Chapter 18
When the knock on the door first came, I was too busy contemplating my stranger of a reflection to hear it. After the third knock, a familiar maid tiphoofed into the room. Upon seeing me, she froze in place and blinked a couple of times.
“I see,” she said, staring. “I should get Princess Celestia.”
“Yeah, you probably should,” I responded, not bothering to conceal my higher voice.
As her yellow tail disappeared around the corner I had to wonder how much she and others like her really knew about my situation. Hopping up on the bed to wait, I tried to recall who knew at this point. Truthfully I wanted something else to contemplate, as otherwise I was left stealing glances at the mirror every couple of seconds to see if my mane had reverted to pink. Finally, after a few awkward minutes of waiting, the pony giantess appeared in the doorway. She knocked despite the open door, and I squeaked my consent.
She entered the room, taking measured steps while regarding me.
“Aron… I’m sorry. There’s no easy way about this,” she said in a heavy tone. “You probably don’t want to hear this now, but give it time. Although it may seem impossible to you now, you will adapt, as you already have brilliantly. I’m sure this will be the hardest obstacle by far; there’s no getting around that fact, but...”
What’s with all the drama? I thought
“Just know that colt or filly, you’re still you.” After finishing her monologue she looked me in the eyes for the first time and said with a concerned expression, “You’re taking this fairly well. I didn’t think—”
“I’m still a colt,” I interjected.
A palpable silence fell over the room, and the princess flashed me an enigmatic smile.
“Hmm, at least they’re fairly nice colors,” Celestia said, unsure.
“That’s all you have to say?” I wasn’t upset, but I had expected another apology.
“Perhaps I should have been more tactful. Do you not like your new colors?”
I shrugged. “I don’t mind them. It’s not like I was particularly attached to my old colors. Besides, you warned me this might happen.”
Celestia looked around the room, avoiding my gaze. It was as if she was holding out hope that I might forget what I had just heard.
“So,” I began, “that’s the pep-talk you have planned for when I become a filly?”
Celestia nodded sheepishly.
“What do you think?”
“It needs work,” I stated plainly.
“I was going to hug you as well. You’re still welcome to it.”
“Go ahead,” I said reluctantly. If there was one thing I had learned from Squirt, it was that it’s best to get the unpleasant parts out of the way early. Still, when the princess wrapped her forehooves around me and stroked my withers with a white wing, I experienced a disconcerting calm. In that moment, I felt an internal warmth. It was as if she and I were the only ponies in the world. When she released me, it was tempting to just bask in the afterglow, but I dragged myself back to reality with a question.
“Do you have any idea what could have caused my colors to change?”
“I’m afraid I don’t. I was hoping you would have some ideas. Of course, it’s always possible that the changes managed to progress without an outside magical catalyst.”
I thought back to the day before.
“Hmm… the only stray magic I encountered yesterday came from that supervillain’s magical device. My crystal absorbed most of it, but it’s possible that some of it hit me.”
“It’s possible,” Celestia said. “Though I’d have expected the change to be more immediate if this were the case.”
“Is there a way to check?”
“There are a couple of quick spells I can try; however, I’ll only risk a superficial examination for fear of transforming you further.”
“Go ahead.”
Her horn glowed gold, and I felt a slight tingling. The alicorn’s eyes gazed through me, and I felt strangely exposed.
“Hmm… internally you are still a colt, which is a good sign. But as expected, you are now genetically female. I’m not an expert like Twilight or the professor, but I’d estimate that this is a highly unstable state for you.”
“Meaning?”
“To be candid, I can say I don’t expect you to remain a colt much longer.”
I felt a cold anxiety grip my heart as I imagined losing more of myself to this world.
“Well... I knew that already.”
She continued to run her eyes across my tiny body.
“Magically, I don’t detect anything out of the ordinary… I suppose this means some time in the recent past your y chromosome became an x… And it just started to manifest in your colors?”
I shrugged, not understanding any of what she had just said. “Don’t look at me. Like you said: let’s ask Twilight or the professor.”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid the scientist in either mare would keep you under the microscope you until the mystery is solved. And I’d rather you not miss school.”
“I can’t exactly go to school looking like this, can I?”
Celestia smiled, undeterred by my perfect excuse. Her horn glowed, and she pulled a small, familiar ring out of nowhere. “I take it you remember this?”
I nodded.
“I modified it to show a colt in your original colors.”
“That might work… but what about my voice?
Celestia smiled. “An apt concern, but you have been able to throw your voice to approximate your colt voice, correct?”
“Yes, but—”
“If and when your voice can’t be hidden any longer, I know a zebra alchemist who can help us with a potion.” Celestia seemed to be enjoying knocking down my excuses.
