The Six of Us

by Online account

The Farm

I acted impulsively, and made a promise to a child that wasn’t mine. A pinkie promise too, as if that made any difference whatsoever. At 22 years of age, I still didn’t feel like an adult, and I wasn’t prone to make the soundest decisions. I definitely botched my priorities with what I had thrown myself into, and I had no one but myself to blame for it. Returning home was the end goal. All I had to do was to wait at best a couple of hours, get a good night of sleep, and pop back into my respectful existence. Instead, I enrolled myself into a stupid side quest that made zero sense.

As if anything else did, really.

Now, I was being forced out of my safe space. To expose myself to the outside world. Christ, I could feel the flow of anxiety pumping into my veins. Anxiety practically became my middle name. If I had any nails, I would’ve chewed them to smithereens.

Apple Bloom was already outside, baking under the warm midday late summer sun. Meanwhile, I was grounded by four legs like the stupid goddamn pony I was, still in the middle of the center room of the library, paralyzed by fear.

“Ya’ll are comin’ with?” she asked.

“B-b-but I’m naked...!”

And so was she! “Oh excuse me officer, yeah, I was just taking a nudist walk with this little girl who isn’t mine, also, I’m tots not a pedophile.” Yeah, not only was I a pony, not only was I not at home, not only was I coerced into helping a total stranger, but I was now under the threat of being tossed in jail. My freedom was the last boon I had. Freedom was the remaining beacon that made me human! It was a beautiful ideology that defined us, and I was not ready to have it stripped away so easily!

Oh God oh man oh God oh man...

“Stop stallin’, Twilight! Ye’re wastin’ time! Daylight’s-a burnin’!” she complained, stomping in place on all four hooves like an angry Yosemite Sam.

Naked, and on all fours. All I needed was to wait for someone to doggy style me from behind. I had never felt this humiliated in my entire life. Even when I hurled in the middle of an oral exam in fourth grade. God, what I wouldn’t do to be put back in front of Mrs. Lisa with a shirt stained with my lunch right now. A laughing class was heaven to today’s hell.

If my face was purple, it sure as shit was red now.

Well, if I didn’t have time to walk like a sophisticated human, then I’ll have to bite the bullet and take a note from Apple Bloom’s book. Carpe Diem, motherfuckers, I was a horse, and I was going to be forced to move like one. Farewell, humanity. We had it good, didn’t we?

A step forward. Another one. Holy moly, was it awkward to figure out which limb had to do what. What was the process here? Was there a manual or a For Dummies guidebook I could borrow from this library? Save for my automated gallop to the door earlier, I only ever had to deal with two legs moving – and even then, coordination was not my forte. Now, I had to deal with twice as many legs? This was madness! How did the majority of Earth’s terrestrial vertebrates do it?

I tried to do a weird cross-country skiing technique. Left legs advanced first in a synchronized effort, then right legs picked up the slack together. It made me approach the door in a slanted way, but heck if I wasn’t moving! Feeling like I could do better, I attempted to simply bend my body down and stretch my front hooves further up, and bringing my rear thereafter. I must’ve looked like a broken slinky. Or a mentally defective caterpillar. Not as effective of a method as I thought. Experimenting further, I tried to-

“Huuuuuurrrryyy up!” Apple Bloom complained.

“Eek!” I squeaked out like the man I wasn’t.

My coach’s encouragement did its thing. I instinctively hasted myself, for fear of being banished to the Shadow Realm by the little yellow filly, and I awkwardly trotted to the door. Crazy how well we could perform whilst under pressure. My limbs just moved one by one, albeit with a good lack of grace.

And shit, was that the trim of the door passing me overhead? Yup. Now substituted for the sun. Of the outdoors. I was outside. Naked and outside. Alarm bells rang so loudly in my cranium, I thought I had reached DEFCON 1. I had to focus on something else before I promptly self-destructed.

I brought my vision down from the sky where my escapism sought refuge.

The brain did not appreciate what it was processing.

“What.”

A large road network fully paved by round chiseled stones, interlaced with sandy mortar. As though Roman legionaries themselves did the roadwork.

“Whaaaaaat.”

Rows upon rows of establishments not all too different from those found in Renaissance fairs. Antiquated medieval-looking houses with skeletons of archaic wooden lattices. Constructed with a structure of dark timber, filled with contrasting white wattle and daub. Casement windows with diamond panes plastered on every flat surface, every cross-gabled roof, every overhanging chunk of house, every dormer. Topped by sharply angled thatched roofs, giving the overall scene the vibe of a kid drawing an old-timey Swiss village with wax crayons.

“WHAAAAT!”

Banderoles of triangular multicolor flags, lush climbing vegetation attached to the walls of the houses, century-old lanterns on every corner of the streets, a buttload of decorative evergreens, hedges, and other verdure clashing against the city vibe, dirt paths branching off the mainline, buttresses as far as the eye could see, conical tents, heart-shaped decorative ornaments, food carts happy to serve, stone curvy bridges, a snaking river-

“WHAAAAT IS HAPPENING!?”

Apple Bloom questioned my outburst, but I tuned her out. I was busy keeping my stroke in check.

Truly, this carnival-ass area was the cusp of my insanity. I yet again managed to outdo myself on the matter. Because you know what was the most upsetting about this whole ordeal? The grand finisher? The ultimate kicker? It was the anachronistic nature of the environment. This did not scream post 2020 at all! Where were the cars? Nothing was driving, nothing was parked. What about the pedestrians bustling the sidewalks? The typical beggars sheltered on park benches, housed by nothing but moldy newspapers? The random mutt barking? The occasional car horn dribbling in road rage? The loud music playing out of an inconsiderate passerby’s phone? The planes high up in the skyline? The weather and news choppers circling about? The distant yet constant sound of traffic? The vines of electrical cables webbing from building to building?

The fire hydrants? The radio antennas? The endless array of AC units? The catwalks? The speed limit signs? The spray tagged walls? The oversized and obnoxious billboards? The overflowing trash cans? The pollution, the sewage, the liter, the smog, the sickening smell of exhaust?

WHERE WAS ANY OF THE STUFF THAT MADE ME FEEL AT HOME!?

Wherever I had been displaced was a far cry from Baltimore. Want some proof? Here was some proof! In the form of hundred of pastel-colored splashes wandering around the place, populating the city into the liveliness it was built to accommodate.

Someone had dropped a gigantic bag of Skittles into Ponyville, except, these weren’t rainbow candies at all, but moving parasites, all of them in the form of living ponies. Breathing, existing, going from point A to point B with purpose. Commuting. Busying themselves with day-to-day work. They were as I was; we were one and the same. Me, Apple bloom, and the rest of the gang: All ponies. Ponies ponies ponies PONIES!

Frantically looking around like a madman, panning my terror-stricken eyes, it became obvious that I could not find a single human. No one around that could have had a claim on this Candy Land of a ranch. Either humans were extremely shy around Ponyville, or they simply did not want to coexist in this mad land. Or maybe they were a safe distance away and they were making astute observations about this crack pot of an ecosystem? God I sure hope that was the case. With any luck, I’d escape before they dropped the nuke.

