Humans-turned-ponies get taken from their homes to serve as witnesses in a lawsuit against their owners.
A side fanfic to Zephyr, a story in which humans get transformed into ponies through nanite-laced plushies, Taken takes place in a possible future where an unnamed group attempts to charge their owners for acts of slavery.
Kidnapped from their homes, Lavender and her sister Orchid have to deal with the weird doctors and their even stranger methods while trying to stay sane.
You wake up groggily from a deeper sleep than you can remember having had in a long time. Your body feels like every individual part of it had fallen asleep and is having trouble waking up. Your limbs are tingling, your mouth is dry, and your eyes just don't seem to want to open.
The last thing you can remember is playing out in the back yard with Orchid, running between the few trees and bushes planted around while you two were playing tag. Orchid was always better at the game than you were, and the distance between you two was growing even as you tried to cut corners.
She disappeared around a corner of the small greenhouse in a corner of the backyard, placed close enough to the wall to make turning around in-between them impossible, and you remember grinning as you galloped around to the other side to meet her, but then everything just turned dark.
You hear unfamiliar voices as if coming from an adjacent room, and desperately try to get your eyes open. Master never got that many visitors; she liked her privacy. Who could those voices be? Your concern turns to fear as an unfamiliar room greets you when you finally manage to pry an eye open, the shock snapping you awake fully.
The room you're in is small, rectangular in shape, and sparsely decorated. You find yourself laying on a bed on one end of the room, a simple white sheet draped over you to keep you warm. A low table is found near the center of the room, up against the back wall, and a hole in the floor in the far-away corner beyond it seems to be a toilet of sorts. There is a door right opposite it, with a large mirror taking up most of the front wall of the room.
No, not a mirror. You've seen these things before. It's only a mirror to you, in this room with its institution-like fluorescent lighting. But the voices coming from beyond it clearly indicate that they, on their side, can look through it into this room. Can look at you.
You flail your tingling limbs around to get the sheet off of yourself, and limply fall out of the bed onto the padded floor. Padded? Oh joy. As you look around the room anew, you find the walls are padded as well as the floor and ceiling, the legs of both bed and table disappearing underneath it where they're probably bolted to the floor itself.
"Whadisdis?", you manage to slur, your body still fighting off the effects of whatever drug they must've used to take you from your home.
No answer is forthcoming, and you spend some time trying to get your hooves to work again, pacing around the room while trying to rationalize your growing fears away. But no matter how you turn it around in your head, you can't get over the simple fact that you were taken. Taken from your Master's home. Taken from Orchid. Taken from the life you'd come to love.
In the end, all you can do is sit your rump down somewhere near the center of the room, and let the tears come while you open your mouth in one long wail; "MAAAAAAAASTER WHERE ARE YOU????"
Your wailing is enough to stir whomever's watching you from the other side of the one-way mirror, and you hear the sound of voices again, murmuring something unintelligible. Unintelligible to you, being in this room, but at a faster pace than you heard before.
You sniffle as you try to turn your ears in an attempt to find the right angle to be able to distinguish the individual words spoken, but it's just impossible. Instead, you rush up to the window, place your forehooves up against it, and stare at your own reflection.
"Hey! Hey you there! Hey! Can you let me out please? Where's my Master? Where's Orchid? What is this place? Someone please tell me what's going on!?!"
The murmuring stops, and a soft tapping sounds from the other side of the mirror. As it does, you see the shadow of someone's hand where your nose would be if you had pushed it up against the glass.
"Please refrain from touching the glass, miss Braeden," a male voice calls out from inside the room you're in, and you whip around trying to locate it. It came from above you, but with your short stature that's not really that surprising. It's more unsettling that there's no-one in the room beside you.
"All your questions will be answered shortly. Please relax," the voice continues, and you finally spot a small speaker hidden between the padding on the ceiling. Your ears droop at this impersonal means of communication, and you drag yourself over to the bed, drop yourself down on it and turn your back on the window.
You pull the sheet around you with your teeth, covering yourself up as much as possible so whomever is watching you can watch a small bundle of white cloth instead of your lavender-colored coat and straw-colored hair.
You don't know what's going on. Something in your head is trying to connect dots that you don't know how to describe. You know this place is an institution of sorts, the window was something you easily spotted, and you have a feeling the first person to walk through that door is going to be a doctor of sorts. Why would you know these things?
You've been a pony for nearly half a year now, give or take the time it took for your Master to come fetch you from Zephyr's Master's place. Ponies didn't have to know these things. You just lived to make your Master happy, lived to make Orchid happy, lived to be cuddled and coddled and played with and made happy for making them happy. It had been the most precious of experiences and you had enjoyed every single moment of the past months.
And then someone decided to interrupt your playtime with your pony sister Orchid. Someone decided to pull you from your Master's home while she was at work. Pull you from heaven and stuff you in this padded room with who-knows-who keeping watch over you.
You pull your head closer to the rest of your body, bundling up even more than you had already been, and try to fight the tears. You're alone. Alone in this room. Whatever they did to Orchid, you can't even guess at. Maybe she's in a room like yours? You sincerely hope she's not. She shouldn't be alone. You know she fears it like nothing else. Master even had to bring her over to Zephyr's Master's place to come pick you up because Orchid could not deal with being alone.
"I'm so sorry, Orchid," you breathe out, sniffling into your hooves. Whatever may have happened, you should have been able to protect Orchid from this. Whatever this is.
You must have cried yourself to sleep, because the next thing you notice is someone's hand pulling the sheets off of yourself and a stern male voice speaking up. "Miss Braeden, if you'd please pay attention when you're spoken to?"
You blink your eyes open but the annoyed look on the man towering over you makes you want to close them again. "You're not my Master," you mumble at him, your tail flicking behind you betraying your own annoyance with the situation.
You don't get much of a chance to fall back asleep and forget about the whole situation again however, as you're unceremoniously picked up by the man, and dropped on the floor beside the bed. "You'll get enough time to sleep AFTER therapy, miss Braeden," he offers in an annoyed tone of voice, walking over to the low table and opening a small wooden box with four holes in the top cover. You reluctantly pick yourself up from the floor and stare at him as he takes out four wooden blocks of equal size and shape to the four holes, then slides the cover closed again.
"Therapy?", you ask, then flick an ear as something about what has been said to you finally hits your conscious mind. "Who's this Braeden person you keep talking about?"
The man straightens his back and looks down at you while keeping his head level. He literally looks down at you like this, inferring that he's better than you from his stance alone. "You are, miss Braeden. Please put the blocks in the right holes," he demands, keeping his eyes on you as he clearly expects you to do just that.
You stare at him for a moment, then sit your butt down in defiance. "I'm no miss," you start, letting out a snort, "And I'm certainly no Braeden. My name's Lavender. And I won't do anything until you tell me where my Master is. And Orchid."
The man raises an eyebrow at your statement, then turns for the table and starts putting the blocks in their proper holes himself. You feel confused at his actions, up until he picks up the box and heads for the door. Panic strikes and you rush to cut him off, moving between him and the door and shaking your head up at him. "Don't go!", you cry out, desperate to keep what little company the awkward figure provides from leaving the room.
He doesn't even put the box down, but instead simply picks you up with his free hand and puts you behind him. "If you don't intend to partake in therapy, miss Braeden, what use is there for me to remain here?", he asks in a deadpan voice.
You stare up at him trying to formulate a response to that, but he takes your silence for acceptance of his statement and leaves through the door. You stare at the padded door while a feeling of utter desolation takes a hold of you. This entire situation is so ridiculous.. but now you're alone again. Alone save for whomever is behind the screen. Alone. Without Master. Without Orchid.
The tears need little incentive to start rolling down your cheeks again, and you hang your head low. Is this what your life is going to be like from now on? A total stranger telling you what to do and leaving you alone when you don't comply fast enough? What did you do wrong to deserve this?
With the feeling of total rejection and loneliness taking hold of you, you drag yourself around the room and rest your head on the table. "Square in square, circle in circle, triangle in triangle, star in star," you mutter, knowing where each block would have had to go. It was a test designed for little kids, for goodness' sake.. You knew how to do it. You could have done it within mere seconds. But you defied the angry man. You demanded to know where your Master was.
And was that so wrong to ask? You were transported here from your Master's home. Why? Did your Master want you to go through this? Why did they keep calling you miss Braeden? It made no sense.
After a while of staring at the wall in front of you, you feel the urge to go to the toilet and drag yourself over to the corner with the hole in the floor. You squat over it and turn your head away from the window while you do your business. It was bad enough that they were watching your every move. Probably with a camera or two so they could review your actions with their team. Having to go potty with them watching was more than just embarrassing.
It was a violation of the few bits of privacy your Master had still allowed you.
You finish up and turn away from the toilet, jumping a little as it flushes itself unexpectedly. Sensor activated? Or did someone in the other room press a button? You sigh with your ears and tail hanging down low and drag yourself over to the bed again. There's not enough room underneath for you to crawl under it, so you repeat what you did before instead. Lay on top of it with your back turned towards the window, pull the sheet over you, and ignore them as well as you possibly can.