Several objections came to mind, but this time I took a second to sift through them in order to choose the best. “You can keep putting band-aids on the problem, but eventually the changes will be too much. I mean, I’m getting younger all the time, right?”
Celestia sighed. “You have been doing so well at Canterlot First that I want to keep you there as long as possible. However, yes, once your wings come in, the ring’s illusion won’t be able to protect you from what incidental contact may reveal. To address what you asked about, you have gotten younger as well, although it’s not noticeable at this point.”
“So what does that mean?”
“We’ll talk about it when the time comes. For now, you should probably start walking to school.”
I shuffled my hooves nervously. “Actually, there’s one more thing I forgot to tell you…”
Celestia cocked her head and smiled serenely.
“When I first woke up my mane was—it was pink. I wasn’t happy about this, and I... freaked out. I don’t know how it happened, but when I next opened my eyes, the pink was gone.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a trick of the light?”
“Positive.”
“Interesting. I would guess it was an intermediate color. Another possibility I would normally consider is that you unknowingly used alicorn volition magic; however, your magic seal is still intact. Hmm.. I’ll have Twilight do some tests while you’re at school, since the map didn’t call her.”
Map?
She then requested a hair sample and stored some of my saliva in a small vial. Celestia then used her magic to brush my long bangs out of the way, and levitated the ring towards me.
“Wait a minute. My horn’s so small. You can’t possibly fit both it and the crystal on—”
No sooner had I said it than she had successfully slipped the ring on me.
Celestia moved closer to examine my doubly equipped horn.
“I see… that makes sense.”
I stared at her for being weird about it and waved my hoof for her to continue.
“You remember how your signature indicates a prematurely born alicorn foal?”
“How could I forget? Ten weeks before term, right?”
Celestia nodded. “Since you have been here for several weeks now, your magical signature has aged as well. Alicorns tend to have longer horns than most ponies’. And judging from my experience with Cadance, your horn will grow more yet in the coming weeks.”
Reading my mind, Celestia levitated the mirror directly in front of me and removed my horn's accouterments. What had been but a nub before now resembled something of an actual horn. What had been a wart-like white was now sky blue to match my new fur. It was still small, but now it actually spiraled twice before reaching the tip.
I don’t understand… it was a deformity before, and I treated it as such. There shouldn’t be a horn on my head at all! So why should I feel any different?
Yet, I found myself feeling it with a hoof, marveling at the surprisingly smooth texture. I tapped it once with a hoof and flinched. It hurt about as much as getting kicked in the shin.
“It’s a nice horn,” Celestia said. It was an unwelcome remark. Nonetheless I blinked a couple of times and shook my head. I certainly wasn’t taking pride in it.
Wordlessly Celestia replaced the ring and crystal on my horn and gestured me out the door.
I had quite the vexing problem to consider as Star Chart walked me to school. Being more complete made me feel less like an aberration that needed to be shielded from other ponies. But each new change brought me further away from myself.
What I didn’t expect was an immediate resolution to one of the day’s main mysteries, yet I only had to walk through the schoolhouse door to figure it out. In the front row, Annuity had her face buried in her mane. This was already uncharacteristic of her, but what really stood out was that said mane was now a putrid seaweed green. What’s more, almost half the room was now sporting this unusual mane color. I glanced around and made note of the affected ponies. Daybreak, Bubble Bauble, Granite Hammer and the unicorn siblings Pish and Posh were among the victims.
All of Annuity’s friends...
By the time I reached my desk, Gilded Acres had joined their number. She didn’t notice until the laughter started, at which point she blushed and turned away. Her two contrasting shades of green easily made her the most ridiculous-looking of the bunch. I hopped up on my desk, having mostly figured out the details of what had happened.
“Good morning, River,” Zap said in between giggles. “What do you think of my new look?”
“It looks okay I guess,” I said hesitantly to my front neighbor.
“I know, right?” the filly responded. “I think it kind of suits me too!”
Her upbeat attitude was not shared by any of the others.
“Come on, Annuity, she got us good,” Zap said to the filly sitting in front of her. “It’s a prank, so you may as well laugh.”
“Why didn’t I stay home today?” Annuity mumbled to herself.
“That’s part of my genius,” Pestle gloated. “I carefully brewed the color change potion to only go into effect at the start of the school day. Half an hour earlier, and you all could have stayed home. A few hours too late and I miss the school day entirely. Truly I owe it all to carefully calculated metabolic kinetics.”
“So you admit it!” Annuity shouted, pointing an accusatory hoof at the silver filly.
“Yeah, I mean, why not? It’s not like anypony else could have spiked the water fountain with a magical dye. It’s your own fault for being provoked so easily.”
“I’ll get you for this,” Annuity said through clenched teeth.
