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Chapter 1: AAAH! Ah Ain't Got No Fingers!2,799 words
Chapter 2: The (Not So) Good Years1,955 words
Chapter 3: Dust in the Hoof1,632 words

Chapter 2: The (Not So) Good Years

I keep sitting on the bed, in shock from yet another drastic change that’s going to have to happen. Leaving my family? I’d lived with them for nearly thirty years. How on Earth could I live on my own...so suddenly at that? I can barely cook, and...well, now I can’t cook at ALL, not without fingers...though I’m brought out of my self-pity by my stomach growling. I haven’t eaten breakfast yet.

Mark must have heard it, because he asks “Uh, maybe I should get you something...wait, what do they eat?”

Good question. I’d seen a lot of the show, but I couldn’t think of many things the characters had eaten on it. Well, other than various sweet stuff. Then it occurs to me. “Ah can’t believe ah’m sayin’ this, but get the salad bag.”

I didn’t know much about real-life horses, but I did know that they were herbivorous: they were plant-eaters.

He gets up and heads to the kitchen. Meanwhile, I scoot over so my head hangs off the side of the mattress...and that’s when I realize something big.

Wait a minute. I...I’m Applejack. And she’s...oh no. Oh God.

I roll onto my back and look down at myself.

It’s gone.

My...male equipment is gone.

It had taken me this long to notice, but on top of being a pony, I was a girl now too.

I scream once more, just as Mark was walking back with a bowl of store-bought salad.

Of course, he asks what's wrong. The only way I can answer is “Ah don't know what's worse: that ah'm not human anymore, or that ah'm a girl!”

Apparently this hadn't occurred to him either. He just stands there, stunned, as I'm on the verge of tears. A person's gender isn't something you normally give much thought about, since having it forcefully ripped away and switched on you isn't exactly an everyday occurrence.

He comes over and puts his bony hand on my head. “Look, Matthew...I...I don’t get this either. But I’m sure that this can be fixed, right?”

Part of me winces at the word “fixed.” Not sure why I would, since I’m not a dog or cat. What brought that on?

“Um, I mean...you know, uh, turning back. I mean, look what Lauren became--”

I interrupt him. “Ya think she can use magic?! That’s not sumthin’ ya can just do! It hasta be learned!”

I said that a lot louder than I meant to, but the point still stood. For all I know, magic works a lot differently here than it does in that other world.

At this point, Mark seems to be lacking in ideas. He just hugs me again, and offers the salad bowl. My first instinct, of course, is to take it from him...but I seem to be lacking in hands at the moment, and my hooves just clack against the plastic of the bowl, unable to take hold. This does not help my mood.

“Uh...sorry,” Mark says. He just puts the bowl on the bed, where I just dip my snout in and eat up like a common animal. This is so humiliating...made accidentally worse by him saying “I can’t believe I didn’t come in here earlier and see this.”

He gestures to my clock radio. It’s 2:05 PM.

Yeah, my sleep schedule is all sorts of messed up. It’s another long story about that, involving lots of late nights playing video games. This obviously isn’t good when you’re back in college to try and finish your degree...

...Wait a second. I turn to my TV and game consoles by the room door.

Everything there, from the controllers to the remote, to my computer mouse and keyboard, is designed around human hands and human fingers.

I had been playing video games since I was four years old, starting way back with the NES and Super Mario Bros., and continuing all the way to the PlayStation 3, Wii, and 3DS.

I look down at the “palm” of my hoof.

I’d taken hands for granted, after all these years...and now, I can’t even pick one of those controllers up, or even press a single button at once. And moving analog sticks is right out.

I felt like an amputee that had just realized he's going to need a lot of help in the future.

Mark speaks up hesitantly. “...Matthew?”

I look him straight in the eye; not an easy feat for someone like me, especially in this mood. “It...it...it looks lahk the...” I swallow hard. “...games are yours...”

He does a double take, along with getting one of those facial expressions that conveys joy for about a fifth of a second, followed by a crushing realization of what he'd just been told. He knew just how much I loved video games; he'd played many of them himself, though we rarely played competitively.

But as great a gift as he'd just been given, he realized just how great of a loss it was for me. As I bury my head in the blankets, he takes my right front hoof in his left hand, gently, saying nothing.

Times like this, I'm thankful I have a brother like him. For all his procrastination and laziness, he did care about us.

Nice guy, Matthew. And he'll end up like you if ya don't get goin'! We got places to go, ponies to meet! An' ya can start by getting' outta bed!

I shake my sobbing head quickly, as if trying to regain my bearings. What is with my head today? As if I didn't have enough to get through...but it was true.

Looking down, it's a lot further down than it looks...now, anyway. When I looked human, it was no problem at all. But I'd also never been a quadruped before.

“Uh, Mark...ah'm sorry, but can ya help me down?”

“Oh, right, sorry.” He picks me up (wow, that feels weird) and sets me on the floor, where I stay sitting. The rough, old carpeting is such a weird sensation now. I hadn't had my head this close to it since my grandmother's dogs were here, and I put my head low and face-down to make them struggle to lick my face.

But that felt pretty nice. This...wasn't.