...

Ponyville.

Fucking Ponyville.

Why did you have to be so literal? I should’ve figured that something was amiss when I got a hold of your name. The irony of this journey imposed upon me was palpable. My unforgiving metamorphosis had some common sense in its execution, didn’t it? What a cruel and twisted joke. Now I was a pragmatic and informed member of this batshit insane society; I could fit in like a glove! And I lived happily ever after!!!

I expected humans. I really did. I wanted humans. I didn’t want to be seen by them, sure, but I needed to acknowledge their existence nonetheless. I needed a surgeon, a lawyer, and a banker, to reshape me physically, legally, and monetarily, respectively. Maybe a priest too. An exorcism could do some good in these troubled times. But yeah, with no workers around to aid me, I was getting more and more into “shit outta luck” territory. I didn’t want to be on my own when I needed a shoulder – a HUMAN shoulder – to cry on.

Apple Bloom turned forward before she could take a good look at my eyes that were practically falling out of their socket. I did my best to nervously follow her, but boy, what a task that was.

“H-hang on Apple Bloom, I just gotta...”

If we were going to venture further into these unknown streets full of clowns, then I had to make sure I could find my way back. Without a phone or, in other words, without the guidance of Google Maps, a visual survey of my “house” was all that I had. So I turned around to-

A tree.

The library was housed inside of a tree.

No, no! Come back, last brain cell! I still needed you!

Ugh. So absurd. So asinine. I felt like I was in the Smurfs. This tree was pretty chunky by tree standards. I suppose in a way, this explained the hard-on for wood that decorated the interior. The tree-library (treebrary?) basked into a big deciduous hat of green leaves. I saw many balconies protruding out of many different doors. It was peppered by rounded windows, giving some Shire vibes from Lord of the Rings. It even had a beehive dangling under a branch because common sense was for losers.

“Unnnghh...” I moaned out loud, eyes close, hoof trying to rub the forehead but failing at it.

“Wuzzat?” dumbfounded Apple Bloom quizzed.

“Nothing... nothing. I’ve just parted ways with logic. Lead the way.”

---

Okay, so everyone was naked. I didn’t know if it was a good or a bad thing. Some of these ponies bore a minimal number of accessories that reflected the job they were doing, almost in an idiosyncratic way. A chef’s hat to the left, a construction helmet to the right, etc. But no one seemed to mind exposing their nads and shit. Even the kids. What a freaking nightmare. Was I the only one who saw how wrong this whole fashion laissez-faire was? At least, I wasn’t going to be slammed onto the hood of a police Ford. Pfew, could you imagine how awkward it’d be to handcuff a pony? Maybe being clothed was this society’s backward way of thinking about nudity. Like, in a twisted Uno reverse card kind of way. Perhaps this was why Spike gave me the stink eyes when I implored him to find something to cover my shame with.

In any case, the nakedness elevated something weird. Nearly everyone around seemed to have a marking engraved on their flank, near their rear legs. On either side, too, in perfect symmetry. Seemed like only the older-looking ponies had them Lucky Charms decals. I thought my body merely had a slutty tramp stamp, seeing as Apple Bloom was young and had an untainted back, but nope. It was a societal thing, so I thought. A rite of passage of some kind. A religious celebration, a sinister Bar Mitzvah, that got you, a newly branded taxpayer, to be tattooed and subsequently easily identified by your peers. Somehow, that made this town feel a whole lot creepier than its cheery outlooks. Like, something straight out of The Purge, or The Wicker Man. The smiles and colors were nothing but an elaborated façade. Underneath, a crazy coven blanketed by a false pretense of happiness. A well-oiled masquerade.

But when you thought daddy government had your back, indoctrinating you to believe you could sleep on your laurels, your ass got stigmatized by a mark to secure your place in this fascist neo-Nazi town against your will. Flower-marked ponies were only to mate with other flower-marked ponies! No mixing the castes! No tainting the blood! Blue collar tattoos meant you hailed from a lower class of workers, and porcelain tattoos meant you were with the bourgeoisie! Liberty and choice of career took the backseat as your forced identity was stamped onto you forever! Institutionalized by Equestrian autocracy! Argh!

God, I was scaring myself out of my mind.

...

I needed to get out of this hellhole, and quickly. I had a star on my butt. What did this mean about me? Was I into astronomy? Was I to become a spaceman against my will!? No fuckin’ way, man! I didn’t want to go from guitar scratcher to NASA’s first man on Mars! I didn’t want to be sent to the moon!

Like, damn...

Oh, as it turned out, I wasn’t alone with an ice cream cone of chitin fastened on my forehead. I’ve spotted a couple of other pony-citizens that also bore those strange lighting rods sticking out of their mane. Didn’t look like one third of the local population would require chemo after all, myself included. Gotta be a perfectly normal syndrome, right? As if “normal” had any meaning in this bad trip I was having. At least, it meant I wasn’t an unusual specimen. Relatively speaking, of course.

To add insult to injury, horns weren’t the only form of standardized mutations. There were also the ones with wings. Wings! Shaped like angel wings, you know, with feathers and all that jazz. Now, I never nose dived into animal almanacs, but would I venture a wrong guess if I said that ponies were supposed to be terrestrial animals? Yes, no? Was I onto something, there? Okay, then why the wings? That made no sense. You couldn’t just randomly slap new body parts onto animals, R&D some impossible chimeras, and send the whole shebang to marketing. That’s not how the world operated. Charles Darwin would’ve called bullshit at the sight.

I was so dead sure of that, that when I saw one take off to the skies, joined by many others floating amongst the clouds, I decided that my rationality was the odd one out after all. Why make sense of anything anymore? Nothing operated by the laws of physics, so why question the non-sequitur crap when no one wanted to play by the rules?

Fucking ridiculous, this whole everything. Absolutely maddening. And I was stuck in the middle of it!

“Hi Twilight! Hello Apple Bloom!” two colorful nobodies waved their hooves when they walked past us.

“Hullo!” replied my usher.

“Sup?” I then replied, oh so sure of myself.

This kept happening, by the way. Equine dudes and dudettes greeting me like Ned Flanders, not a smidge of prejudice in their voice. But why did everyone had to keep calling me by this silly name? It was so offensive from where I stood. Spike and Apple Bloom mistaking me for someone else, okay, sure. I could let it slide. But random pedestrians (quadestrians?) joining in on the charade? Filling it as a coincidence became more and more improbable.

“Oh hello there you two! Twilight, how are you feeling this wonderful morning?” another random fuchsia pony said to me.

“Eh.” I left it at that, shoulders shrugging. ‘Wonderful’ my ass.

And, see? See? I wasn’t crazy! Everyone pegged me as someone I wasn’t!

Shit, did I body snatch an innocent bystander or what? Or had I been cloned in her image? Whatever the case was, people believed me to be someone else, and that would become a big problem down the line, wouldn’t it? Someone would eventually wind up asking me what my favorite color was and I’d be blasphemed as an impostor on the spot.

