Fruit of Transformation
Sunset took a deep breath of clear air, the cool breeze through her mane. Birds sang along with the breeze and water streamed between hills and gently fell. After months of looking at cityscapes, she was starved for artistic inspiration back at Canterlot High. She hadn’t been sure what to make of Princess Twilight packing her things and sending her to Mount Aris when she mentioned that, but she had to admit, she really came through.
“And this is Harmonizing Heights!” explained one of her two guides, a white hippogriff colt with blue hair… feathers? Sunset didn’t know what to make of hippogriff manes, but felt it was a bit rude to ask about it. His name was Terramar, and he and his sister, Silverstream, were guiding Sunset during her summer stay.
Sunset tore her eyes from the landscape and turned to Terramar with a smile. “It’s wonderful! You two get to come here all the time?”
The other hippogriff, a pink mare with blue… let’s go with hair, nodded her head enthusiastically, only to twist her face then shake it. “Well, Terramar comes here a lot. I like it just fine, but you know, I’m way more excited by what’s out there!” she said, flapping her wings and waving her front legs out wide. “Stairs, indoor plumbing, you name it!”
While Terramar was fairly reserved, Silverstream was very excitable. She reminded Sunset of a certain other pink girl she knew. The unicorn pulled binoculars out of her saddlebag—she impulsively used her leg to do so, but switched to magic once she caught herself—and looked for anything that stood out to her.
Silverstream stepped in front of the binoculars with a smile. “So, Professor Shimmer, see anything you want to paint?”
Sunset blushed. “Uh, it’s just Sunset. I’m just a student like you are, not a professor.”
It was Terramar’s turn to twist his face. “Wait, really? But Twilight said you worked at a school. Aren’t you, like, the same age as Silverstream’s professors?”
Sunset smiled. “It’s complicated. Don’t worry about it. Anyway, it all looks so wonderful. We could just stroll around until I find inspiration for a still life.”
They walked and talked for several minutes through the Harmonizing Heights. Terramar explained the unusual geometry of the rocks and cliffs and how they provided the best acoustics known to hippogriffs. Meanwhile, Sunset rebuffed Silverstream’s attempts to get further explanation how Sunset’s a student. If Twilight didn’t tell them about dimensional travel and all the time weirdness involved, then she didn’t want to bog down their time together talking about that.
“So were you held back?” Silverstream asked innocently.
Sunset blushed in offense. “What? No! Look, it’s a very weird and very complicated situation, but I definitely wasn’t held back.”
The pink hippogriff rubbed her cheek, then her eyes widened. “Ah, wait! If it’s that weird and complicated, maybe you were held back, and you just don’t realize it!”
Sunset opened her mouth to respond, but she paused. School did seem to be going on for a long time. Eventually, something caught the unicorn’s attention from the corner of her eye.
“Oh wow, take a look at this.” Sunset’s magic reached into a bush and she levitated out a strange object. It resembled a large papaya, but the top bloomed into a pink and yellow flower.
Silverstream put her front hooves, or rather, claws up to her cheeks. “It’s beautiful!”
Sunset rotated it in her magic and examined it. “What kind of fruit is it?”
Silverstream shrugged. “I haven’t really brushed up on hippogriff surface level fruits… or hippogriff surface level stuff in general. Terramar, do you recognize it?”
The colt walked closer and scratched his chin. “It looks kind of familiar. I think it was used in some festivals, maybe? It might have been in some old wall drawings.”
Sunset grinned. “So, it’s an important fruit, then. All the better to capture it in paint, then.”
They walked out to a clearing. Sunset looked around, then placed the fruit near a stream. She then stepped away and set up the painting equipment she brought in her saddlebag. She placed the canvas on a stand, pulled out her paint, then got to work. Taking in the colors around her, Sunset adjusted green paint on her palette then brushed it across her canvas to make the background.
After a minute, she remembered her audience. “You don’t have to stay here while I paint, you know. It’ll take some time.”
Silverstream smiled. “Oh don’t worry Profess—er, Sunset. Seeing someone else paint is really interesting!”
“I’m fine staying here too,” responded Terramar.
Sunset nodded and got back to work. Thirty minutes of peaceful painting passed, interrupted by the occasional idle chatter, and she was making good progress. However, the wind picked up and—
“Oh no!” Silverstream exclaimed as the fruit fell to its side and then rolled into the stream.
“I’ll get it!” Terramar said. Touching his necklace, he transformed into a seapony then dived into the water. He surfaced a few seconds later. “Uh, is it just me, or does this look different now?”
