Healthy as a Horse

by Crescent Pulsar

Chapter 3: You're a Friend in My Book

Anon raised heavy eyelids and stared blearily for a few seconds before yawning and closing them again out of reflex. It wasn't until he felt something furry against his eyes, when he tried to rub the sleep from them, that he remembered what kind of situation he was supposed to expect.

Opening his eyes once more, he raised what still felt a lot like an arm and saw a light blue foreleg that ended with a hoof. The pastel shade was a little off-putting, but he didn't think that any of the ponies would find it strange and make him feel self-conscious about it. He was just glad that he didn't have olive green fur; just the thought of it made him shudder.

Wanting to see one of the main selling points for allowing himself to become a pony, he raised his head and looked down the front of his body. The diaper was to be expected, an unfortunate necessity, so he ignored it and directed his gaze toward his left side. However, something colorful and sparkly caught his attention before he got a good look at one of his wings, and for a few seconds he stared at it with confusion, wondering why the six colors of the rainbow that were arranged into stripes was familiar.

It wasn't until he remembered why it was familiar that he realized that what he was looking at was his tail: because he'd once seen a curious pegasus with rainbow hair peeking in on him shortly after he'd been moved into the outbuilding, which wasn't a feature that would be hard to forget even among other ponies. With that memory in mind, he also noticed that the color of his fur wasn't that different from the pegasus' as well. It made him wonder if that was the other half of his inherited genetics, since he'd only been aware of Isopropyl's contribution.

Rather than a normal tail, though, it was ethereal, with little stars that briefly flickered into existence, and gently wavered on a non-existent breeze. Those qualities reminded him of Princess Luna's hair, who he had met after she had rid him of a nightmare one time. He looked up and tried to see if his mane was the same, but his gaze snapped to another surprise instead: he had a horn.

Puzzled, since he'd been told that being an alicorn was off the table, he checked to make sure that he had wings and confirmed that he did. He wasn't going to complain, since what they offered had made it difficult to choose between the two, but something had obviously gone awry and he began to worry that he had ended up trading one serious complication in his life for another.

Wanting an answer for what happened, he finally turned his attention away from himself and looked around. He found himself lying in a barred crib, inside of what appeared to be a bedroom in Twilight Sparkle's castle. Normally he might have done more than give his environs a cursory inspection, but he had spotted the owner of said castle sitting in a chair nearby and she was markedly more interesting — not to mention more relevant to his needs.

He tried to say, "Hey," to get her attention, but ended up voicing something that started with a gurgle and transitioned into a drawn-out vowel. He had forgotten that he wouldn't be able to speak, but at least it wouldn't be for as long as he'd first feared, since it wasn't uncommon for ponies to start forming their first words within a month. Hopefully his past experience would be enough to cut that to an even shorter date despite his unfamiliar mouth.

Still, his attempt at speech was enough to get Twilight Sparkle's attention, who put aside her book and deliberately asked him, "Is that you, Anon?"

Anon simply nodded his head.

Twilight Sparkle proceeded to levitate him out of the crib and arranged it so he was settled upon his haunches on the end of the bed, which was only a few feet across from her. He squirmed a bit because the diaper felt strange and too big, but discovered he was stable enough when he planted his forehooves on the bed directly in front of him, which felt oddly natural despite it bringing up mental images of cats and dogs in the same position.

After taking a calming breath, Twilight Sparkle established eye contact and earnestly said, "I don't know if you've noticed anything odd about your body yet, but I take full responsibility for what happened. You placed your trust in me, and I failed to meet your expectations."

Anon didn't know if he had seen the full extent of the unplanned changes, and thus if there was anything that he should be worried about, but he wasn't going to hold it against Twilight Sparkle if it was an accident. Her remorse was obvious, and it was clear that the incident had weighed upon her enough to make sure that she was present to apologize to him as soon as his consciousness returned. In addition to that, she was one of the few ponies that he had any significant experience with, which wasn't saying much, so it would be unwise to turn her away without a good reason — never mind that having access to a princess could be useful.

He'd need to know more before deciding on what to do, so he tried to express that he wanted to know what happened. What he managed to voice and gesticulate was embarrassing to say the least, but at least it got across the message that he was trying to say something: because Twilight Sparkle told him that she had made something that would allow him to communicate with her.

She levitated the aforementioned something into view and held it in front of him, within reach of his forehooves. It was a thin panel made of some transparent material, and there were stickers for every letter of the alphabet on it, as well as some numbers and punctuation marks. It reminded him of a Ouija board, except it was meant to communicate with someone on the other side of it, rather than the other other side.

With his right hoof, he tapped out the question, "What happened," with each sticker lighting up for the duration of his touch.

Having expected that question, Twilight Sparkle set her jaw and replied, "It was left up to my discretion regarding how much I should share with you, so if you wish to hear it all... I'll trust you to keep your silence if you promise to keep a certain matter to yourself."

