A Little Splash

by PrincessAquos

Chapter 2 - Gogatsu-byou

"The truth is mighty powerful, but you can bet that it gets weaker with every lie. A true friend doesn't hide their true feelings, and they also have to appreciate the courage of others when they share a difficult or embarrassing truth."
- Applejack

Creatures of all kinds walked the halls of the School of Friendship. Hundreds of friendly faces were catching up with friends by their lockers on the way to the next period.

"Yo, Forest!" A silver griffon called through the crowd. An earth pony with a grassy green coat and sea green mane turned from his locker and looked around in the direction of the call, before his eyes locked onto the griffon approaching him.

"Heyyy, Gully, what's up?" Forest greeted.

"Not much," replied the griffon. "Have you seen Splash anywhere?"

Forest frowned, "No, he wasn't in homeroom today."

"The teachers didn't even know where he was when I asked. You saw him Sunday, right?" Asked Gully.

"Well, I didn't see him," the colt groaned back, "I talked to him from outside."

"Oh yeah! He doesn't let anyone in his house, I forgot!" Gully made no attempt to hold back his laughter.

"I hope it's nothing serious," worried the earth pony. "We should go check on him after school today."

Gully, however, just shrugged, "He's probably fine, but if you really want, I'll come along."

---

Aquarius posed in front of the mirror, marveling at the mare he had become.

"It… worked," he muttered. "I mean, this isn't exactly what I was going for, but… I really did perform self-transformation magic."

As Aquarius modeled for himself, he took note of what had changed, as well as some… irregularities. "What's really odd is that my cutie mark seems to be missing. Is it some sort of side effect?" He wondered as he inspected his flank. It was now bare where there had once been an image of a sparkling thought cloud, a symbol of his ingenuity and creative thinking. "A grown pony with a blank flank would certainly stand out like a sore thumb…"

He had finished brushing his mane and tail, which were both much longer than they were before. The brush that he had performed well enough, but it wasn't exactly ideal for the job, and left them a bit messy. The pony then moved to brush his coat. "It's so much... softer now," he remarked. Looking back to the mirror, a bubbly feeling of joy began to well up inside him. It was like nothing Aquarius had ever felt before. The cute mare in the reflection filled the pony with glee. That's… me, he thought to himself. This is pretty good…

Suddenly, several hard knocks at the door made Aquarius flinch and drop the brush. "Yo, Splash!" Gully called. "Forest and I came to check on you! You there?"

Aquarius swallowed an "eep!" of surprise before he could give himself away. Oh no. No no no no, the panic was settling in. My voice… I'd die of embarrassment if they found out about this!

Thinking fast, he dashed out of the bathroom, past the front door, knocked over a perilously constructed city of cider cans, and fumbled around in a drawer. Finally, he dug out a clothespin. Gully knocked harder, the door quaking with every pound. "I can hear you moving around in there! What's going on?"

Hurrying, Aquarius plugged his nose with the pin. In his haste, he failed to notice that his muzzle had changed shape to the gentler slope of a filly's, and ended up jabbing himself. "Oww!" The mare voice yelped, made more nasally by the pin plugging his nose.

"Was that you?" Forest asked, getting right up against the door. "You doing okay?"

"Yeah, I'm alright," Aquarius replied with the now nasally voice.

"Whoa, you sound awful," Gully remarked.

"Yeah, I got really sick," He fibbed.

"Is that why you didn't wanna play buckball on Sunday?" Forest asked.

"Yeah, I just didn't want you guys to - yowch! - worry about me." The clothespin was awfully uncomfortable.

"Worry about you? What are you talking about?" Gully asked. Forest jabbed him in the gut and gave him a death glare. "W-what I mean is, you say that as if missing two days of school without warning is somehow less worrying," Gully managed.

"Wha- two days?" The pony blurted out, adjusting the clothespin.

"Yeah. It's Tuesday," Aquarius could feel the deadpan delivery in Gully’s voice.

"I… slept through all of Monday?" Aquarius asked innocently.

At that, Forest burst into laughter. "Pffff-hahahaha! Wow! That's incredible!"

"Hahaa… yeah…" Aquarius feigned laughter.

"Dude, it's kinda weird always talking to you through a door," Gully reasoned, "do you think we could, like, come in for once?" The doorknob jiggled lightly as his talons clenched it.

"NO!" Aquarius squeaked, hurling his body into the door to secure it shut. The forcefulness and volume made Forest flinch, and Gully shot backwards into the air, held aloft by his wings. "Uh… it's just, really contagious. If I got you two sick, they'd probably think we were all ditching class again," Aquarius gave some genuine, but lackluster attempts at feigning a cough. Gully rolled his eyes.