Indeed, the fruit he carried in his fins couldn’t have been the one before. It was blue, for one thing. The flower had regressed to a bud, and there were yellow leaves drooping off it.
Sunset tilted her head. “Terramar, are you sure there wasn’t anything else down there?”
He shook his head. “No, I saw where the fruit fell, and this was where it was.”
Silverstream gasped. “I know what it is! Don’t you remember, Terramar? During your last transformation ceremony?”
Terramar thought for a moment. “Oh yeah, that! It was on the walls.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Transformation ceremony?”
Silverstream nodded. “When a seapony chooses their gender, Queen Novo uses the Pearl of Transformation to change their body as they like. Well, the Pearl always has a particular look for you in mind, so it’s not like you can add more feathers or anything, and—”
Sunset interrupted. “Wait, the Pearl can do that? I heard about it, like, changing ponies to seaponies, but it can change your sex too? And it’s just like a normal part of being a hippogriff? That’s crazy!”
Silverstream blinked. “Oh, huh, yeah, I guess you ponies never had the Pearl, so you don’t do that. Weird. So what do you do then?”
“Well, it’s a lot more drawn out and, actually, I should probably explain what—” Sunset paused. “Actually, first of all, what’s the deal with the fruit?”
“Oh, yeah. This is the fruit of transformation. It has a proper name, but I don’t remember it.” Silverstream turned to Terramar, who transformed and approached with the fruit. “Met... more.. tuna?”
Terramar shrugged.
“Anyway, from what I’ve heard, this fruit transforms based on its surroundings—or whenever it wants to, really—so it’s a symbol of hippogriff transformations. I heard these were all lost when the Storm King attacked, so it’s amazing that we found one!”
Sunset put a hoof to her mouth. “We really hit the jackpot! Should we go tell the other hippogriffs?”
Silverstream hummed. “It’s not like we have to rush. I’d really like to see you finish your painting first.”
The unicorn twisted her face and looked at the fruit. “Well, I’ve been painting the fruit’s previous form, and I can’t really change it partway through.”
Seemingly in response, the fruit’s bud exploded into a flower, it changed back to yellow-green, and the drooping yellow leaves shrank back. It now looked like it never fell into the water.
“Ooh, looks like it wants to be painted too!” said Silverstream. Terramar placed it back where it was before and the two hippogriffs looked expectantly at Sunset.
Sunset shrugged and reapplied paint to her brush. “Well, if the fruit wants me to finish, then I can’t argue with that.” Checking the fruit again for no sudden changes, she got to work. “So about this transformation ceremony, how does the fruit get used there?”
Terramar responded, “It was just on wall paintings. Well, twenty-five of the fruit’s forms were on there.”
She whistled back. “I’m glad it’s sticking to this one right now, then. Though, if the fruit’s been missing for so long, maybe the original version of the ceremony used the fruit itself.”
Silverstream said, “That makes sense.” Her expression quickly changed to excitement. “Wait, Sunset! Now you need to tell us how ponies handle transforming!”
Sunset reeled back. “Oh, right. Well, like I was saying, it’s a lot more complicated. I’d have loved to have just used the Pearl to instantly transform into a mare, but I had to go through years of spell treatments to make sure everything went right.”
Terramar frowned. “Years? Really? And every pony has to do that?”
The unicorn paused and blushed, then placed her hoof on her forehead. “You know, I actually haven’t even told either Twilight I’m trans, so I can’t believe I just told you two.”
Silverstream tilted her head. “Trans? What does that mean?”
“What do you mean, ‘either Twilight?’” Terramar asked.
Sunset chose to ignore that last question. “Uh, well, ‘trans’ means in my case that I had a body where, like, doctors and my parents called me a colt, but that didn’t feel right at all, because I was actually a filly. I was able to make myself look like a filly, with my mane and such, but it was only after I became Celestia’s student that I could get spells to change my body cast on me.” She waved her hooves. “You don’t have to get your body changed to be trans, though. I was already trans when I had a colt body. Oh, right, both of you changed your sexes during the transformation ceremony, so I guess maybe you're both trans then?” She tilted her head. “Or something?”
The siblings were sitting with claws rubbing their chins. They looked at each other with raised eyebrows, and Silverstream said, “I… guess I get it. Weird that you have a special term for that.”
Sunset thought for a bit how to word her reply. “You see, because ponies can’t change their bodies that easily, the ponies that want to have life experiences that are unique to them. I don’t want to get too into it, but trans ponies also experience problems that other ponies don’t. Well, creatures in general, not just ponies. Because of that, it’s important for them to have their own name. Do you understand what I mean?”