Your throat is dry, and you lick around your muzzle a bit in hopes of getting your saliva production to kick in. You don't know how long it has been since you've had anything to eat or drink, but you're starting to feel the need for both rise up the more you think of it.
As if knowing your thoughts, a small hiss announces a change in the room and you lift your head up in time to see the wall behind the table close up again, a metal tray with two bowls welded to it left on the table. One bowl filled with water, while the other contains vegetables of various shapes and colors.
You're too hungry to really care what they are, and it only takes a moment to free yourself from the bed sheet and rush on over to dip your head into the food bowl and start to eat. It doesn't take you long to finish up with both vegetables and water, and you crawl back up on the bed with a satisfied growl of your tummy.
You don't even pull the sheets fully over you, content to just lay yourself down and close your eyes. The food was just what you needed to fill that pit in your stomach, and it's made you drowsy. A little nap may give you enough strength to deal with this situation again.
A lone thought in the back of your head wonders if there was anything in the food that made you feel this way, but you're already too far gone to pay it much heed. Before it can fully settle, you've fallen into a dreamless sleep.
When you next wake up you find yourself gasping for air as something has wrapped itself around your throat, cutting off your breathing. You struggle to free yourself from it, and the pair of pink forehooves holding onto you quickly let go once their owner figures you're waking up.
"Oh, Lavender, you're alive!", a familiar voice sounds from behind you. As always just a little too loud and too high-pitched for you to enjoy its closeness to your ears, "I was so worried! I woke up here without Master and you and then you were not here and I was so scared! And then the bad man said I had to put these things in this thing and I didn't know what to do and he just left and I was all alone again but then I had food and I.." The stream of words stop for a moment as Orchid breathes in again, and you use the moment of respite to quickly turn around and put your hoof to her lips.
"Orchid, I.. I just woke up.. I don't know what.. er," you start, words failing to enter your drugged brain.
There was definitely something in the food, you realize, and you carefully look around you to find a similar room as the one you first woke up in. There are some differences to your previous accommodations, and you frown at noticing there are now two windows, with a single door in the center of the room, opposite a set of tables with a low wall in-between them. On the other side of the room is a bed similar to the one you're currently occupying with Orchid, and there are two toilets on the foot-end of each of the beds. You don't at all like how far apart the beds are.
"Are you ok, Lavender?", Orchid mumbles against your hoof, and you turn your attention back to her, then shake your head. You immediately regret not just saying yes, as the other pony's strong forehooves quickly latch onto you again and move to pull you in tightly against her form. You once again gasp for air as your earthpony sister simply doesn't realize the strength she has, and flail your own weaker hooves around in a wild panic!
"Orchid! Personal space!", you manage to wheeze out, and Orchid almost immediately drops you to the bed again, her soft pink cheeks turning a darker color as she blushes behind her fur.
"Oops," she mutters, hopping off of the bed and giving you some time to catch your breath again. "I'm sorry, big sis. I'm just so happy to see you, and you shouldn't feel bad. Master is gonna get us out of here, I'm sure of it."
Pulling yourself together, you find yourself wishing you could have as strong a faith in your Master's abilities as your sister has.
You look at Orchid as she walks around the room, her white mane and tail swaying a bit with each step on the uneven padded floor. She's slightly taller than you, and her build is much more muscular than your own, but she has the mind of a little kid and it's sometimes difficult to keep up with. But perhaps it is in that innocence that she can deal with this situation a little better than you?
You rationally know what those windows mean. You know there's a team of people working on observing you for whatever reason. There's doctors and psychiatrists and people of other professions like those all watching the tapes they're inevitably shooting of you. Just the thought of all those people watching you while you were supposed to be in Master's care is enough to make your stomach turn and you rush towards the nearest of the two toilets.
You're barely in time for the vomit to remain contained in the bowl, and quickly spread your hooves out a bit for extra stability as you empty your only recently filled stomach again.
Orchid quickly joins your side and just stands there, close enough for her warm body to be felt, but distant enough to not limit the ferocity of your contractions as you slowly calm down from the sickening waves that had washed over you. When you finally lick your lips clean and turn away from the bowl, she moves in to softly nuzzle her head against your neck in a silent attempt to provide some comfort and you sigh as you return the gesture.
"Are you not feeling well, Lavender?", Orchid wonders, nipping a bit at your mane's hairs on your lower neck.
"It's just this place," you start, pulling away from her and walking over to the mirrored window in front of you. The sound of the bowl flushing behind you doesn't phase you now, you're too focused staring at your own reflection until you're close enough to press your face up against it in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the room behind.
"Do not touch the window, miss Braeden," a new voice speaks from the intercom speakers hidden in the ceiling, but you pay it little attention. Instead, you just push your face up even closer, turning it this way and that to try and get enough shadow around one of your eyes to see through to the other side. To no avail. Something must be standing close enough to the window on the other side to create its own shadow, or is otherwise obstructing your view. You just can't make anything out.
You pull away from the window and look at Orchid staring at you in confusion. "This place?", she repeats, her voice sounding slightly hopeful.
"It's not home," you tell her, padding over and nuzzling into her for comfort.
She shakes her head and returns to nibbling on your neck hairs, sighing out. "It's not, no. I hope Master will find us soon."
"You and me both, little sis," you smirk, watching the back wall open behind each of the small tables and finding a food tray for each one being placed on them. You turn back to the window and frown at it. "They better not be laced with drugs again!", you call out to the unseen people behind the mirrored glass, and you notice Orchid turning to you in confusion in the reflection.
"Your breakfast is safe to eat. We apologize for the sedative in your dinner, but we had to move you. I'm sure you understand," the intercom offered as a reply, while Orchid perked up at the idea of breakfast. It doesn't take her long to find one of the bowls, and you reluctantly pad over to the other table to start on your own breakfast. It's one thing to deal with possibly another drug-induced rest, but Orchid's insatiable appetite is a constant you've long since learned to respect. If you don't eat your food, she will.
"Breakfast", as it is, is a decent collection of apple slices, oats, and even a slice or two of banana. It doesn't taste too bad, and you finish it off with the cool water from the bowl next to it, while Orchid pads on over to see if you left anything she could maybe liberate from your bowl. You grin at her as your bowl is as clean as you could have made it, and she pads on over to the door and pokes it with one of her forehooves.
"I'm still hungry," she speaks to it, seemingly thinking the voices came from the door. You can sort of see how her thought process works in this case. After all, Master always had to use doors to get in- and out of rooms, and the only one who had fed you in the past months was Master, and since there was only one door in the room, the food should have come from behind there, shouldn't it? At least, that's how you figure Orchid's mind to work.
You, on the other hoof, keep an eye on the wall behind the table you're standing nearest to. It doesn't take long for the wall to open and for a gloved hand to quickly grab the empty food tray and pull it back. A hand dressed in a glove made of blue latex. So that system is not automated. Good to know.
Orchid bops the padded door again and whines out a bit louder. "I'm still hungry!"
"Miss Orchid, you will be fed again at lunchtime. Please behave," the intercom returns, and Orchid finally looks up at the ceiling.
"But I'm hungry NOW!", Orchid insists, turning around and preparing to buck the door.
"Orchid! Want to play tag again?", you quickly cut in, trying to defuse a quickly deteriorating situation. You know how insistent your little sister can be when her mind is set on something. That, and you'd rather wait with her bucking the door until nighttime. There shouldn't be that many people around during nighttime. If it were to happen that she would buck the door off of its hinges, you'd rather not have to fight through a veritable army of doctors as you tried to find your way out.
Whatever would happen later, Orchid simply tilts her head at you and points a forehoof around. "This room is way too small for tag, silly!", she exclaims, shaking her head at you. She does relax her muscles in doing so, and you quickly walk up to nudge her side with your head.
"Well, we can play something else?", you try, while nudging her away from the door with soft bumps of your forehead into her rump. "Maybe we could jump over one another? Or tell jokes or stories? Or make funny faces at the mirror?", you continue, sticking your tongue out at the mirrored glass at your last suggestion.
Orchid thinks it over for a moment, her face scrunching up as if it takes all her willpower to consider her options, but then she grins up at you and pads off to the nearest bed. "Storytime!", is her excited reply, her tail flicking happily behind her. "I always like your stories, big sis Lavender!"
You sigh to yourself and turn to follow behind, watching Orchid climb on the bed and pad around in a circle to get herself a good spot to rest on before letting herself fall on her side. You decide to lay down behind her, resting your head on her flank and looking at her expectant eyes.
"Once upon a time," you start, but immediately pause to snort at yourself. "No, perhaps we should start this story differently."
Orchid is all ears as she waits for you to tell your tale, never one to complain about your storytelling skills but always happy to just hear your voice.
"It was a dark day in the magical land of Equestria," you begin, closing your eyes to allow your imagination to paint the picture in your mind. "The Pegasus ponies had got their calendars mixed up and brought storm clouds over from the marshes beyond Everfree Forest, and the rain was pouring down on Ponyville's residents."
Orchid shifts her weight a little and you do the same, spooning up to your pony sister on the bed and smiling at her while you lower your head to rest it on her flank again.
"Orchid didn't like the weather one bit," you continue, Orchid's eyes growing to twice their size in surprise.
"I didn't?", she asks incredulously, and you shake your head at her.
