Chapter 2: Changing Perspectives
Matthew was extremely tired as he walked home. There were far more nearly transformed at the shelter than he had expected. Most of them were not capable of doing much of anything for themselves. He had spent most of his time doing things like feeding them, typing out text messages to relatives for them, and helping them with their clothes. The fully transformed seemed to need little help by contrast. The most any pony had asked him to do was take a picture of them to send to friends and family. A few of the ponies had even managed to do it on their own, with a great deal of trial and error. Most of them seemed determined to prove their self sufficiency.
By the time he had left the doctors had more or less lost control of the ponies doing whatever they wanted to do. There wasn't anyone here that could really enforce any rules on the fully transformed anyway. Tonya had been cooperative with the examination, but that was more her trying to rub in the fact she was female, most of the rest weren't having that.
That isn't to say they were making a nuisance of themselves. They also sat like he did with many of those who were at a stage they couldn't help themselves in order to offer aid. Fetching things for the afflicted and offering comforting words. He saw more than one embracing an individual who was clearly having anxiety problems. Tomorrow that population of fully transformed would be much larger, and Matthew hoped that they would all be equally as eager to help out.
He finally reached home again and entered the house. He could hear the television still going. That meant his parents must still be awake, or had fallen asleep watching the television. He made his way into the living room to check on them.
His father was passed out on his chair, snoring softly, but his mother was not in the living room. With a brief glance around he noticed the bathroom door was closed and a light leaked out from underneath the door frame. He decided to just go knock on the door and check on her since she hadn't called out to him when he had entered. As he got close to the door he almost turned and walked away, as he could hear his mother softly crying inside the bathroom. He was torn for a moment on what to do, but decided the more decent thing to do would be to check on her.
"Mom, I'm just letting you know I'm home. Are you okay in there?" He called out after giving a brief knock.
"I'm okay. I'll be out in just a moment. I've just gotta wash my face," his mother said in a clearly forced upbeat tone.
Deciding not to press the issue that he had heard her crying Matthew instead went back into the living room and plopped onto the couch. Looking at his passed out father again he noticed the beginnings of a horn now peaking out of his forehead. Matthew stared at the thing wondering if he would see it grow if he kept staring. It didn't seem to be, but after a long minute of staring he was questioning if it was the same size as when he started or if it was bigger now; it was hard to tell for sure if it had grown or not.
"Matthew, don't stare at your father like that. It's rude," he heard his mother chide as she walked into the room.
He turned to look at her as she sat down on the couch as well. She had a slightly more obvious horn now protruding from her head. Had that grown from nothing in the short time he had been gone? It wasn't full size yet, but it hadn't been there at all when he had left to go to the church. He couldn't help noticing a dull ache in his own back as he wondered how much these changes were accelerating.
She saw him staring and tried to cross her eyes to look up at her own horn. She gave off a disgruntled snort as she lifted one hand up to touch it, before bringing the hand back down.
"It looks like I'll be a unicorn," his mother said matter-of-factly, like this was something Matthew hadn't figured out already. Perhaps saying it aloud made her feel better about it. "I broke down when I noticed it. The headache is mostly gone now, but I'm not sure if I'd rather have the headache gone or this horn on my head. Why is God doing this to us?"
"Why do you even think it's something that God specifically is doing?" Matthew asked as he diverted his eyes from his mom's horn to her face. "Most of the people on the news and internet are pretty sure it's some sort of biological attack and just haven't figured out who to blame."
"This is something supernatural, far beyond what some human could do, so it must be God," his mother said with certainty, glancing at a small cross hanging on a wall as if she were looking towards the Almighty himself. "When this all started I thought it was his punishment to sinners; turning the unclean and perverted into beasts of the field. It's pretty obvious that isn't the case now. I just don't understand. I pray for understanding, but my prayers aren't answered."