Silverstream kept rubbing her chin, but Terramar stepped forward with wide eyes. “Wait, I get it! This actually ties into something I was thinking about!”
The two mares looked at him. Silverstream asked, “What do you mean?”
“The transformation ceremony! Remember, with the Pearl of Transformation broken up, all the recent ones needed at least five shards to work. Hippogriffs have mainly been staying around Mount Aris, but more and more have been traveling the world. I was thinking that with everyone spread out, it might be difficult to keep having them. It didn’t occur to me until now that other creatures might have experience with this.”
Sunset smiled. “Well there you go! We were able to figure out a problem way before it became a big deal. If I know Twilight, she’ll definitely get a long term solution ready for you guys if you ask.”
Silverstream sat in silence for a bit. Sunset gave her a concerned expression, and after seeing this, the pink mare spoke up. “It’s weird, I didn’t even think of the transformation ceremony as something a hippogriff may not have access to. You said before ponies have to use years of magic to transform instead?”
Sunset grimaced, “Yes, but to be clear, lots of trans ponies can get by just fine without, er, transforming as long as they have supportive friends and are allowed to just act like their gender without ponies questioning them. I can definitely see how that would all sound a lot worse than what you have now, but I can tell you that friends make it all a lot easier. Or in my case, the princess of Equestria, since I didn’t really have other friends back then.”
She considered talking about how trans people don’t even have magic in the human world, but decided that really wasn’t the right thing to bring up now. Instead, Sunset gave a supportive smile “So yeah, in short, other creatures have a harder time changing their bodies to match their gender, and yes, it sounds like that might be the case for hippogriffs in the future, but there’s a hundred percent chance Twilight and the others will help you figure it out.”
Silverstream took a moment, then gave a soft smile back. “I admit, I’m suddenly really nervous about this, but hearing that did calm me down. Thanks, Sunset.”
Sunset nodded, and then after a few more strokes of her brush, she announced, “And… done! Take a look, you two.”
She stepped away and the hippogriffs squeezed together in front of her painting. “Wow, this is amazing!” exclaimed Silverstream. Terramar nodded and gave an approving hum.
“It’s all yours, too. I wouldn’t feel right taking it with me.”
Silverstream flew up in excitement. “Really? Wow, thank you so much!”
She then dived down and embraced Sunset, squeezing their faces together. Yup, definitely like another girl she knew. Hippogriff fur and feathers made her a bit more ticklish, though.
They quickly cleaned up after themselves, with Sunset carrying the painting supplies, Silverstream carrying the fruit, and Terramar carrying the painting. Scrolling down to the beach, the adult hippogriffs they passed by murmuring as they saw the lost treasure. They approached the ocean and Terramar stepped forward. “I’ll put the painting in my room, then we’ll meet Dad.”
He jumped and transformed into a seapony. Right before he and the painting hit the water, Sunset’s eyes widened and she desperately lashed out with magic, thankfully pulling the painting out of his fins in time. Terramar peeked out of the water in confusion.
“Oh, sorry, this isn’t waterproof,” Sunset said with a blush. “Probably should have told you guys.”
Deciding to instead deposit the painting in Sunset’s room, they found the siblings’ father soon after outside his hut, talking to some other hippogriffs. The others gasped and the blue hippogriff turned around himself. Sky Beak put his claws to his mouth. “Good heavens, the metamorfóno fruit!”
Silverstream snapped her claws. “That’s what it was! Metamorf-una!”
In her other claw, the fruit started shifting and changing. It slipped out of her grasp and it fell onto the sand, where it proceeded to open up, exposing several large black seeds.
Sunset smiled with an open mouth. “A third form! What does this one mean?”
Sky Beak stepped forward. “This is the signal for the seed spreading ceremony.”
Silverstream hovered in the air and shook with excitement. “Ooh! I never got to see the seed spreading ceremony! Sunset, this is way more exciting than the transformation ceremony! This means we’ll be able to get more transformation fruit all around the island!”
Sunset looked at the black seeds. “So, do we just take these seeds and plant them?”
The pink mare shook her head. “No, silly! You gotta eat them first!”
The unicorn tilted her head. “But why would—” She froze as she saw Sky Beak rip his beak into the fruit’s flesh and swallow it without chewing.
Learning about the transformation ceremony and the fruit of transformation showed her how amazing hippogriff culture and history could be, but...
Sunset blanched. “I… think this is something I’m fine not learning more about.”
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lol got a downvote literally as soon as this went up
10286395
Why?
10286396
Pretty sure it's someone salty about the cover art.
