that easy to learn. There seems to be more to it than just having a horn, at least. I stop to remember how magic was pictured in the show; every unicorn could learn levitation, but beyond that spells seemed to hang on their special talent. Sweetie Bell didn’t use any magic until she sometime in the last season, but Pumpkin Cake used magic when she was still a foal. I follow that line of thought to the first episode with the Cake Twins… not my favorite episode of the show, but I remember some bits. Let’s see… Pumpkin mainly used her magic to levitate herself around next to her flying pegasus brother – I don’t know much about pony biology, but those two were ridiculously strong for their age. I can’t quite remember where the unicorn foal used magic for the first time, even though I’m pretty sure it was part of that episode. For some reason my brain always jumps back to thinking of flour. She was trying to get something she couldn’t reach, I think, one of her toys or something… My thoughts are interrupted by a knocking at the door. I stay in the small bathroom, out of immediate view from the opening door. It might be better to let the person enter before I confront him with my… unorthodox appearance. A new doctor wearing the stereotypical white coat steps through the doorway. “Mr. Wingeder? My name is Dr. Schulte. I was asked to check up on you.” He scans the bigger room for me, closing the door behind him. I clear my thoughts and step out of the bathroom, my hooves clicking on the tiles for the first few steps. I have to give it to the doctor: He barely flinches and only takes half a step back. It takes him a few seconds to reign in the mix of surprise and horror on his face, though, so I’ll have to deduct some points from his score. Still, he takes it pretty well, considering that only about half of my visible body is human anymore. I trot over to the bed and sit down on the edge, lifting my hooves up from the ground. From the experience last night my hooves are probably the safest sign for him that something unnatural is going on, so I assume that he will want to examine them first. Dr. Schulte kneels down and takes one of the hooves in his hand with wide eyes. “They’re actually real,” the doctor whispers, tracing the edge of the hoof with his hand and lightly pulling on my leg. He chuckles. “We might have to call a veterinarian for this.” He lets go of the leg and I stand back up, taking off the gown to let him examine the other changes. “The tattoos were the first thing that appeared, as far as I know.” I point at the cutie marks on both of my sides. “I wrote it off as a prank until my hair started to grow and change color yesterday evening. Around midnight the ears suddenly popped out of my head…“ I think of the ambulance siren and unconsciously rub the place where my human ears used to be. “Literally. Not long after that the tail popped out from my back. And this morning my hooves had turned into hooves, I found… this –” I make a vague gesture towards my genitalia “– and this.” I can’t help but grin stupidly as I eagerly point at the unicorn horn sticking out from my forehead. Not even able to make a magic spark yet, but the oversized red coat-hook still cheers me up like a new chapter of my favorite fanfic. The doctor looks over the parts I pointed out, pulling my tail and prodding my ears and horn a little. He stares at my face for a few moments and I wonder if he found anything else. “Could you open your mouth, please?” I open my mouth as wide as I can and he takes a look inside with the small flashlight every doctor seems to have. “Hmm… Those are definitely not normal human teeth. From what I can tell those are the teeth of an herbivore.” “Huh, that’s news to me.” I move my tongue over my teeth and feel that my canines and incisors have become blunt, completely unsuited for carnivores. I didn’t even think to check my teeth for changes. “Anything else, doc?” “Your eyes…” he begins. “Oh, right. My eyes used to be green. I almost forgot about that.” The light blue irises had seemed strange, but I’m still impressed at how fast the doctor figured it out. The color didn’t strike me as completely unnatural the last time I saw it, and I almost hadn’t noticed that change. Heck, between all the other stuff I’d already plain forgotten about it. “Really?” the doctor says. “I was talking about the fact that they seem bigger than it is normal.” “Well, my pupils do get a bit large from time to time…” I begin. “No, I think they are literally bigger. They seem… larger than normal eyes.” I blink. Is that another part of the transformation? The ponies from the show had ridiculously huge cartoon eyes. The implications are immediately clear to me: “I’m going to have the greatest puppy dog stare ever,” I mumble. “I’m sorry, what was that?” I