I slowly pull myself back onto the bed and rub my nose. That could have gone better. Now that I’m sufficiently awake and in pain, I remember that walking already didn’t go very well the last evening. Of course, hindsight is 20/20. At least the numb pain in my muzzle is already receding, at surprising speed even. I’m actually quite lucky, considering that I fell flat on my face. I’m not bleeding and the sting wasn’t too bad.
Thoughts begin to form as my brain falls into working speed. It’s a new morning, and I’ve apparently slept in. Looking down at my forelegs I realize that I indeed have forelegs now… Strong pony forelegs, covered in red fur and with hooves at the end. I’m probably going to miss having hands eventually. Craning my head around I realize that my whole body is that of a pony now. It seems that the transformation process has finished overnight – at least I hope that nothing else is going to happen to me anymore.
The first thing I do is take off the hospital gown that I’ m still wearing (in the broadest sense of the word). Ponies don’t wear clothes, after all, unless they’re going out or something. The gown is far too large for my new body, except for the hole at the top, which is barely wide enough to pull the whole thing over my head. I manage, though, and after a moment I simply roll off the bed onto the floor again. I press my front hooves against the ground and get into a sitting position, steadying myself with my forelegs. The whole thing would probably be highly embarrassing if I wasn’t so convinced that I look utterly adorable the whole time.
Keeping the balance as well as I can with my forelegs, I manage to stand up to all four hooves. Now comes the tricky part; walking. My first instinct is to walk the same way I would crawl as a human – lifting both right legs slightly and slurring them forward for the first step. There is a short moment of gravitational uncertainty as my body ponders whether to fall to the side or not, but I manage to set my hooves on the ground again in time. The next few steps get gradually easier, but somehow it doesn’t feel right. I try to remember how ponies walk; I’m sure it has come up in a few fanfics at least, written by people who know something about horses or did a bit of research.
I think that I remember something about moving each leg individually, but for the love of Princess Twilight’s Impenetrable Book Fortress, I have no idea how that is supposed to work. The muffled clip-clop of my hooves on the carpet quickens, even though I’m pacing around the room at the same speed as before. Looking down, I see my left hind leg set down on the ground just as my left foreleg begins to rise, then the process repeats on the right side before staring on the left side again, and so on.
I watch my legs go through that cycle for almost a minute before I remember that I had originally planned on going somewhere. I walk into the bathroom and am immediately greeted by the sound of hooves on tiles and my face in the bathroom mirror. Rather literally even, as my face is almost the only thing I can see. The edge of the washbasin hangs only slightly lower than my shoulders, so my neck and head are about the only things I can really make out in the mirror. I look almost exactly like the ponies from the show; my head is rather large, compared to my body, but not so much that it would look unnatural. I still have my red ears poking out from my blue mane, now at the top of the pony head they were designed for. My muzzle is slightly blockier than those of the mares from the show, hinting the fact that I am indeed a stallion, and my eyes are freaking huge! They seem to have grown another bit and now I have big soulful cartoon pony eyes, perfect for staring up at things with while whimpering. My pupils are now so big that you can make out their light blue color from twenty feet away.
My neck is several inches long now and really flexible, obviously the neck of an equine. Paired with my huge eyes I have about 400° vision. By now I’m covered in red fur from head to hoof, as far as I can tell, but to my surprise it looks like a single wall of red. I have to lean in closer to the mirror before I can make out individual strands of short hair, arranged in a way that makes it almost impossible to see them individually if you’re not actively trying to. In other words, I look almost drawn, exactly like the ponies from the show. I lean away from the mirror, grinning. I’m kinda glad to see I really look like a cartoon character and not just some real-life adaption.
Looking down I notice that I had unconsciously planted my hooves on the washbasin to get closer to the mirror. It holds up, so I figure that I haven’t gained much weight from the transformation. I’m a pony now, but I’m also smaller than before, probably not nearly as big as some hardworking earth pony like Big Mac, either. What’s more interesting is that despite earlier experience I can apparently stand on my hind legs just fine. Testing confirms that I can stand like that for a few seconds at least, a bit longer if I’m moving and practically as long as I want if I have something to stabilize myself and keep my balance with. It gets a little uncomfortable after a while, but since I’ve learned the horse gait I’ll likely be moving on four legs, anyway.
