Dust on the Wind

by Sparky Brony

Chapter 2. What is Going on Here?

Chapter 2. What is going on here?

Five AM, as always, comes way too soon. I reach over and silence the alarm on my phone. Glancing at the time I roll over and put my arm around my wife. She slowly stirs and opens her eyes. Her blue eyes are always the best thing to see in the morning. I give her a kiss and get up to head to the bathroom. Taking care of the inevitable I head back into the bedroom, my wife had turned on the light on her side of the bed. She looks over at me. A flash of anger flashes across her face, she inhales and shouts.

"Hannah!" Her voice echoes across the house. After several moments of silence she hollers again. This time I hear the thump, thump, thump, of my daughters footsteps across the house. My door opens.

"Yes, Mommy?"

"What did you do to your father?"

"Huh?"

Huh? I look down, what's wrong with me. My wife points down on my upper thigh, I follow the line from her finger and see a lightning bolt with three stars imprinted on the skin of my thigh. I do a double take. What the fuck is that?

My daughter comes further into the room, her eyes wide.

"Now, Hannah, is this one of your pranks, staying up late to put some kind of tattoo on your dad? You know, you liking those ponies has gone pretty far."

"Mommy, I haven't done anything like that. But that's a cool cutie mark. If I did do it though, it would be Fluttershy's cutie mark."
Fluttershy? Oh, yeah, from that show she likes.

I move over to my wife and get my thigh in range, she prods and presses the skin.

"Well, if you've gotten a wild hair up your ass and gotten a tattoo, it wouldn't be this detailed. And it would be red and swollen too," she murmurs as she scratches the edge, "This looks almost natural even." She turns and glares at my daughter, who visibly shrinks from the gaze. "If you are behind this…" She leaves the threat unfinished as I move away.

"Honey, she didn't do it, we are looking at the worst liar in Montana right here." It's true, my daughters emotions are always evident on her face, lying is very difficult for her. "I need to hop in the shower, I'll try to scrub it off there." I turn to my daughter. "Go start getting ready for school, and turn on your brother's light so he can get ready himself.

Twenty minutes later I'm in the kitchen, bowls of cereal and milk for everyone. My daughter looks excitedly at me. "So, Daddy, did your cutie mark come off in the shower?"

I sigh and shake my head.

"Well, I looked online, you've got Lightning Dust's cutie mark."

Lightning Dust. Who the fuck is that? I look at my wife quizzically, to which she lifts her eyebrows.

Well, I don't have time to worry about that. I've got to get going to work, since it's just after 6AM. I hop into my truck and wait for a moment for the glow plugs to warm up. The diesel fires to life and purrs contentedly. In less than ten minutes I hit the button on my visor and the bay door slowly rises. Backing into my bay I grab my laptop and tablet, and move into the office. In moments I've got the large fifty cup coffee maker brewing and I'm sitting in my comfortable chair. As usual, the emails are hopping once I wake my computer from sleep mode. The rest of the hour fades quickly, my office staff shows up first and each pokes their head in to say hi before opening the front office for the day. And right before seven the start showing up. Thirty journeymen and nearly double that in apprentices get to be a large crowd. The dirt excavators show up as well, getting their daily assignments. I grab my tablet and walk out the door and up the stairs to the main conference room. The journeymen follow me upstairs as the apprentices start preparing the trucks for the day of work.

The morning meeting is always important, most of the journeymen are told by the host companies what needs to be done, so they update me on the progress of their various projects.

"Well, it's Friday, the first of May. Spring is here." I get chuckles from around the room, spring hits up here a bit later than most places. There's still a foot of snow on the ground in most places.

I look to each journeyman and get updates from each one, notating on my tablet so I know where my guys are. After about twenty minutes, we are all up to date.

"Well, that's all I've got for the morning, stay safe out there." I hear the distant thunder of feet on the stairs. One of my senior journeymen stands up.

"Well, Mike. When you took over, you gave us all generous raises, and you've been updating company trucks and equipment to keep everything modern." He stops and looks at the rest of the guys and gals. I'm lucky to have three female journeymen electricians at my shop. One of them started as an apprentice with my company. He turns back to me, and they all burst into song, singing me happy birthday. As they finish the door opens and almost everyone who works for me files through the door. Patricia, the office manager, has a huge birthday cake in her hands, which she sets it front of me and, red faced in embarrassment, I blow out the candles.