give the doctor a sheepish grin, mostly for fun – I stand by my statement. “Nevermind, just ignore me.” I stop grinning and become serious again. “Anyway, I guess you’ve come to a similar conclusion I’ve come to…” Dr. Schulte moves a step away from me and takes a deep breath. “One or two of these things could be explained with cosmetic surgery, but this number of operations at your age would be…” He massages his forehead. “Some of these should not even be possible from a medical point of view. As impossible as it seems, these changes indicate that you might be turning partially – or even completely – into a horse.” I have to fight down the laughter at the last part. A horse! Poor, unsuspecting guy. “I’m not sure what the tattoos have to do with it, though. Are you sure that you didn’t have them before?” Well, I can’t ask for a better cue, can I? “Actually, those tattoos have everything to do with it. And if they are any indication, I’m not turning into a horse, either.” I give him my best cartoony grin. “Tell me, doctor, have you ever heard of Bronies?” The next few hours are a blur of examinations and questions. Several other doctors come by to take blood samples, examine my pony parts and generally ask me questions. They even brought an actual veterinarian to take a look at me and give me an estimated dozen of vaccinations against all the bugs a horse can catch. Safety first, I guess. Also, Oww… Seeing the reactions of people and answering all their questions is fun, but even that gets tedious after a while. Either way, I don’t have another opportunity to even think about my possible unicorn magic until the traffic finally starts to die down shortly after noon. I’m sitting on my bed staring intently at the accursed piece of soap that I have by now moved to my nightstand. All those changes aside, magic still eludes me. After the hours of examination I have completely lost the thoughts I had this morning, so I’m practically back to square one. Or maybe even square zero, because now I’m tired and have a harder time concentrating, too. There’s a short knocking on the door and another doctor comes in to distract me from my experiments. His hair is out of order and he looks a little frayed overall. “May I come in?” he asks. I look up from the most important piece of soap I have ever personally known and squint at the doctor. “Dr. Kramer?” He looks less formal than he did last night, but I’m pretty sure that it’s the same guy who poked at my ears half a day ago. Dr. Kramer nods absentmindedly as he looks at my hooves with wide eyes. I remember that he actually saw them when they were little than a thick nail at the edge of my feet. By now they are clearly pony hooves and red fur covers almost half of my legs. I feel a small pinch of irritation that he pays them more attention than the horn on my forehead… “Wow…” he begins. “This is… I mean, it’s been barely twelve hours…” He stops and tries to get his thoughts back on track. I decide to help him out a little. “I get that a lot. Just wait until I figure out how to use this.” I gesture at my horn a little stronger than I had wanted. Do unicorns have some kind of horn-related pride? Or maybe it’s magic-related… That would explain the irrational thoughts. I chuckle. I’ll be the most magically adept unicorn in town if I just manage a spark. He finally takes notice of the red horn poking out from my blue hair… Yeesh. He comes closer to examine the base of the horn, where it fuses with my forehead, and pokes at the blunt tip a few times. I’m not sure how I am supposed to feel about that. I feel a bit uncomfortable, having a stranger just touch me there. Not uncomfortable in a sexual sense, mind you. Apparently my horn doesn’t have that kind of meaning, and I’m quite thankful for that. I try to think of a fitting fancanon; pegasi wings are often something private, even if they have no erotic purpose. You wouldn’t just let a stranger preen them for you, and a real winghug is usually reserved for close friends or ponies who are in serious need of consolation by a kind soul. Maybe the horn of a unicorn is similar. I don’t remember where I got that from, but somehow it feels right. Maybe Dr. Kramer noticed my expression, but he finally pulls himself away from me and gives me an unsure smile. “I’m sorry, I’m not even on duty right now.” He scratches the back of his neck nervously. “I couldn’t just stay away until my next shift begins, though. I can’t even reasonably try to explain the things that are obviously happening to you. All of this is completely impossible by medicinal standards.” He stares at my ears again and I give it an amused twitch. “So since I wasn’t able to distract myself I came back to face the problem personally. I guess I hoped that my colleagues would have found some explanation