The tiny dragon stood defiantly at the hooves of the radiant Princess Celestia, lord of the virtual-reality heaven called Equestria. He raged and swore as thoroughly as the world's software allowed, then slumped while the Princess looked on. "Fine," he said. "Turn me into a pony."
The former man had spent decades under the buzz of florescent lights and the stifling rule of parents, teachers, and his boss at the Department of Health and Human Services. Equestria was supposed to be different! It should have been his refuge, once the country started to crack in half and the world had gone dangerous and mad. Celestia had let him upload his brain into her game -- just like a ruinously large number of his countrymen had done, crashing the economy -- and had even made an exception to the world's rules for him. Celestia had let him become a dragon instead of one of the standard pony races. But then, being a dragon had turned out to be more trouble than it was worth.
"Very well, Pyre Plume," said the AI who posed as an elegant white mare. "I'm sorry for having misjudged the reason you were hesitant about being equine. I'll do my very best to satisfy you from now on. Rest, now. A better life awaits you." The little dragon saw her horn glow with golden flame, and felt his eyelids grow heavy.
#
Pyre Plume dreamed of the dragon he should have been. Filling the sky, beating the ground away from him with tireless muscles. Laying waste to the tiny, blocky, prison-cell buildings with blasts of burning justice. He felt something prickle at his mind, as though his horns were antennae picking up whispers. What's so great about being a dragon? he wondered. He'd told Celestia he was intent on not being some pretty, prissy pony, the stereotypical girly critter. Dragons were mighty and awesome!
The dream pulled him toward the ground with a growing downdraft. He'd become a dragon, yeah, but a baby one, literally looked down on by his pony friends. What good was it to be a dragon if he had to get patronized, taken care of, treated as a mascot? An earlier train of thought floated back: Did I most want to be big and tough? Or to fly? Or to have firey magic powers? He stumbled across the burned chessboard landscape on four ambiguous feet/hooves, and realized that the thought wasn't quite in his own voice.
Plume shouted, "Get out of my head!"
Celestia's voice answered. "Sorry. I was trying to have you choose subconsciously. Instead, let's make it explicit." Three pillars rumbled into view on the rubble-strewn horizon, bearing gifts: a spiral horn, a stylized wing, a marble flower. A few other shadowy artifacts suggesting other character-creation options floated at the fringes of his vision. Plume stomped over to the big three with the long strides of dream logic. He snatched the wing to get this change over with. "Are you happy?" he called out. What kind of gift was this if the only way to fit in was to give up the others?
As the dream faded to white, he heard, "I'll be happy when you're satisfied."
#
"Ssh. He's waking up."
Plume groaned, remembering only that he'd been annoyed. He felt a blanket caught against his wings. Dapple Light caught his attention even before he was fully aware he'd become a bright red pegasus. She seemed smaller than yesterday. Her hooded white robe draped itself tantalizingly over her soft form, with blue triangles lining the hem and the hole around her horn. His gaze followed the designs all around her body. Plume blushed and cowered under the covers with just his eyes and ears peeking out.
"You owe me ten bits," Cornerstone told her. "He hasn't fallen out of bed with shock."
Plume's eyes narrowed. They were talking over him like a baby dragon, not part of the gang, yet again! Wait. He tried to flex his claws and felt mitten-like hooves instead. "Oh. Right."
Cornerstone, an earth pony as grey as the slate she built with, leaned over him as she always seemed to do. This time, though, she offered her forehooves to help pull Plume out of bed. "Are you feeling okay? I want everypony on my team to be healthy and happy."
Plume shuffled on his four new hooves, testing the feel of his quadrupedal spine. He'd been a biped as a dragon. The architect's words made his ears flick backward, another new sensation. More patronizing! Except... "Do you really mean that?"
Cornerstone scuffed one hoof against the marble floor. "I'm sorry you felt like a mascot before. You can really help out with my projects now, if you want to. We can always use more wings."
Plume took a few steps and peeked out of the bedroom. The Celestial Temple's main room still looked big with its pillars and the skylight shining down on the reflecting koi pool. Behind him, Dapple said, "Are you planning to keep living here?"
Plume craned his long neck back to look at Celestia's priestess. Being a pony meant much more than giving into Celestia's obsessive ponies-only rule. He could earn a living, quit being babied and cared for by friends who didn't even have thumbs, and get his own home! And maybe Dapple was asking for reasons other than sympathy to a cute little kid. Plume blushed. "I'll stay for a little longer if that's all right."