"Guys, you shouldn't have," I say through a grin. "Thank you."

He smiles hugely. "We aren't done, let's go downstairs."

We all file down the stairs into the main shop, and with a big bow on top, a large Snap-On tool chest is sitting there.

I move up to the big red tool chest, "You really shouldn't have. This must have cost thousands." I open a drawer and am floored, I open a second drawer, then quickly go through them all. Every drawer is full of tools, everything from Klein electrician's tools, to a full mechanics set from Snap-On. Strike that, there's over ten thousand dollars in the chest and tools here. I open the big bottom drawer and there's a compliment of air driven tools as well. I feel a large hand clap on my back. "Boss man, what do you get the guy who has everything?" I look at him with tears in my eyes. "Tools?"

A chorus of laughter from the assembled crowd. I laugh and give him a hug. Then I'm deluged with hands to be shaken. I ignore the tears in my eyes. I'm touched by my crew, I couldn't ask for a better crew of guys.

An hour later the last of the trucks is on its way out into the field. My out of town crew is due in later today, so Pat made sure to set aside enough cake for them when they came in. I sit down in my office. I'm checking my email, and answering the birthday emails most of the clients have sent me today. With the exception of finding weird shapes on my thighs this morning, today has been awesome.

***

One of the nice things about being the boss is I can leave the shop when I want, one of the bad things about being the boss is that I'm always on call, as evident by the call to fix the relay in the pumping unit yesterday. Happily, today my phone is somewhat quiet, though the shop phone is pretty much always busy. Such is life in the oil field. I plow through my emails and by noon I'm pretty much caught up. I put my computer in sleep mode and grab my jacket.

"On my way home, call if ya need me," I say as I stick my head into Pat's office.

"Hey, if you wanted to color your hair, should let your wife do it rather than doing it here."

Huh?"What are you talking about Pat?"

She laughs and points at my head, "I'll admit, blonde isn't really your color, but it looks pretty good on you." I narrow my eyes, what the fuck, is this some kind of prank?

"Your shitting me, right?"

She looks serious. "No, Mike. I'm not shitting you. Some of your hair is brown, some is blonde. Go look in the mirror."

I hustle over to the mirror in the bathroom. She's not messing with me, I pull my black cowboy hat off, and look at my hair. Streaks of blonde are all through my hair. What. The. Fuck? I put my hat back on head to my truck, shaking my head as I fire up my truck. Now, this is a crazy day.

Backing into my parking spot I step out and head to the front door.

"I'm home," I call into the house.

Silence.

I move over to the door to the garage, my wife's bay is empty. She must be off somewhere. I shrug as I head to my home office. I sit down in my big office chair and look at the neatly organized space. I think for a moment and pull out my laptop. I turn and hit the radio while I'm waiting for the computer to boot up. I hit the iPod without noticing the screen. Music starts playing and I let it fade into the background while I log into my laptop. It connects to the house wi-fi and I open the browser. While it's loading I pay attention to the music.

Come on everypony smile, smile, smile. Fill my heart with sunshine, sunshine.

What the hell, I snatch the iPod off the radio and look at it. I manipulate the menu for a moment, It's in the folder, Hannah's Playlists, and the specific playlist is called My Little Pony. The song is called the Smile Song, and it seems to be a remix. Who is the Living Tombstone? I toss the iPod onto the desk as I enter the term 'Lightning Dust' into Google. Clicking on the images link I pull up a light blue-green pegasus with a blonde mane. Oh shit, I don't have safe search on, I have to sigh. Rule 34 rules the internet.

I look up more on this pegasus, she... Wait a moment, a she? What the hell! I shake my head and continue reading, she first showed up in the season three episode 'Wonderbolts Academy" and then again in season five she shows up twice more. And she's a Wonderbolt. Which leads me to search the Wonderbolts, ahh, a performance team like the Air Force Thunderbirds. I sigh, definitely colorful. I'm reading for a couple of hours and then I notice my hearing has completely gone away. I jerk and feel for my ears, putting my hands to the side of my head, smooth skin greets my exploring fingertips. But now I can hear, what the hell? I feel my hair, ah, there they are. Wait a moment, they are at the top of my head, and now they are furry.This is totally weird.