Dwight’s words of wisdom from The Office rang in my mind: “Identity theft is not a joke, Jim! Millions of families suffer every year!”

Wasn’t that the truth, Mr. Schrute. Wasn’t that the truth. Both Spike and Apple Bloom reacted negatively when I failed to “recognize” them, as if it had been my job to do so. I think that was a pretty strong indicator that I had usurped the identity of this Twilight Sparkle everyone thought I was. This effectively meant that I wasn’t just a new body tossed into a bizarro city, nay, I had straight up taken a role that was not mine. That seemed pretty clear to me, now. Probably why I woke up in Twilight Sparkle’s apparent home, the library.

So the big question now was: Had I been reconstructed as a being sketched after the real Twilight Sparkle, or did she and I swap souls or some other mumbo jumbo? Had I been grown in a test tube overnight, or had my conscious aimlessly floated to this body so that it could claim it as its own? Had I been sufficiently Frankenstein’d that I was in a ship of Theseus kind of situation? Who the hell was I anymore?

Shit, was the old me, the real me, even alive anymore? H-had I been killed in my sleep? Was my body just limp in bed, left to be rotting? Would Vince be accused of murdering me?

“Twilight, why d’y’walk all funny-like?”

Apple Bloom brought me back to Ponyville. I turned to her by my side, and blinked a couple of times in confusion. Sure, I wasn’t an expert walker, having learned to coordinate four limbs no longer than twenty minutes ago, but hey, I was giving it a solid effort!

“Yer tail’s between them legs o’ yours, wha’sup with that?”

“Oh?” I craned my neck backward. Holy shit that neck was flexible.

Yeesh, I saw what she meant. I had subconsciously wedged that big fluffy tail of mine between my two rear legs, holding it tightly in place. It curved under the back of my tummy.

“Oh. Well... huh.”

I was shocked that I moved this bundle of strings without even noticing. And the reason why I did this was obvious. I’ll take “Awkward Conversations” for 500. Seriously, what a fine choice of a topic to not discuss with a person who could count their age on their proverbial fingers.

“Guess I’m just trying to apply a bit of modesty. Y’know, hiding my rump and all that.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t feel like flashing my back cheeks to the world?”

And all the treasures beyond, of course.

“That never seemed to have bothered ya before?” Her eyes bulged. “Oh no! Is it ‘cuz ya’ll’re hurt? Ah once fell from this here tree we’ve got on tha farm, right on mah bum-bum, an’ Applejack said ah had to use cream for-”

“A-Apple Bloom, please! Can we talk about something else?” Beads of sweat adorned my forehead.

“Shucks, okay Twilight...”

---

Apple Bloom brought me to the outskirts of the city, following an excavated dirt path. It made sense, to be fair. I didn’t expect a farm of all places to be plopped smack down in the middle of an urban area. At least, panels shaped like arrows by the side of the road indicated that there was still civilization out there. Yippee ki-yay.

We walked past a lot of... Okay. I know this wasn’t too accurate, but I’m going to henceforth describe the movement with which we changed our position as “walking.” Much easier on the sanity bone. Anyway, we walked past a lot of interesting looking shops and boutiques alike. The majority were plain buildings, but we did cross the occasional oddball. The gold medal unquestionably went to the gingerbread house. With the delicious waft of pastries emanating from within. I did wonder if a family of gingerbread men actually lived in there. That’d make them the closest thing to humans in Ponyville so far, heh.

The town centre was also interesting in its own right. I assumed for it to have been the town centre, because all roads led to it in a circular fashion, reminiscent of old European cities. The townhall in the middle of the city quarter was a tall spire, extravagantly decorated. Pretty nifty. Now I knew where these ponies’ taxes went.

Further up the cobblestone path, the buildings became more modest and scarcer as we approached the forested clearing surrounding Ponyville. And now, here we were, on a private piece of land owned by farmers. There were orchards surrounding both sides of the path. Really well-furbished orchards, should I add. Apple orchards. Like, geez, there sure were a lot of trees. I once went apple picking as a snotty toddler with my parents, and the land didn’t have shit on this larger-than-life field of apple trees. I could see ponies getting lost in this battlefield of Cortland. Overkill much?

A couple more steps forward, and a two-storied farmhouse drew itself upon us. Cute dwelling, they had. They seemed to have a sturdy installation. There was a barn, stacks of haybale, chicken coops, a carrot farm further ahead, a mill of some kind, a cornfield on the left side, and I think I even heard some pigs oink. There was probably more to it than my brief enumeration, but this is all that I could see from here. This whole place was wedged between rolling hills. Bob Ross would’ve cried tears of joy at the picturesque scenery. An overhanging wooden banner above the road indicated the name of the place: “Sweet Apple Acres.” Well, there you had it. Our destination, so said Apple Bloom. All in all, I was quite happy we didn’t need a motorized vehicle to reach this place. We journeyed for like, what, 20 minutes tops? It could’ve been much much further, considering I was basically wandering aimlessly.

So yeah. A multifaced farm that specialized on keeping doctors away. Smart that they decided to vary their crop rotation in case of, oh I don’t know, an economic recession? Or perhaps because of a sudden downfall in demand for a given product? What about an unexpected wave of parasites ruining a particular harvest? Just trying to find credit where credit was due. All in all, they seemed well prepared, and they must’ve ran this business with a dozen farmhands or so of to get the place churning. Mad respect for all of them dedicated laborers.

Near a fence proudly stood a tall and well-built red stallion, with a work collar around his neck. It just dawned on me how freaking bizarre it was for me to sort these creatures as male or female with such ease. I just, you know, I just could tell. Maybe it was due to its squared jaw? Its strong muzzle? His bulkier frame? The distribution of his muscles? Whatever the case, it was unquestionably a dude, so said my brain. Sue me. Under his yellow scruffy mane were two lazy set of green eyes. Actually, I think they were more relaxed than lazy. Scratch that, they had hints of worry in them. Even his mouth was curved downward. Mmmmh.

On the floor next to him, I ended up spotting my client in question, seeing as her morose expression told a million different stories. Slouched on the fence, she was an orange mare. See? I knew she was a chick, just like this! She shared the stallion’s eye color. Her mane was cream colored, and just like her tail, it was tied with a red elastic band by the tip. She sported some kind of cowboy hat to finish the ensemble. A Stetson, mayhaps? She had three apples as her state-printed mark, whereas the red pony had a lone chunky green one. Coincidence? Nope! See, I knew it! The job lottery forced these poor saps to be stuck in the fields for the rest of their days! Too bad if they had other ambitions. What a mad world...

Anyway, above Orange’s freckles were two big bags that indicated a very poor night of sleep. Yeah, welcome to my world, martyr. I approached her and my GOD did she look done with life. To say that I thought I was the one who was drowning in misery; she might’ve beaten me to the punch. Yikes.

