//------------------------------// // Six // Story: How the Other Half Lives // by Adda le Blue //------------------------------// Alpha's hoofsteps echoed loudly on the cobblestone path nestled between the campus's bar and its neighbor. Her breath was a shallow panting; the once-warm and thunderous blood that coursed through her had become poison. She moved nervously to one side as Fae closed the door. “F-Fae, I'm—” Two arctic-blue hooves grabbed her by her heart-shaped front panel and the world spun. It came to a sudden halt when her head rebounded from the stone wall beside the door. “Give it back,” Fae snarled, baring Alpha's broken tooth in fury. The blood drained from her muzzle. Her quaking hindlegs wouldn't have supported her without Fae's grip. “I will!” she shrilled. “Please, don't!” Fae's borrowed brown eyes narrowed into slits. “Now, Alpha!” “I-I can't!” Her forehooves pushed against Fae's pasterns to no avail. “I don't have an antidote. It'll wear off in a few hours, just be pa—” Fae dug her hooves into Alpha's chest and her words trailed off into a squeak of pain. “This is not a game, you... you monster!” she slurred. “You drugged me and stole my body!” “I didn't steal it!” Fae's lips peeled back from her teeth. “I didn't! I was just... just trading it for a few hours, I swear.” “And then what?” she spat. “Then I'd wake up next to Mister Track-and-Field with no idea how I'd gotten there?” “No, Fae, no!” She stopped fighting Fae's hooves and held up her own in what she hoped would be a placating gesture. “That was an accident!” Her shoulder blades thumped into the stones behind her. “Don't feed me that!” Fae screamed hoarsely. “I've seen you staring at him. Everypony has seen it!” “B-but I didn't think he'd...” Her chin was beginning to go numb. “I just wanted to feel what it was like to—” “You don't get to make that choice!” “I had to try!” Alpha shrieked, flinging spittle in her face. Tears of anguish rolled down her cheeks. “I had to!” She sneered up at him. “Monster,” she snarled. She pushed her back into the wall and then jerked hard upon her chest piece and shoulder strap, spilling Alpha across the cobblestones. Alpha yelped as her right pastern and knee took the brunt of the impact. “I can't believe you would do such a thing, Alpha,” she muttered. “You chose your Celestia-damned fetish over your best friend. Do you know what it was like for me?” Alpha sobbed as she clambered onto three legs. She stayed low to the ground and stared up at her friend's fury with ears flat and tail tucked. “I'll tell you,” Fae continued heatedly. “At first I was so dizzy that I thought I was dreaming, but no, I was in this body and it was so very real!” She took a step forward and Alpha stumbled back defensively. "Do you know what it feels like to wake up as somepony you're not?” Alpha fell back onto her haunches and covered her mouth with her hooves. “Yes,” she moaned, “every day. Every day!” “I've never felt so... so wrong!” Fae continued. “It was horrible! I was so scared I couldn't even cry.” “Damn it, Fae, I know!” Alpha barked through her tears. She surged up from the stones, pacing on three legs. “That's my life! I wake up to that every day. I look in the mirror and I see this... this stallion, and I just want to reach through it and kill him for being there. Every time I go to the bathroom, or... or see somepony that I want to...” His head fell. “I feel like nopony I ever meet gets to know the real me,” he muttered. “They meet this colt who pretends to be me, and the mare I am inside is all alone, trapped in my own head. I just want to go into class and say hi, and have everypony see me as... as me for once, you know? As...” “As a filly,” Fae said blandly. Alpha sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her injured hoof. “Yeah.” “You're a mare now?” “I always have been,” she explained. “It's just that my outside doesn't... doesn't match up.” Fae's voice didn't change. “Why didn't you tell me this before?” “Because...” She shook her head. “Because I'm scared,” she sighed. “Of course you're scared,” Fae argued. She growled and kicked at an upturned cobblestone. “This is crazy! But you were my friend, Alpha, and I love you, okay?” She turned her eyes to some old chalk graffiti. “It wouldn't matter if you're a stallion or a mare,” she said softly. “You're still my Alpha.” Alpha almost smiled, but Fae forestalled her with a glare. “But this? You went way too far, Alpha. You broke my trust in the worst possible way. You... You put a potion in that drink we shared, didn't you?” Defeated, Alpha nodded without a word. “And then this sleeping spell... The only things keeping me awake are a pick-me-up from one of your roommates and an unhealthy amount of adrenaline.” “I'm sorry,” she mumbled. “I should have asked.” “You should have—” Fae's exhausted horn sparked with fury. “Of course