Anon felt his new ears drop. If Twilight Sparkle was referring to a state secret, he didn't know if he wanted to get involved with something like that. However, it also seemed to suggest that whatever had happened to him might not have been purely accidental, and he didn't like the idea or feeling of being manipulated without knowing how or why. Still, if she was willing to give him an opportunity to know about it at all...

When he reached a decision, he tapped out, "I promise," and tried to look as serious as he could manage.

In response, Twilight Sparkle's severe expression eased substantially. "There's a special tree called the 'Tree of Harmony,' and for the past millennium it has been directly and indirectly responsible for Equestria's peace and prosperity. Until the day you were conceived eleven months ago, I understood that it was intelligent and could perform various actions remotely." She paused, and looked apologetic. "I hadn't been aware — and this is the part that you must keep to yourself — that it could transport someone to our universe from another, and that this has happened before."

Seeing the questioning look on Anon's face, she went on to explain, "Princess Cadence, my sister-in-law, was the first case. She was from a parallel universe where the Crystal Empire was never overthrown by Sombra or banished for a thousand years. Instead, their culture of love thrived, and by Cadence's time she felt redundant and unneeded." Her heart still panged in sympathy at the thought, and continued in a softer tone. "It brought her both emotional and physical pain, having no outlet for her love because her parents and older siblings were enough for everyone's needs."

"So," she continued, "one day, when she was ready to leave home and seek out a place where her love could make a difference, the Tree of Harmony transported her to our universe, right before a remote village would need her love the most. She would go on to become an alicorn and princess, gifting Equestria with her love and eventually ruling our version of her old home."

She gestured for Anon to hold on, when she saw him reach out to send her a message. "The reason why I told you that is not only because of Cadence being glad for what happened, but she was eventually able to return to her own universe, directly after the time when she had initially left, and was able to give her family an explanation and a proper goodbye. Everything had worked out well for her, when all was said and done. But," she slid off of her chair and stepped up to Anon, so she could stare into his eyes meaningfully and rest a hoof on his tiny shoulder in a show of support, "that doesn't change the fact that you didn't ask to be here. I'm going to continue looking for your universe, because that's what you want. I just don't want you to think the worst if my search takes too long, okay? It's my hope that you'll be happy whether I'm successful or not."

Touched by her support and optimism, Anon's eyes began to sting and blur with the onset of tears. He turned away and wiped at his eyes, not wanting to look even more like a baby than he already did. Regardless, he was thankful that he had someone in his corner, who had been trying to help him ever since his arrival, and tried to express his gratitude with his new face. He appeared to succeed, because he received a smile from her in response before she returned to her chair.

By the time he regained his composure, he knew what his next question would have to be. "Why was I brought here?"

"I don't know," Twilight Sparkle replied, voice tinged with a hint of frustration. "I've been dwelling on it ever since I found out about the Tree of Harmony's role in this, and there are just too many unknowns. Not only do we not know much about you, but — if Discord and the princesses are to be believed, and I want to believe them — what happened to you seems to be by chance. Celestia has assured me that Discord was ignorant of Cadence's origins and that no one knew what the Tree of Harmony's intentions were; they just assumed that something was going to occur and wanted to help make that happen in addition to aiding you. And Discord swore that his attention was simply attracted by the amount of alicorn magic being utilized and investigated out of curiosity."

She let Anon chew on that for a bit before she continued. "Regardless, I must warn you that being an alicorn is a big deal. You're going to attract a lot of attention, but my friends and I will do our best to shield you from it."

Anon nodded his head to condone her aid. He wouldn't have liked a lot of unwanted attention even back when he had just been another brick in humanity's wall.

Twilight Sparkle hesitated before speaking again. "There was another unexpected change to our arrangement, too."

Made uneasy by her hesitation, Anon forced himself to tap out, "What?"

Rather than answer verbally, Twilight Sparkle worried her lip and replaced his means of communication with a mirror. There he saw much of what he had seen already, save for the pastel pink color on the ends of his wings and the cerise of his irises. Seeing the whole picture, however, revealed that he looked cute. Really cute. Probably-too-cute-to-be-a-boy cute. Adorable, too. He would have been tempted to hug the pony in plain view of others while he was still human.

And that cute, adorable pony was him.

If that wasn't mind-boggling enough, he was obviously a she, which was definitely something that he hadn't asked for. While he was certainly upset about that, he just couldn't get over his appearance and find the will to dislike it, making him conflicted and confused. When he couldn't reconcile his feelings on the matter, but was unable to ignore the reality being presented to him, his brain went into protection mode and pulled down the emergency shutdown switch for the first time in his life.

Twilight Sparkle silently watched as his eyes rolled into the back of his head, followed by his body slumping over in a dead faint. "Well," she muttered under her breath, "that could have gone better."

Comments

[Gizmo Gear]

Oh FAUST DAMNIT Discord.........!!!!

[AnormalUnicornPony]

Lol.