And I was in charge to cheer THAT up? Well, this was a disaster in waiting. Even the best diplomat would’ve succumbed.

“Twilight,” simply said Reddie McRedface.

“Hi. So ah, what seems to be the problem here?” I asked him back.

Maybe this adult could give me a better picture over what the little filly had told me.

“Sister’s not well.”

...

And that was it.

Ladies and gentlemen, you may now exit the theater, the curtains were drawn, his sister was not well.

Should I pry him for more data? Christ, give me something, anything! Well, he made sad eyes, so, uh, maybe I should keep to myself. I didn’t want him to explode on me like Apple Bloom did. That’d be... yeah...

Oh wait, sister, he said. These three were all siblings, weren’t they? Touching, touching.

Why was I here, again?

Ugh, let’s get this over with. I just wanted my damn jeans and a damn lift to Baltimore. I edged closer to the emotional black hole that was... Applejack, was it? S’what Apple Bloom yapped back in the treehouse.

“Heya... you. What’s up?” I simply said to her like the bumbling buffoon I was.

She lifted her face to match my gaze. Cool bloodshot eyes, girl. Green and red, a perfect match with the theme of apples! Well, seeing as she didn’t talk back, I had to up my game.

“So, why the long face?”

...

Why the fuck did I just say that? Did I seriously make my grand entrance with a goddamn “a horse walks into a bar” joke? What was I, an immature prick? For all I knew, it was like trying to bond with someone of a different ethnicity over a racist joke! God damn did I suck ass in social interactions.

And boom went the dynamite. She didn’t find my quip funny at all. Like, at all. She hid her face behind her hat, her neck sagging like my best efforts at a soufflé. She started to sob, and I could hear the plick plick of tears meeting dirt.

Awwwwww shiiiieeeeet. Looking up toward the brother and the sister, I could see disapproval. Unnamed Reddie had an eyebrow raised, his head tilted a bit. Apple Bloom was more expressive with her face full of horror. Fuck me sideways. Task failed successfully. I didn’t want to be under fire from dedicated siblings as I ruined my little session with Applejack. If anything, I wanted them to be far away. Faaaaar far away from the next stupid trick I would inevitably pull. In no way did I want an audience squinting at me as I fumbled to do a job I had zero experience with. Especially an audience that had strong ties with the victim at hand. Southerner wannabees, no less! I could feel the sawed-off shotgun coming.

“U-ummm... Uh... W-would it be okay if, uh, Applejack and I had a private moment? You know, to get this whole thing resolved and all that?”

Red stallion dudebro rubbed a hoof under his chin, pensive. Pupils lost in the corner of his eyeballs, thinking real hard about my proposition.

“Eeyup,” he just wound up saying.

Okay, so we were on the same page, right? My brother in Christ, could you be a little more concise, if you please?

“But Twilight, ah wanna see ya zap tha curse away!” protested Apple Bloom.

“That’s not really how depression works, Apple Bloom...” Wait, don’t say that, dummy! “N-not that Applejack necessarily has depression! It’s just... Ugh, help me out bro, why don’tcha?” I asked the only male around.

“Eeyup.” There he went again. Then, his attention went to little Apple Bloom. “C’mon on sis, Twilight knows how to help out. An’ ah could use some help to make up for tha time we lost this mornin’ on tha farm.”

“Noooo, c’moooon! Ah really really wanna see tha curse being punished, like kapow!” she uttered, doing a weird karate move with her back leg and promptly falling on her ass.

“Apple Bloom,” he kept it short, as per tradition.

“Awwww...” she sulked.

He did a head movement toward the house, and Apple Bloom complied. Head low, moping like the kid she was. Heh, kids. Now that my ball sack had been snipped, I wasn’t in a position to be a parent for a long time. Unless... Uh wait, hang on a minute...

“Listen, Twilight,” said the big red guy to me. “Ah’ve rarely seen AJ like this. If she’s feelin’ this low, then mahbe take her kindly back witcha to tha library an’ have ya and tha girls talk it out? Ah want what’s best for mah sis.”

The library! My crib! My bubble! My bunker! My sanctuary! My sacred grove! Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, I would love nothing more than to go back to the only place where I could safely apply social isolation.

“Will do, friend.”

At this point, asking for his name would’ve been too awkward. Maybe I was “supposed” to already know it too, I didn’t know. So “friend” sufficed. And “friend,” satisfied with my answer, started to trot away to join his overzealous younger sister, hopefully, someplace that wasn’t in the vicinity of this crime scene. Because during this whole exchange, Applejack had not once looked up. She remained focused on what was eating her.

I knew I had a lot of shit on my plate, but seeing someone as beaten as her wasn’t right. I did feel bad, I genuinely did. I might’ve been a dumbass, but I was a dumbass with a heart. A heart that gave me hypertension, but a heart nonetheless.

So, trying a different approach, I slid to my rear, next to her. From afar, we looked we were having a siesta. Man, what could I say to make her feel better? Normally, I’d have thrown booze at her, but that was a bit of an unrealistic plan, wasn’t it? So instead, let’s just fall back on the mundane small talk.

“So, how ‘bout that weather, huh? Ponyville sure gets its fare share of sun.”

She didn’t move, but she began to timidly speak. “T-Twilight Sparkle?”

Groan. Yeah yeah. Play the role. That mare was already destroyed enough as it was. Telling her that I wasn’t who she really thought I was would’ve been synonymous with acting like a douche.

“That’s what they call me, yep yep!”

“You’re my friend... right? They said you could help...”

We were supposed to be BFF? Cripes. Way to raise the stakes. Now I truly was disallowed to fail.

I sighed. “Applejack, I’m sorry if I came as abrasive. I want to help you, I really do. You can talk to me, I won’t judge you. It’s just the two of us, girl. We can work this out, I’m a hundred percent sure of it,” I tried to put that new smooth voice o’ mine to good use.

“I... I want my parents back...” she whispered.

...

...

Ah.

I-I see... Is this why Apple Bloom went nuclear on me when I suggested for her to get her mommy and daddy involved back at the library? Were these siblings parentless? Well shit, I might not have had my dick anymore, but I sure felt like one. Numbero uno dicko. Me. Purple bitch-ass pony, insensitive and putting her hoof in her own mouth. I’ll be more cautious down the line.

“Oh. I’m sorry, Applejack. This is a terrible thing, losing those who raised you. Saying that I relate would be a blatant lie, but I can say that I sympathize with your situation. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”

She turned to look at me, searching for more kind words. Maybe I could quote a song or two we wrote. What was the point of angst if it didn’t have any applicability?

“But I do know one thing, my friend. Even beyond the grave, your parents will always-”

“M-m-my parents aren’t dead!”

Goof number two, checked. Man, a gaffe per minute; I was pretty skilled. She was going to call me out on my bullshit, wasn’t she? You’d think that friends would keep the status of their parents in check a little better than my poor assumption.

“O-of course they aren’t dead! It was just a metaphor, see? I read it in a book in the library I totally live in,” I said, almost choking on my own spit.