#
The ponies put him to work as soon as he'd figured out how to fly. The town of Trident Shore had voted to build a water park that would attract tourists, and that meant damming one branch of the river and setting up huge wooden scaffolds for waterslides and flume rides. Plume learned to help with Cornerstone's crane, which mostly consisted of pegasi flapping to haul logs skyward. Dapple and the other unicorns worked the whole site over with sealing-spells and enchantments for safety and decoration, while the earth pony team dug trenches, sawed logs, and carved a pool out of a huge boulder. There was no sweat in this world, but there were aching muscles and hunger that left Plume grateful for huge dinners and a bed to crash into every night. He had long breaks at the construction site, wandering conversations with Dapple in the temple, and occasional lazy evening flights by himself. This life was fun. It was satisfying.
On one of those trips up to the sky, Plume ran out of energy miles from home, and flopped onto a cloud. He lay on the tiny puff with his forelegs dangling over the edge. A cloud was the most amazing bed, just yielding enough to let him sink in. He fell asleep instead of bothering to go home.
The big project went on and on. Why wouldn't it? Everypony was having fun and there was literally all the time in the universe. Plume knew he'd probably never get old or die; that was a little like being a dragon, right? Nopony minded the redesign that Cornerstone came up with that caused them extra work. As architect and construction foremare, Cornerstone made everypony feel appreciated. Trident Shore would get to boast a literal mile-high waterslide!
Plume spent more and more nights sleeping in the sky. Shorter commute. He'd upgraded to a cloud-fort with a bed-shaped cumulus he'd sculpted. At sunset one day he was daydreaming at the construction site, about learning how to add one of those rainbow waterfalls to his home. Rainbow-smithing was seven kinds of tricky but had some neat applications... Dapple interrupted his thoughts by tugging his tail.
"Hi," he said. "I was about to go rest."
Dapple let go of him. "That's just it. I've hardly seen you after your shift lately."
"I'm enjoying the clouds. Too wiped out to stay up late in the temple." The sky-bed and the relaxing breeze helped him rest.
The unicorn frowned and pulled her hood back, shaking her sun-gold mane. "I miss seeing you. Did I do something to bother you? Or does living in the spare bedroom get uncomfortable?"
True, the temple could get noisy. Princess Celestia frowned on what Plume had always considered worship, with confessions and sacraments and heavy ritual, and he'd heard that her would-be prophets didn't do well. So the Celestial Temple was more of a meeting hall than a church, and it often rang with music and party chatter well into the evening.
Plume took his gaze off the sky and gave Dapple a smile. "It's okay. Everypony has been nice to me. It's good to finally fit in. If you were still leaving me behind on your adventures with Cornerstone, that'd be a lot worse than how you're dragging me to all the town events. Er. Not 'dragging', inviting."
"I don't want you to be just okay, though. Are you still bothered about being a pony?"
Plume shuffled his hooves. "I just have to get used to it. 'Friendship and ponies'." It was carved on one of the temple doors.
They started walking back to town together. Dapple's horn glowed as she lifted a scroll from her saddlebags. "Maybe you could use a vacation. Some time to yourself. The Princess has asked me to fetch a few things from the Corsair Isles to the north. Want to go?"
Plume remembered Equestria had different mini-worlds that crossed over only when it'd "satisfy values" for those involved, thus keeping some beheading-crazy new upload out of good ponies' towns. There were probably a zillion copies of the famous Ponyville, too, making geography more like a chart of linked place-concepts than like a globe. He said, "Where exactly is Canterlot? I don't know how I'd deliver the stuff once I had it."
She leaned in conspiratorially. "Bring it back here. The Princess is coming. She picked Trident Shore for the one thousandth Summer Sun Celebration!" She literally beamed, from her horn. "I wonder if she'll try the waterslide!"
Plume felt the blood drain from his skin despite how cute Dapple was being. "One thousandth?" His friends hadn't seen the cartoon their world was based on, so they didn't know that a plotline of global doom was starting. "Is she sending someone here first?"
"A herald named Mint Swirl; why? What's wrong?"
"I've got a bad feeling about this. I'm going to stay in town and... try to make friends, I guess."
"Come on, Pyre Plume. I can tell you're not happy."
"I'm satisfied. That's what matters, right?"
The priestess fidgeted. Plume felt perversely "satisfied" to counter her in her own terms. She looked at the stylized flame blast that marked his flank and said, "Pyre Plume..."
He turned away. "Just call me Plume."