"No, you didn't," you tell her. "All those silly rainclouds were messing up your picnic plans! 'Why couldn't they have chosen a different day for this storm?', Orchid whined, stomping her hoofs on the wooden floor while she paced around her picnic basket holding all sorts of cookies and muffins and candy."
"I like candy," Orchid nods slowly, the use of her name in the story making her all the more invested in it.
You ignore her interruption, choosing instead to just continue where the story left off; "Orchid's stomping made her sister Lavender come down from the upstairs bedroom, her ears lowered a little on her head. 'What's wrong, little sis? I thought you were going to go play with Apple Bloom and Pinkie Pie and the rest?', she asks, but then spots the picnic basket.
'Oh, it's the weather, isn't it? Are you afraid to get wet, silly filly?', Lavender jokes, but Orchid really didn't like the joke. Not now. Orchid had been looking forward to this far too much."
"Uh-huh," Orchid nodded to that, ears perked up and big innocent eyes just staring at you.
"'But I was really looking forward to having a picnic today!', Orchid tells her big sister, sitting herself down next to the basket and poking at it with a hoof. 'We can't go sit outside now! The cookies will get all soggy! Soggy cookies are bad tasting, you know?'", you continue the tale, and Orchid nods heavily at that.
"'Well now,' Lavender said, prancing up to her little sister and giving her a soft nuzzle. 'We can't have soggy cookies, I agree. But maybe your big sister can help you get a picnic after all?' Orchid looked up at that with a hopeful look in her eyes, 'You can?' Lavender simply nodded at that and walked into the kitchen. 'Just you wait and see, little sis. Your big sister has just the thing for this situation.'."
"Orchid waited for her big sister to return, not knowing what she was planning. What could Lavender do against soggy cookies? When Lavender finally returned with a big pan with a lid on it, Orchid was only more confused.
'You can't cook the cookies, big sis! They'll burn!', Orchid cried out, but Lavender just giggled and put the pan down next to the picnic basket.
'I wasn't planning on cooking the cookies, dearest sister,' Lavender smiled, opening the pan and the basket and taking out the cookies from the latter. 'But I am going to put them in this pan here,' she decided, moving the cookies from the basket to the pan.
Now Orchid was more confused than ever! What would Lavender do with the cookies in the pan if not cook them? 'But what are you going to do with the cookies if you're not going to cook them, big sis? Why would you put them in the pan?' she demanded, her right ear flicking in confusion.
'We're going to confuse the rain,' Lavender grinned, finishing up her work and closing the lid on the pan. Now, with the pan all full and the picnic basket all empty, she moved to take a nice ribbon and laced it through the handles on either side of the pan as well as the handle on top of the lid.
'See, we'll put a nice bow on it and then the rain will think we're carrying some soup around with us. And with soup already being wet, the rain will just go; 'hmm, I don't have to rain here, because soup is already wet!' and will leave our cookies nice and dry,' Lavender explained.
Orchid stared at her in confusion. 'But what about the picnic basket?'
'Well, we can still take that with us, even if it's empty. The rain will just fall on it and make it all wet and soggy, ignoring the pan with the soup in it,' Lavender winked at her little sister.
'But there's no soup in it! There's cookies in it!', Orchid corrected Lavender, but was quickly silenced by one of Lavender's forehooves pushing up at her lips.
'Ssh, little sister. That's our little secret. We don't want the rain to find that out, now do we?', Lavender whispered to Orchid, and Orchid finally started to see what Lavender meant.
'Oooh! That's smart thinking, big sis!', she exclaimed, nodding her head heavily."
You smile lightly as Orchid's head is drifting down to the bed, her ears still perked up but her eyes slowly drifting closed. No matter what the story, Orchid would always fall asleep halfway through. You nuzzle your head into her soft fur and continue.
"Now, with the empty basket in Orchid's mouth, and with Lavender having tucked the full pan in one of her saddlebags, the pair of ponies started off into the rain to head for Sweet Apple Acres. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Pinkie Pie were already waiting there, all four of them sitting in a row in the big barn staring out at the dreary weather with their ears drooped down sadly. There would be no picnic today, they knew. For how could you have a picnic outside in this weather?
Sweetie Belle was the first to notice the two mares walking up towards them, and she pointed it out to Apple Bloom. 'Hey, look guys!'
All the ponies perked up as the soaking wet Lavender and Orchid walked into the shelter of the barn, water dripping from their fur and from the basket Orchid was holding.
'Aww, now all the cookies will be soggy!', Apple Bloom remarked, and their initial excitement at seeing you join them quickly turned back to sadness.
Lavender produced a pair of towels from her saddlebag and quickly dried herself and Orchid off to a more manageable level, while Pinkie Pie stuck her nose into the picnic basket.
'Hey! It's empty?', she wondered, and Orchid and Lavender shared a knowing look between them.
'Of course it's empty, silly!', Orchid giggled at Pinkie Pie's confused look. 'We had to confuse the rain, you know?'
All four ponies stared at her, none of them knowing what Orchid meant.
'Yeah, we brought soup instead', Lavender continued the joke, lifting the pan out of her saddlebag and undoing the ribbon from it.
'Cookie soup!', Orchid grinned at the others, who all leaned in to watch as Lavender pulled the lid from the pan to reveal...?"
You pause in your story, looking over Orchid's sleeping form. "Sweet dreams, little sister," you whisper at her, but the silence is quickly broken by the eager voice of a young male sounding through the intercom.
"Reveal what? What was in the pan? Was there soup in the pan?"
You stare in the direction of the windows in sheer confusion while the sound of something slapping against something else rings through the intercom, followed by some barely audible muttering from a second voice. Did that just happen?
"Well," you start, scraping your throat a bit. "The cookies were all dry, of course. The pan was sealed firm enough to not let the water in. All the ponies had a lovely indoors picnic in the barn, and they went home satisfied after the rainstorm had passed," you explain to the mirrored wall, tilting your head a bit at it. "That really should have been obvious."
"Yes, it was. Thank you, miss Braeden.", a female voice offered in response, and you find yourself nodding slowly towards where they would be hidden behind the glass.
The eager voice had caught you off guard, and you're now even more confused about what this place is supposed to be. Maybe if that doctor comes back with another 'test' you could figure out what they wanted with you? Or why they had first separated you but then put you in the same room?
Well, the latter is probably easy enough to explain. Orchid just plain and simply can't take being left alone. She probably made enough noise to make them decide to put her in with you if only to keep her calm. What other reason could there be?
You idly nibble at your pony sister's neck hairs as you lay there, thinking. Something about this place is familiar but you can't put your hoof on it. It's not like you can't remember your time as a human, before you became a pony, but the memories are almost like a bad dream you just wish you could forget.
Bad loans, bad jobs, bad boyfriends, you never found that one place to truly belong. Except with the ponies. Coming home from being fired from yet another temp job, the ponies were your primary way of boosting your spirits. You started drawing them, posting the drawings on image boards and other places. Keeping some secret because they kept making you blush as you looked at them.
And then that fateful day happened where you found a parcel on your welcome mat. It was not that big a parcel, just big enough to hold in one hand. There was no sender address on it, just your name. And it was left on the welcome mat in front of your apartment door. Behind a secure door downstairs. Far from where mail would normally be left.
You wondered which of your neighbours could have put it there, but no-one came to mind. The family next door were hardly ever at home, it didn't smell like the incense which one of your other neighbours kept using in his apartment, and the apartment underneath your own had been empty for months now.
The question of the sender was even more complicated when you found a plush of your own pony OC in the package: Lavender, with her purple coat and yellow hairs. Her cutiemark being a budding flower from the species with the same name, the soft purple petals caught in the moment of sprouting to their full beauty.
You remember carefully scooping the plush from its plain brown box, holding it in your hands, turning it over, and then finally just holding it to your chest as the emotions got the better of you. You couldn't care less about who sent you the plushy, it was exactly the sort of thing that you needed at that point in your life.
Your emotional episode hid the initial numbness of the transformation from you, and you fell asleep on the bed crying into the little plush' soft form.
When you woke up dazed and confused in a different place, the last wafts of steam rising up from your purple coat, it all just seemed like a lucid dream to you. You had more trouble adapting to your body's new shape than with the acceptance of having a new form, believing the situation to be a dreamscape created by the soft little toy you fell asleep with.
By the time Zephyr's master came to check up on you and the other two ponies in the large room you had been playing around in, you had no desire to go back to your old life anymore. It was too much fun being a pony! When he broke the news to you that it wasn't a dream, that you really truly were a pony, for real, all you could do was cling to his leg and beg him to make it a promise. A promise that you wouldn't wake up to that life of misery he had taken you from.
It was enough to make Zephyr and Autumn reveal themselves, unable to contain their giggling as they sat in the darkness of the hallway just outside the door. When you realized how you must've looked to them, you happily joined in.
In the days that followed you became fast friends with the other ponies. There was a colt named Shades, and a mare named Buttertoast, beside yourself in the room, and Zephyr and Autumn came by to visit frequently. You played tag together, the occasional game of soccer, watched pony episodes, or just spent your time generally cuddling up and talking with the others.
