Dust on the Wind

by Sparky Brony

Chapter 11. Do You Really Want to Hurt Me? Do You Really Want to Make Me Cry?

We made it back to the farm. During the trip Mindy and Flash told the assembled ponies the cover story we came up with if they are asked how they escaped, since agents of the government are almost certainly going to investigate the farm. The cover story is simple, a group of ponies rescued them, then took them to the farm so they would be safe, then they left. Most of the ponies are in a daze, so watching Irony's car take off in a cloud of dust helped them think that the ponies that saved them left. They only had glimpses of me, so Mindy and Flash were the main ponies they saw. And their story is they decided to stay after the rest of the ponies left to find more ponies.

It is partially true, Soarin's snooping on the internet has turned up more suspected ponies. His masking of the IP address and routing his traffic through multiple servers have made him very hard to pinpoint. Soarin knows his way around the dark underbelly of the internet. And finding humans turned pony has been a challenge for him. Once internet was set up at the farm, he moved out there and got me to purchase a few nice computers and our own server. When I talked about how much we were spending on it, he made a convincing argument. The three new barracks are going to have the electrical rough in today, then the drywallers are going to be in there for two days, and then trim, and it will be done. Roughly a week to build three large barracks, pretty good if I don't say so myself. We finally get the ponies bedded down on cots in the barn, and sleep claims me, at least for a few hours.

Around noon I'm lounging in my bed, wishing I didn't have to get up, but my wife comes in and lays down next to me. "Morning sleepyhead."

I grumble, "Morning."

"Do we need to talk?"

My eyes go wide. What?

She hugs me hard. "About Irony. I saw how you were looking at her."

I furrow my brow. "How did I look at her?"

I hear a light chuckle. "Like you were in lust." Then I see tears start to form in her eyes. "Like you looked at me many years ago."
I have to stop and think. "You got all that from just watching me with her? It was only a few minutes."

"I know what lust looks like, honey."

I stop and think, am I really attracted to the massive blue earth pony? Or was that just a weird desire to flirt with a pony I simply found attractive but not really any desire for. After a few moments my heart drops. I'm actually attracted to her. What the hell? I may be a fillyfooler, but almost the first mare I meet I'm intensely attracted to?

"What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing is wrong with you, honey. You are just the pony you were when you were in Equestria."

"But I'm still Mike too."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I have my memories, I remember how I was then, and I'm different now, but I am still me, I guess I can say I'm a blend of what I was, and what I am. Why am I so attracted to this mare?"

"Could you be in estrous?"

Huh? "What?"

"You know, heat. Like equines do, so do dogs, and cats, and many animals in our world."

"I have no clue. Could I? Would that cause me to be aggressive…you know…" I look down, "that way?"

"I don't know, honey. How was it back in Equestria?"

I shrug my wings. "I don't remember. I just remember that being in heat was a stressful time for me as a pony. That I didn't like it. But that's it."

"Well, usually those in estrous are wanting to mate to have babies, you said you don't have any desire for stallions, do you?"
I think for a moment, no. No desire at all thinking of a stallion. I shake my head. "Well, maybe…"

A finger is pressed against my lips, silencing me. "Honey, you have gone through a traumatic change, and you've held up pretty well. I'll credit that to how stubborn you are. But your new body is going to tell you what it wants. And you are going to have to listen to it."

"Are you sure? What about you?"

"I'll manage. I don't like this change, but I don't see a way to stop it."

"Want to go one more time, for the memories?"

She sighs and taps my nose with a finger. "I would, but I don't think your heart would be in it. You are Dust, yes, you are Mike too, but you are Dust. And Dust doesn't want to be with a human, and I can see that Dust wants to be with Irony."

"She's got her Moon Shadow. I'm not going to get between ponies that are in love. I can see that they are."

"So, you are frustrated then?" I hear a chuckle from her.

I nod my head, and get a strong hug from her. That does feel good. "Helen, can you hold me for a while?"

"Usually you are the one who holds me."

"I know, but right now, I need it."

She doesn't say a word, she just holds me for a long time.