Pestle Mix smiled. “You do realize that you can’t uninvite me to your birthday party more than once, right?”
“Well then, I’ll re-invite you and then uninvite you again!”
Pestle raised an eyebrow, and even Annuity’s friends found it hard not to laugh at her stupid remark.
Annuity looked like she was about to say something else, but instead she looked down and starting mumbling to herself.
Meanwhile, in between Zap and Pestle, Thaumaturgical was nervously kicking his back hooves back and forth in his desk. Eventually, he turned back to face me.
“River, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth about the water fountain. I—I just didn’t want to ruin the prank.”
I was suddenly inundated by anger, as I put the final pieces together.
“It’s your fault!” I said through gritted teeth.
His ears drooped. “I’m sorry. Pestle told me not to tell anypony.”
“Why didn’t you trust me? You know I don’t like Annuity.”
“That’s not a nice thing to say, River,” Ms. Fizzle said, entering the room. “Oh my! What happened here?”
“Sorry…” Spectacle whispered to me, completely ignoring Fizzle’s befuddled reaction.
The thinking part of me recognized that he was keeping his word, and another part of me really respected him for showing such fidelity. However, my brain was still swimming in rage, and I just glared at my so-called friend until he turned around in his desk to sit down.
“Ms. Fizzle!” Annuity called out. “Look what Pestle did to my beautiful mane!”
“Oh, the old mane dye prank,” Fizzle said warmly. “I can’t say I didn’t pull that one once or twice during my school days.”
“Ms. Fizzle!” Several students pleaded.
“Oh, right! Pestle, what do you have to say for yourself?”
Pestle Mix smiled and stood on top of her desk to make sure she had everyone’s attention.
“I say it’s her fault for succumbing to such feeble provocation. I only repeated what River said to her, and she still took the bait! All I had to do was tire her out with a silly game of tag I made up. It was then inevitable she would take a drink, while I told my team to avoid the fountain.”
I saw the Citrus siblings nodding their approval.
“Now Pestle,” Fizzle said through a forced pleasant monotone. “Don’t you regret what you did?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact,”
Fizzle smiled.
“I regret that this potion was a failure. After all, River was unaffected.”
All eyes suddenly zoned in on me.
“Sorry about that, by the way, River. Call it collateral damage.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Still, I have to wonder why my potion didn’t work on you. Maybe your magical signature is resistant…”
“What did you say!?” I asked in disbelief.
I felt a maelstrom of panic start to brew inside me as her horn glowed a cool blue, my heart threatening to jump out of my barrel.
“Wait wait wait!” I squealed. “I… uh think I feel something coming on.”
Lowering my head I felt for my horn, slipped the ring off, and placed it beside me on the chair.
The class gasped collectively and whispered among themselves.
“And I thought he looked like a filly before,” Annuity jeered.
Did ..I make the right choice?
Pestle’s horn ceased to glow and she pumped a hoof. “Come to think of it, Master Cauldron did tell me antelope sprig can be unpredictable. That’ll teach me to cut corners!”
“Pestle, it’s not nice to use magic on other ponies without asking,” Fizzle scolded.
“Sorry..” Pestle said to me. For the first time, she probably meant it.
Ms. Fizzle clapped her front hooves together. “Okay! Let’s get class rolling.”
“Wait a minute,” Annuity griped, “you’re letting her get away with this?”
“She said she was sorry.”
“But not to me!”
“Moving on!”
I smiled, while a few ponies actually giggled. Iron Jill stuck a hand in her mouth to silence a deep, bellowing laugh.
It cuts both ways, Annuity. If the teacher is oblivious to your unseemly actions, you can’t complain when others get a free pass.
“Okay, everypony. I had this lesson scheduled for later this week, but Pestle’s prank has inspired me! It’s a reminder that we should love our own colors and embrace our differences, so I have decided to move the special lesson to today. We’re going to learn about what it is that makes everypony different. We’re going to study genetics!”
She waited for a reaction. There was none.
“You get to learn what makes every pony one-of-a-kind!”
Her dramatic pause was met with yet more silence.
“Tough crowd… Anyway, it was a pony monk named Flower Cross that first theorized about what we now know as genes. A gene is part of a pony’s DNA. Your DNA is like an instruction manual on how to build you. Now, Flower Cross—”
“Isn’t that a bit simplified?” Beakington interrupted. “After all, RNA does all the work. What DNA does is serve as a template from which transfer RNA can be created. Then ribosomes use that transfer RNA to assemble proteins one amino acid at a time. Expression of different genes can also be effectively turned on and off with inducible promoters that…”
“Beakington, that’s a little too advanced for the moment. That’s more than we need to know right now, and more than I know...”