It was tricky to guesstimate just how much time you spent in that room what with the days and nights just being one long slumber party, but as with all things fun and interesting, it had passed by too quickly.
In that time however, you learned that Shades had been a software engineer who had been laid off only a week before his wife left him for another man, taking their kids with her. His dark coat with the red streaks through his mane and tail had been a way for him to vent his frustration.
He really hadn't thought he would end up as the bold stallion he had designed, but he showed himself off proudly regardless. The devil trident on his flank really fitted with his overall look, which was only enhanced by his flaring red eyes.
Buttertoast had been stuck in a dead-end job, her family having all-but abandoned her after she dropped out of college. Stuck working in a sandwich store she'd started to dream of ponies and had come up with Buttertoast. Her cutiemark? A piece of toast with a curl of butter on it.
She'd been a little self-conscious about it and had remarked she wished she'd spent more time on her OC before becoming a pony. Her coat was a caramel brown, while her mane and tail were colored a light beige. She was a lot more demure than Shades, but lived up every time Zephyr's master entered the room.
Both were earthponies, as were yourself and Autumn, leaving Zephyr the odd one out. Buttertoast really loved Zephyr's wings and could often be found doting on her, or nuzzling into the Pegasus' side, while Shades kept Autumn and yourself busy as he chased you around the room with joking threats of mounting you if he'd catch you. It had started out as a joke, but with Autumn's teasing you'd soon found yourself pinned down underneath him, his long hard shaft penetrating your pony nethers almost like a perfect fit.
Your first pony orgasm was nothing like you had imagined; you pretty much ended up with your forehooves sliding sideways, your face planted on the floor with your tongue flopping out of your muzzle, while your rear just stuck up. You were faintly aware of the hairs on your tail lying over your back, half pinned in-between your and his body, getting pulled at a bit by Shades' body moving as he took your virgin pony parts for all their worth.
The question of whether you could become pregnant had risen in your mind only after your wonderful afterglow had finally died out, your crotch still dripping his semen when Autumn came in to help 'clean you'. It didn't take long before your second orgasm racked your body, and you lay panting on the floor as Autumn cleaned up Shades as well. You could hear the poor stallion groan beside you as she did.
You were always sad to see Zephyr and Autumn leave with their Master again at the end of the day. They were good company. The few times you had caught Zephyr without Buttertoast constantly clinging to her side she'd made some good remarks about life as a pony, which you'd taken to heart.
"Always do what your Master tells you, no matter how silly it may be", "be there for your fellow ponies if they're emotionally distraught. You know better what they're going through than your Master might", and "just have fun, you know?" had been some of those remarks.
That pegasus was a smart one, and it was no surprise to you when Buttertoast revealed one night that she saw Zephyr as a sort of surrogate mother. You silently nodded while Shades made a comment that got him a hoof planted firmly in his sides from both Buttertoast and yourself.
Boys and their silly way of thinking.. You wish you could remember the comment, but you had already been half asleep when he'd made it and had reacted mostly out of gut instinct that he'd said something stupid. Whatever it was, Buttertoast had snorted something back at him but they'd made up again when you woke up in the morning. No use being mad at a fellow pony.
And then the day had come where your own Masters had arrived. Buttertoast's master had arrived first, a lanky young man looking about as shy as Buttertoast herself was in unfamiliar situations. For the longest time they remained on opposite ends of the room, neither knowing how to best approach one another, but Zephyr masterfully played them both to start talking about the television show and soon they were sitting with Buttertoast on her Master's lap, engaged in deep conversation.
Shades' master was a more rowdy figure, dressed in black leather and with piercings and tattoos on all the uncovered skin. He looked like what your idea of a goth punk biker must've been, if that could even describe him, and Shades and his master quickly opened up to each other. You'd somehow never pictured Shades to be that kind of a pony, even with colors and somewhat rowdy behavior. You'd just marked it up to him being a boy.
With his master there as a prime example of how to scare children away however, he opened up a whole new chapter of his life. You overheard him revealing how often he had wanted to get a tattoo, or get piercings, stopped only by his ex-wife's insistence he should look like a normal bloke if he was going to get anywhere in life.
They shared a hearty laugh at her expense, and then the guy offered to go outside so Shades could see his ride. Boys and their toys. Shades didn't even look back as he followed behind his master. Buttertoast didn't even notice him leaving, too caught up in debating of whether character X could have really pulled off stunt Y.. they were talking faster than you could keep up with.
You were just about to join Autumn and Zephyr where they were sitting together watching the going ons with smiles on their faces, when a pink pony came rushing back the way Shades had only just left. You didn't yet know her name back then, but the explosion of energy with which she'd bolted in the room made her the focal point of attention.
Autumn shot up in surprise before you or Zephyr could say or do anything, and called out "Orchid!" as she jumped on over to the pink blur that had just entered. Before long, they were both bouncing around, hugging around, and rolling around looking like the best playmates ever!
You had raised an eyebrow as you finally did sit down beside Zephyr, and the both of you shared a look of confusion. Autumn's response had clearly taken Zephyr by surprise as much as it had done you. She shrugged at it and draped a wing over your back as you watched Autumn and Orchid get re-acquainted, but the wing was quickly withdrawn as Zephyr's master entered the room chatting idly with a lithe woman holding onto his arm.
Zephyr's gentle nudge, and nod of her head towards the pair, made you get up in confusion, but the smile on the pegasus' lips made you realize it was your turn to meet your Master.
You started off in a slow trot towards her, which quickly slowed down to a slow walk before you came to a dead stop as panic overtook you. Was this really it then? Were you going to sign your life away to this woman? Your body was shivering all over as Zephyr slowly walked up to your side, draping a wing over you again and whispering in your ear.
"It will be alright. Trust me. She's here for you. Whomever you are, whomever you were, whatever you'll do, it's all ok. She'll tell you when you're doing something wrong, and will praise you when you're doing something right. And nothing will ever feel as good as receiving praise from her."
You remember the feeling of anxiety lingering even as you let Zephyr's words work on you, taking another few careful steps until you were standing trembling slightly in front of the pair of humans smiling down at you.
"Miss Braeden," the woman who was going to be your Master had said, leaning down to.. wait, no.
"Miss Braeden," Zephyr's Master said? No.. Also not right. Something was terribly wrong with this picture!
Not the least of which was that it was all starting to fall apart! The memories fading quickly as you were pulled out of your dream! That voice wasn't your Master's! It wasn't Zephyr's Master's voice either! It was the voice of that bad doctor!
"Miss Braeden!", the doctor chides, reaching out to poke your side. "Will you join the rest of the class or am I going to have to write up another fail on your report?"
You groggily blink your eyes open to stare in the angry face of the doctor who'd visited you back in the other room, Orchid sitting on her rump in front of one of the low tables behind him. When did she get up?
"If you would please?", the doctor grumbles, waving his hand towards the unoccupied table. "I do believe we've waited long enough."
With your mind still feeling a bit foggy, you reluctantly push yourself up from the bed and walk over to the unoccupied table, sitting yourself down on the padded floor as a soft yawn escapes you. You can't help but giggle as you hear the yawn repeated by Orchid, but your ears flatten against your head as you hear the doctor scraping his throat and you quickly fall quiet again.
"Since you both refused to partake in the previous test," the doctor starts in a surprisingly optimistic tone of voice, and you glance up at him in confusion. He, on his part, is doing his best to ignore you while he pulls a pair of pages from a folder he held under his left armpit, "we have to do a similar, but considerably simpler, test today."
You find yourself blinking at that. Simpler? How much more simple can a test get than putting four differently shaped blocks in four equally-shaped holes?
The doctor wastes no time in showing you what he meant, as he leans over you and places down one of the pages on the table. A page holding nothing but two symbols on it; a square and a circle.
As the doctor moves on to put a similar page in front of Orchid, you find yourself squinting at the circle. Something seems off about it, but you can't put your hoof on it until you lean a bit closer. What looked to be a perfect circle from a distance, starts to look less and less like one as you draw nearer.
Corners start to break out from the circular shape, and you notice the circle is made up out of a great many straight lines. It's not a circle at all, but a multi-sided polygon instead! Thirty or more sides at the very least, if you had to estimate, the illusion of it being a circle almost perfect when seen from a distance. With your nose almost on the paper however, much of the illusion is lost.
You are about to ask what the deal is with the symbols, when the doctor nods towards the windows behind you and orders; "Please point out the symbol with the least amount of sides."
You blink up at him, while Orchid quickly stomps her hoof right in the center of the "circle". You sigh out at her, then point your left forehoof up at the square on the picture.
"Obviously the polygon has way more sides than the square," you mutter, but then have to quickly duck away as the doctor moves in to practically tear the paper out from under your hoof!
His demeanor went from just being condescending to actually looking at you as if you did the worst thing imaginable and you feel your tail and ears sink low as he moves over to Orchid's table.
"Thank you, miss Orchid," he tells her, taking the paper from her in a far less agitated manner and putting both back in his folder. Without another word he turns for the door and you watch, in mild amusement, as he leaves the room as fast as he can while still retaining some manner of dignity.
"Well, that was interesting," you chuckle to yourself, giving a soft nuzzle at your sister's neck as she joins you.