you should have asked!” “I mean it!” Alpha took a baby step closer, her shoulders and head held low. “I'm sorry I did this to you, Fae. If I could take it back, I would.” “No, Alpha,” she growled. “That doesn't cut it. You didn't just steal my body. You stole my name and my reputation—” She lifted a hoof. “I didn't want—” “—and used them for your own selfish gratification!” She pointed an accusatory hoof at her with a glare to match. “You are sick, Alpha.” “No!” she cried. “I got caught up in the moment. It wasn't supposed to be like this!” “You're done exploring this—” Fae frowned in distaste. “—this twisted fetish of yours.” “Fae, this isn't a fetish,” Alpha tried to explain. “It's not like I just went out here to shag somepony!” “No,” she replied with a roll of her eyes. “You merely wanted to doll yourself up and go for a stroll across campus. The fact that you ended up at the bar, in my best dress, having drinks with the stallion of your dreams?” She laughed mirthlessly. “An accident!” “But that was an accident!” she argued. “I didn't do anything that you wouldn't have allowed.” “Then what did you do to it?” “N-not much... Just...” She shrugged and chewed her lip, spreading a fine layer of gloss across the tips of a few teeth. “Filly stuff. I'll replace the makeup I used, I promise!” Fae gave Alpha as level a look as she could manage with a twitching cheek. “I spoke to Brie," she growled. "She says that she heard you squealing in my bedroom.” Her eyes widened and her aching hoof lifted to her chest. “It's not what you think!” “Is it what she thinks?” she countered. “No! I just... well...” Alpha bared her teeth in a smile like a grimace. “I was just applying makeup and trying on clothes in front of the mirror. That's all.” Fae lifted a hoof to her forehead. “Of course you were.” “And then I just... like... I don't know,” she stammered. “I just...” “And then you got an eyeful.” Alpha blinked. “What?” “You got an eyeful, didn't you?” Fae spat. “And then things 'got out of hoof', didn't they?” She framed the words with sarcastic twitches of a raised forehoof. “I'll bet you did a lot more in front of that mirror than just try on clothes.” "Fae, please, it's not perverted!” she insisted. “I was nothing if not respectful.” “Oh, please!” Fae barked. “You stallions are all the same. I know exactly what you would have done when you found yourself in a mare's body.” “Make myself feel pretty for the first time in my life,” Alpha shot back. “Pose in front of the mirror.” She climbed to her hooves with renewed confidence and took a slow step forward. “Play with my hair. Polish my hooves. Smile at the other ponies and watch them smile back.” Fae shook her head, her eyes narrowed in suspicion, but Alpha met Fae's glare with her own and did not back down. “I don't want to be a filly because it's sexy,” she said firmly. “I want to be one because it's who I am. At this point I don't care if I ever have sex; I just want to be able to...” She lifted a hoof toward the door of the bar. “To walk into a restaurant and have the waiter call me 'miss', or stay with the other girls in the mares' dorms without somepony freaking out, or... You know.” Her tone had softened, but the heat never left her eyes. “Just blend in with the other mares.” “But Alpha, you're not blending in,” Fae countered. “You've stolen who I am. Those ponies in the bar... Longshot doesn't know you exist. He wants me, not you.” Alpha's muzzle crinkled. “I know.” “He thinks he had drinks with me,” she continued. “He's going to tell everypony about this. My friends will think less of me. Everypony will! Look at yourself!” She gestured at Alpha's rumpled front. “An evening gown for a late-night stroll? What will the other mares think?” “I know, Fae,” she mumbled. “I'm sorry. I didn't think it through.” She turned her head to the side and shook it sadly. “I know.” “I didn't think I would hurt anypony,” she insisted. “I know!” Her shoulders began to tremble. “I just wanted to feel—” “Shut up.” Fae's voice shook with emotion. “Shut your Celestia-damned mouth, Alpha. You did a horrible thing.” She placed a forehoof on Alpha's chest and pushed her toward the mouth of the alley. Alpha ducked away and lowered her shoulders and haunches. “Please, Fae, don't!” she whimpered. “You're only hurting your own body!” “I'm not going to hurt you.” She followed her back and pushed her again. “You don't get to play the victim. You and I are going to march right up to the Headmistress's quarters and you are going to tell her exactly what you did, do you understand?” She prodded her shoulder until Alpha turned toward the campus's administration offices. “Okay, Fae,” she whispered. Left with no other alternative, Alpha turned the corner and walked toward the end of her academic career. “Okay.” Neither of them noticed the great shadow that passed between them and the moon.