Annuity tossed a note back. Beakington straightened it out and read the single word: NERD. Beakington swatted it away.
“Now, Flower Cross bred plants as a hobby. He noticed that when he bred red flowers with white flowers he would usually get pink flowers. But something interesting happened when he bred two pink flowers. Sometimes he got red flowers, sometimes they were pink, and sometimes they were white.”
“Iron Jill doesn’t understand. What does bread have to do with this?”
“Good question, Jill! Breeding is a type of gardening that lets you take two different flowers and grow new flowers.”
Thaumaturgical grinned.
“Or new ponies—”
“Moving on! To explain this, Flower Cross theorized the concept of an allele.. An allele is a gene that can come in multiple forms. Each flower has two relating to color. They come in pairs because all DNA comes in pairs. One allele is inherited from each parent flower. For our example, let’s assume there are only white, red and pink flowers.”
She drew a square on the blackboard and bisected it twice.
“This is called a Cross Square, what it represents is—”
“Hang on,” Squirt interrupted. “Isn’t that an oxymoron? How can it be a cross and a square at the same time? I mean it looks like a square, and inside the square… oh.” He lightly hit his head with a hoof. “Why does it always have to be puns?”
“Moving on,” Fizzle repeated somewhat impatiently. “We represent the white flower as having the allele combination WW and red flower as having the allele combination RR”
No matter how many times I see them, their letters are still strange to me, I thought.
Fizzle then explained how the each square in the grid represented an inherited allele combination. RW resulted in pink, RR resulted in red, and WW resulted in white. Once she finished the initial example, she moved onto the more complicated case of two pink flowers and explained that pink comes from codominant alleles.
“Now, today we are going to talk about a pony’s fur color. Everypony receives many sets of alleles from their parents relating to color.”
“My parents buy me a lot of things, but I’m pretty sure they’re never given me an allele,” Bubble Bauble said.
“When you were made, your parents shared their DNA. That’s all the school board will allow me to say.”
“And now we’re speaking in couplets?” Squirt groaned.
Fizzle ignored him and placed a petri dish on Annuity’s desk. She then repeated the process twenty-four more times until everyone had one. Next, she went around pouring a clear solution into each of the petri dishes. The class watched her, fascinated as they scrutinized her movements for any sort of clue.
“Mane, fur and feather color is more complicated than the case with plants,” Fizzle said. “This solution, however, will visualize your colors based on the alleles you’ve inherited from your parents. Your mother’s will gather at the left, while your father’s will gather on the right. When two dots are across from each other, that represents an allele pair. Each pair has its own unique effect on color ”
She went behind the lectern and took out a multi-hued book. “Allele interaction for color is something we don’t fully understand. However, this book still is accurate. Now, what I want everypony to do is to take a single hair or feather and drop it into this potion. Each droplet of color you see represents a single allele. I’ll go around the room with this book and read the appropriate section for each one of you so you can understand how these genes known as alleles make you you.”
“This potion reads our DNA!?” Beakington asked, impressed.
“Not quite,” Pestle said. “No two colors are truly identical in ponies. This potion exploits that and precisely breaks it down the component colors to estimate the alleles.”
Gilded Acres snorted. “I don’t think he was asking you. Why are you answering?”
“Because I made it myself,” Pestle declared.
“Really?” Thaumaturgical asked, beaming.
“Well I guess I had a little help here and there. I was exaggerating, but not by much. Not by more than a moderate amount at least...”
“Now it will take me some time to get to each of you, so in the meantime I want you to observe your dots and think of the colors of your relatives. Ponies you are related to might have similar colors.”
“Wait a minute, won’t it not work right because of our manes?” Posh asked.
Fizzle smiled. “As long as you can get a hair from your coat, you’ll see all the results you would normally get, because mane and coat color are interrelated.”
“What about me?” I asked.
“Oh that’s right,” Fizzle said crestfallen. “It won’t work for you right now. I understand if you don’t want to participate.”
“No, that’s okay. I’m still interested in what these colors will show,” I said, hoping to solve another mystery.
“Then without further ado, let’s begin,” Fizzle proclaimed, magicking a phonograph on. Serene music filled the room. Annuity began by pulling a hair out from her coat and delicately dropping it into the solution. Zap had stood on top of her desk to get a better view of Annuity’s results, so I couldn’t see.
Fortunately, Fizzle improvised a solution. Her horn glowed orange and the aura surrounded the petri dish. A projection beam then shone from Fizzle’s horn onto the back wall, mapping the image onto it.
Annuity’s dish had approximately a dozen dots on each side of it. The left side had several dots of varying shades of red. There was also a gold dot and a dark yellow dot. On the right side were a few shades of light yellow, a black dot, two shades of purple, and a light orange among others.