***

Helen and I eventually emerge. I'm glad my kids are pretty self sufficient. Hannah needs help with some things, but Dylan takes care of himself. And he as a strong desire to cook, so he's taken a lot of kitchen duties over the last year or so. That kid can bake almost as well as Pinkie Pie. And some of his other meals, wow. He can't do the spaghetti sauce like I can, but his is close. He's pulling steaks out of the broiler as we get downstairs. I smile as I head to the table, which my daughter had dutifully set. Irony, Moon Shadow and Flash all join us. Moon Shadow and Irony look at the steaks with a definite look of disgust. I look over at them.

"Problem?"

"Meat? Seriously?"

"Pegasi can have meat, and I loved it as a human." I bless my son silently for slicing my steak into pieces. I reach down and take a bite.

Then have to spit it out. I look at the meat, it's cooked to perfection, rare, just like I always take my steaks.

"What the hell?"

Irony looks at me and smirks. I can feel myself blushing.

I gingerly take another piece of steak, and I have to spit that one out. It tastes like it's burned to a crisp. It tastes like char.

"I had a chicken sandwich the other day, and it tasted fine." I look at my son, "What kind of steak is this?"

He looks confused. "It's beef steak, Dad. Should I have done venison? Or elk maybe?"

I look down at the steak and smell it, it smells very sour to me. Like it's bad. I wilt a bit. "This sucks."

"So, let me get this straight," Helen says. "You have had no problem with fish, or with chicken, or venison. But beef steak bothers you?" I nod as she takes a bite off of my plate and pops it in her mouth. "Nothing wrong with it honey."

This is so weird. I think back to the show. "Well, in the show, cows are shown to talk, so are donkeys, but I did see pigs being raised like they are livestock and not fellow intelligent creatures, the same with deer and chickens. So, I guess there is some correlation there. There must be limits to what pegasi can eat when we are talking meat." I slam a hoof on the table. "This sucks!" I look at the potatoes and the other vegetable the rest of the ponies are digging into. "Well, I guess I had better eat something." I look at the beef steak, something a week ago I would be devouring, but now… I sigh.

***

The sun is setting as I trot up to Irony's room. I lift a hoof to knock on the door. Then I hesitate. Do I want to do this? This pony that has my mind all bent around in knots? I am undeniably attracted to her. What do I do with her? I haven't done anything with anyone but Helen in over fifteen years. What if I don't do anything she likes. What if I don't make her feel good? I silently lower my hoof to the ground and start to turn around when the handle depresses and the door opens.

"Oh, Hi Dust," Moon Shadow says quietly.

I nod in greeting. "I was just going."

"I heard you come to the door, I was waiting for you to knock."

My ears fall flat. "I'm sorry for bothering you." I trudge towards the stairs, only to be picked up in Moon's magic. I'm hovered into the room and the door is shut. I have never liked being handled by unicorn magic. I shoot her a sour look. "You could have just asked me to come in."

"But would you have if I did? I think we need to talk, girl to girl." She sees me looking around, the bedrooms are big, but not huge, and I don't see Irony. "Irony is outside right now, she heard an odd sound from the 442 while she was driving it back to the house, she's checking something about it. I don't know anything about mechanical stuff though."

I sigh. "I'm sorry for bothering you." I head once again to the door.

"Oh Lightning Dust, you are so funny."

That raises my hackles a little. "What are you talking about?"

"I saw the look on your face when you saw Irony. You like her don't you?"

I crouch down, my ears are as flat as they can go. I slowly nod.

I hear her hooves as she moves closer to me. "What exactly were you thinking when you came to the room?"

I shake my head. "I don't know, really. I wanted to fall into bed with her, to ravish her body. But I know you and her are together, I don't want to get in the way of the two of you. But I feel so strongly for her."

"Like an ache?"

I nod.

"Like your life wouldn't be complete without her?"

I feel tears in my eyes as I nod again.

"Like I feel when I look at her?"

Once again, I nod.

"Do you love her?"

This gets me, I can't hold back any more, I sob, "I don't know. I know my love for my wife. This is different, but it's so strong."