"I liked that test," she offers, her innocent face all smiles to you. "It was easy!"
You look at her a moment, then shake your head slowly. "Yes, little sis, it was. A bit too easy, don't you think?"
"Yeah!", the muscular pink pony quips with a slight frown. "Everypony knows it was the circle."
You decide to just nod at that. She wouldn't understand. It's not her fault, really. She's a lot older than you, in terms of how much time she's spent as a pony, and you're sure the process Zephyr's master used has become a lot more refined since then.
Your own body is much less muscular than Orchid's, even if you're both earthponies. Her head is bigger, her features more masculine if simply by how much thicker everything is. Her eyebrows are about twice the size of yours, but no less functional.
Your form is slimmer, leaner, more compact in ways. Your hooves are smaller but provide just as much stability as you would expect Orchid's to. The only thing Orchid got on you in that area is her extra weight.
Between Autumn and Orchid on the one hoof, and Zephyr and yourself on the other, there is a clear progression of how well the transformation panned out. You always felt quite at home in your pony body, perhaps helped by the initial thought it was all just a dream? By the time you realized it wasn't, you had already grown so accustomed to being a pony, that the thought of having to deal with a human's body seemed as alien to you as having a pony body had been before.
Walking around on four hooves, playing with the other ponies, eating hay, oats, and everything vegetable - but no meat, everything felt so normal. After a lifetime of having had nowhere to belong, you finally found your place as a pony.
You found a Master, a sister, a life. And then these idiots decided to steal you away from that.
"Big sis?", you hear Orchid's voice break through your rambling thoughts, and you suddenly realize you're crying.
"Are you ok, big sis?", she wonders, and you cling your forehooves around her neck, burying your face against her fur while the tears flow freely. You're honestly glad you don't have to go through this shit alone.
You both sit like that for several minutes, with Orchid carefully patting your back trying to calm you down, but the sound of the panels in the wall opening helps more to distract you than your little sister could.
Apparently it's lunchtime, and you're happy to find a strawberry among the other assorted fruits in your bowl. Such a sweet and succulent treat helps your mind calm down and you crawl back on one of the beds after you had your fill.
Orchid bounces around the room a little, trying to burn off excess energy, but then starts to yawn and wanders over to the other bed. You're a little surprised as to why she doesn't join you, but then find her taking a corner of the bed sheet in her mouth before dragging it over to the bed you're on.
"I was just going to ask," you chuckle at her as she lays down and pulls the sheet over her, and she sticks her tongue out at you.
"It was a little cold last night, so I walked around in circles for a while to warm up again," Orchid explains, "and then the doctor came to visit us again."
You frown a little at that. "Wait, so you didn't have breakfast?"
Orchid nods at your question. "Of course I did! Just now," she mutters, curling up a bit under the bed sheet and closing her eyes. "And now I just need a little nap," she half-yawns, and soon is fast asleep beside you.
You look her over a bit while your thoughts skip from one random tangent into the next, until a bump from the other side of the mirrored glass makes you perk up. The glass wall on the right side of the door is still shuddering from the impact of something hitting it from the other side. You clamber down from the bed and walk up to it, watching the glass settle again as you approach.
What was that?
You put your face close to the window again and try to look into the room beyond, but just as before it is nigh impossible to make out anything on the other end.
You sigh at the uselessness of your actions and walk over to the door instead, putting your ear to the crack between it and the frame in the hopes of catching some sound.
It is barely audible, but you do hear something that can be best described as agitated voices. One male, one female, then another male speaks up. It's impossible to tell what they're talking about exactly, but one of the voices is all-but screaming, while the others only speak as loud as they need to to provide some counterbalance to the shouting male.
The sound of a door slamming shut makes you jump and you see both windows tremble in their frames as you back away from the door.
Whatever is going on outside is something you can only guess at, but you're slightly amused at it. Dissent in the ranks of your captors?
What follows is mostly silence, and the sound of Orchid's soft snoring. You pace around the room for a while, trying to decipher what the shouting and door-slamming might have been, but there's just not enough information for you to string things together.
Any situation could have ended in humans shouting at each other. You know it happens a lot, regardless of the cause.
Want a sandwich in a restaurant? Shout at the waiting staff.
Want to cross the street but the light isn't green yet? Shout at the cars going by because they're obviously slowing you down.
Want to go outside but it's raining? Throw a few obscene remarks towards the gods and then spend the rest of the day shouting at everyone who even remotely enters your field of vision.
Humans REALLY liked to shout.
With the increased sensitivity of your pony ears, you yourself barely shouted, except for when your emotions got the better of you. The large shells on your head were capable of turning in almost every direction you needed them to turn to, catching sounds your human ears would have never been able to hear. Shouting hurt your ears, so you rarely did it.
Orchid rarely shouted either. And you think Autumn's excited shouting was just that; excitement. Nothing bad, surely.
You find yourself having a new appreciation for ponykind and merrily pad over to the bed your little sister is resting on, giving her a soft kiss on her forehead when you draw near enough.
It doesn't matter that you're stuck in some humans' institution. In this doctor's practice from hell. You're together with your little sister, you're a pony, and your Master is most assuredly looking for you. Even if you don't believe she'll be able to get you two out of there on her own, you must hold up the idea for Orchid's sake.
Orchid's still asleep when you hear the sound of the back panels opening up behind the tables, and you walk over to the table you sort of accepted to be yours. Watching the gloved hand slide out your lunch, you smile at it.
"Hey," you start, and the hand quickly withdraws. Before the panel can close again, you quickly say what you want to say; "Thank you for giving us our food every time." It never hurts to be civil, even to those that captured you.
You're surprised to hear the panel at the other table close before yours does, and peer into the darkness behind it in an attempt to see what's beyond.
"You're welcome?", finally comes the reply, and the panel closes up shortly after.
You eat your food in silence, but smile inwardly at the idea of having made someone's day just a little better by acknowledging them.
Just as you're about to move towards the bed again to wake Orchid up from her slumber, the door opens to a crack and a young male's face peeks in around the corner.
His red coppery hair falls loosely around his face, partially hiding his acne from sight. If he wore braces and a pair of glasses he would be the stereotypical nerd, but lucky for him he isn't.
You turn to face him, and his cheeks flush as you make eye-contact.
"Er, miss Bra.. er.. Lavender?", he starts, and you sit your butt down on the padded floor in confusion at him correcting himself.
"I'm no miss," you still offer in a soft voice.
"I'm sorry," the boy replies, and you raise an eyebrow at him.
"I thought you humans liked to talk through those speakers?", you ask of him, and he visibly becomes less comfortable.
"Doctor Ashborn damaged our equipment when he left, the com system doesn't work right now."
"Doctor Ashborn?", you wonder, your confusion clear on your face.
The male nods at that and quickly looks back in the room he's still half standing in before quickly slipping into the room proper and closing the door behind him.
"Yeah, Doctor Ashborn is the one you two met in the past days. He made you do the tests?", the male explains, sticking his hands in the pockets of his lab coat as he doesn't seem to know what else to do with them.
You stare up at the wiry young man and try to estimate his height. Perhaps five foot nine? Six foot two? He's a lot taller than you, at least.
"Er.. should I sit down?", he suddenly asks, and you find yourself snorting in disbelief.
"You're asking me?", you ask incredulously, "It's not like I have any say in you lot stealing me from my Master, putting me in a room with my little sister Orchid there, and deciding to make me do tests. Why would it matter what I want?"
He looks down at hearing the accusing tone in your voice, and sinks down to sit on the floor with his legs crossed underneath him. "I'm really sorry for that. I only work here to get through college, you know?"
"Work where, exactly?", you wonder, taking a step nearer as you feel the boy is probably one of the only people you can actually talk to in this place.
He scrapes his throat and shakes his head slowly. "I'm not allowed to say, sorry."
You move up a little closer until you're less than a foot away from him, then sink through your lower legs, using your upper legs to keep your head somewhat level. He's still taller than you, even as he sits, but at least it's not hurting your neck to look up at him anymore.
"Well, can you give me any information? Orchid and me are very sad to be taken from our Master like that," you start. "I still don't get what's going on here. It just makes no sense. We're in an observation room? Doing tests? For what purpose? Does our Master even know where we are?"
The boy shakes his head at your last question, then turns for the door and opens it briefly to look out in the room behind it. You try to catch a glimpse yourself, but his form is hiding most of it. You only see a ceiling. Not a lot of good a ceiling can do you. You're not a pegasus, after all.
"Don't let anyone know I told you this, but the woman you call your master is held at a different facility. As are most of them. We only have ponies here," he tells you in a conspiratorial tone, and then quickly checks the room outside again.
Only ponies here? Your Master - and others - held in a different facility? How many of you are there?
"H..How many ponies?", you ask, as you try to keep your emotions under control. On the one hoof you're furious, on the other you're extremely saddened to learn others are going through this as well. It's no longer just you and Orchid. Who else did they get?
"We got seven of you in this building," the boy speaks with a tone of sadness in his own voice.
"What for? Why do you keep us here? Why do you keep us from our Masters? I don't get it! Why are you doing all this?", you shout at the man sitting in front of you, and Orchid's head lifts up from the bed as she wakes up from it.