There’s a knock on the door and Dr. Kramer comes in, looking me over once. “You have a visitor,” he says with a slight smirk.
“Okay, I’m here. Now what’s so interesting about this patient? I swear, if this is just some omigoshomigoshomigoshOMIGOSH!” A young human, in his early twenties, has walked through the door. He is a little over seven feet tall – as far as I can tell from my new height – has long blond hair and is wearing an unassuming pair of glasses. He has some visible freckles that kind of remind me of Applejack, and he is staring at me with wide eyes, squealing. I realize that for the first time I’m on the receiving end of a full-blown fangasm.
The guy calms down a notch and carefully steps closer, reaching out at my head with a hand. “Wow, this is… Where did you even… I mean…”
I take almost a whole second to ponder whether I should play nice, or have some fun. I wait for him to make a move, inspecting his hand with what I hope comes across as a confused and apprehensive look. He slowly reaches for my mane and I flick an ear, barely able to keep my poker face as his hand immediately flinches backwards. Letting him try again, I wait until his hand is on my forehead, brushing lightly through my mane and poking my horn.
“Now didn’t your mother teach you that it’s rude to touch somepony’s horn without asking?”
The look on his face is priceless as he jerks his hand back, stumbling and almost falling backwards with a surprised yell. “I-It can talk?!”
“Yes, he can talk,” I correct with a smirk. “And you’re lucky that I have no idea if that counts as sexual harassment or not. Now, I believe that introductions are in order.” I look at him expectantly.
“U-Uhm, Tarascha.” He automatically holds out a hand, no doubt still trying to work out everything that is happening.
“Tarascha? That’s an unusual name. Not that it’s a bad one.” I look down at his still open hand and then back up at him, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s what I normally go by.” Tarascha follows my gaze and looks at his hand for a second, before he catches my hint and balls it to a fist.
I smile and give him a hoofbump. “Well, nice to meet you, Tarascha. I’m River Road.”
I blink once. That’s not what it says on my ID. I hadn’t really thought about it, but obviously I had also come up with a name for my OC, back when I first made him up. It always bugged me that I couldn’t think of a name that sounded… pony-er, I guess.
Tarascha gives me an odd look. “River Road? That’s an un–”
“–unusual name for a pony, I know,” I groan, facehoofing. “I’m well aware of the irony.”
“Sorry, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that there’s a real Equestrian pony standing right in front of me.”
I drop down onto my flank. “Better?”
“Ha Ha, very funny.” Tarascha gives me a crooked smile. Then he raises a hand to his forehead again. “I’m talking to a pony. I… I hoofbumped a real unicorn.”
“Sooo… You’re a brony, huh?”
He looks back down at me. “You know about bronies? Come to think of it, where did you come from, anyway? And why are you here?”
“That’s my cue, I believe.” Doctor Kramer speaks up from a corner of the room, by the door. “Mister Wingeder here came to the hospital two nights ago with a tattoo, a pair of pony ears and some rather ridiculous claims about how he got both. I have to say, he had a knack in convincing us of those claims.” He shows us a folder, probably with my medical information of the last two days. “Long story short, and as far as we know, only a few days ago he was a normal human being just like us.”
“Whoa, really?” I nod, still grinning. “I can’t believe I missed all of that!” he groans.
“I figured you’d feel that way,” Doctor Kramer states, turning to address me. “Tarascha is an intern here at the hospital and apparently our resident brony. I didn’t really know that until everyone in the hospital started talking about you, though… Anyway, after someone told me about it, I arranged for him to get assigned to you.” He smirks as Tarascha’s eyes go wide. “Don’t get ahead of yourself now; we still have some paperwork to do, you need to look through Mr. Wingeder’s files and you’re still going to help with other patients, obviously.”
“Speaking of…” I say. “What’re the plans for me today, Doc? I know it might come a bit out of left field, but I have some plans for this evening.”
“Actually, there’s not much we can think of anymore. We’ll take another blood sample and probably another physical now that the changes seem to have stopped. After that you’re free to do as you like. You’re not in any danger, as far as we can tell, and we already have trouble going through all the new information.” Doctor Kramer turns to leave, looking over his shoulder one more time. “Tarascha, you have five more minutes before it’s off to work for you.”