"How much do you remember of Equestria?"

"Not very much, I remember some things about me, about my life in Equestria, but not much more than that."

She sighs. "Same here."

I lay there, silently sobbing.

After a moment. "Were you the kind of pony to love them then leave them? Or did you want a long term relationship?"

"I don't want to come between you and Irony."

She laughs gently. "Little chance of that. What I want to know is can you let her go if you have to?"

Huh? Is she saying what I think she's saying? I lift my head and look at her, "Let her go?"

"I love that pony. I'm not letting her go. But if you do anything with her, you must know right now, you will have to let her go. She's killed for me. She would do so again without an instant of hesitation. She's nearly died for me." Tears start to form in her eyes. "She is dedicated. And I've talked to her, she certainly finds you attractive, though she refused to tell me that. But a girl can tell. I think if I said it was okay, she would want to."

I feel my heart rise to my throat. There is a possibility?

We are interrupted by the door opening, Irony trots in. "I knew it, the carb decided to get out of tune. Was an easy fix…" she trails off as she sees the two of us, me on the floor, tears in my eyes, Moon Shadow standing a few feet away, teary eyed as well. A dark look passes over her face as she sees Moon's tears, but that is cut off by Moon trotting up to her and kissing her thoroughly. I don't feel jealous of that. I just feel a desire to join in. I look at Irony as she comes up for air.

"Uhhh, hi there, Irony."

She sits on her haunches and looks at me. "Hello Dust."

I rub the back of my head for a moment. I give a sidelong glance to Moon. She gives me an encouraging smile, and Irony simply looks confused.

"Is there any specific reason you are in my room?"

I look down, then I move a little closer to her. "Yes."

I finally look up, she's certainly confused, I almost smirk, she's so cute with that look on her face.

After a long moment, Irony's patience seems to be wearing thin. "And that reason would be?"

Well, only one thing to do, I rush forward and press my lips to hers.

***

The sun wakes me up, it's Monday again. Ugh. I'm actually very comfortable, I look around, I've got Irony laying in front of me, well, I'm pretty sure it's Irony, though my view is of her nethers. I pull my head back a bit and see Moon Shadow holding Irony's other end. I smile at them, they are a cute couple. I'm able to slide off the bed and to the floor. I head out the door to the bathroom, I take a look at myself in the mirror. Oh God, last night really was energetic. I'm a mess. I hop into the shower and start washing myself. I've found that I can use my wings to brace myself while I use my hooves to hold the wash cloth. Ten minutes later I shake myself to rid my body of most of the water. And another ten minutes later, I'm down stairs, my wife smiles as she finishes making omelets for breakfast.

"Morning honey."

"Morning," I grumble, I did not get enough sleep last night.

"Busy night last night?" my wife asks innocently.

I feel my cheeks heating. "I guess so."

I get a hug from my wife. "I don't know, it was pretty quiet from Irony's room. I know you went there."

I look to the side. "Moon Shadow cast a sound deadening spell on the room."

I get a flick on the ear. "So you and Irony did?"

I look down and nod. Why do I feel so guilty? I look up at Helen. "I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me."

"Oh, Honey. I'm happy for you."

Huh? I look up at her, my ears are down, I'm pretty sure I've got the sad little puppy dog look plastered over my face. "You are?"

"Oh yes. You need to be with your kind."

My kind. Seriously? Ugh. Maybe she's right.

I get a thought. "Honey, what if the portal to Equestria is real, and a human going through that portal turns into a pony, would you want to go to Equestria with me?"

She looks thoughtful. "To visit? Or to stay?"

"I don't know. I don't know if I would come back, I'm beginning to really like this body, I don't think I'll be able to make myself come back."

"What if you were able to come back the way you were on April 30th?"

That gets my mind turning, just forget this bad dream, and be myself again, I think about my old body. My old life. I put my head on the table. "I don't know," I moan.

"I don't know either, honey. If that opportunity comes up, we can talk then. Now we need to talk about something else important."

"Really? What?"

"Are things going to get dangerous around here? You are gathering a lot of ponies, I know about the plans for the government to interview the ponies and get demonstrations of their abilities. But are things going to be bad?"

