The Spread
Language check. Anything wrapped in < > in this chapter is spoken Equish, everything else is in English.
Joyce studied her notes, flicking between pages in the diaries. She started with Mike's. "Second month of outbreak. Subject started showing symptoms." Her own detached wording helped her not remember the person she was reading about was her son. "Pony ears, six centimeters. Mark on both thighs of a lyre. Soft, aquamarine fur around mark and on ears."
The miners hadn't been quite so diligent, even when she proved she wasn't going to call anyone on them. Mike and Robin's books progressed every week, with extra notes when something new was found between measurements. She flicked on a few pages in Mike's book. "Tail developing. Dock length four centimeters, skirt length twelve centimeters of pale cyan with a white stripe." Her hand worked as she read the words aloud, noting the progression difference in Mike. "Fur on hips has spread to waist, crotch, rear and upper thigh. Ears eight centimeters."
"Subject's affinity with music seems to have grown. Can inspire emotions and sensations with just his music." Joyce had no idea what to make of Mike's special talent. It was literal magic, there was nothing she knew of that could explain how he could immediately turn the feelings of someone listening to him so much.
Flicking ahead three more pages to the end of the notes for Mike. "Extensive fur growth over much of torso and legs. Scalp hair has started changing color to match tail skirt, new hair follicles growing hair all the way down to C-six vertebrae. Tail dock eight centimeters, skirt fifty centimeters. Coloring consistent with early estimations. Eye color changing to lighter shades." She turned the page and set the book down. "So that is where we are."
"It's not going to stop, is it, Mum?" Mike's hair stretched down to the small of his back, and he had given up keeping his tail hidden. "What do you need to measure first?" He stood up and stretched, showing off his height.
"The usual, you pick." Joyce waited just a moment before Mike sat down beside her legs and rested his head against her leg. "Ears, okay." Extending her calipers, she had to use one hand to hold the recalcitrant ear still while she read the display. "Eight centimeters, no change there." A little rub of Mike's ear was her apology for having to manhandle it.
"My fur has grown." With the cooler months, Mike had started to wear warmer clothing. Then he began to get warm, aquamarine fur growing all over him. Shirts and light pants were his standard fare. Today he was wearing a long-sleeved Primus shirt over some lightweight jeans. Pulling the shirt up, he revealed the aquamarine fur had worked down his arms, and was almost halfway to his elbows. Below his shoulders, the fur was a constant mat—well brushed and soft.
"I can see that. It is inching up your neck too." Joyce took measurements and carefully wrote each in the book. "Pants too, hon."
"Nothing down there has changed." Mike seemed adamant of his words. "My fur goes all the way to my toes, and you can measure my tail from the back." As if to show that off, he turned around and offered his tail for inspection.
Able to read her son—and remembering their reason for moving to Cowwarr—Joyce knew she had to push. "What's wrong?"
"Have any of the others…" Mike trailed off trying to ask what he feared the answer to. "That is, has Dave or Steve shown any…"
Knowing her son was struggling with an inner demon, Joyce put her book to the side. "Go and fetch the soft brush from the bathroom, and I will make us some tea." Relaxation attack on two fronts; Joyce hoped it would do the trick.
While Mike pulled his shirt on and walked down the hallway, Joyce put the kettle on and prepared two cups. Sugar loaded into both, she waited for the water to boil before adding that, too. A little cold water to make them drinkable and she was done with the age-old ceremony. The cups were large, thick-walled mugs, and she carried them into the living room to find Mike already laying with his back to the chair she had been seated in, leaning back against it.
Joyce passed Mike one of the mugs of tea and settled down, swinging her leg over his neck. Each took a long sip of the hot tea before Joyce took up some of Mikes cyan hair. The brush was slow in its strokes, it didn't need to be fast to do its job.
Minutes passed as Joyce brushed out Mike's hair. There was no point to the brushing except to help him relax. It worked. "I was adjusting myself to get into these jeans and…" He took a deep breath. "My balls are smaller."