He takes a deep breath and looks down at his lap. "They're trying to assess your intelligence for the upcoming trial. If you're just mindless pets, you can't be called as witnesses," he reveals, and your heart sinks in your chest.
"Trial?"
"Against your masters. For acts of slavery."
You feel the blood pull away from your face at hearing that. Orchid says something, but your mind doesn't register it. You're vaguely aware of the boy scrambling to get up and out of the door, followed by Orchid impacting with it a moment later. It's like you're watching a dream played out before your eyes in slow-motion. You don't partake in it.
Your Master, and others like her, are being held. For trial. Because someone decided you're a slave. You, and others like you, being held in captivity against your will.
"But that's not true!", you find yourself shouting out, and Orchid cringes where she stands, her ears falling flat against her head.
"It's not true! We," you start, tears once again breaking free from your eyes, "We love being with our Masters! We love being who and what we are! We love every single day we live as pets with our Masters! We would have chosen this fate for ourselves any day! We're not slaves!"
"Big sis," Orchid starts, walking up to you and nuzzling her head against the side of your neck.
"We're not slaves," you whimper, nuzzling her back almost on automatic pilot. "We're not. Tell them we're not."
"They wouldn't understand," Orchid sighs, "They're not ponies, like us. They don't know how it feels. They're just," and she turns her head towards the door again at this point, her voice rising in strength as she speaks with utter disgust, "stupid humans!" There, that shows them.
Orchid's head turns into your neck again and you feel her giving a soft nibble on your fur.
"Yeah.. yeah, they are," you agree with her, but your ears remain drooped low.
How are you going to protect Orchid from this? If they have an actual trial? You never understood trials, and you mostly made it through your time as a drafted jury member by copying what the others were saying. But now you're not going to be the jury. And, if this place got what they wanted, you would not even be a witness.
How could you hope to fight that?
You spend the remainder of the day feeling lethargic and lost. Orchid eventually breaks away from you to eat her lunch, and you just sink down on the padded floor with a feeling of total dejectedness.
Humans and their stupid ideas. Why did they have to go and spoil the best thing that ever happened to you? Why did they have to bring this in front of the courts? Why did they have to tear into your psyche to find out whether you're intelligent enough for such a thing?
Humans and their stupid boxes. They're always trying to make the world fit in their tiny little cubicles. Tiny frames for their tiny little minds.
You're vaguely aware of Orchid draping a sheet over you before she lays down beside you on the floor, and the two of you stare at the door until you realize she's snoring again.
You sigh out, work a hoof under your head, and close your eyes.
You never asked for this.
It's true that you also never asked to be made into a pony. Not really. Even so, you're sure human-you would have made the decision to become a pony if she had been given the facts beforehand.
Or you would like to think so, at least.
All this mental exercise is getting you nowhere and you try to think of nothing, try to catch some sleep, anything to make your mind stop going over the situation you're now caught up in.
It isn't working. Your brain just doesn't let up.
Frustrated, you push up on your hooves and start to pace around. Just around. Not like you can go anywhere. Not like you're in a back yard with fresh grass and fruits and berries growing from the plants. Not like there's enough room for you and Orchid to play tag in.
Your pacing makes you realize your bladder is uncomfortably full, and you trot over to the nearest receptacle to do your business, noticing before you turn onto the toilet itself that the food trays have been removed from the tables.
You hadn't even heard the wall panels open up this time.
Your business done, you take a few steps away from the toilet, turn to watch it flush, then take a few steps closer to it to inspect the bowl as it cleans.
Several jets are painstakingly covering every inch of the bowl with the spiral of water they create together, but you can't figure out how the device knows you've done your business.
You wait a bit until the flushing stops, then move onto the toilet, and immediately move back off of it again.
Nothing happens.
You step up on the toilet again, and this time you wait a few seconds before you move away. You narrow your eyes at it as it still won't flush, and murmur a barely audible "stupid device" at it while your tail flicks in the air behind you.
You turn back towards the room to find Orchid pawing in her sleep, her left forehoof just mowing through the empty air as if trying to find something.
With a sigh you remember the many times you've woken up with her using you as a surrogate plush animal, and you shake your head at the sleeping mare's soft whining noises when she can't find you.
You can't leave her like this. It would only get worse until she'd wake up in distress, and the last thing you need right now is a crying Orchid.
You quickly canter over, ducking your head down as you get near enough and dropping down moments before you would hit your little sister, your momentum making you fall over sideways into her embrace.
Orchid wastes no time to quickly cling her upper legs around you, a happy half-whinny escaping from her as she relaxes again now your warm form presses into hers.
With your position as a living snuggly toy reaffirmed by her, you can't help but sigh and relax in Orchid's hold. It's no good thinking about things you have no answers to, and pacing around in circles isn't going to help you one bit either.
You just close your eyes for the nth time today and try to get some sleep.
Aided by Orchid's warm hug, you're off to dreamland within just a few heartbeats.
You awake to the sound of someone turning over the pages of a book. The sound is barely noticeable above that of Orchid's heavy breathing, but it's strange enough for your ear to flick at it in an annoyed fashion.
It's not like they're leafing through it at a fast pace, or flicking through the book while holding their thumb on the side of the paper to create more of a sound than they already are, but it breaks the silence in the room at odd intervals and it just gets on your nerves.
You flick an eye open and blink oddly at what you see. You need a second opinion. Your other eye opens up and gives you the same view however, be it a little lower as your head rests sideways on the floor. You blink the both of them a few times, but are faced with the same vision each time they open.
You slowly lift your head up and find yourself stifling a yawn before you can say or do anything else. Nope, what you saw before is still there.
You stare in confusion at a female doctor, wearing a lab coat, sitting on one of the beds. A stack of My Little Pony books are set beside her to her right side, and she's reading through one she has on her lap. You spot a folder laying on the bed on her other side, and a ceramic mug is placed on top of it.
She hasn't spotted your movement yet, and you carefully nudge Orchid with one of your back hooves.
Where you woke up without much of any sound, save for the yawn into your forehoof, Orchid quickly reveals herself to be waking up by yawning out loudly and proceeding to stretch herself without a care for who may be around to see it.
You facehoof at her antics as the doctor looks up from her book and raises an eyebrow at the both of you.
"Ah, ich see you are awake, yes?", she speaks with a thick German accent, "Then can we begin."
You push yourself up into a standing position and feel your tail flick restlessly. "Begin what?", you ask, and the doctor smiles at you while holding out her hand as one may to a pet for them to catch her scent.
"We will test you properly, yes?", she starts, and you slowly approach to sniff at her hand. It smells like a flowery kind of soap, but with a clear tinge of disinfectant on it.
"It is no use with the old doctor's data," the new doctor continues, and you perk up at that. "It is all bad. He was a bad man, ja? Ich bin doctor Gerste, but I'm not for the eating, yes?"
You find yourself just staring at all that, your right ear flicking a bit as you try to make sense of her way of speaking. Orchid soon joins your side and sniffs at the still held-out hand as well, smiling up a bit at the woman.
"You smell nice," Orchid simply states, and gets a soft pat on the mane in return.
"Ich hoffe you don't feel bad to me," doctor Gerste starts, looking between the two of you. "Ich only come in to help with the pferde and it is not soon ich get asked for this. But we need you healthy, yes?"
The twitching of your ear is getting to you, and you end up shaking your head in the hope it will make it stop.
"Nein?", the woman asks, looking straight at you.
"I don't," you start, trying to find the right words. "I don't quite.. know what you're talking about, sorry."
"Ach, it is mein accent, yes?", she realizes, leaning in a little and putting her right hand beside her mouth, shielding it from sight from the glass panes. "You have any question, you ask, ok? Ich try to make good on the speaking, but you just say 'Ingrid, ich not get this, can you explain?', ok? It is mein name."
You blink at her frankness, sitting your butt down on the ground and nodding slowly at her expectant look.
She smiles as she sits back up again, reaching beside her for her mug and moving it from the folder on to the precariously balanced stack of books on her other side.
"Ok, ich want your names please?", she starts, opening the folder and leafing through it until she finds the right document. She pulls it out of the folder, closes it, and puts the paper on top of it.
"I'm Orchid!", your little sister pipes up happily, watching doctor Gerste with interest as she, too, sits down on her butt while her tail flicks excitedly behind her.
You chuckle lightly as the doctor pats herself down in the hopes of finding a hidden pen in one of her pockets, and speak up just as she finds a blue ballpoint in her right one. "I'm Lavender."
Doctor Gerste nods quickly to the both of you, moving to write your names on the document in front of her. It doesn't appear that the pen is wanting to work right away, and she frowns at it while muttering something in German that you can only guess are cuss words as she tries to get it to work by rubbing it heavily on the outside cover of the folder.
When a blue stripe finally appears where the pen moved over the surface, she relaxes again and puts the pen back to the document. "Ah, can you repeat, please?"
You can't get your smile to leave your face after the doctor's antics, and you happily repeat your name to her, with Orchid doing so a moment after. Your pony sister grins over to you after answering doctor Gerste, and you share a quick glance between yourselves. A mistake, as you both end up having a giggle fit from each others' expression.