"Alright, well… if you need anything, I picked up a set of those enchanted communication books. Just write to me if something comes to mind." Forest offered nervously.

"Whoa, wait, what?" Aquarius gasped. "Aren't those things expensive? Why the hay would you do that?"

Forest barked back instantly, as if to clear up any misconception, "We had no idea where you were for two days! If you're out sick, that's one less creature to be miserable with!" Then he paused, as if he was thinking of other reasons on the spot. "We'll also gain some brownie points with the teacher this way; keeping in touch is a friendship thing, right?" Forest's voice wavered a bit, but Aquarius was too concerned about his own situation to notice. "Anyway, I'll just leave it on the doorstep, if that's cool."

"Yeah, go for it, I guess. How much do I owe you?"

"Don't worry about that, just focus on getting better! I-it isn't fair that you're the only one that gets to stay out of class!" Forest stuttered, turning to walk away.

"Yeah, I'll try," replied the transformed colt, a sarcastic smile running across his face.

They sure were the same as always. He'd known Forest and Gully since orientation, and the only thing that really brought the three of them together was their total lack of interest in going to friendship school.

Well, there was at least one other reason; one that Aquarius swore to never admit. But he knew it was unlikely that the two of them felt the same way, so it wasn't worth dwelling on.

Waiting a moment, Aquarius snuck a peek out of the laundry room window to make sure they were gone. Finally, he could remove the clothespin.

"OWW! Sweet Celestia, that was way more painful than they make it look," he thought aloud, rubbing his rounded girl muzzle with a delicate hoof. "This... is going to be a problem."

---

As Forest and Gully made their way back to their dorm room at the school, the griffon chuckled lightly, "Jeez, Aquarius is such a terrible liar. He's totally been ditching class."

"Can't you just take his word for once in your life?" Forest requested. "I trust him."

Gully stared at Forest for a moment. "You know, you two are both terrible liars," he remarked.

Forest's face turned a deep red almost instantly, "Sh-shut up!"

"Aww, what's the matter?" Gully teased. "Do you care about him?"

Forest didn't say anything, he just kept walking.

"Face it! You bought those journals just so you could talk to your beloved little Aquarius, didn't you?"

"Just drop it already!" The colt demanded, "I didn't tell you so you could tease me all day!"

"Well then you should've known better than to tell me in the first place," the griffon smiled devilishly. "So, when did you say the wedding was?"

"I said drop it!"

---

Returning to his study with a muffin, Aquarius levitated the magically linked journal over to his desk and looked around the room. These scattered and burnt papers had once been his research. Hopefully I can find the reversal spell in this mess, he thought. That is, if it survived. Sighing, he took a bite of the muffin, put it aside, and began to collect and stack the pages.

"I kinda forgot about Forest and Gully for a second. I can't believe I let myself get carried away enjoying this… mistake… without considering how it'd affect the rest of my life."

He began to lift another page, but it crumbled to ash the very moment he disturbed it, prompting a dejected sigh.

"It's supposed to be a party trick. This isn't my goal or anything. I just want to show off how good I am at magic. I don't want this. I don't want this." He repeated to himself, as if it would become true if he said it enough times. "Besides, even if I did want this, it's not like I can go back to school and act like nothing happened. The other guys would laugh at me for sure, and I don't think I'd outperform Luster with a transformation spell that I can't even reverse!"

He stacked the remains of a Changeling diagram next to the stack of charred notes, before taking another bite of muffin.

"It's not like I can just assume a new identity and start from scratch. Hay, even if I could, I'm not really sure I'd want to."

He'd now reached the large pile of ash that had been his final breakthrough. Reluctantly, he lifted a dustpan and brush, and began to sweep it away.

His eyes drifted over to the desk, where the magic journal sat waiting.

"I mean, no matter how we act on the outside, Forest and Gully are still my friends, right?" He reasoned. "I don't think I could admit it, but I really do care about them. I'd hate to ditch them if they secretly felt the same way."

He jumped at the sound of a piece of paper crumpling under the brush. Refocusing his gaze back at the floor, he saw a sole piece of parchment beneath the ash. At the top it read, in his hornwriting, "How Changelings Change Back".

Aquarius dropped the dustpan and brush and lifted the page without delay. Skimming over it, he began to look around the room. "There… were more notes to this section," he lamented. "A lot more. But… it looks like this is the only page of it that survived." He paused for a moment, then placed it on his desk next to the journal. "Well, it's a start, at least. I'll see what I can do."

Author's Note:

Ah, introducing Aquarius's friends! Well, 'friends.'

I was going to publish this yesterday, but I held off once I remembered it was April Fool's day. Anywhozits, I hope you enjoy!

EDIT 04/03/2021: Made a couple wording adjustments; it got a bit repetitive in a couple spots, so I varied up the language.

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