"I wish I knew, honey."

"Do you think it would be a good idea for the kids and I to bug out? We can go to Texas, your parents would love to see their only grand kids."

I look at her, tears starting to form. "I hate to say it, but I think it might be best, honey. I really don't know what's going to happen."

"Big sister, you've got to see this!" I hear Soarin bounce into the house, a laptop case around his body. He hops up onto the bench.
I look at my wife. "I think going might be a good idea. I'll try to visit once things calm down, though showing my parents my new form might be difficult."

This catches Soarin's attention. "What? What about Mom and Dad?"

Helen takes the lead on this. "I'm going to take the kids down to Corpus Christi. Gonna visit your parents."

His face falls, and his ears droop. "Oh, let them know we miss them, okay? But we will have to visit them and let them know what's going on."

"I know."

Soarin turns to me, then grabs a laptop out of the case and opens it. A second or two and it wakes up from sleep mode and I see a Seattle Times online edition website, the cover makes my jaw drop. 'Suspected cruise missile crosses border from Canada. Officials puzzled.' I read further.

"Read the second headline, that's the kicker."

I scroll down, and there's another story, about an explosion in gang territory in Seattle. A shed was destroyed, but there are no traces of debris consistent with any kind of bomb or missile. And it was hours after the suspected cruise missile.

I look up at Soarin. "Are we looking at pony activities?"

Soarin's eyes brighten. "That's what I'm thinking. A low flying but very fast pegasus would make a signature on radar like a cruise missile, and that would certainly pop off the air raid sirens like last night. And something happened, and with no debris that tells me the source of that explosion was magical."

"Can you be sure?"

"No, not without going there with a unicorn and testing for resonance. But based on the available information, that's the best conclusion."

Oh. Okay.

"Any twitch in the news about the break out the night before last?"

Soarin shakes his head. "Not a lick, Sis."

"They are going to suppress as much news about ponies as they can." I lean back and slam my hoof into the table. "Those bastards aren't going to acknowledge we exist."

"Are you going to come out to farm? Meet all the new arrivals?"

"Probably later today," I say offhandedly.

I eventually head upstairs to Irony and Moons bedroom. After last night, can I face them awake? I take a deep breath and knock on the door.

I hear hooves shifting on the hardwood floor and then the door opens, Irony is there. She looks like I did before my shower.

"Smells like a brothel in here," I say, with a big shit eating grin.

She smirks at me. "I'm pretty sure you helped it smell this way. We'll have to air it out."

"The shower has plenty of hot water, I put in one of those instant hot water systems in the house, so you can take as long a shower as you want and not worry about running out."

She nods thanks and moves away from the door, letting me in, Moon is still passed out.

"I think something big happened during our mission," I say.

Irony looks at me quizzically.

"Officials say that something that matches the signature of a cruise missile crossed the border, but it didn't explode."

Irony furrows her brow in thought. After a moment she stamps a hoof. "Rainbow Dash."

My turn to furrow my brow. "Are you sure?"

She nods, "There are fast pegasi, then there are really fast pegasi, you and Rainbow Dash are two that come to mind. You were busy the night before last."

I smirk. "Last night too."

She blushes, and continues. "Well, that couldn't have been you. When you were flying, you stayed close to the car, so you couldn't have been seen on radar, plus radar in the interior of the country won't really catch a pegasus very easily. They rely on transponders to see the commercial planes."

"Dust, the feds have shown up at the farm, I just got a text message." Soarin trots into the room, then crinkles his nose. "Christ, this room has a funk to it…" He stops mid word, looking at Irony, then his glance takes in a sleeping Moon Shadow, and then he notices my glowing face. Then he falls over laughing.

I look at Irony, her face matches mine. We both look down.

"I can't believe it big sis. You've been a pony and a female for a week, and already you are getting it on," Soarin barely gets out around his chuckles.

"Damn, Soarin, you have to tell the entire world?" I say to renewed peals of laughter from the blue pegasus.