for it by now, but if they did they haven’t told me.” He turns around and walks back to the door. “As I said, I’m not on duty, so technically I’m not even allowed to do any tests or examinations on you… However, I’ve been told that they were planning to give you a break, anyway, for the next hour or two. There’s a canteen for the employees on the floor below this one. Since you have no actual trouble moving around management said you are free to walk around the hospital if you try not to raise any attention. Actually, they would ask you to wear your normal clothes to cover the changes as much as possible.” He opens the door and steps out, turning around one last time. “If you don’t mind I would like to ask you one or two more questions, if only to get some sort of closure on this.” I set my tray down at the table, opposite of Dr. Kramer. The receptionist from last night, Ms. Ritner, apparently had a similar idea, and is now sitting next to him, watching me with a mix of nervousness and curiosity. Finding the canteen was no problem, and I managed to cover up everything except my pony ears and my blue mane. At least no one seemed to pay me any attention on the way here. The canteen is actually for employees only. The management wanted me to eat here instead of the cafeteria for visitors on the ground floor, apparently. It makes sense, really; there’s personal freedom and then there is tempting fate. I figure that I’m not going to get better lunch anywhere else in the hospital, so I can’t complain, either. By now I would be surprised if most of the doctors and other employees hadn’t heard of my unique case yet. Almost everyone stares at me at least once, though I’m not completely sure if it is because of my ears or the fact that I’m definitely not an employee. Or maybe it’s the strange way I walk; not because I have to keep my hooves inside my shoes, but because I had to tuck my tail into my jeans, which is not a tail’s natural habitat. I look down at the tray in front of me. Ms. Ritner insisted on treating me to lunch and I never offer much resistance against free food. Rather atypical for me, the tray is dominated by a big salad, next to a serving of pasta and a red apple. I usually prefer my green stuff in small to mediate doses, but today I just have a craving for salad and overall vegetarian food. The smell of grilled meat on the other hand just gave me a queasy feeling in my stomach. I trace the rows of blunt teeth in my mouth with my tongue… Who knows if I can even eat meat anymore? Scanning the tray once more, I can’t help but feel that it’s missing something. “Duh… I forgot to get something to drink!” I facehoof and stand up again, pulling my wallet out as I walk towards the counter. No need to bother Ms. Ritner for something like that. I buy a coke and watch the man behind the counter remove the crown cap of the bottle for me. …I make it about halfway back to the table before I trip. Maybe it was the whole hooves-in-shoes deal, or maybe it happened because my legs have gotten an inch shorter, causing me to step on the leg of my jeans. Either way, I trip and – flailing my arms – instinctively let go of my drink to keep my balance. What follows is a long second of disorientation. I flail my arms, trying to get both of my hooves back on the ground. For a moment my brain focuses on the falling glass bottle that is already spilling the first few drops of cola, before it snaps back to the task at hand. I finally manage to set my right hoof beside the left one and stop flailing my arms to take a deep breath. The whole room is staring at me. I look down to see just how much of a mess I’ve made. With some luck the cola didn’t hit my shoes or anyone else’s clothes and I’ll only have to clean the tiles. I just hope the glass bottle didn’t break. The bottle did not survive falling to the ground… …Mainly because it didn’t fall to the ground. I stare at the bottle of cola floating in front of me, about two feet off the ground. It is held in the air by a soft blue glow. A few larger drops of cola are dancing around the top, encased in the same glow. Completely ignoring the stares from everyone else in the room I experimentally imagine the bottle floating to the left. It follows my thoughts. I’m completely engrossed in the experience. I even manage to get the drops of cola back inside. Floating the bottle back into my waiting hand I finally look around at the other people in the room. No one says anything. If it weren’t for the pots and the fryer in the kitchen next door, you could hear a pin drop. I think furiously. This is an important moment; whatever I say next should be some sort of statement for future generations. “Sorry guys. I didn’t want to interrupt your lunch.” That will do. I pat myself on the back mentally. That will do…