I try to stand. This results in lots of wobbly movement, and landing almost flat on my chin again. “Oomph!”

However, I do notice something weird to me (on top of all the usual weirdness). It was oddly easy to actually push myself up off the floor...it's the balancing that's difficult. It doesn’t take me long to remember why: Applejack is, by quite a wide margin, considered the physically strongest and most in-shape of the “mane six.”

The irony in getting a body that’s physically strong, yet lacking in fingers, is not lost on me--assuming I had the right definition of irony there. I wasn’t exactly in shape before this afternoon.

“You need help?” he asks, with obvious concern in his voice.

I shake my head. “Ah'll get it...” And then something else occurs to me, which makes me wonder why I didn’t think of this earlier. “Hey, uh, Mark, pick me up an’...an’ see if ya can find a vidya of a horse walkin’. Maybe that’ll help.”

“Hey, good idea,” he said, as he picked me up (and it still felt humiliating, having to be regarded like someone who couldn’t even roll the wheels on his wheelchair) and took me back to the bed.

With his help, it doesn’t take long to find an analysis video of the show’s animation; specifically, its running and walking cycles. He plays it for me. For obvious reasons, I pay close attention--even though the narrator uses some Flash terms I’m not exactly familiar with.

Huh. Who knew...walking like an ostrich in the back and a human in the front. I’d always thought a pony walked like a cat or something. So, pick up the legs in the back as you walk, but walk basically normally in the front?

Mark puts me down on the carpet again, so I can try this out. He gets down on his own knees. “Just wanna help you if you fall over,” he says.

As selfish as he can be sometimes (especially with his spending habits), that made me smile. Nice to know that when it’s particularly serious, he’s not a complete ass.

It takes a few tries, but eventually I start to get the hang of walking as the video showed. Mark stays by me the whole time, just in case. After all, it took long enough learning to walk the FIRST time...though, this time around, having legs strong enough to support my own weight really helped.

I start to head into the hallway outside my room. My hooves clack against the exposed concrete of the floor--we’d torn the carpet out years ago, because we’d thought different flooring would be put down soon, partly because of our pets...doing their business in there.

My walk kept me up for the most part, but man, was it awkward. My front legs seemed okay, but my back legs were coming off more like that scene in Eddie Murphy’s remake of Dr. Doolittle, when the dog has just had a thermometer taken out of him. But it was the only way I could keep going forward consistently--and I really hoped I didn’t have to walk like this forever.

And that’s when I turned around and hit my head on a box: specifically, a foosball-table box, which had been sitting here for years. Long story short, it was supposed to go in a new room addition to the house, which never got completed, for various reasons.

“You okay?” Mark asks.

That seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. I end up making an outburst. “Of COURSE ah’m not okay! Ya think ah lahk havin’ ta learn ta walk all over again?!”

I was so flustered by all that had happened since waking up, I'd made that sound a lot angrier than I meant it to. That was a common problem for me. I dip my head a little. “...er, sorry, Mark, ah'm just so...UGH!” I stomp my right front hoof down, on its side, as if slamming a frustrated fist on the floor. The clack of the hoof on the concrete is still not something I'm used to yet; it's like hearing that confirmation honk on a new car, when you press the button on your key ring to lock the doors from afar. It always catches you off-guard the first few times.

And then, I hear a worse noise.

The front glass door opening.

I can only gasp.

Thinking fast, I try to run for my room again, but I stumble...Mark manages to pick me up, just as the deadbolt lock on the front door starts to slide into the unlocked position. He hurries into my room, where I tell him “Put me down! On the floor--I’ll get under the bed!” Which he does, and I do.

The front door opens.

“I’m home--got off early,” says my mother.

Author's Note:

Man, I am so, so sorry for all the delays in getting this chapter out. I promise you won’t have to wait this long between chapters from now on.

I’ve just had A LOT of things happen in my personal life at once, including (but not limited to) final exams, graduating from college, and not one, but TWO serious car accidents--one of which was as I was heading home from said graduation. (I was not driving, and none of us were injured. Can’t say the same for the cars.)

Anyway, don’t worry. I resolve to write part of a chapter every single day that I have access to a computer. You won’t be waiting two months again.

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Red Bomber

Red Bomber #1 · Jan 31st, 2013 · · ·

Woah sorry, to hear that from you and glad that you're now getting better at the moment, but don't push yourself too much just to write the story though.

My comments about the current chapter: I feel like your reaction in there is almost like mine if I suddenly turn into a girl pony or one of the mane cast. Even though I'll probably be downplayed in that reaction knowing that in someone else's body but... in this world there's that whole merging thing, I'm afriad of how you're going to react to this news later in the story.

Cold Snap

Cold Snap #2 · Jan 31st, 2013 · · ·

2050798
Don't worry, there's a plan for when he realizes what's going on in his mind.
It's just going to take a while to get there.

Firebirdbtops

Firebirdbtops #3 · Jan 31st, 2013 · · ·

Considering your location, if your mother thinks you were stolen, she, or anyone else with the same assumption, could legally hang your brother. I would say that is a VERY GOOD reason to clear up any misunderstandings. According to outdated laws, anyway.

blazikenking