"Maybe God will give you understanding in his own time. If you really think it's God at work then he must have a plan, right?" Matthew reasoned. He still didn't think God had any hand in this. God was probably looking down at them from Heaven wondering how they had managed to get themselves into such a mess.
"That's true, I suppose. If this is God's work everything will work out in the end. I'm just so scared. I don't know how we'll take care of ourselves. I don't know what we'll do for food. I don't even know if we'll even still be able to think anymore after all this or if we'll just be du..du..dumb animals," his mother said breaking at into a stuttered sob near the end.
He couldn't stand seeing his mother this upset. Yes, she said and did things sometimes that made him angry or feel ashamed, and sometimes he thought the worst of her, but she was still his mother. Matthew wrapped an arm around his mother and hugged her. She turned and cried onto his shoulder.
After a few moments of crying she seemed to calm down, though also seemed in no hurry to break away from the hug. Matthew admitted to himself that he wasn't in a hurry to let his mother go either. There was a need for closeness and signs of love now that was always there before, but was now stronger than ever since the pandemic had struck.
"There are a lot of fully transformed at the church now, more than I expected anyway. There'll be a lot more by tomorrow. They all seem to be able to think and talk perfectly fine. Maybe you and Dad should make your way over there as well tomorrow. Your symptoms are getting worse," Matthew said, again glancing briefly at his mother's horn. It definitely looked bigger than when she first sat down.
"We live close enough that if we need help someone can get to us without any problem. The church has enough people to worry about right now," his mom said as she finally pulled away back to her seat. She then looked over to him. "Tell me about them."
"Well, you remember Tonya?" Matthew asked, knowing his mother was well aware of who the trans girl was, and had voiced her displeasure about her life choices more than once.
"His name is Thomas, don't indulge his fantasies. What about him?" She responded in a harsh tone of voice, as her mouth pulled up into a sneer.
"Well, she is definitely a mare now. When I was first walking up to the church I saw her being examined by the doctors. There was a whole team of them looking her over while most of the fully transformed were just walking around like they didn't matter. I think the fact that she became a mare caught everyone off guard. Everyone except her, she was practically strutting about it," Matthew said, wondering what his mother's reaction to the news would be.
His mother just stared at him unblinking for a long moment, not saying anything. She didn't have any sort of emotional expression on her face, like she didn't know what sort of reaction to have to this news. Finally she slowly turned and dipped her head, looking down at her lap. Her mouth worked like she was going to say something, but she didn't. She ran a hand over her face before leaving it lingering on her nose with her mouth covered. Finally she sighed and closed her eyes, bringing her hands together low in front of her.
"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I have behaved in a way unbecoming of someone who professes your name. Worse I have blasphemed by using your name to curse another, and cursed your creation. By your precious holy blood I beg your forgiveness, and vow to do what I can to make this right," his mother prayed aloud in a determined sounding voice.
This was not the sort of response Matthew had been expecting, not even close. It was a rare thing for his mother to confess she might be wrong about something, but he had never seen her just flip from insisting one thing to saying she was not only in the wrong, but begging forgiveness for sin so quickly. Was this the transformation altering her mind or was this her way of trying to process and adjust to what was happening. Both his parents were religious, but since this had started they had dialed their religious nature up by a factor of ten. He wanted to embrace his mother again after seeing this change of heart, but decided that might make her feel uncomfortable.
"Well," his mother said as she turned back to him after the prayer. " I guess I was wrong about her. If God has decided that she is a she, then it's wrong for me to say otherwise. However, she still should not have strutted like a peacock over it. She should've had some humility and gratitude that God listened to her prayers to make her more as God intended."
Matthew was pretty sure Tonya was either an atheist or agnostic, as she had never seemed to have anything good to say about religion in the past. The way she was speaking today made him question that a little though, as it seemed to have that same religious fervor to it that his parents had as of late, but that might have just been him being sensitive. He wasn't going to contradict his mother about Tonya praying though. He also couldn't help but note that his mother was still finding things to criticize Tonya over, so things weren't completely changed. Still this was a momentous turnaround for his mother.