My office chair ends up on its side as I jump up and rush to the downstairs bathroom. I stare at myself in the mirror, almost all my hair is now a two toned blonde, just like the picture. It's still in its signature ponytail that I've kept my hair in for the last decade or so. Though it's no longer to the middle of my back, it's actually shorter. I turn my head to the side and feel down my neck. The hair is growing out of my neck. Just like a horse, or a pony I guess. This is getting weirder and weirder. I hear the front door open, my ears flick to follow the sound, I see it in the mirror and can feel it. God, that is so weird. I hear my daughter's voice.

"I'm home Daddy."

"Have a good day at school sweetie?" I ask, noticing my voice is a little higher than it was this morning. What the hell is going on here!? She steps to the open door of the bathroom.

"What did you do to your hair, daddy?" she asks.

I look at her with wide eyes. "I didn't do anything to my hair, Hannah." She suddenly squeals.

"You've got pony ears, Daddy!"

I sigh. "Yes, they just appeared."

"Can I touch them?" she asks with all the seriousness that a 10 year old girl can muster.

Once again, I sigh and get down on a knee, "Sure hun, just be gentle, they seem to be sensitive."

She runs her fingers gently along the edges and feels the fur. "That's the same color as Lightning Dust."

Well, no duh, child.

"What is going on, Daddy?"

I smile at her. "I don't know what's going on, Hannah, but I'll figure it out."

"What if you are turning into Lightning Dust?"

That question makes me pause. What if I'm turning into a pony. I think about it for a moment. Nah, it can't be happening. "Sweetie, whatever is happening, we'll make it work."

She jumps onto me to give me a huge hug and I watch her scamper to her room with a promise to get her homework done quickly. I move back to my office and right my office chair. Sitting down, I'm looking up more things on the internet when I hear my son open the door. In moments he's heading upstairs. Probably to play on his video game system. I sigh. I've been on the internet for hours trying to figure things out. Then my phone chirps once again.

"Bro." I hear a muffled sob.

"Hey, sis. Are you on your way here?"

"Yeah, I'm just passing Miles City. I'll be there in a couple of hours."

I know that tone.

"What's wrong Maddie?"

Silence from the other end of the line.

"Let me guess, your hair has changed color and now you've got pony ears growing from the top of your head."

Silence for a long moment, then a very small voice, "How did you know."

"Mine is two toned blonde, and the ears are a light blue-green."

"Black and light blue respectively."

"I'll be waiting for you when you get here, sis. This has to be something big." I notice a really weird feeling around my backside. I reach down, then stand up and loosen my jeans. I pull out a blonde tail, after a few moments of shock I say into the phone, "Sis, you might want to pull over, seriously, like right now."

"Okay, big bro."

In moments I hear a scream. "Got a tail now, sis?"

"How the fuck did you know that?"

"Mine grew in while I was talking to you."

"You are shitting me. It's not funny. Why are you not freaking out about this?"

"Freaking out is for after the crisis, you know that Maddie."

"That's not the Mike that I know, you were always the aggressive and brash one. You were the first to freak out when things went wrong."

"Maddie, you know how that never helped anything, so I've had to grow up, a lot. I'll freak out later. Right now, this crazy joke is being played on both of us. Get that tail comfortable and get your ass here. Understand?"

I hear the roar of an engine over the phone line as she accelerates. "I'll be there as soon as I can. We need answers to this."

No fucking kidding Maddie.

I thumb the phone call off as my wife walks into the room.

"What the fuck did you do to your hair?" she asks.

"Why, is there something wrong with it?"

She looks at me, anger evident. "You know what I mean."

I smile a shit eating grin at her. "You mean my hair has changed blonde since I got up this morning. And then I've grown pony ears." I flick an ear at her, causing her eyes to widen, "And then this grew in." I stand up and turn around, I swish my tail from side to side. Only to hear a crash as she slumps to the floor. Damn, she took it worse than I did. I rush over to my passed out wife and pick her up. I notice that either she's lighter than she usually is, or I'm stronger. I stagger up the stairs and put her on the bed. Wetting a wash cloth I wipe her face with the wet cloth. In moments her eyes flutter open. And immediately fill with tears.

"What is happening to you, honey?"