Irony sits on her haunches next to me, I lean into her. That feels nice, then what Soarin said finally penetrates. "The feds?" I look at Irony.

"When the government wants to move fast, they can."

I look down, thinking hard. "Irony, you and Moon Shadow stay here for now. Don't need that complication." I turn to Soarin. "Let's haul some ass."

In moments we are in the air, and the flight to the farm only takes a few minutes. As we are coming in, I see a half dozen black SUV's clustered around the farmhouse, and some humans walking around. One of them seems to be in charge, I do a wonderbolt landing right in front of him, slamming to the ground to kick up quite a bit of snow. As it clears, the human can finally see me clearly.

He clears his throat. "I am Agent Walker from the FBI, out of Bismarck, North Dakota. I'm looking for the owner of this farm."

I keep my wings spread. "That would be me."

A long silence, finally he says, "And you are?"

"Lightning Dust. I was a member of the Canterlot Wonderbolts. But now I'm just a pony here. But, yes. I do own this farm." I glance around, the drywallers seem to be keeping busy. The buildings are going to be ready for habitation soon.

"Are you aware of the agreement?"

I nod. "Yes, I am. But I'm not putting you guys up in this place, you'll either have to bring your own housing, or rough it. There are a few fairly nice hotels in town."

His expression darkens, I continue, "This is my land, private land. And you are here as part of our agreement so you feds won't keep abducting ponies." My wings remain spread, I really don't like these humans, a big part of the back of my mind is screaming that they are a threat. "So, you said you want to see demonstrations of our abilities. Some of these ponies still think they are humans that have been hit by some kind of virus or mutagen. My friends and I are having to work on that."

"How do you know that's not true?"

"Because of my memories, and the memories of some of the ponies here. There are too many correlations to even explain a mass hallucination. Plus the fact that we can perform magic, giving a big middle finger to everything physicists say. We are really ponies from that television show, somehow cursed to live on your world and most of us probably will want nothing more than to head home in peace."

"Do you know if you can get home?"

My ears fall. "No, none of our memories are complete, only bits and pieces remain."

I hear the roar of a semi-truck engine, and see three of them coming down the road to the farmhouse. I gesture with a wing. "And what are those?"

"We expected to be able to perform MRI and CT scanning of the ponies. We are bringing the equipment."

"I hope you brought generators to power this stuff." I'm not paying the power bill for those high draw pieces of equipment.

He smiles. "We did."

I nod. "That's good. Now, if you want to interview ponies, I volunteer for first."

He nods back. "That would be fine."

Comments

[Lt Rainbow Slash]

...ok good but I could do without the romance bits. Eh what can I say. I've never liked shipping and clop. Not what I'm here for. Otherwise great chapter!

[Sparky Brony]

4717894 I'm not a big fan of clop myself. Though I've read some absolutely excellent stories that are very cloppy. So I've gone from disdain over the very idea of clop, to accepting of it.

When it comes to romance though, I really enjoy writing it, and the emotions of the characters really appeals to me. So I do write romance, and I've been told it's pretty good (by my wife no less). If you don't care for it, I apologize, but I hope you enjoy the rest of the story.

[Phenrys]

4717894
4718016
CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP!

All joking aside, clop isn't for everyone, and neither is romance. However, Sparky, I do think you do a great job at the romance. And this is a damn good story, imo! (Yeah, I know I might be a little biased, but still...)

[Sparky Brony]

4718056 Nah, no bias at all here.

In all seriousness, I've read some really good erotic stories that have nothing to do with our ponies. And I've read some really good clop. If someone doesn't like clop, it's up to them, but I'll say this, if you ignore a story because it has an adult element to it, you just might find you are missing some really damned good stories.

[Phenrys]

4718072
I most definitely have to agree with you there. Ignoring something because of one small bit of it is just plain foalish.

[xpete1]

I NEEEEEEED more updates.

[Sparky Brony]

4723161 I had originally planned on a weekly update cycle, but I'm finding that I can write these massive chapters fairly quickly, on some days the words just pour out. Rest assured, I'll keep updating, I love this story, and I swear I've completely gotten into Dust's head (poor her) when it comes to the story. I hope you enjoy the updates as they appear.