She gave me that look. Fudge. Toss the ball back in her camp, man!

“A-anyway, uh, care to talk about them then? Just, y’know, so I can level with you better? S’part of helping one another, Jackie-girl!”

I tried awkward humor, but nope, no dice. She was back with the flopped head.

“You wouldn’t believe me. It’s like I said to the others!” Applejack said, a bit more determination in her voice than before.

“Yeah, your sister told me you had been cursed or something?”

“I don’t have a sister! I only have a brother!”

“What, the red Hank Hill lookalike?”

She didn’t catch the reference. “The red horsie? Big Mac?” she asked.

“... Yeah sure, Big Mac.”

It’s not because I was stuck with hooves that I couldn’t mentally facepalm. Big Mac. What a name. Was I living through a re-enactment of Idiocracy? The shit that I was putting up with...

“He’s not my brother!”

Smelled like DID. I sort of had firsthand experience with that ever since this morning, ironically.

“Um. Are you reeeaaalllyyy sure about this?” I timidly asked. “He seemed to care an awful lot about you.”

“Yes, I’m sure! Oh, see? I just knew you wouldn’t understand! I knew!”

She wasn’t too far off shaking a fist- a hoof to the skies.

“Big Mac and Apple Bloom both said you would help, but you’re just like them. Y-you don’t understand, you don’t-... oooohhh...” she sighed, defeated.

Recover dude, recover! “Slooow down Applejack. I’m not here to accu-”

“A-and my name’s not Applejack!” she scowled.

“Buh? Uh, okay then, sure, okay. Yep. What is it then, uh, pray tell?” I indulged her. Man she was going to bite my neck off if I didn’t relinquish some territory to her side. I had to play it cool, right?

“Amy.”

“Amy?”

“Ya-huh. Amy Jones.”

...

“Listen, Applej-”

“Amy!”

“-Amy. A wise sage once told me: ‘You overworked yourself and now your nerves snapped.’ Would you be compelled to agree that you may find yourself in that sort of situation?” I parroted what Spike told me before he left.

She stared down, more in frustration than in desolation. “Big Mac told me that I should take the day off...”

“Yeah, I’ve been getting a lot of that at home,” I rolled my eyes, thinking of Spike some more. “Still, bam, there you go! That there’s some pretty juicy advice Applej- Amy. Big Mac also suggested for you to come to my place to get you back up and about. How about it? We could chill, y’know, read comics and all that swag.”

“Okay...” she said, dejected.

“Cool beans!” I bounced, now up on my four legs (ugh). “I’m sure a change of scenery from this farm of yours will do you some good.”

“This isn’t my farm,” she said, also getting up awkwardly.

“Say what now? You don’t live in that big ol’ house over there?” I asked, raising a hoof at said big ol’ house.

“Nope!”

Great, more rejection of her reality. What was she, me? We already had one pony in this city trying his best at sneaking into a life that wasn’t his, we didn’t need another one going cuckoo. Especially when these two found themselves in proximity. That was just ground zero for some crazy shenanigans. Suddenly, I felt less and less qualified to handle this. Not that I was in the first place, but. Apple Bloom and Big Mac both seemed to think she just needed a friend to talk to, but from my POV, I believed she required medical treatment more than anything. Penicillin needed to enter her system. Zoloft, anyone?

“So, let me get this straight. These two ponies who were very concerned about your wellbeing are not your siblings, and you’re not Applejack the farmer, but you’re Amy from...?”

“Oregon.”

“From Oreg- Wait, seriously? You’re from America too?”

Applejack (or Amy, take your pick) gestured positively. Oh wheeew! Well that’s sort of a relief. See? I knew my home country wasn’t too far out there. Spike was just uneducated, that’s what it was. Some assistant Twilight had! Hahaha, I felt better about my situation, all of the sudden! Because for a moment, I actually believed that...

... Well, let’s not dwell on outdated what-ifs. Mmmmh, as much as I loved this unexpected good news, it did raise a couple other troublesome questions. First of all, assuming she spoke the truth – and I sort of had my doubts, she seemed a bit unstable – then what was she doing here in this Ponyville biome? If she travelled from Oregon all the way to, uh, Equestria, surely it meant she knew her way around, right? That could be my ticket home if I played my cards right. I could ask her for the nearest airport, or harbor, assuming either of these districts existed around this place.

Another strange aspect was, well, if she truly was from Oregon, USA, then uh... Why and how have I been kept in the dark about magical talking ponies my whole life? Let alone flying ones? Shouldn’t this have been common knowledge? More mediatized? History classes didn’t say jack about the culture of other sapient animals populating Earth, and they lived in my home country for Pete’s sake! Shouldn’t the internet have leaked something by now? There were 330 million of us in America, you’d think that a random shmuck would’ve caught sight of technicolor ponies with their phone by now. We had satellites and cameras everywhere in today’s times. Was the government of Oregon that competent at hiding their otherworldly experiments from the public eye? A government showing competence... now THAT was the most ludicrous thing I’ve heard today – and I woke up as a pony!

Did Applejack escape an oppressive lab, or was she just free roaming in beautiful paddocks with the liberty she deserved? Were there other cities like Ponyville scattered across America dedicated to the upbringing of cartoon ponies? Had no whistleblowers leaked anything about this yet? Was the existence of talkative little ponies a conspiracy that actually eluded the mainstream? Hardly seemed possible.

So many questions. Whatever Amyjack’s situation was, she definitely was my key outta here. Again, this all hinged on the hope that she wasn’t lying to me. Given that, I had to be kind and gentle to sway her on my side. And for now, that meant turning that frown upside up. Her mal de vivre was an obstacle to my quest home. I would rectify that. For I was Twilight Sparkle 2.0, and I wasn’t going to give up without trying!

I blinked my mental gymnastics away from my head, and looked back at the mare next to me who was seemingly waiting for me to keep the train on rolling.

“Huh. Oregon. Well color me surprised, girl.” I nodded to the path ahead. “Alrighty then, let’s blow this popsicle stand and go to my place!”

That is, if I could find my way back. Apple Bloom and I swayed from street to street on our way here, and I kind of got turned around. I should’ve left a trail of bread crumbs, or something. Ah well. Live and learn.

---

Once more, I pranced back into the busy streets of Ponyville – this time accompanied by Amy – where resided normie ponies, ponies with carrots on their head, and ponies with wings. That got me to think which one of those three candidates was the master race. Probably the flyers; they’d have the high ground. Truly, we lived in a society.

“Whoa...!” Applejack/Amy couldn’t help but gasp out loud, looking at everything that surrounded us.

She was mighty impressed by the liveliness of the hamlet. She kept looking at all these ponies doing various tasks. Selling and buying and reselling and rebuying. She drank it all. I couldn’t help but wonder how often she left the countryside to be this enthralled by the urban life. At least, I was glad that upped her mood. I didn’t think anything could, honestly.

“Yup, that’s uh, quite the sight, right?” A little bit of my own awe leaked there.