Fizzle opened the book and read.
Bronze is a rare and often highly desired color.
Annuity looked very pleased.
It is exclusively expressed when an allele for gold and an abundance of yellow is possessed along with a single black allele. When not paired with black, gold is a superdominate allele and usually results in a golden mane. However, several pairs of light colors along with this black and gold combination result in bronze.
“Sounds right,” Annuity said. “Most of my mother’s family have gold in their manes. What about my coat?”
Fizzle flipped the page and read.
Rust red usually arises when red alleles are paired with lighter colors, at least one of them purple.
"Is anyone on your father’s side of your family purple?”
“My cousin has a purple streak through his hair, does that count?”
“Streaks of color are more complicated, but in short, yes.”
Fizzle moved on to Zephyr Zap next. The pegasus filly plucked a feather, dropped it in, and once more Fizzle projected the result for the class to see.
Zap’s profile was more uniform: almost everything was orange or yellow, but there was some slight purple on the right side as well as a black dot on either side of her plate.
Black is most commonly seen as a mane color. Statistically, more stallions than mares possess this trait. However, the latter may have a black mane if exactly two black alleles are each paired with colors complementary to the allele paired with the other black allele. Curiously, the black alleles must be from different parents. These strict conditions make it one of the rarest mane colors for mares. Stallions will commonly have black manes if several dark colors are paired with black. Black coats are an even rarer enigma. There are not enough of such ponies to draw any reliable generalizations.
“Cool!” Zap exclaimed, doing a backflip. “You hear that Annuity? I’m even rarer than you.”
“Hmph, well it said mine was especially desirable.”
“I guess so,” the filly laughed. “They say black doesn’t suit a mare, but I’ve always liked it.”
“That’s great, everypony. Never let anypony tell you otherwise. All colors are special,” Fizzle preached.
The teacher repeated the process for canary yellow. This explanation was extremely easy to understand, as all it required was several shades of yellow with none of the yellow paired with red.
“You’re next, River,” Fizzle said sliding down the aisle to reach me
“Isn’t this a waste of time?” Annuity asked. “These are fake colors, so it’s not like it will reflect River’s family.”
Pestle beat me to the punch.
“Actually, I am quite interested in how the potion will interpret artificial colors. I hypothesize it will come up as a pure blue—or maybe green is a better guess. Hurry up! I want to see for myself!”
Will this reflect my real family at all? I wondered. Or will it be unnaturally pure like Pestle suggested?
I dropped one of the blue hairs from my coat into the dish and was treated to a barrage of color. The mother side showed a light green, a transparent purple, a black, an orange, two shades of dark blue, pink, two whites, and the remainder were yellow. The father side was more uniform with several whites, bright blues, purples, a single red, a black, a silver, and a few bluish green ones.
“Oooh!” Fizzle exclaimed. “You have the pink allele.”
I flinched. “It’s only one,” I said. “What’s the big deal?”
“Well with pink it’s—you know, I think I’ll just read it to you directly.”
Pink is a common and popular color. The genes coding for it exhibit strange properties. First, it can only exist on gene number nine for color. Even more interestingly, it is an extremely rare color for stallions to possess, with pink coats being even less common for them. Yet, pink is a highly dominant trait when inherited from a stallion’s mother.
What makes pink so rare among stallions, then? The answer has to do with the other half of the gene nine allele pair inherited from the stallion’s father. When black is paired with pink, gray colors are usually the result in the absence of an overwhelming majority of other colors. Curiously, 95% of stallions possess a black allele in this position. It is suspected a bottleneck occurred in the pony population at one point, leaving most of the male population with this allele due to a prehistoric common ancestor. Mares may also have a black allele in this position, and the result is usually magenta, but pink can still manifest if enough light colored allele pairs are present. However, closely related red alleles in any position are unpredictable and can be highly influential in phenotype depending on what they are paired with.
“What colors are those?” I asked. Staring into my petri dish I saw white paired with the red. To my relief, I did have a black allele across from the pink one, so my secret wouldn’t be blown by the lack of a pink mane.
I probably should have thought that through before volunteering...
“It doesn’t say,” Fizzle replied. It’s probably unknown because this is more of an art than a science at times. Besides, not many mares have that black allele.
“Oh, right. It shouldn’t matter for me... Well now I know why I’m not pink. Still, how does this red mane come from only one allele?”
“Let me check the index,” Fizzle said, flipping through the book. “Here it is.”
When paired with a relatively recessive color, red tends to dominate in the absence of any matching allele pairs elsewhere.
I noted that two of the blues on the left side were matched with the silver and one of the purples.
“Can we hurry this along,” Annuity urged.