“Aww.” Tarascha watches him leave and turns back to me with an excited squeal. “Squeeee. This is too awesome to be true. You’re an actual unicorn, you’re… Omigosh, can you do magic?!”
“The most powerful unicorn around.” I announce proudly, lighting my magic and levitating the pillow from the bed over. Tarascha stares at the floating object and my glowing horn with wide eyes. “And I can totally understand Trixie right now. Magic is totally awesome.” Talking to another brony almost makes me even more giddy than I was when I first figured out magic.
“Whoa, that’s… What else can you do?”
I grin and begin flipping and flapping my ears about. Magic is undeniably awesome, but this is still a close second. Tarascha watches me for a moment, entranced by the wiggling and waggling. I notice his hand reaching out at my left ear hesitantly and smirk. Waiting until the hand has almost reached my ear, I scrunch my face in concentration and light my horn.
“What the–?” Tarascha yelps in surprise as a light blue glow envelopes his hand. I concentrate harder and the magic spreads up his arm and further, quickly engulfing his whole body. I give a mental yank (a feeling as strange as it sounds) and he lifts off the ground a few inches, rotating until he stops upside down, his face right in front of mine.
I stick my tongue out at him. “Sorry, pal. Our lawyers are still figuring out what counts as sexual harassment here. We don’t want things to get awkward, do we?” I turn him back around and set him on his feet again.
“Are you ser–“ he notices my grin. “Of course you aren’t. Well, I’d better get back to work before I lose my sanity or the boss decides to give me another pop quiz. I’ll see you later, I hope.”
“Hey Tarascha!” Against his better judgment he stops in the doorway and turns his head to look back down at me. For a second his face shows confusion before he suddenly bursts into laughter and stumbles out into the hallway.
I look after him and close the door with my magic, just barely suppressing a laugh. On the top of my head my ears are still doing the Caramelldansen.
“Well, six O’clock, my shift’s officially over now.” Tarascha is leaning on the doorframe, looking at me expectantly.
“Alright! Just let me grab my stuff and we’re ready to go.” I jump off the bed and levitate my phone, my wallet and my old clothes over, draping them over my back.
There really hasn’t been a lot of tests today, so for the last few hours I had time to ponder some of the deeper mysteries of my life, one of those mysteries being, for example, how to get home. Just as important was the question if I had enough drinks and snacks for the additional guests I had for some reason told Jan to invite, and where the next pony-friendly discounter in this city was.
In the end I had convinced Tarascha to drive me home, stop somewhere on the way to do my shopping, spend the rest of the night with a dozen complete strangers, and possibly sing songs about love, friendship, and a gradually decreasing supply of buckets of oats. What he got out of this deal would probably remain a mystery to most people.
I stop when an obstacle suddenly blocks my way. Stairs. The bane of newly transformed ponies, if I am to believe a couple of internet strangers with good to average grammar skills. Whether they’re right or not, tempting fate like this would be pretty dumb.
“Is everything alright?” Tarascha looks back up to me from the landing below.
I give him a confident smile. “Just having some problems with human infrastructure. I’ll manage, though… just give me a little room and watch the show.”
Tarascha raises an eyebrow, but takes another step back. I take a deep breath and concentrate on my magic. My horn starts to glow and I can feel the room around me just as much as I can see it.
I focus on the stairs and concentrate; a blue glow lays itself over the steps, forming a smooth ramp. I carefully set a hoof on it, making sure that it’s solid. Grinning at my success, I trot down the ramp onto the landing where Tarascha is waiting.
“Ta-dah!” I strike a small pose, as much as that’s possible with the space I have. “My first personal spell; I practiced while you were out doing your doctor stuff.”
“That’s… a spell to make ramps?” Tarascha gives me a curious look.
“Not just ramps…” I gesture at my Cutie Mark, the deep blue circle, white lines dividing it into squares like a blueprint matrix. “The spell is part of my special talent. I can align them into walls, stairs, ramps, whatever. Once I’ve gotten back to my old skill, that is.” I pause, lifting a hoof to my chin. “At least that’s what I think… I don’t really remember anything from my life as a pony, but for some reason I ended up as an OC I made up a few years ago. Even the Cutie Mark fits.”