“Oh yeah, this is soooo cooool! Look at all- all that, uh...”

“Stuff?”

“Yeah! All that stuff! Super awesome!” she cheered.

Heh. Even if she claimed Apple Bloom wasn’t her little sister, she was almost as impressionable as her. You could say that the apple didn’t fall far from- NO! I was NOT making that lame pun. Like Christ, what was wrong with me?

We continued onward, going toward where I thought the big tree library was. All the while, we were saying more hi’s to ponies we encountered. I was getting used to it, but Applejack was reluctant to wave her hoof back. Given her mental state, I couldn’t really blame her. She was sufficiently jovial now, but mere minutes ago, she was at the end of her rope. Distancing herself from her own life and all that, down to her very name.

“Whoa, what the fuck!?”

Applejack backed away a bit from me, taken aback by my sudden surprise. But hey, not my fault! Because seated on her haunch by a small rounded table outside of a café was one of them horned ponies. She kept to herself in contentment, eyes busy with the observation of Ponyville’s activity. But the thing that made me cuss was the little coffee cup she was drinking from.

The hovering coffee cup.

The glowing, hovering coffee cup going to her mouth so she could take a sip.

Her horn was also glowing, and to add insult to injury, the aura it radiated was the same hue as the one surrounding the cup. Was she mind controlling the dang object? No, of course she wasn’t. That was outright impossible! So what then? Strings? No, not strings. The cup rotated and tilted with all the delicateness in the world. Plus, there was no puppeteer on the roof as far as I could tell. Moreover, the pony seemed too much in control of her cup, occasionally placing it back on the saucer with finesse. She would’ve lifted a pinkie had she been human as I once was.

Magnets.

Had to be magnets.

But just to make sure, I had to get a second opinion.

“Applejack, are you seeing this? The levitating cup? What the hell?”

My slip of the tongue about her name went unnoticed. Her big green eyes were blinking at me in confusion, then to the physics-bending show ahead. She seemed to be impressed by what she was seeing as well. Good, so it wasn’t just me tripping out of his mind, right?

“How is she doing that, Twilight?” she thought. “Oh! Is that magic?” she added impulsively.

“No of course not, don’t be ridiculous. Magic’s a hoax. Penn and Teller told me so.”

“Who are they?”

“Eh, it don’t matter none. But their stance on magic is stone cold solid: Just a showbiz tactic to appeal to gullible spectators. It’s easily debunkable.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” she said with disappointment. “But then, how is it floating?”

“Magnets.”

“Magnets? Like, uh, the things mom and dad use to hold my A+ homework on the fridge?” She thought for a second or two. “... Are you sure?”

Huh, that comparison was a bit juvenile, but okay.

“No. But when you don’t understand something, always blame it on magnets.”

With my total lack of confidence about my bootleg application of the scientific method, we once again continued our expedition. Applejack seemed hesitant for a moment, as if she needed permission to speak. After a couple of minutes in silence, however,

“Twilight, you swore,” she said out of nowhere.

“Huh?”

“You said a bad word when you saw the magnet cup.”

“Um, did I? Hrrmmm... yeah, I guess I did?”

Gosh, what was the big deal with having a filthy mouth every now and then? Were both Applejack and Spike Christian moms or what? Like damn, lemme express myself. I changed species less than 24 hours ago, I was entitled to be a little agitated! ... Maybe Ponyville had decreed cussing to be heretic, I don’t know.

“That means you have to put money in the swear jar!”

“A swear what now?”

She nodded her head, confident. “A swear jar, silly! You have to put one dollar in per bad word. That’s what mom and dad said.”

“Are you shitting me, sister?”

“Rooooh! Two dollars now! You’re really bad at this, Twilight,” she giggled.

Well, the giggles were contagious, because I found myself laughing alongside her. I’m glad she was slowly feeling better, yet I found myself estranged by the idea of a swear jar. My parents certainly never cared. My dad used to swear like a sailor. I practically grew up in a minefield of F bombs. Whenever us three watched the Flyers get their ass kicked during the series, them and I turned into a hurricane of beautifully patented four-letter words. No one rightfully cared. Good times, good times.

“Hehe, cute, Amy. What are you, eight or something?” I smiled.

“Nu-huh. I’m not a child anymore! I’m nine! But I’ll be ten in one week! It’s my birthday soon!”

...

“Wait, you’re serious?”

I obviously wasn’t a connoisseur in pony biology, but that to me sounded like bona fide bullshit.

She frantically nodded again. “Mmh-hmm! Me and Marie-Anna and Emily, we have this big day at the waterpark organized by mom and dad. It’ll be sooo cool! I can’t wait, and I hope it’ll be all nice and sunny, and that I’ll get a bunch of presents, and also-”

Splurt!

Huh? I turned around and saw that my orange friend had tripped and fell on the floor. And I thought I was the clumsy one, heh. Still, I felt bad about Amyjack’s little oopsie. She got overexcited and she forgot how to walk, it seemed. And to say I was just getting the hang of this myself. I walked by her side to help her out. Thankfully, that little fall didn’t disturb the peace, and other ponies around us carried on without making a fuss.

“Crap! Are you okay, Amy?”

She groggily got up, a hoof to my back to give her leverage.

“T-three dollars now, Twilight! Gee, you’ll be poor if you continue like this,” she said.

“Har har, Amy. Seriously though, you didn’t scrape your knees or anything? T’was a pretty violent trip to the floor, my friend.”

“Yeah... yeah. I’m okay. S-sorry about that, it’s just...”

She rubbed her hat, as if that would accomplish anything. Once again, she became a bit hesitant to keep on going. Awww come on girl! You were just getting over your sorrows! I won’t chew you out for what you have to say (having lost my canines and all that).

“Yes, Amy?” I prompted her.

“It’s just, it’s weird. Walking on all fours. It’s just... soooooo weird...”

“Gosh, I know, right!? Finally, someone who understands! Thank you!” I lifted my forelegs and threw them up. I sounded exasperated, but my outburst was comedic in nature.

She chuckled in relief, having found the courage to keep on going, given my unconditional approval of her problematic.

“I guess that’s what happens when you go from human to pony... ah well,” she sighed.

Waaaaaiiit. Wait wait wait. Wait.

My periscopic ears picked up on that.

Did she just imply that I...?

“Excuse me, do you mind repeating that?”

“Oh um...” she tapped her front hooves together, as if she accidentally said something she didn’t mean to say. “Transforming from human to pony. That’s the curse thingy I told Apple Bloom. But I dunno why I tell you this, you wouldn’t know anything about that, so forget it...”

Oh! OH! Well that was just rich!

That deceiving bitch!

She knew! She knew what happened to me! She knew and she hid it from me until she accidentally slipped!

I completely flipped my lid. I lost my temper right there and then. I was absolutely done being played like a damn fiddle. I had a life; I was no marionette with strings so easily pulled. She knew of my condition, she knew of my home country, and she will tell me absolutely everything without sugar-coating any of the details! I had many things to go back to, and I was officially done lollygagging in this bloody fursuit!