"I wish I knew, but from the evidence, I'm somehow turning into a cartoon pony." I reach over and grab my phone, after a quick search I pull up a picture of Lightning Dust and show it to her. She looks at the picture then at me.

"Is that a mare or a stallion?"

"A mare."

"Uh, honey, if you are really turning into her, you might have some issues."

"And you think I don't have any issues now? I just grew a fucking tail."

"Yeah, and you are going to lose your fucking penis."

Those words silence me. Okay, NOW is freak out time.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me!" I shout as I stand up and storm around the room. "We have finally gotten on our feet after the mess of buying Lightning Electric, I've finally achieved the goals that you and I set when I became an apprentice. For crying out fucking loud, Helen. What the fuck are we going to do?"

"I'm the one married to a fucking pony, a fucking female pony. What the fuck is going on here?"

I sigh, and choke back a sob, a mane, ears, and tail, I can take in stride, but my manhood? Fuck no.

"I wish I knew honey."

"What are we going to do? You just got our debts cleared up from buying the company. You've finally put some serious money in our bank account, but what are we going to do?"

"I don't know." I stand up and start pacing.

"Why are you doing that?"

"I'm pacing, I'm trying to think."

"No, not the pacing, why are you walking on your tiptoes?"

Huh? I look down and sure enough, my heels are off the ground. I force them down and it feels odd, almost painful. I stop concentrating and they pop back up. What. The. Fuck?

"I don't know. But, Maddie is on her way here, and she grew her tail just after I did, I was on the phone with her when it happened."

"Oh, that's just great."

"No kidding, right?"

I stop and think for a moment. This is seriously messed up. I finally come to a conclusion.

"Well, we've got plenty of food, we've got two deer in the freezer, and plenty of leftover elk in the chest freezer from last season."
"None of which you are going to be able to eat."

That stops me in my tracks. "Huh?"

"Sweetheart, you are turning into a pony, what do ponies eat?"

I think about it for a moment. "Oh shit."

"Yup, welcome to the vegan lifestyle."

"I'm not giving up eggs and milk."

She laughs at me. "You are so damned stubborn."

"And you married me."

We both laugh as she gets out of bed and we head down to the living room, my daughter is there, she's got a box set of blu-ray disks in her hand.

"Daddy, since you are turning into her, I think you need to see the episodes with Lightning Dust."

I sigh and sit on the overstuffed couch, then yelp as I jump back up, then moving my tail to be more comfortable. Though I'm glad I cut a hole in the jeans for the tail, gotta be decent around the kids.

She boots up the blu-ray player and inserts a disk for season three. I'm shortly assaulted by bright, cheery colors. But the episode itself is pretty cool. I watch the character my daughter drew, Rainbow Dash, fly as the wing pony of Lightning Dust. I look at my wife. She's completely enraptured. After the pony's life dream is crushed by her own arrogance, I watch the credits roll.

"Well, it's not bad. No, I'm lying. It's actually a pretty good show."

After the second episode with Lightning Dust, I look at my wife. She's got tears in her eyes. "Her life is a lot like yours, frustrated when you were young, but then you buckled down and started kicking serious ass." I think about it, and she's right. Right after high school, I had an appointment to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, I was going to fly fighter jets. Then, I lost it, for medical reasons. I bummed around for a few years until at age twenty, I found an apprenticeship to be an electrician. Once I got my journeyman's license, I worked my ass off, got my master's license and then saved, scrimped, borrowed and begged to get enough money to purchase Lightning Electric.

Since then I've been off like a shot. I turned an industrial electrical contractor to a multi-function company. We do oilfield electrical work, we have a large excavation division, and I've recently purchased some hydro excavator trucks, so we can dig for more than our guys, although about 80% of our excavators work is for our electrical division. I was planning on buying the local roustabout company, I had about 60% of the required funds for that purchase. I was going places. And it took a shit ton of work to get all that going. And now all of that is in the shitter. I'm turning into a fucking pony.

"Can we stop this?" I ask plaintively.

"We don’t even have a clue how this is happening, how can we stop it?"

"But, Daddy. This is so cool!" my daughter chimes in.

I turn to her, I've got to keep cool. She's ten, with a ten year olds point of view. "Hannah, while I admit changing into a completely different species might seem cool."