“Yes, okay, now sky blue”:
Sky blue is a color most commonly found in pegasus ponies. It is usually recessive in the face of darker blues, but it can dominate when paired with white.
Sure enough, some of the whites on the left were paired with the lightest of the blues.
So these are my colors, I thought. It felt bittersweet. On one hand I got reassurance that the sky blue was here to stay. But it had only confused the issue of whether my mane color really was supposed to be pink.
I stared at the red dot in hope and admiration, thinking of Diane.
Thank you, I thought to no one in particular
“Fascinating,” Pestle said. “So even fake colors have the complexity of real fur. I should try to replicate this.”
Fizzle then read the sections of my colt colors for my benefit, and I pretended to be interested. Those colors were lost to me, but they didn’t know that.
After my extended turn, Fizzle moved on to Beakington on my right. His colors were surprisingly easy to figure out, as only three pairs of alleles showed up in his dish, and they were almost exclusively green. The same held true for Iron Jill, who had inherited her fur color directly from her father. I tried to pay attention, but around the time of Gilded Acres’ turn, I lost my focus to digesting what I had just learned.
Even when recess came, I just leaned against the schoolhouse wall, working on committing my petri dish to memory. Thaumaturgical tried apologizing again, but for some reason, I really wasn’t interested in hearing it. Pestle wanted to examine me further to figure out what went wrong with her potion, and I waved her away too.
“Wow, are you trying to look like a filly on purpose?” came Annuity’s acrimonious voice. “You’re braiding your tail now?”
“I just felt like it,” I said. “Leave me alone.”
The real reason was of course that I needed somewhere to put the ring. I didn’t like the idea of leaving it loose in my saddlebag, where it could easily get lost.
When Ms. Fizzle called everybody back in, I was expecting history class. However, I was in for something of a surprise.
“Okay, everypony, for the past couple of weeks we’ve been studying the Maresailles peace conference. Now to get all of that information into your long term memories, I have a special announcement: we’re going to put on a school production of play Maresaillles!”
Once more her enthusiasm was met with awkward silence.
“Isn’t that the most boring play in existence?” Squirt said.
Fizzle’s smile only faltered a little bit. “Now I know it has that reputation, but I’m sure you all are in a unique position to understand it and, even better, share that knowledge with the community.”
Aside from Beakington III, the room was frozen with dread.
Fizzle sighed. “We’re doing the abridged version.”
Cheers erupted in the classroom after we all exhaled in relief.
“Okay, everypony. The first thing we need to do is to decide on roles. Who wants to play Princess Celestia?”
Every filly in the class raised her hoof, Iron Jill among them.
Wow. How popular is Celestia?
“Such enthusiasm! Okay, since I can’t possibly choose by myself, we’ll have to decide this by secret ballot. Everypony write down your vote, and I’ll collect them at the end of class. In the meantime, I’ll go over some of the logistics.”
“What do you think, Annuity?” Zap asked. “I think we should vote for Granite. She’s tall, so it would work well.”
Annuity smirked. “Actually, I think I have a better idea…” She began to whisper something to Zap, who blinked in concern.
“No, that’s mean,” Zap whispered. “I don’t think we should.”
“Whatever,” Annuity said. “Just know it’s on you if we don’t win.”
“What do you mean win? Don’t you want the part?”
“Sometimes we have to choose between things we want, Zap.”
I scowled. This filly was probably already thinking of a way to get even with Pestle. Then I again, I supposed it was fair play.
No other roles could be allotted before the vote, except for Squirt’s prompt volunteering to handle lighting and props. So we reviewed the general outline of the play and then took turns reading it aloud. When the school bell finally rang, I was among the quickest to leave. Without the ring to project my River Glade identity, I felt vulnerable.
It took some explaining, but Star came to accept my removal of the ring as the smartest thing to do under the circumstances. It would have looked too suspicious if I was unchanged compared to the rest of the class. Still she cursed Pestle’s cleverness of setting up a potion with a timed effect. If even one parent could have complained in time, it would have given us notice to dye my mane green, but it was what it was.
As expected, Star led me straight to Princess Celestia. It was also no surprise that the youngest princess was also there, along with her assistant. We met in a sitting room that had striped walls and hexagonal designs on the carpet..
“Tell me everything that happened!” Twilight demanded, forgetting to tone down the command.
“No need,” I said. “I know exactly what happened: Pestle Mix spiked the water fountain with a mane dye potion. I took a drink before anypony else did. I also got caught up in Maniacal Laughter’s evil plot, but I don’t think the Chaotic Queue ever got me.”
Twilight crumbled up a couple of pages of her notepad and tossed them away. A moment later, a pegasus maid stealthily ducked into the room and picked them up.