I was this close to rip her a new one!

“T-Twilight?” she quietly said, seeing the heat rise to my ears.

“Are you fucking with me right now?” I took a step toward her.

“Wha... what?” her voice quivered, surprised by my sudden change in emotions.

“You’re fucking with me, right?” I approached her some more.

“N-n-n-nuh... no! No!” she said, backing away in fear. “P-please, f-forget I said... Please don’t be a-angry!”

“Do you think this is a goddamn joke, taking the piss out of me like this? Who told you about my condition anyway? No one, huh? So that implies you had SOMETHING to do with how I turned out!”

“I don’t... I don’t...” tears formed around her eyes. I didn’t care.

“Don’t give me this shit, Amy! Or Applejack; I don’t fucking know anymore! God! You’ve done nothing but lie out of your teeth ever since I got you off your sorry arse! And to think I was ready to give you unconditional help!”

I seethed like no one seethed. Another angry step toward her. A few heads in the distance started to shift their attention toward us.

“Now riddle me this: Did you do this to me!?”

I presented my body with my hooves, standing on my rear legs for but a moment. Applejack just whimpered with a high-pitched moan. More and more ponies around us were staring at she and I with worried looks. They were whispering, but were hesitant to intervene. Good, exert your bystander syndrome, cowards. Because that gap in inaction allowed me to grab Applejack’s shoulders, my angry eyes looking directly into her soul.

“You KNEW I was human and you didn’t DO SHIT about it! Now you’re acting all coy about it!? How LONG were you withholding this information from me? Were you ever planning on telling me? Now, swindler, change me the fuck back before I lodge a knuckle sandwich right in the middle of that stupid orange snout of yours!”

“No! No! I’m a h-human! I mean, I was. I mean...”

She fell in a seated position and exploded in cries, her whole body vibrating under my iron grip. How did I even manage to grip her? Wait uh, something felt uber wrong right now. Lucidity was nesting back into me as I took a look at her miserable form. B-but I had every right to be angry at someone deceiving me, right? S-she was never consistent from the start, I-

And then it hit me. I realized what I had just done.

She was being completely honest, wasn’t she? Children were pretty much pillars of honesty; they might as well have been honesty. She was no different in that regard.

Which in turn, meant that I had straight up shouted and swore in front of a nine year-old girl who had lost the protective guidance of her parents. That’s why she was in an emotional turmoil when I first met her. A deeply traumatized toddler still not out of primary school, having her whole world flipped upside down. And I screamed in her face. She couldn’t even do fractions and I berated her like I would never berate an adult of my age. I was straight up an abductor, an abuser, a vile sorry excuse of a man. I was as far from a Saint as I could’ve been. It was indisputable: I had acted like the biggest asshole ever. I had failed terribly not only at keeping my composure, but at being an overall pleasant, tolerable, and decent person.

Maybe I deserved to be stuck here. Maybe this was the hell that I had made for myself. Something something making your bed and not wanting to lie in it.

Using verbal violence against a kid, who does that? Me! I did that! Oh God, why did I do that!? And that crowd around us... oh the glares, THE GLARES! Guilty as fucking charged, my fellow ponies. Throw the tomatoes for all I cared: I deserved it.

Jesus tap dancing Christ, how could I recover from this? Amy was still sobbing, deeply afraid of me. I thought I was a monster before? Good, now I sure acted like one!

“S-shit, A-Amy! I’m... I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to- I’m so sorry! Please!”

I approached her, but she scooted away. Still on the floor. As if she was trying to distance herself from a knife wielding psycho.

“L-let me make it up to you! I... Oh man, you have no idea how terrible I feel! I didn’t mean... I...”

Golf clap dude, golf clap. Now you made two children cry in one day. Maybe three if Spike counted. Wow, maybe giving little kids traumatic experiences was my special talent after all? Why did I ever go into music!?

I wish I had the mental fortitude to allow myself to give her a comforting hug to make my pathetic apology seem more genuine. But once again, I was a bit reluctant to go body-to-body with other people. I wasn’t strong enough to remove that stick out of my ass. Handshakes were all I grew up with, remember? And fat chance at that with no hands anymore!

“I-I t-thought- I thought w-w-we were f-friends... W-why... Why d’you yell at m-m-me?” she desperately asked.

My heart twisted in a knot.

“Because I’m... I’m scared. And confused. And I have no idea how to deal with any of this. I’m in the same situation as you Amy, and... and I’m terrible at keeping my cool about it. I’m under the same curse. What you said, what had happened to you? It just... It caught me by surprise, and I reacted poorly. That’s no excuse, I know it’s no excuse! I just hope you can be the better person here and forgive me for my awful anger – anger that I had NO right to direct at you.”

She sniffled, trying to calm her tears. “Y-you mean it? You... you’re really sorry?”

“Of course! I couldn’t mean it any more if I tried. I’m so sorry, Amy. A thousand times sorry! I do not deserve your forgiveness, I really really don’t! But if you could ever find in your heart the place to forgive this sorry excuse of a man, then I would be infinitely grateful...”

She remained silent for a bit, considering my words. She slowly got back on all four, having calmed down a tad. She had trouble looking at me in the eyes, and merely glanced sideway to the floor.

“You’re... a man?”

I bit my lips, an Armageddon of shame haunting me. My new unwanted gender, my poor handle of my emotions, my public lapidation of a kid, everything, really.

“Yeah... yeah. I was a guy. And now...” I didn’t finish that sentence.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I understand why you’re angry...” she said, still not looking a me.

“You’re sorry? Amy, no! Listen, it’s me, I’m the one who royally screwed up here. Let’s not flip this apology around. I’m the one trying to make it up to you.” I held up a hoof toward her. “So please... l-let’s shake on it and make up? I’ll try- no. I promise to never yell at you like this ever again! You have my word.”

She cautiously approached me, finally daring a look to my eyes.

“We’re in on this together, Amy. It should be us against the world, not us against each other. We have to act as allies. As... as friends. Me shouting in your face accomplished nothing but dividing us two humans. That was the lowest I’ve ever sunk, I swear.”

She kept approaching me. My hoof was still dangling in mid air. She walked past it and-

I deserved it, really.

No no, she didn’t slap me to oblivion or nothing. She merely grabbed me in a tight embrace. I had to return the embrace for stability sake. Our head were side-by-side, resting on each other’s long neck. The circle of distant rubbernecking ponies even d’awwwed in unison, satisfied with this beautiful conclusion. Once again, I deserved it. This was my punishment. To have a cringey moment straight out of sappy sitcoms. I dug my own grave. The capital punishment of a hug was my sentence.

Amy then whispered something in my ear that made me shiver.

“You owe the swear jar at least a hundred dollars, mister.”

---

It didn’t take us long to bury the war axe and reconcile. I was immensely glad for this. Not sure I deserved it.

“How old are ya?” said Amy.

“Twenty-two, and still breathing.”

Amy stuck her tongue out. “Ewww, you’re old!”