She interrupts me. "No, Daddy, you are turning into a pegasus, you are going to grow wings. Even I know how much you wish you could have flown fighter jets, now you are going to be able to fly better than they can."

Her revelation stuns me. I sit down heavily. "I'm going to be able to fly?" Then the wall clock catches my attention. "Sweetie, it's almost time for bed, go take a shower."

Time for some whining. "But Dad, I don't have school tomorrow. And we haven't had dinner yet."

Wait, what? I completely forgot about dinner. My wife jumps up and heads to the kitchen.

"Don't worry, Maddie will be here soon, let's just order pizza." I look at my daughter. "You can stay up late because tomorrow's Saturday, but I don't know how we are going to handle this. I really hope this can be reversed."

We are all interrupted by the door bell. My son bounces down the stairs to answer it.

"Hi, Aunt Maddie," I hear from the entryway, and they emerge into the living room. My son looks at me, his brow furrows. "Dad, what's going on?"

I sigh as my daughter jumps up and hugs her brother. "Daddy's turning into a pony."

He successfully fends off his sister then sits down in a chair across from the couch. "Seriously, dad?"

I lower my head, and I can feel my ears flatten, I nod.

"That is so fucking cool!" causing my head to jerk up,

"Watch your language, young man."

He smiles sheepishly. "Sorry, Dad."

Maddie comes into the room and sits down.

"What's going on with us? We are turning into ponies, why us?"

"I wish I knew little sis, I wish I knew."

We continue talking until the pizza shows up, then we continue talking until late at night, during that time my hair is done being hair, it's a mane, all trace of brown is gone. Maddie's mane takes on the color of one of the other Wonderbolts, Soarin. And of course we watch the episodes with him. Gotta find out everything about our alter egos.

She ends up sitting on the couch with her head in her hands, a half drunk rum and coke on the coffee table in front of her. "Why us? Why now?"

I take a swig of vodka, my goal for the night is to end up completely and totally wasted. I'm pretty far along right now. I can tell my words are slurring as I speak, "Maddie, I don't have a clue. This couldn't have happened at a worse time?"

She stands up violently, knocking the table back and spilling her drink. Though she doesn't seem to care, "A bad time for you? Look at you big brother! You are married, you have children, you own your own fucking company. Your bank account and your investment accounts amount to several million dollars. You don't have a care in the world." She stops for a moment, tears spill from her eyes, "What about me, big bro?" Her voice catches in her throat, "I haven't finished college, I have forty thousand dollars in student loans. I'm living with friends over in Bozeman. My bank account is negative, I used the last of the cash I had to drive here, in a car that's falling apart." She sinks down into the couch. "I'm a failure."

I jump from my seat over to my sister. I put my arm around her and she leans into me. I sigh, "Are things really that bad, sis?"
She nods as she starts to sob. "And to top it off, I'm going through an unwilling sex change." She starts to wail. I just sit there and let her cry herself out. After several minutes she winds down.

"Maddie, you don't need to worry about anything. Until we can find a way to change ourselves back, you are welcome here." I look at my wife, seeing her nodding her agreement, I take a deep breath and continue, keeping an eye on my wife as I talk. "You are my sister, and we will take care of you. Don't worry about the student loans, don't worry about your debts. I was going to use that money that I've got to expand the company." I stop and sigh, damnit, I feel tears starting to form. "That's out the window for the immediate future now though. We will help you get on your feet."

She pushes me away. "I don't want your charity, Michael. I'll get by, I always have. And this is the first time I've ever told you about my problems."

"It's not charity, Maddie." This comes from my wife. Her voice is soft. "You are family, and family takes care of each other. If I had known before now, those problems would already be fixed, even if it meant delaying the company expansion. We are going to fix this problem." She looks at me, her look brooks no argument. "And Mike was right, you are going to stay here." She gently puts her hands on each side of my sisters head and gently forces her to look into her blue eyes, "Maddie, we all love you, and we will help you."

Maddie sniffles a bit. "I'll pay you back."

Helen scoffs at her. "If you send me any money, I'll just donate it to some charity, we really are doing pretty well. How about an animal rescue fund?"

Maddie narrows her eyes at my wife. Then my wife's eyes go wide. "Holy fuck, what happened to your eyes Maddie?"