Doctor Ingrid Gerste just looks between you two as you try to calm down again, pen held between her thumb and index finger as she wobbles it in mid-air. "Was ist so funny?"
You are about to respond, when you realize that this doctor, however amusing her behavior, is still part of the group that is keeping you captive. While she may not look down on you and your sister, like the other doctor, she's still in charge of evaluating you for the purpose of the upcoming trial.
"We're just glad that doctor Ashborn is gone," you say instead. "He was a mean man."
Orchid frowns at that, but you put a hoof to her mouth before she can speak up. The only reason he was even remotely nice toward her was because she gave him the expected response to his "tests".
"Ach so, ja that I can understand," doctor Gerste nodded. "Aber you don't have this feel with me, doch?"
You shake your head at the question, and the human smiles up.
"Gut! Dann können we beginning with the tests," she grins, putting her pen to the paper again and looking over the first few questions.
"It's easy," she trusts to you and Orchid. "It's nicht zuviel questions. You can take your time for the answering of them. Gut?"
You're not sure if you like the idea of more tests, but the idea that you at least aren't rushed into things helps you to accept it's just part of being stuck here.
Getting no protests from either of you ponies, doctor Gerste taps the paper with the back of her pen.
"What ist your pony age?"
You stare at the woman before you, this doctor with her curious accent, but no accent would have made that question less than what it is; She asked you for your pony age. Not your human age.
"Can I ask," you start cautiously, your tail flicking nervously behind you, "if you mean our age from when we were born, or born anew?"
"Ach, ja, the latter bitte."
You share a glance with Orchid, but neither of you is feeling like laughing this time. Your sister looks troubled, as if trying to remember something that's impossible to recall.
"I've been a pony for half a year now," you offer to the doctor, "Seven months, or eight. I'm not exactly sure of the date."
Doctor Gerste scribbles your answer down, and you give Orchid a soft nuzzle.
"Orchid was already a pony before me," you continue. "It is difficult to keep track of time when all you do is play around and have a good time, miss doctor."
Ingrid looks up from her paper and looks between the two of you. "Ich see. Das ist unfortunate."
You tilt your head a little and stand up, taking a step toward the doctor.
"Is something wrong?"
She wipes her forehead with the back of her left hand for a moment, then frowns thoughtfully toward your sister.
"There ist kein data about her. Und kein data for some of the others."
No data?
"What does that mean?", you ask, feeling Orchid nuzzle up to your flank.
Ingrid Gerste places her pen down flat on the paper in front of her and sighs out.
"It ist not easy to give you the identity for you as witness if we can't know you original name," the doctor explains.
"Is it gut for you to be a pony? Ich weiss it not. Is it gut to make you owners mark as slavers? Ich weiss it not either."
She reaches out with a hand to gently cup your muzzle and strokes you softly.
"You ist happy, ja? Ich think that is all that is matter for it. But without giving you identity, we can't give you chance for make justice right, understand?"
You nod a little at the doctor's words, and turn your head to look back at Orchid. She's looking down in a depressed manner and you move to gently nuzzle your muzzle up to the side of hers.
"It's ok if Orchid doesn't know anything other than being a pony, right?", you ask, more for your sister than the doctor. "She's always been my pony sister."
Doctor Gerste hums thoughtfully, then you hear her write something down again. "Ja, ich think it should be fine. We are not going to push, ja?"
You smile back at the doctor's willingness to see you ponies as individuals. Creatures with feelings and the right for them to be respected.
She gives a careful smile back at you.
"We are not bad people, ja? It ist just our job."
You nod and sit down next to Orchid.
"I understand, miss doctor. I just hope we come out of this alright. Both Orchid and myself are missing our Master."
You pause a moment to swallow back the emotions that come up at saying that, but then continue, "I think this goes for the others as well."
Doctor Gerste sighs and starts to move her document back into her folder, her right arm moving back just a little too far as she does and her elbow makes contact with her coffee mug.
The precarious balance of the stack of My Little Pony books finally gives way and they move like a landslide, sending the mug toppling over onto the bed.
"Mein Gott!", the doctor exclaims in surprise, a nervous giggle escaping her, "That would have been so bad if there was still kaffee in there."
You find yourself and Orchid giggle as well, mostly in relief, while the doctor cleans up around herself.
"Ok, ich have to see the other ponies today as well. But ich will be back tomorrow, ja?"
Before you can answer her, Orchid presses past you and latches her forehooves around the doctor's legs!
You watch in confusion as Orchid looks up with tears in her eyes, holding onto the only human in the room.
The doctor herself looks to be quite surprised as well, her hands held up in the air a bit off to the side as if trying to figure out what to do.
Her face soon softens however, and she moves one of her hands down to gently tousle Orchid's mane. Your sister needs no further explanation and lets go, nuzzling up at the hand a moment before breaking away and smiling up through her tears.
What just happened here?
The doctor continues picking up her books, holding them under her left armpit together with the folder, her mug held in her left hand, and the pen stuck in the cup before she stands up.
"Ich will see you two tomorrow again, ja?", she offers with a smile, then walks past you toward the door and opens it.
Orchid pads on after her, and you get up as well, trailing behind your sister as the doctor gives a small wave before closing the door behind her.
You stare at Orchid as she sits herself down on her butt and waves back at the closed door with her right forehoof, then nudge her in her flank.
"What was that all about?", you ask, still trying to figure out what just happened. "She's not our Master, you know?"
Orchid turns around with a confused look on her face. "I don't know what you mean, big sis?"
"You hugging her legs like that?", you try.
Orchid stares dumbfoundedly at you.
You blink once, then shake your head and snort out. "Never mind. It's not important."
You canter past her and jump up on the bed opposite the room from where the doctor had sat and work your nose under a side of the blanket lying in a crumpled heap on it.
With a nudge up, you get enough of the material free to bite your teeth into it and flail it over your back, then fall down on the bed and close your eyes.
"I'm going to go take a nap, little sis. Wake me when there's food, ok?"
You wake to the sound of voracious eating and realize the feeding trays have been refilled. Orchid is eating her way to the bottom of her food bowl as if it could be taken away again at any time, often making sounds as if she's half-choking on poorly chewed bits and pieces as she swallows them.
You stretch a moment on the bed before pushing up on your hooves and sauntering over to your own food tray as casual as a pony in your condition can, a yawn escaping you before you make it to the table.
You stare at the food bowl with weary eyes, but the water bowl looks more inviting and you hover your face over it to stare at the tranquil liquid. You're just not feeling this whole being awake thing and end up smashing your face into the water to try and wake up!
As you feel the wetness pull up into your fur, you blow out some bubbles through your nose and lift your head up again, the sound of water pouring back into the bowl from your soaked face helping you to realize you have not relieved yourself yet.
You blink your wet eyes open to Orchid looking at you in shock, bits of food lining her muzzle as she sits halfway turned in front of her bowls. You give her a sheepish grin and return your attention to the bowls, taking a few bites of what turns out to be lightly seasoned Caesar salad. It is delicious! And what was just a few bites before a visit to the toilet quickly ends up with you emptying your food bowl.
Dancing with your back hooves in the hopes you can keep from wetting yourself, you take a few sips of water to wash the salad away with, then rush to the nearest toilet bowl.
Just in time!
You let out a happy sigh as the pressure from your bladder washes out of you, and stick out your tongue at Orchid as she looks past the divider wall separating the two tables, one of her ears drooping down while the other sticks up in the air.
"Are you ok, big sis?" she asks, and you finish up before prancing over happily towards her.
"Yeah, I am," you answer happily. "Why?"
Orchid just stares at you for a moment longer, but her drooped-down ear soon perks up and she launches herself at you for a warm hug!
"I'm happy to hear that!" she exclaims into your left ear, her forelegs keeping you snuggly to her. You hug her back as good as you can, grinning from ear to ear.
"I'm happy that you're happy, little sis," you return about the most cheesy answer you could think of, then stop and think about what you just said.
You're still in captivity. Still separated from your Master. But something has changed.
For some reason, you're simply not bothered by it anymore. You get your food, your drinks, your sleep.
The new doctor is actually nice for a change.
Even with the upcoming trial looming over you, things are looking on the up!
Or are they?
You snuggle with Orchid for a bit longer, trying to stave off the inevitable thoughts that come with waking up properly. Orchid's happy-go-lucky demeanor helps for a little while, but as the two of you finish rolling around on the ground, the thoughts slowly slip back in. You had been alternatively nibbling on each other's ears, nuzzling into each other, and even prodding each other's sides with your hooves, but ended up just laying spent near the center of the room, side-by-side, softly nuzzling muzzle-to-neck.
And then the thoughts came again.
There's still the question of whether you're able to get on the list as a proper witness. That former doctor tried to label you as dumb animals, providing tests that were impossible to do under the pressure he put on you.
But you managed to do them. Orchid, on the other hoof...
You sigh and nibble some on the fur along Orchid's neck. She just didn't have the mental capacity to serve as a proper witness. If someone in the court room would hold up a piece of candy in front of her she'd dance the macarena, or call her own Master a slaver, in order to get it.
You idly wonder if Zephyr's Master had something to do with that, or if Orchid had been a bit ditzy to begin with before her transformation.