"Well, she certainly seemed happy at least. By the time I left she had gotten to flying. It's amazing how quickly she figured it out. All of them seem to have a fair idea how to function in their bodies, and determined to prove they aren't helpless," Matthew explained.
"Are there any unicorns?" She asked in a tentative voice. Her arm was rigid, like she was forcing it to be still rather than reaching for her horn again.
"There were three of them, and by the time I left they were all in strong demand to come help the people that were having trouble doing things with their hands. They just light up their horns and things move. They weren't so great at it when I got there, but by the time I left they all seemed to be reasonably good at it," Matthew said, hoping it would make his mother feel better about her own circumstances.
"I guess God provides us with the tools we need to get through trials," his mother said stoically as she broke down and reached back up to touch her horn. It now looked full grown. The acceleration of speed in the transformation was really alarming. How soon would it be till she was using that just like she used her hands now? "What about you? Were there any of the ones you think you are becoming? I know you seem certain you are turning into one of those..what do you call them?..night ponies? You spend a lot of time looking at them on your computer. If you have a sense that is what is happening to you then that must be God talking to you in your heart."
"No," he said as he looked down at the frayed beige carpet. "There aren't any there, and none of the people there seem to be turning into them either. I asked the doctors about it and they heard that there were a few over at the university, another one or two at the hospital, and another over in one of the local high schools, but most shelters don't have any. I'm the only person in the immediate area that is handled by that shelter or the elementary school shelter that is displaying any signs of being one. They say it seems to be pretty rare overall."
"Well, that just means you are special," his mother said with a smile. "Maybe ones like that are supposed to keep us safe at night, like police officers and firefighters."
"I'm pretty sure police officers and firefighters work just as much in the day," Matthew replied in a flat tone.
"Yes, but the really bad things they deal with happen at night," his mother insisted. Again he wasn't going to contradict her. She seemed to be trying hard to make her peace with all this.
"I needed to tell you that they couldn't spare any food," he said, changing the subject. "They said there are supposed to be trucks coming sometime tomorrow that will deliver food to the shelter here as well as the others, but they aren't sure when tomorrow it'll come. They said that there are a lot of trucks coming down from up north to try to get food to everyone. The transformed that are calling themselves earth ponies..you know the ones without wings or horns, they were talking about setting up farms and seemed pretty confident they could do it."
"I'm not sure where they would do such a thing even if they're capable," his mother said with a raised eyebrow. "Most large tracts of undeveloped land are marshy and not good for farms. There's just no where to make big farms that can actually hope to feed this many mouths. Not unless they start tearing up parking lots or something to make space."
"Um, I think that's exactly what they're talking about doing. They said we aren't going to need them anyway. Who is even going to be able to operate a car as a pony?" Matthew said with a grimace.
"They're right," his mother said as she looked at the carpet consideringly. "I say let them go ahead try. If some pony gives them hell about it I'm in their corner. We all need to eat more than we need parking lots."
He had heard a lot of the people fully transformed and most of the far along saying pony to refer to people at the shelter; not only today, but over the last few days as well. This was the first time he had heard his mother do it though. She likely hadn't even realized she had done it. Matthew decided not to point it out. He'd likely start doing it himself soon enough without realizing it, maybe he already was and just hadn't caught himself.
"I'm getting sleepy. Your father passed out maybe thirty minutes before you showed back up, but I'm not going to go upstairs to bed. If I suddenly start having trouble getting around I prefer to not have to deal with the stairs. Can you do me a favor and go up to my room and bring some blankets down for us?" She requested with a yawn.
"Sure thing," he said.