“I see,” Twilight said, paying the maid no mind. “That makes my job a bit easier. Still, we’ll need to wait for the professor to run the DNA test before we can conclude which is your true mane color.”
“Don’t bother,” I said with a shrug. “We had a genetics lesson today, and the results to the experiment we did said it could be either one.”
“You did the allele tracker experiment?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s so great,” Twilight said, happily trotting in place. “I loved that lesson at the School for Gifted Unicorns. At the time, it interested me so much that I spent weeks genotyping my entire family tree.” “Do you remember what yours showed? I need to know everything.”
I nodded and recited the entire pattern to her.
“So you have the pink gene?” said Twilight.
“But its partner allele is black,” I reminded her.
“Yes, and you have red paired with white.”
“The teacher couldn’t tell me if this makes red my real mane color. Do you know?
“Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell for certain. There are several white alleles that effectively code for the same color,” Twilight explained. “I know in my case , I have white 8 paired with red. The white alleles all behave uniquely. White 8 is one reason why my mane isn’t completely pink.”
“I have the pink gene too,” Celestia added. “For me, this meant my mane was entirely pink.”
“Really?” Twilight asked. “You’ve never mentioned that. I had suspected your mane hadn’t always been ethereal, but I figured it would more closely resemble Rainbow Dash’s.”
Celestia smiled. “As far as we know, an alicorn’s mane and tail colors do not predict how they will look after living long enough.”
The elder princess gave a silent giggle, covering her mouth with a hoof.
“In fact, my sister’s mane was pink as well,”
Spike snorted fire in laughter, and Twilight was clearly trying hard not to join him.
“Don’t tell her I told you that. She hated how it clashed with her coat.”
From there I told her about my day, explaining why I took the ring off.
“A shrewd solution,” Celestia commented. “What’s the concern?”
“I don’t know when the potion is supposed to wear off. I can’t pull the same stunt again in the middle of class, because if a single pony is looking at me when I’m putting the ring on, they’ll see through the illusion.”
“So you need to know how long the spell should last in the average colt or filly?” Twilight asked.
“Yes. Is there a spell to scan me and make an estimate?”
Twilight shook her head. “You’ve absorbed all the magic in the potion to progress your transformation, so it won’t resonate when we scan.”
“Oh…”
“However, there is a way, but I don’t think you’ll like it.”
“I fear nothing,” I proudly declared. “What do I have to do?”
Celestia regarded me with sympathy.
I spent the next hour having my stomach pumped. It was not fun.
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It seems to me that the colors correspond with different princesses. Anybody else?
such a great chapter, brought me back to my middle school science class. Thanks for the nostalgia.
Ooh.
that would definitely be unpleasant.
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Unrelated, I can't find your story.
Just let your science be on point.
So the testes are now ovaries hanging outside the body? That is an interesting look at things, I like it.
I thought there was some text about how he was considered a child at 20 or something like that? Does the magical signature age with the person when they are on a different world? I think it must since that minotaur became an adult and not a premature calf.
I really want the final changes to be public, just so Annuity can know she was being a royal ass to a royal pony.
Who you are seems more a philosophical question. My arm is not me, it is my arm. Without it I am no less me, I just am missing a part. I see the part that is someone is their thoughts and feelings. Even missing or changed memories wouldn't change much, unless the change was catastrophic. Every time something is remembered it is changed, but it does not fundamentally change me.
OH! Could drinking from the fountain have affected Aron? Might explain the brief pink color.
Carrrrrlooosssss!
Doesn't seem age appropriate, but sure!
This kid speaks to me. Though I was kinda that person that already knew the science on a lot of subjects back in grade school.
Hey now! That is a little adult for your age missy.
Annuity must love that. I am expecting Aron to have something "only observed in alicorns", just for that "Oh fuck" moment.
I am liking Zap more and more, Aron should be friends with her.
Hmmm, so is Aron pink or scarlet? The potion likely putzed with things.
Aron gets to be Celestia?
This shouldn't result in anything, it has been over 24 hours since ingesting the potion. It was just a small sip at that. Unless potions really like to stick to stomach lining then there shouldn't be any left. The magic should all be gone anyway as well.
Nice chapter, good work.
So just making sure that I get it: Aron's mane color remained red despite the potion? Why have his colors been considered artificial?
This was a good chapter, it was interesting to see how the guy was adjusting to the new change. I can't wait to see the next chapter. By the the way are you looking for a cover art for your story. Please take a look at my DeviantArt gallery and let me know if you're interested.
http://amalgamzaku.deviantart.com
8009064
You're welcome. I also have fond memories of such
8009460
I think if that's what I was going for I'd have to bump up the rating.