10286399
Oh
10286399
After I added the Pride and BLM links to the story I put up yesterday, someone mass-downvoted all of my stories at once lol, this site has some real fragile assholes on it
Edit: and people literally downvoted this comment too lmao.
Black lives matter and trans rights are human rights. Die mad about it, you sad little things.
10286477
F'naaaaaaa
I really love this concept!
10286477
It's such a shame that a fandom with so many wonderful queer fans also has so many homophobic/transphobic bigots.
10287864
I meant that one person went downvoted every single one of my stories at once
10287869 one time I was impolite to a nazi’s sockpuppet account and all my stories unaccountably acquired a downvote all at once
So... Are all hippogriffs “trans” as we would understand it in this fanfic?
10305039
Sunset herself isn't quite sure, hence her "Maybe?" afterward. Being trans isn't significant to hippogriff culture, so up until the point where it becomes significant (once the hippogriff diaspora swings into full gear), they wouldn't use that label on themselves. I would hesitate to say they're trans until they themselves consider themselves trans. Plus, Silverstream referenced Terramar's most recent transformation ceremony, meaning he may be the gender he'd have been assigned at birth by a pony doctor.
10305039
Same question applies to changelings, of course :)
Hey, when species is up for grabs, of course something as relatively minor as physical sex would be. And with every hippogriff having a personal shard of the Pearl, they redefine the term "genderfluid." Lovely bit of world-building.
Also, Sunset may have just realized that music festival wasn't her only temporal anomaly. Cue Sci-Twi shattering the timestream just in time for college finals.
10287060
Mental illnesses aren't something to joke about man
This is my jam. :3
But then again, so is headcanon that makes hippogriffs interesting. :D
Oh I love these hippogriff headcanons! And trans Sunset is always the best <3
10670321
Thanks!
Well, I'm definitely giving this an upvote to counter all those downvotes. I'm always on the hunt for my trans fictions and more ideas about what it is like to be trans in Equestria. I really enjoyed the relaxed pacing and the way Sunset got to be a knowledgeable teacher, but one that was put in a more informal light that suits her (in contrast with a character like Celestia). The way that the setting was described was also fun. That being said... this wasn't free from flaws. It reminded me of another story, A Changeling and a Kirin Walk Into a Bar, that was entered into a contest. The communication of the characters as trans/not trans/another LGBT status felt shaky, and the terms used to describe the characters could have probably gone through another check.
The other issue was that some lines of dialogue stood out as feeling confusing (even as a trans reader) or forced. Not that you made trans acceptance out to be forced, just that the dialogue came across as a little more removed from what being trans is/isn't and that it better fit a vague PSA than Sunset Shimmer, who is depicted as a trans mare talking to two (possibly?) trans youth. She spoke with an odd outsider's perspective in a way that... felt especially odd when you showed that she was trans. If you were to revisit the subject again, I'd say that this could be improved by giving more emotional foreshadowing/internal dialogue to show that she is a trans and there is a reason she's speaking in this way (so she doesn't feel removed from her transness) or by revising your dialogue. What you have are good sums and ideas here, they just don't feel like they're conveyed organically. The only character I could see speaking like this is a cis character, or one who is hesitant and kind of... Maud-like? Not exactly clinical per se, you don't use a lot of clinical language or trans-specific vocabulary, and the result is a kind of non-specific technical feel.
Here it feels like you're confusing gender or sex, unless you're implying the Pearl is able to rewire/alter the brains of the hippogriffs (gender) or that it just remolds their bodies (sex) which would have been able to be remolded with medicine/magic/magic medicine(?) anyway.
This feels like a needlessly confusing way to explain 'the condition preceded the intervention/was underlying before it was discovered' in a non-clinical way to two kids.
This part of the dialogue was the hardest for me to parse. It doesn't do a very good job at explaining what the difference between transgender and cisgender is in a way that isn't very misleading. Terramar and Silverstream may not be in a society that has the same treatments and biology as Sunset's, but they at least come across as being teenaged. I think that they would be able to understand a real explanation, since just giving this sort of lengthy verbal shrug and using 'different experiences' as the reason is really inaccurate at worst of a misleading hand wave of the actual differences involved at best.