"Those are my old jeans, Mike. They should always fit badly on a guy." Joyce tried to be reassuring, but on the inside she was nearing panic. "I don't suppose you measured yourself recently?"
"Mum!" Mike blushed fit to explode in a shower of red, but each stroke of the brush stole his panic. He waited a while before talking again. Minutes skipped by, and he almost got halfway through the tea before he spoke. "That isn't all; I was six and a half inches last I checked."
Joyce didn't alter her pace at all, keeping the brush working through Mike's mane of hair. "And now?" Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.
Mike just sat there and let the brushing ease him into relaxed oblivion. "Six."
Letting the brush work at the soft hair, Joyce let a little time pass herself. "That could just be—"
"I measured each day for the last week. What if it changes me into a pony, and changes me to a girl at the same time? I mean, you didn't see things over there, Mum. About two-thirds of the ponies are women… mares… girls…" He stopped the synonym hunt.
In one way Joyce was excited: her study into the progress of the infection was reaching out to new fields. But then it was her little boy it was happening to. "Keep measuring. You know where I keep your journal, write down your measurements each day. It could be nothing more than a growth spurt that part of you hasn't caught up with yet."
Mike sat in place, letting the brushing and the relaxation do its job. He was just starting to drift off to sleep when a stomping sound came from the front door.
"<We're home>!" Robin clomped her feet on the floor as she burst through the door, not quite literally. Reaching the living room, she spotted Mike getting his hair brushed and giggled. "<Mike! Come and help>—"
"Mike is busy, Robin. Why don't you take over here and I will help Candela?" Joyce lifted her leg around Mike's head, then grabbed her daughter up and set her down where she herself had just been sitting. "Just keep brushing, dear." She ruffled Robin's hair up, not for the first time amazed that the girl's pony ears had gone away. Pride filled Joyce. Robin had done as she promised, which considering how much she seemed to enjoy helping Rose with the mine, was quite a big thing.
"Sure thing." Robin's hands were not quite as adept as Joyce's, but she carefully took a handful of the soft cyan mane and began brushing. "Hard day?"
"Yeah…" Mike might have been relaxed, but that wasn't a topic he was sharing with his little sister. "You could say that."
Joyce left her children and headed outside to find out what Candela needed help with. Rose had parked her mother's car and was helping Candela and Misty unload shopping from the back. Walking to the back of the minivan, she spotted the square P plate in the back window. "How was the drive?"
"Traffic in Traralgon is hell." Rose rolled her eyes. "But I can't stick to country roads all the time. Thanks again for helping me get these." She gestured with a thumb at the plate in the back window of her mother's car.
"No problem. Seemed a fair payment for babysitting. This thing looks a bit different to my Falcon." Grabbing some offered bags, Joyce started walking back towards the house. Beside her, Rose carried some bags in her own hands, while Candela and Misty carried more in their teeth.
"Not that different. Both autos, although the power steering is a godsend." Rose gestured to the two pegasi. "And hardly anyone raises an eyebrow at Miss Candela or Misty."
"There was that one girl!" Misty, despite having a grocery bag hanging from her mouth, managed to speak without apparent problems. "She wouldn't stop calling her parents to get them to, 'see the pony.' "
Joyce was intrigued. "What did you do?" A soft murmuring stopped when she reentered the house with the others, and the knowledge her children were getting along made her smile wider.
"I glared at her parents. It wasn't the girl's fault that she could see through…" Rose put down her bags in the kitchen and reached up to sweep her hoodie back. Two dark pony ears sprung up, but unlike Mike's they had tufts of extra fur at their tips. "…this." She gestured up to her head.
"They apologized and had to drag the poor girl away." Misty set her own load down in the stack being made on the floor. "I felt sorry for her…"
Joyce noticed something strange, and beckoned to Misty and Rose to come closer. "Hold on… Rose, can you crouch down for me?"
"Sure…" Rose crouched down, her jeans fighting the posture but not to their breaking point.
"Candela, have a look at this." Joyce pinched one of Rose's bat-like ears and one of Misty's and held them as close together as the height difference between the two girls would allow.