In pony years, which I will define more precisely in the future, Aron's current body is in its early thirties. Magical signatures age as ponies age in Equestria. However, magical signatures are completely random for outsiders and don't change at all on worlds without ambient magic. It was pure chance that the minotaur had an adult's signature.
I could arrange for that
Zap's best quality is also her biggest flaw: she tries to be friends with everypony.
8009644
What happened is that Aron ingested magic with that potion. Rather getting a mere dye, though, Aron's body just absorbed the magic directly to advance the changes. That's the reason why his new colors showed up faster than the the other students' dyes. Aron's new colors aren't artificial; he's just letting the class believe they are.
8009677
Thank you for the offer. I'll take a look and PM you if there's anything that fits the story.
I feel the protagonist has slid into his role in the comedic setting of Equestria. The butt monkey, stoic and straight foil to make it funnier. Not everypony need be silly. His classroom is a big example of the wide personalities in such a setting.
I think Aron should tell them the truth, especially Bulwark.
Because Bulwark crush on Aron.
8009850
It could be what is going on, you just are not explicitly saying it. But having all female genome with male "parts" kinda means the similar parts of the body will be the female parts. The penile tissue has female analogues, just sculpted into different shapes because of hormones. A certain type of hermaphrodite has testes where the ovaries should be.
I like this arranging.
Nothing wrong with that, seems to work for Pinkie. Zap is just energetic and outgoing as well as positive, she rolls with the punches and seems to have the mentality of "if it will be funny in 20 years, might as well have it be funny now".
A random thought hit me today, Aron = Flurry Heart :p
Would explain the random and sudden child birth with no mention of pregnancy...
8009460
This is closer to the truth than you migh expect. Recent studies indicate, that ovary tissue is balancing on a brink of transforming into testicular tissue. This happens when a woman is past reproductive age and her metabolism starts misbehaving.
8010778 which is true for cannon but I don't think this counts as cannon intentionally. Also I don't know which I prefer an autherwho puputs out a short chapter continuously or an author who put up long chapters but needs time to write said chapters. What are your thoughts?
(No I didn't write this to pressure you into rushing the next chapter, which would ne completely justifiable.
)
8011299
I know the tissue is analogous since the organs will migrate to different parts of the body depending on the fetus being XX or XY.
8012200 Analogous, but different enough to distinguish. And then they discovered one can become another.
8013592
That still doesn't mean it isn't quick.
8010778
What a twist!
8011319
How about authors that post long chapters continuously? Those are my favorite. I seriously don't know how some authors on this site do it. Also, don't be concerned with pressuring me to write the next chapter. If such inquiries become numerous enough to be annoying, then I'll know I've made it
These have been a long couple of days for me. I feel like a necromancer for putting off responding to comments that are only that old.
8040531
I knew I was bound to screw up somewhere. Thanks for the catch
8040624 Ok i need to say this: I LOVE THIS STORY!!!
And to the transformation to a female or fully alycorn in the pupblic yes please this would be very nice.
8041586
You flatter me
I'll see what I can do. I've already taken at least one idea from the comments section
8041702 or maybe not a transformation i think begin small.
In the next school hour or so they speak about the magic signature with a experiment to show them or so.
As little insperation from my,
This story is the reason I ever bother logging into this site. I've mostly gotten over ponies to the point where I feel embarrassed just looking at the characters.
8049350
Marvelous
I can certainly relate to your position. I've always been more into fan-created content than the show. I'd almost go so far as to say I'm a fan of fimfiction above all else. The community here is so diverse that there's a sub-community for virtually everything. Heck, I still can't believe that a scenario that I dreamed up for myself has even a remote following. I think it's the amazing group system that truly makes this site great; I just had to wade through some bad Conversion Bureau stories first to discover it
8043853
I debated how to say this without spoiling for a while. Your suggestion very lightly touched on a point that I'm going to get to in the next chapter...
That's all I can say for now
8049419 Ok interesting...
I can't wait any longer for the next chapter
This doesn't make sense/ the reason we would use RR and rr is because when pacing multiple traits on a punnet square, it would get confusing if they were all different letters.
8063923
No. The reason for capital (R) and lower case (r) is to indicate dominant and recessive genes, respectively. If you get the combinations RR, Rr, or rR, the expressed allele is R, with the recessive allele only occuring for the rr combo.
In this story, R and W are both dominant, with the effect that they are both expressed to a degree (yielding pink). As Twilight says: in reality genes aren't this simple. (People often say Mendel fudged his data, anyways...)
Just like base-23, this chapter became a surprise class lecture...
Is that in base-10 or base-23?
0:13
I thought your cover image was horrible so I decided to make an AI image of the MC, here: temp-ca.s3.amazonaws.com/cdn-files/1874470907169627183120231002183711sst.png