Matthew got up from the couch and headed up the stairs to go find the requested bedding. His parents' room looked a mess, which was out of character for how they typically kept it. He supposed that the recent stresses might have made them go lax on their normal routine. As he grabbed up the blankets from the bed he noticed that there was a lot of purple and yellow hair on the floor by his mother's side of the bed, and a discarded pair of scissors. She must have cut it all off last night only to have it grow back by this morning. He hadn't even realized she had tried doing that.
He wasn't really sure how he felt about the changes happening. Logic said he should be in a panic, scared, at least worried; instead he felt kind of numb to it all. He knew that people got more accepting of it as time went on, even eager towards the end, but he shouldn't be at that stage yet. Did that mean something was wrong with him? He typically didn't have a lot of emotional impact from most things, but this wasn't most things.
He left the room and walked back down the stairs to find his mother had been more tired than he thought, as she had passed out spread across the couch. He carefully spread one blanket over her and then took a second blanket and set it over his father.
He debated going to bed himself then, but he really wasn't tired. Instead he went back to his laptop to see if there had been any more news. He intended to check around to see if any of the closest people turning into night ponies actually posted online as well.
When he got the computer connected to the Wi-Fi he was surprised to be greeted immediately by an instant message. What was even more surprising was who it was from, Tonya. Fully transformed didn't tend to use computers much except for the night ponies, and he had never chatted with her online before for that matter. They just knew one another from school, and from church while Tonya had still attended when she was younger and still calling herself Thomas. He recognized her human photo on the avatar right away though, so there was no mistaking her.
Hi sorry to message you like this, but wanted to see if you were coming by again tomorrow I got someone to turn on the thing where I can talk to text for me but am getting really tired so might not get your reply right away I should have just caught up to you before you left or flown after you but I don't think your parents like me and me flying up to your door and knocking might have been weird I wanted to talk to you about something I smelled about you today I am sure I wasn't the only pony to smell it so maybe you already know I would have called but every pony says the phone is too staticy lately and I am blabbering but I am so excited so please come and talk to me tomorrow.
He had to re-read it a few times to be clear, since the complete lack of punctuation made things harder to understand. She was concerned about something she smelled on him? That seemed kind of rude. Maybe it is some weird pony thing with sense of smell. He had heard some say that they focused a lot more on smell now.
That was a mystery for tomorrow. He resolved to make sure he took a shower right before heading out tomorrow, at least once he had checked on his parents to make sure they would be alright without him still. How long did they have before they got to the stage they couldn't walk around anymore? Two days maybe? It was hard to tell with how things seemed to be going faster now.
Resolving to just try to force himself to sleep with some sleep aids he closed his laptop up. This might be his final night sleeping if he was going to go nocturnal soon. He wondered how he was even going to function on a pure night schedule if everyone else was committed to days. It made wanting to find others like him more urgent.
He paused in his thoughts. Why was it so urgent to him all the sudden? He really hadn't cared about how much time he spent with others before. Were his thought processes changing already. Maybe it didn't really matter. It seemed the way things were going that it was an inevitability. He could fret about it, or he could embrace it and do what he needed to properly adjust.
Shaking his head to try to ignore those kinds of questions, he focused on making his full plan for tomorrow. Get some actual sleep tonight if he had to chug the full bottle of the sleep aid. Get up early and check on his parents, if they were okay walk back to the church and see what Tonya wanted. Then he would make the long two hour walk to the university and see if he could track down the night ponies or soon to be night ponies there so he could have someone to talk to at night.
He raised an arm and sniffed himself, but didn't smell anything. What in the world had Tonya been going on about? Even if her more sensitive nose picked up a little stench it shouldn't get her that excited. Well, he would add taking a shower back into his plans too. He wasn't going to have a bunch of ponies telling him he smelled funny.
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afflicted
This was an interesting chapter, I wonder if his parents will change the attributed gender of god after they will have the prophetic dream? For the sound of it they will cling on to any thing that can constitute to try an make sense of the their world. I thought that his parents didn't know he was turning into a theastral with the bat wings and all, but it doesn't seem to be case? Would be funny to see Tonya become fast friends with his his parents. Keep it up
So it looks like our protagonist will be caught in the middle of the transformation when the cure is cast. I hope it will be before he becomes a she as so far it looks like that it part of the last step.