"Hey, what is it?" Rose couldn't stop her ear from trying to twitch and jump about.
"What's happening mamma?" Misty's voice held an edge of worry that Rose's hadn't.
"They're tufted…" Candela's voice held astonishment. "Misty, have you been up at the mine?" She nuzzled her filly's cheek to reassure her.
"Y-Y-Yes…" Misty finally got her ear free and flicked it several times to make up for the previous, restricted movement. "Robin wasn't allowed to go, but Rose needed help with sorting her tailings. I thought since I was a pony already I would be okay…"
Joyce, however, hadn't released Rose's ear. "You're progressing a lot slower than Mike. You are still working at the mine?" The girl nodded to her. "Hrmm. Well, I want you coming to visit once a week from now on, and try to drag Dave along too."
Rose's ear was withheld a moment longer before its inevitable release. "Yes Doctor Mike's Mum." She stuck her tongue out at Joyce but grinned around it. "I'm around more often than that anyway. What will you need to do?"
"Measure everything." Misty had ducked away from her mother's close attention and was poking her nose through the grocery bags for something. "Poor Mike even had to measure his dock for her!"
"Dock?" Rose looked between Misty and Joyce. "Do I want to know?"
In answer, Misty spun around and flicked her tail up. "That's a dock!"
"<Misty>!" Candela's wing came down on her filly's back end. "<That is not how a decent young mare acts>!"
Rose looked confused, and turned to Joyce. "I'll… uh… come around tomorrow." Clearly antsy to be away, Rose walked to the living room. "Hey Mike, I'll be around tomorrow and we can—" Her voice cut off when she saw all the soft fur covering Mike's body.
"Isn't he adorable!" Robin hadn't stopped her brushing, and had a very relaxed and calm Mike to deal with. "He's a little distracted right now, you might want to just go." Tact was not Robin's game.
Joyce, intrigued to know what was going on, looked into the room and grinned. Mike was relaxed, his eyes closed, with Robin brushing his hair and slowly rubbing one of his ears.
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A lil shrink-a-dink ain't leading to no happy place.
Don't know whether to be excited the world is still looking like we know it, or like Mike is bending genders... At least it's not painful, right?
It's almost surprising the transformative magic alters Equestrians as well. Is it localization sensitive? Hmmm... Keep going! ;)
Well, this has become bittersweet...
reading about is her son - reading about was her son
soft cyan made - soft cyan mane
Mike might be relaxed - Mike might have been relaxed
but this wasn't a topic - but that wasn't a topic
Curiouser and curiouser. I would not have expected whatever magic is leaking from the mine to affect ponies too. I have to wonder if the gem fragments that they are selling also carry a trace of transformative magic...
8326920 All fixed. And there are special reasons why things are happening like they are... SCIENCE REASONS!
Wouldn't they need less room? Should be looser.
I'm still hoping that Mike isn't becoming Lyra, but I intend to stick with this either way. This is quite an interesting story.
How the... heck does a guy measure his balls? Is is like, a sort of circumference around the two of them? I could understand if he meant his dick, but he distinctly referred to his balls. Was that... an error? Or am I just missing some salient fact about Aussie ball measuring rituals?
Does he really measure himself on a daily basis?
That's kind of... oddly thorough, since he didn't have any reason to suspect anything until now.
I don't think his balls would shrink... the analagous structure in females is the ovaries, and they're roughly the same size, just... located internally. Erection would be a better measure in this case I think. But heck it's magic so it could turn him into goo on the way to becoming a pony for all we know.
8338282 Whoops, missed half a line. Fixed up!
Would they ask the princess for a second opinion?
8338282
That is a good point. However, slowly retracting internally could be misconstrued as "getting smaller."
9069544 Not to mention most males tend to lump balls and scrotum together. While his testes may indeed become ovaries (or not, this is a semi-magic TF), the flesh of his scrotum is destined to become the outer flesh of his vulva (but again, maybe not because magic).