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// A Walk in the Park: 8 
// Story: Tentative Pet Pony 
// by Ponyess 
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	Strangely, he did not take the tiara from me.  I had half by half expected it.  As a Pony, and a pet, why would he allow me to keep it.  On the other rubber hoof, I guess he could afford it, even if I'm a pet now?  I'm still 'Diamond Tiara', apparently?

Even if he could take the collar off of me, which I doubted, right now.  I myself will be incapable of performing this now.  I could only guess it is what he had desired all along.  I'm a mere pet now, it's what he had reduced me to.  I had been his daughter.  The shame?



I felt the touch of his arm, as he fastened a leach to the collar, then he simply led me out the front door, expecting me to follow him as if I had been a pet and nothing more.  I couldn't raise my voice in protest, I just realised.

At least it did not feel strange to walk on all fours, in the manner of his wish.  If you forget the fact that I recall I had been his daughter and all the implications of having been walking upright most all my life, or about a decade, by now?

The posture is natural to my body, if not to my mental state?  I could do nothing about it.  Just as I was hard pressed to stand up on my hind hooves now.  I guess I could, if I put the effort into it since I have not tried yet.  I guess I'd save this for later.  Maybe tonight, when he left me on my room?



He did not say a word, as if it had not been required, or expected?  I guess it came with being a pet of his?  Yet, it is still frustrating.  Even more so, when I knew there was nothing I could do, and the habit of the few things he did say.

The floors in our house are smooth to a fault, nothing strange about it.  Since he could afford the very best and most expensive, it had been natural to him, and wooden is always the best.  It is at least what I recall from him explaining it, when this came up, if a special guest were at our home.  I had overheard these discussions from time to time.



As I set hoof outside, I finally realised why he had been so eager to have the new tiles on the path from the door to the road.  There is something about how the smooth tiles feels to set hoof on.

Maybe he had not put a muzzle on?  Yet, he wore his stockings, the panties and what was to pass for a top, a male version of it.  I guess I'll still refer to it as a top, even if the designation does refer to a garment for a mare?  Ah, yeah, I seem to have had my vocabulary changing already. Had the changes affected me this deeply already, very efficient.

Looking down at his glistering black hooves, as he moved out before closing the door.  Only now I realised why he had been so eager for these strange, but smooth tiles.  It never made sense, until you actually did set hoof on them in person, but I had worn shoes when I went out, before this.  Naturally, I had missed the point.

There is a 'clip clop', as I trot down the short path to the road.  The little noises, a subtle melody all of their own.  If only I had realised, back when I wore shoes?  Even if I had been incapable of hearing the more subtle harmonies and harmonics?  How typical, you never hear the call, before you're stuck, just like this, and all the joy was lost?



It may be my first day as a pet and a pony, which in turn is confusing to me.  So much I had known, or thought was true, are either proven wrong, or outright confusing me.  The simple sounds of hoof-steps on the tiles, the way these tiles made it feel under my now bare hooves.  I feel the ground, under the entire hooves, from the rim and inwards.  Not from the centre and out, like it had felt before.

Looking down, only to see four identical hooves, rather than hands and feet, even if my fore hooves are smaller, shorter than the hind hooves?  These are traits of a pony I had never been born into being?  The red, softness of hooves, a look I had never asked for, just as I could never have anticipated.  These are now defining who I am, and what I could do.  No escaping it.



Only once I have moved out onto the road, there are tiles, but not the pricey once my father, and now owner had placed there.  Even here in the village, it isn't his will designing what will come up.  If it had been, I imagine he had chosen different tiles, even if it had meant, other ponies were also enjoying, walking, or trotting over them, just for his pleasure of having them there, for his joy?  He certainly could afford it, in a village small as this, couldn't he?

I knew my father to be rich, just as I knew he desired to flaunt it.  It is in his very name.  He likes us to think he is rich and well-off.  This is what we all see, what he is showing, is of course more than the mere bits it cost him to have what he has.  I had imagined it is just as much in the style.  We all owe him, don't we?

Of course, now I see another and very different side of him, and of the village.  This is certainly not what I had seen before.

In his very own way I feel he did care, and for all I know he still do care, about me as well.  Even if it seems he had had a very different plan for me, than everypony thought.  What they never knew.  On the other hoof, how could they have known, or even suspected?  Is there anything more?  They never saw him, in private, just as friends or associates.  That's not what you see, as his daughter.  That's where I came in, into his picture, the big picture that is.



I had tried my best to please him.  I guess he may have red something into it, just not the message I had tried to send, or what I had thought was what I wanted out of my life.

What's to become of me now?  I'm a pet and a pony.  He had changed me, groomed me into his image, of what I could be.

Trotting along the road by his side, only now he is no longer my father, but my owner.  As if it had not shocked me as it hit me, and I realised who and what I am now?

At least, he kept me walking on the tiled side-way, rather than on the rough street mid-road, for the most part, when we weren't required to cross the road which happened twice.  Just the two times, but it isn't such a long way and the road is merely a two file for motorised vehicles.



My hooves apparently did not take particularly well to the paved surface of the road, but I guess the same could be said for his, even larger hooves.  I imagine it was even worse on him, even though there is the chance his, not pampered up hooves were less sensitive to this kind of overly pointless abuse.  I did not linger on the thought since it merely enhanced my discomfort from the sensations and feelings.

Now I wish I could beg him to do something about the problem, but I am incapable of speaking and thus voicing these concerns.  Left to hope he was to change it, without my voiced concern over the growing trauma I was feeling.



Oh, but for the joy of the fresh grasses under my hooves, as I managed to get out on the lawn, fresh and green, once we finally did get into the park

I even managed to give of a whiney in joy, and he looked at me in a strange manner I just couldn't read.  Something I never had seen.

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