4722728 And thank you so much for that. It feels pretty good to me to do the writing, I find myself visualizing the scenes while I'm at work, so I'm pretty ready to write when I'm done with work for the day.

[PiMan]

Finally caught up on this. For some reason I forgot to mark it as read later when I first saw it. Now marked as favourite instead.

Pretty good, although it is awkward that it is running at least a couple days ahead of Irony's Story.
The story is progressing quite quickly, and for the most part that's fine but every now and then I see something that appears to be a mistake only for it to be explained later more clearly. The main point I'm thinking of is Mike's age and how that deviates from 5 score/4, but that wasn't the only moment.

[Sparky Brony]

4724296 I was deliberately inserting elements that are not typical of a 5 score story. Mike being 35, but the reason is because of LD's magic (I discussed the idea with Twisted Spectrum and he said it sounded interesting). And I try to be aware of those 'mistakes', because I do have a purpose. This story is a 5 score story, but it's my own twist on said story. I will be referring to what happened in the main story (the blast in Seattle, RD tripping air defense, and other events) because I want to tie in. And yes, Lightning is going to go to Iowa and talk to RD. The rapid pacing in the beginning is intentional as well, as the meat of the story starts when the transformations are complete.

[PiMan]

4724393
I know you did it intentionally but the reason for it didn't become clear until after I would have expected it in the story. When something messes with the pony's arrival, I expect the explanation to either be in the flashback or specifically in Discord's rhyme (and possibly contextualised immediately afterwords). In this story, I didn't catch the reason for Mike's extra ten years until somewhat after that.

[Sparky Brony]

4726244 Ahh, I thought the inference would be obvious when Dust said she was going to push Discord a decade out of time, but in fact got herself pushed a decade. Discord did not know that her magic would affect his that way, his intention was five score divided by four. I'll work on seeing if I can make that a little more obvious.Thank you, as always, for input on the story.

[PiMan]

4726285
Maybe I was just reading too fast and skipping past things. That happens sometimes.
I just reread the passage and I think some sort of little tweek would be enough. Perhaps ruminating on "decade out of time" when he wakes up, or taking an extra moment to mention the issue when next discussing it with someone else but not as though it were assumed knowledge.

[Sparky Brony]

4726561 I'll ponder on the addition. Thank you for the input. I love input, lol.

[Sparky Brony]

4746777 Actually, chapter 3 tells you why Mike is 35 when he turns into Dust. In a nutshell, LD has time displacement abilities, and she was using them on Discord when his spell mixed with her bolt, throwing her 10 years back in time, and also adding 10 years to her sentence as a human.

[exsnaggerwes]

I put in one of those instant hot water systems in the house,

Hax
The conversations in this are blowing my mind. I can handle all the dirty sex and stuff, but the parts about them being married and still feeling that way are just too much for my virgin eyes to take. This is very intriguing to read, but also torture on the heart

what Soarin said finally penetrates.

Don't think we didn't notice that choice of words in context

[Titan Commander Sebaste]

Hoo boy, this is getting crazy!

[BestinDworld]

4724393
have you thought of doing another five score story? say.....sunset shimmer? or twilight sparkle? dragonlord ember?

[HeartfireFirebrand]

8275319
They are already covered one in the main story here Five Score, Divided by Four - [MatureVersion] and Five Score, Divided by Four

[HeartfireFirebrand]

8275319
Apparently they can't make any more the site banned them, if you want to go up in arms about it I'll support you.

[Chrome Masquerade]

"Uhhh, hi there, Irony."

I think in this case it's more "good timing" on her part.

[hyreia]

I feel so bad for Helen up to this point. I'm really rooting for her. She's a strong person and I can't imagine how she feels going through all of this. Emotions are usually processed after the fact in this story so far with Dust. I think Helen is equally as strong emotionally and is probably a little lost at this point. She clearly has no strong interest in sex with ponies or in women so the only version of Dust she'd want is Mike from April 30th, before all of this started. </3

I don't remember her getting much character progression last time I read this, but that was a long time ago.