8892355
I am counting on increased acceleration already in progress due to large magic pool plus Sunset's final "acceleration boost" to finish things out.
Giving the focus on Tonya's situation, and the change in smell that warranted all the fully turned ponies' attention, a marification is in the cards for the protag. The framing of his family's beliefs involving Tonya into an unwilling marification might be interesting, but runs the risk of being... mishandled.
The whole bit with the soul reshaping from book 1 made every new pony be comfortable with who and what they become, with some exceptions, sure. This protag seems to be rather go-with-the-flow, so i don't know what could make him have too many issues with becoming her. Even more so with that soul reshaping going on. But we'll see where it goes.
I haven't read the original story but this one that's not 400k words sure has my attention so far
How long does it take for the transformation from start to finish?
He seems a fair bit more mature than his parents, ya gotta abide man. Seriously, people put so much work into planning out god's work for him, and then get bent all out of shape when he ignores them. Honestly, the gall of some people.
In this paragraph aresupposed should be are supposed
9665547
Honestly: I had much the same thoughts after reading the first two chapters. That's why I stopped reading this.
10024368
Christianity and southern society get both positive and negative things said about them in story. The goal is to show a wholly different pony culture develop in the southern United States from what developed out in the western United States in this series. A large part of this different culture grew from a strong church foundation. This is guided by an evangelical preacher felt compelled to reinterpret and reinvent her faith based on the fact she and many others had become ponies. Good things and bad things can be said about her, and I try to show her over the course of the series as a whole person who embodies both the good and the bad (and many of her negatives have nothing to do with her faith, while the ones that do can be viewed as results of her own personal interpretations), and that in the long run that the south was better for her efforts despite her negatives.
The series of four stories on my side of the pandemic universe cover a wide swath of material; the rise of the southern pony culture, the rise of the Dreamwardens as seemingly impossible to defeat despots and the eventual display of their vulnerabilities and weaknesses- as well as them struggling to reconcile with a world that learned to fear them early on, the main character arc of Sunset Blessing, the main character arc for Wild Growth, the foalhood arc for Jessie Middleton, there is also over the course of the series a great deal of background information about the origins of the Devourers-- which are a endgame threat in the series. There are some things that I would have rewritten in hindsight (for instance, Picking Up the Pieces has a lot of 'fat' that could be trimmed to make it more focused).
10024530
Perhaps. But the first two chapters turned me off. Felt too much like I was stepping into stereotypesville. Maybe I'll give this another chance.
Interesting. Remember my comments on “Pandemic: Aftermath”, the story about the West? The West had split into two factions who largely hated each-other: The Ponies and the Humans. I commended both as factions as treasonous and anti-American.
The Ponies and the Humans were America's latest two groups of Hyphenated-Americans. And the problem with Hyphenated-Americans is: Too often, they engage in petty tribal bickering. They don't really love America, they just see America as a prize to claim for their little group.
Of course, not all Hyphenated-Americans are like that. There are (for example) some Italian-Americans who are genuinely loyal to both Italy and America. Unfortunately, I think most Hyphenated-Americans are disloyal to one or both of their groups. The Pony and Human-Americans of the West were no exception, they were both disloyal to America (though the Ponies more so then the Humans).
But “Aftermath” mentioned that the Southern Ponies hadn't separated themselves from society, like their Western counterparts. And I thought that made sense: The South is, in a lot of ways, the most American part of America. When the Census asks Americans for their ethnicity: The most common answer from Southerns is “American”. Southerns largely see themselves not as Italian-Americans, or Asian-Amerians, or something. They just see themselves as Americans! It's likely that the Southern Ponies would still see themselves as Americans, and retain their loyalty to America.