“What? No I’m not!” I faked being offended. “I’m definitely younger than your parents.”

“Mmmh, true. How many kids do you have, then?”

Buh!? Me, having kids? It’s as if someone decked my guts. Gosh, kids were so innocent, weren’t they?

“I don’t have any kids, Amy. And I can’t have any either: I’m a lone wolf.”

She laughed. “No you’re not! You’re a horsie, not a wolfie!”

I laughed as well. She could be pretty lively when she wasn’t stuck being depressed and all that.

“So, should I call you Mr. Twilight Sparkle, then?” resumed Amy.

“Um. No. Probably not. Somehow that sounds creepy as hell,” I raised an eyebrow.

“Oh! Oh! Is Twilight Sparkle even your real name?” curiosity having piqued her.

“No Amy, it is not. My parents didn’t completely hate me,” I chuckled.

“Mmmh. It’s like me. The horsies-”

“Ponies.”

“-The ponies in the city kept calling me ‘Applejack’ for some reason. But like, they’re sooo wrong about it! Even Big Mac and Apple Bloom called me by this name. Why?”

“Yeah, why. That’s the million-dollar question, Amy. But ah, I don’t really know myself. I do have suspicions however. And- wait, have you told the two farm ponies your real name?”

She lowered her head, distraught.

“... No. I was too sad back then. Like super duper ultra mega sad. I barely managed to tell them that I had been cursed.”

I pondered. “Mmmh. Better keep it this way for now. You should probably not deny when they call you Applejack, or AJ, or whatever. It’d be a bit mean to cause these two mental anguish when we don’t know half the variables ourselves.”

She tuned out my adult talk. “Oh! So what’s your name then?”

“Han?”

“Well, you said your name’s not Twilight Sparkle, right? So what is it, huh? Oh, I bet it’s Dan or something. Or Benjamin! I love that name. No, no... you’re more of a... mmmh... William, maybe? Or Ricky, or Oliver, or Gabriel, or or-”

“Geez Louise, calm down, kiddo.”

“Hmmmphh! It’s Amy, not Louise!”

I rolled my eyes. “I know, it’s just an exp-”

A pony was in front of the library door, eagerly waiting. God dammit, what now?

This was after thirty minutes of superfluous walking. We didn’t take the most direct course to the treehouse, because we accidentally detoured in all the wrong alleys. You couldn’t blame me, I was new to this city still! The extra time wasn’t lost on us however, because it helped us both to simmer down. We talked a bit more about our predicament, and that seemed to have appeased the atmosphere. I hoped we could continue to smooth things out between the two of us. She was the only other “human” around, after all. I had to cherish the only familiar thing in my vicinity.

And now, another intruder, facing the two of us. She was probably just a client, right? In and out, rent a couple of books, and voilà. No more adventures involving me, hopefully.

The mare was most certainly flashy, in any case. She had a pale blue coat, which was a poignant contrast with her magenta irises. Her mark of totalitarian dictatorship was a cloud with a rainbow lightning bolt striking out of it. The rainbow had some significance, considering her mane. Now, I’ve seen a couple of ponies thus far, but none had been as straining to the eyes as she was. Her mane was scruffy and somehow unkept (a bit à la Big Mac), but the colors. Oh lord, the colors. The Care Bears could’ve sued for copyright infringement. Her mane was completely multicolor. From purple, to blue, to green, to yellow, to red, to orange. You name it; she had it.

The freak show didn’t stop there, for she was blessed with a pair of wings. A lucky member of the elite, indubitably.

But, oh? It appeared one of her wings, the right one (my right, not hers) was wrapped in gauze. Bandaged after an accident, maybe? Yikes. I pitied the wound. I didn’t know how many nerves canalized through an animal wing, but I sure hoped she wasn’t suffering too much for it.

She scanned the two of us with shifty eyes. I thought she was confused for a moment, but then, all doubts evaporated when she etched a big toothy smile.

“Heya Twilight!” confidently said the rainbow flying pony in a raspy voice. “Just the pony I needed!”

...

Well that sold it.

Why did everyone need my attention today? First Apple Bloom, now her? What was I, the town’s guru or something? I didn’t know stuff about anything; why did they need MY help of all ponies? Did everyone flock to the library every time they got a splinter or something? I just wanted to be left alone, yet somehow I felt railroaded on the path of most resistance. Amy and I had lots to talk about. Very important stuff, too. But now, our human council was going to be interrupted by this meddling pony. Another thorn in my side. My side was just a big fat pincushion.

Unnngh. Well, no escape from her now. Let’s she what she needed out of me. Maybe she just wanted a good book to read?

Naw, let’s be real here. Fate had been sufficiently tempted today for me to know where this was going. I was going to be in hot water again, wouldn’t I? Yeah. Welp, time to invoke Murphy’s Law and cash in some bad karma.

Comments

[Moonlight Tome]

Wasn’t that the truth, Mr. Schrute. Wasn’t that the truth. Both Spike and Apple Bloom reacted negatively when I failed to “recognize” them, as if it had been my job to do so. I think that was a pretty strong indicator that I had usurped the identity of this Twilight Sparkle everyone thought I was. This effectively meant that I wasn’t just a new body tossed into a bizarro city, nay, I had straight up taken a role that was not mine. That seemed pretty clear to me, now. Probably why I woke up in Twilight Sparkle’s apparent home, the library.

Yay, he's starting to get it!

[vectorVll]

And so was she! “ Oh excuse me officer, yeah, I was just taking a nudist walk with this little girl who isn’t mine, also, I’m tots not a pedophile. ” Yeah, not only was I a pony, not only was I not at home, not only was I coerced into helping a total stranger, but I was now under the threat of being tossed in jail. My freedom was the last boon I had. Freedom was the remaining beacon that made me human! It was a beautiful ideology that defined us, and I was not ready to have it stripped away so easily!

Okay, now he's just being willfully ignorant. Not only has other people have been walking around. Pull upon quote naked but he has been told his idea of clothes is weird. Plus he knows he's a pony which don't wear clothes in the human universe. So he's this being stupid at this point.

[Online account]

11689653

Could be that he's not the sharpest tool in the shed, could be that he's stubbornly reluctant. Whatever the case, think of all the Funny Moments™ it could bring!

Him being dense isn't that bad either, because it also means he has the opportunity to grow out of it (which he somewhat did in this chapter, after noticing that everyone wasn't clothed). Character growth and shtuff.

[vectorVll]

11690274
Good point. But I can't believe he's stupid or at least that dumb. He has sewn in his mind. He has a high level intelligence even though like Twilight it's running away with him. He basically created a whole system of government based on the ass tattoos. That is extremely wrong but hilarious.

[Online account]

11690464

Yes hahaha exactly! He's basically putting a stick in his own bicycle wheel with his many blatantly wrong supositions. Always assuming the worst like the panicked fatalist he his. Story wouldn't be as funny if he was poised and collected, methinks.

Eh, he'll come around in due time. It's bound to happen.