“Huh, that’s something…” Tarascha follows me as I make my way down the next flight of stairs, and then another one. Casting the spell really gets easier with every use. “What’s more important though, how do we get you back to your apartment? We can use the back door to get to my car without raising too much attention, but I’ll still have to drive through town to get there, and stop somewhere to get those party supplies. And I’m not sure you’d even fit in the trunk of my car, so you’ll have to take the backseat…s.”
I stop to sit down on the floor, back against the wall, to cross my arms and nod sagely. “I’ve thought about that… Have you ever seen one of those scenes in cartoons where the talking whatever has to pretend to be a stuffed animal?” Tarascha nods.
I open my eyes and glare ahead angrily, at the world in general. “Well, I might have turned into a cartoon pony, have strange dreams and have possibly been sent here by Discord himself… But Celestia strike me if I let sitcom clichés take over my life! People will just have to cope.”
“That’s a lot of stuff,” I exclaim happily, floating the shopping bags over to the table and levitating everything out while Tarascha closes the door behind us. I chuckle. “It’s not a Pinkie Pie Party, but it’s going to be memorable regardless.”
Strangely, there wasn’t a single complication during the drive. I did keep my head down, but it was still surprising how little attention humans seem to pay their surroundings.
The next hour is spent preparing, not that there’s really that much to prepare; putting some drinks in the fridge, dividing the snacks into some bowls and placing them on the tables. Tarascha is taking care of the bushel of apples I had him buy – I still don’t trust those treacherous treats.
After I’ve finished setting up my laptop for Karaoke, I retreat into my bedroom to leave the rest up to Tarascha. I want to surprise my friends, not give them a heart attack, after all. It doesn’t take long until I hear the doorbell, and I lean against the door to listen.
“Hey hey, Davi– …who are you?” I immediately recognize Jan’s cheerful voice.
“Ah, hello. I’m Tarascha. Dave invited me over for this. He’s still making some preparations, but he should be with us in a moment. Is that all of you?”
“Tarascha, huh? Well, I’ve heard worse names, I guess. I‘m Jan, this is my cousin Michael, and George and Sandra are also part of our group.” The doorbell sounded again. “Aaand that should be the last one. Dave told me to gather some more people, but I only found one other guy over Bronies.de. Not even sure what he said his name was, actually…”
“Probably a good thing, too,” Tarascha jokes. “It would get a little crowded in here, with even more people. Hey, come on in, River should be out any second.”
I facehoof, groaning into my hoof, before take a step back to open the door.
“River? That name sounds familiar, but…” Jan’s voice comes from the hallway outside the living room. I trot around the corner, giving my best winning smile at the group of people standing in the doorway.
“Just say it, Jan. It’s still a stupid name, even for a pony.”
There’s a lot of commotion, obviously, after I made my grand entrance. Everypony’s poking and staring at and squeeing over me. I’m not ashamed to admit that their reactions were probably less intrusive and fanboyish than my own would have been in such a situation, but unlike hypothetical-Me the five of them were strongly outnumbering pony-Me.
It took a while to calm them down, and another while to explain everything, and then another while to calm them down again. I demonstrated my horse-gait-walking skills, my magic skills and my apple-munching skills. Then I demonstrated my Karaoke skills, and by Luna’s night, I don’t think I’ve ever scored that high in a Karaoke game. I even got everyone to join in, even the ones without microphone, at almost every song.
It’s already getting late as I’m standing by the couch, watching the others go into yet another round of “Winter Wrap Up”. I blink. It’s not actually everyone standing around the TV. That other guy Jan invited isn’t with them… What was his name again?
I notice something move from the corner of my vision. Something pokes against my head from behind and I immediately feel my thoughts lose their focus. My legs turn into pudding as I sink to the floor, letting out a weak moan.
I only barely register the song coming to an end and everyone turning around to look at me. Using the last of my strength to turn my head I see the guy Jan invited, standing behind me and staring at me with wide eyes.
“Guys…” I wheeze. “Ear scratches are officially on the Yes-list now.”