My sister turns and looks at me. I get a good look at her eyes, instead of the soft blue that they have always been, they are now bright green. I sit there in shock. Maddie squints a bit to get a better look at me. "I'm not the only one. Mike, I don't think it's humanly possible to have golden yellow eyes."

This necessitates a running, stumbling trip to the bathroom mirror. As we always did as brother and sister, we are pushing against each other jockeying for position as we get into the bathroom. I peer into my eyes. I now have eye color that is impossible in the human genome. I look at my sister, she's got her eyelids pried wide as she swipes a finger across the surface of her eye. "I would think I would remember putting in contacts," she murmurs as she checks both eyes.

"They changed right in front of me, Maddie," my wife says, her voice trembling. Her strength goes completely out of her legs as she sits heavily on the floor. "My husband is turning into a pegasus pony," she says woodenly, "and his sister is becoming a stallion. This is real, isn't it?" She looks at Maddie and I, tears are really starting to flow. "I mean, this isn't some bad dream that I'm going to wake up from?" She's starting to ramble. I grab my wife and hug her, both of us on the floor. In moments my sister joins in the hug.

"I really wish it were a dream, honey," I say. "But I don't think it is.

Comments

[Maximilian_del_torro]

Talk about some deep shit man this story hits it where it hurts

[Texus]

I hope he have to stay as a pony, i say it because i doesn´t have find one fanfic, with a Human which turned into a Pony and have to stay on Earth.

[Texus]

"Yeah, and you are going to lose your fucking penis."

Those words silence me. Okay, NOW is freak out time.

that was a good one^^

[Trigger_Finger]

Woah... I never read Five score, or whatever the original story was called... but this is kinda neat and interesting. Usually transforming is described as utterly and mind-boggelingly painful.

[Misty Horse]

So i found out about this part of irony's story, so i'm reading it. Definitely enjoying it so far. Noticing the big difference between the two writing styles. The one thing hitting me already is the pacing. Primarily where it seems irony's part took longer to change.

[Nightshade Dawn]

I love how that instead of the usual 25 year old changing it's a 35 year old.

[swyrl]

meh, writing's okay and the pace is a bit fast, but it's refreshing to see a change in someone who's really settled down and tied to more than just their job and their bank account. I'm hooked.

The characters could use a bit of work, but at least the two mane characters aren't to bad. I suppose I'll just have to wait and see.

[TGbrony]

5018360
You should read the original, very good but I think that goes without saying considering how many sidefics it's spawned

[TGbrony]

The pace is a lot faster than usual for five score, about half the changes within 1 day, but doesn't need to be a exact copy of original to be good anyway been well written and unique so far seems this will be a good 1

[Titan Commander Sebaste]

Well this is new....

[ThatBadGuy]

a large Snap-On...

commentphotos.com/gallery/CommentPhotos.com_1406570708.jpg

...tool chest is sitting there.

i.imgflip.com/dbqdv.jpg

I move up to the big red tool

s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/d4/ec/a1/d4eca13e88e2ca5149f9e946c4d2f6b8.jpg

[ThatBadGuy]

Rule 34 rules the internet.

i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/002/690/1193257796452.jpg

[WeepingDiscord]

"Yeah, and you are going to lose your fucking penis."

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES MY MANHOOD IS ENDING

[WeepingDiscord]

5018360
Read the original it’s more described in the transformation

[Victor07]

i want to know why he is ten years older than most pony

[Sparky Brony]

11409932
During the fight with Discord, Dust was using her time displacement magic. She had charged it up as hard as she could before releasing. Hers and Discord's magic combined and then hit Dust, Making the curse last 10 years longer, and throwing her 10 years back in time.

[Victoria]

"Yeah, and you are going to lose your fucking penis."
Those words silence me. Okay, NOW is freak out time.

That is what finally freaked him out! Though I totally get it. I don't envy his sister who's becoming Soarin...

He was taking that pony thing too well and figured out what was happening to him pretty quickly. Wish it had taken him a bit longer, but oh well.

"Sweetheart, you are turning into a pony, what do ponies eat?"

Damn, they're figuring out stuff fast. Maybe too fast...

"I'm the one married to a fucking pony, a fucking female pony. What the fuck is going on here?"

Well, let's hope that his wife was bi all along.