I'm going to have to assume you're equating spells that Sunset went through with surgery here? If that's the case, then she'd be right. Unless a doctor or doctors say otherwise, no trans person needs surgery. The benefits and success of it can be heavily dependent on the individual, and the effects of HRT (or here, its equivalent) can often give what surgery could if an intervention into therapy/medical stuff is started (reasonably) early. But if 'transforming' is used to mean blockers or HRT... there's a huge issue there. Unless there is an issue of age or a medical reason (and also that some folks don't have access to trans care and can only do social passing), taking hormones is kind of important. Those have definite medical benefits and have always been the best at kicking dysphoria in the dick. All the friendship and acceptance in the world can't come close to what HRT brings and what it does to someone. Without the distinction of exactly what Sunset means by 'transforming' it comes across a lot like Sunset is telling kids not to take their meds, which is not a good impression to give to young readers (this story is rated E, so it made sense to bring that up) or very tone-appropriate for discovery fluff.
While everything else just feels like a first foray into writing trans fiction, these latter two examples are ones I'd consider revisiting, if you choose to come back to anything in this story.
10743002
Thanks for the reply!
Sunset is explaining all this to characters that don't conceive of gender in the same way as ponies, I'm don't know how you'd do that in a non-technical way.
The idea is that hippogriffs aren't told they're any particular gender, then they tell people what gender they are and get transformed if needed.
You're misunderstanding that passage, I think. It's:
The unique life experiences aren't the reason why they're trans, it's saying that because they have unique life experiences, there's a need to have a particular term for them, rather than it just being "normal".
The feedback I got from people I asked when writing this was that some trans people can be fine without needing any surgery or treatments, and it was worth pointing this out. It's possible that they just didn't consider HRTs as part of this. Would you say what you said applies to all trans people?
10743464
This makes it sound more like they're raised gender neutrally, with multiple elements of the story suggesting that they have no androgynous sex but definite male and female ones (as evidenced by Terramar and Silverstream). Even if they don't conceive of what gender is, they'd still have to have it. Otherwise, they would all be androgyne-type beings without any diversity in that regard. So, to get them to understand gender, Sunset would probably have to give a hilariously de-technicalized version of the 'birds and the bees' except more along the lines of 'the boys and the girls' seeing how hippogriffs have different/fluid/no gender roles which has lead to them barely addressing gender in their society.
I guess the issue with that is that it explains effect upon effect upon effect. Being dysphoric about sex (effect) leads to unique life experiences (another effect) and correcting it through transitioning (another effect) leads to even more unique experiences (continuing effect) instead of the cause. Sunset is in a unique position where she feels comfortable explaining to Terramar and Silverstream not just that she is trans, but what being trans means to two youth who may have already transitioned and just never had the word for what that part of themselves is. Since it isn't a socially inappropriate situation where anyone is uncomfortable or feels like they have to justify themselves, and so on, I figured that two curious kids would eventually ask Sunset that big old question: the why. After all, she's been giving them a very general idea about what being trans can involve in a creature's life, just not what it is.
When Sunset concludes that the duo may be trans, I got the impression that they would be comfortable disclosing that status, but that because they weren't informed on exactly what being transgender is and what would make someone transgender, they had no means to be able to say 'Yes this is me because I went through X to fix Y' or deny that was the case. It comes across more as Sunset using the effect (unique life experiences) as making the cause (being trans) instead of answering the other way around. Does that explain things a bit better?
The only trans people I've known of or have known personally that didn't go on HRT just went with social passing and legally getting their name/gender marker done. That sort of thing. It was either because of health issues (having an allergy to HRT is possible) or because they were non-binary. There are medical options for non-binary people, but those tend towards being best for transmasc or transfemme enbies. I've heard of some agender/androgynous enbies who took both E and T at the same time, but that doesn't have as predictable as a transition path as transfemme/masc or trans women/men transitioning. Sexual ambiguity exists in humans, but we don't have one particular, clear third sex that can be transitioned into, and that is a huge source of dysphoria for a lot of enbies. I was talking about this kind of thing with an enby friend of mine and I didn't realize that I was really lucky compared to them, because they pointed out that they feel stuck/caged without a realistic transition goal that comes from this gap in humans.
So, I'd say it's the closest to applying to all trans people, at least more than most things. Bodies and brains need the right hormones to go with them. I'd say that living without them is comparable to someone living without antidepressants because they've never been able to get a medication that worked just right for their body chemistry. It's not going to be a pleasant existence, going without any kind of treatment, but it might be more bearable than being on a bad medication.
Before you mention them: I'd consider uncertainty about HRT/exact gender and not being able to access them entirely different issues, hence not mentioning them.
10743504
I suppose my issue is that I'm not sure how to explain it any more clearly than I did in the fic, given the situation in the story. Like I'm not sure what you're asking of me here.
10743542
I'm not trying to specifically ask anything of you, just explain why the dialogue came across as confusing and maybe somewhere to improve.