Perhaps Orchid had simply embraced what your analytical mind could not; how to be a pet and think nothing of it.
She did have several years or months on you, after all. She could have simply grown used to it over time and shut down all the parts of her mind which she didn't use in Master's care.
If so, could they be re-activated again somehow?
You tilt your head up as the food trays get pulled back out of the room, smirking lightly at the darkness hiding behind those panels in the back wall. Was there really not enough light back there or did they keep it dark for you and Orchid to not see those that give you food? To stop you from bonding with them, perhaps? Another security measure?
You don't get to ponder this for long, as the door to the room opens and the doctor from before shows her face again.
She limps back into the room, her face showing how much her left leg hurts every time she puts her weight on it.
Doctor Gerste closes the door behind her and, ignoring you for now, hops on over to the bed she had been sitting on before.
She sits down on the side of it and moves a hand down to feel over a specific part of her lower left leg. A part which, even through the pants she's wearing, is showing as being thicker than the rest of her leg.
You and Orchid almost jump up in unison, but the response from the doctor is clear enough that you stop after having only taken a few steps in her direction.
Warding you off with both of her hands in front of her, and with a panicked expression on her face, Doctor Gerste exclaims "Ein moment, bitte!"
Even without knowing German, her expression and the warding hands are enough to make you stop and sink through your hooves again, Orchid following suit a step or two in front of you.
You watch as the doctor slowly regains her composure and moves to pull the leg of her pants up over the bulge, revealing some bandages underneath. She carefully unwraps them, then redoes them a little less tight and turns to lay down on the bed properly, keeping her left leg laying flat on the mattress.
In the brief moment that she redid her bandages, you think you saw bite marks under the gauze. Pony bite marks.
"Are you ok?" you dare to ask, and she turns her head to face you.
"You kleines pferde are nice, yes? Wir can talk in civil ways?" she asks instead of answering your question, and you need a moment to figure out what she means.
"Er, yeah," you start, tilting your head a bit. "We can talk like civil ponies."
Doctor Gerste holds out her left hand towards you and Orchid and beckons for you to draw closer. "Komme, slowly."
Orchid and you slowly get up again and draw nearer to the doctor's hand, and she shivers a bit as you get within biting range. You can see it takes her some effort to keep her hand in place, a light twitching of the limb showing she's fighting a fear response.
Orchid lowers her head under the hand and nuzzles up at it, keeping her mouth away from it as much as possible. You realize she either noticed the bitemarks as well, or is just responding to the fear pouring from the doctor.
"Are you ok, doctor?" you ask again, slowly walking past Orchid and sitting down a little away from the bed, but close enough that the doctor's arm can still reach the top of your head, and back of your ears.
Doctor Gerste sighs out deeply, letting her hand relax and rest on Orchid's head as she, too, sits down.
"Ich werde zum anderes pferde gehen," she starts, then catches herself and repeats in English. "Ich would go to the other horses, ja?"
You nod, and the doctor smiles weakly.
"There ist this one horse. He ist gross," she offers, bringing both of her hands up to indicate something big.
"Didn't he get washed?" Orchid wonders, as always oblivious to the most obvious of clues.
"She means he's big," you help your sister understand, and the doctor nods.
"Richtig! Big, gross.. Yes.. Same word," she smiles. "Ich werde into his room and then he bit mein leg! Ich had nothing gesacht yet!"
You sigh and realize what must have happened. The old doctor had been a complete and utter jerkwad. Anypony with that experience would feel hostile towards anyone else working here.
Especially if they didn't have the fortitude of having that doctor lose his temper in your presence, destroy equipment just outside of your room, or have some young male make himself known to be not quite as professional as the others working with him.
Whomever this other pony was, there was every reason for him to be angry with the organization that stole him, and you, from your masters.
This Doctor Gerste, however nice she may appear to be, was part of the same organization. Her clothing was similar to that which the other doctor had worn. Anypony who didn't knew her would have seen her as just another face of their captors.
You carefully shuffle forward to gently nuzzle at the doctor's shoulder and see the small spike of panic in her eyes. It's not going to help you one bit if the only doctor who actually cares about you were to leave because she can't control her fear.
She does ok as long as you keep your distance, but when you get closer to her her twitching intensifies and you can see her glance at the door.
"Doctor Gerste? Can I suggest something?" you start, as an idea pops into your head.
"Ja?" the doctor replies, looking confused.
"You got bit by another pony and we know that you're feeling uneasy around ponies like us now because of it. It's clear in your actions, as well as in your scent."
The doctor bites her lower lip with a blush, shrugging a little. "Ja, ich have a little fear," she mutters.
"If Orchid and I can help you with your fear, will you allow us to meet with the other ponies? We can help them see you mean well, help them understand what's going on."
The doctor narrows her eyes at you as you finish your question, and lets out a thoughtful hum. "Ich weiss nicht... Maybe it work if you do so.. but maybe it not work."
"Oh! OH!" Orchid suddenly pipes up, jumping up to her hooves and sending the doctor cowering in the corner of the room. "It'll be like group therapy!"
You slowly turn your head to face Orchid. "What do you know of group thera... never mind."
Doctor Gerste, pulling herself back together after her fear spike from an overexcited Orchid, nods slowly. "J... ja, group therapy... That could work," she agrees as she slowly shuffles back to the edge of the bed, nearer to you than to Orchid.
You smile up weakly at the doctor and slowly approach, with your head tilted away from her a little, to give her a soft nuzzle to the side of her left upper leg.
You let out a soft sigh as the doctor places her hand on your head and gives a tentative scritch through your mane and you feel Orchid's warm body move up to your left, possibly doing the same thing.
You close your eyes to the light scritches, and just let your thoughts roam free.
Group therapy. How did Orchid come up with that? What did she do before she became a pony? The organization you're with doesn't know her human name, so you can't ask them.
Orchid herself isn't that open either. Her brain has a funny way of ignoring that which she doesn't know an answer to and pulling random thoughts out of thin air. A bit like Pinkie Pie, but without the 4th wall there to break.
You never really noticed while you two were with your Master. It was a simple life, being a pet. Not too many high-functioning thoughts required. Most of it was just "When do we eat?", "When do we get pettings?", "When do we play?", and "Can we go sleep now?".
The last time you had to think this hard on a single topic was... before you were turned into a pony.
"Doctor Gerste?" you ask, nuzzling up at her scritching hand to move it a bit closer to your right ear.
"Ja?" she answers with a light chuckle, moving her hand as you indicated and giving soft scratches behind your ear.
"Hmm... Can we meet with the pony who bit you before we meet anypony else?" you ask, and the scritches stop dead. "We could serve as a shield if we can't get him to calm down? We don't mean you any harm. It may help to find out how to help other ponies to calm down as well."
There's a long pause, then a deep sigh from above, and you feel the doctor's hand move to tousle your mane a bit.
Convincing doctor Gerste that group therapy may be beneficial for all ponies might have been easy, but it still took until the next day for the doctor to finally join you and Orchid again.
You'd just finished your breakfast and were still licking around your muzzle to get the sauce out of your fur when the door opened and doctor Gerste walked back into the room again. She was still limping a little, the area where she was bitten looking as thick as the day before due to the bandages.
"Ok, ich have the good news and the bad news," she started. "The bad news is there is no big room there. It is only single pony room."
You nod at the explanation, sitting down next to Orchid so the doctor doesn't have to spread her attention across the room.
"The good news is that you can come and meet with the other pony," the doctor continues, but then immediately backs away towards the door as Orchid's excitement has her jump up and across the room.
You sigh at your little sister's actions and get up as well, if only to create a calm buffer between doctor Gerste and Orchid, and shrug up helplessly at the human. "Don't be afraid. She always reacts to good news like this. It won't take long."
Doctor Gerste nods at your words with a forced smile, her hands still held up a little as if to ward off the bouncing pony moving through the room.
"Orchid?" you try, but it takes a repeat of her name to get her to react. "Orchid?"
Orchid skips to a stop and prances over with a happy grin and swish of her tail, giving you a soft nuzzle as she gets close enough. "Yes big sis?"
"Try and calm down a little, ok? What did we discuss yesterday?"
Orchid's face goes blank and you roll your eyes at her. "The doctor is afraid of ponies because she was bitten, remember? If you start to bounce around, she won't know what to do with you and it may only get worse. We don't want the other doctor to come back, do we?"
Orchid dutifully shakes her head, but then tilts it at you. "Why not?"
"Because he was an oaf," you sigh.
Orchid's ears turn a bit on her head, but it doesn't look like she gets it. "Oh," she simply replies, but then smiles up at doctor Gerste. "I like you though!"
"Ja, ich had noticed," the doctor smirks, inching sideways until she can open the door and look out behind it. "Everything ready?" she asks to someone in the hallway beyond, and then nods. "Gut. Ich will take the pferde and to the observation room first."
You flick an ear at that. To the observation room first? That should be interesting.
Doctor Gerste turns back to you both and then points down beside her. "You two can heel, ja? Stay close to mich. There ist guards with tranquilizer darts if you not behave."
Oh, fun.
"Yes, doctor Gerste," you and Orchid offer, with you quickly taking to the doctor's left side before Orchid can do so. You can feel the doctor is more comfortable around you than around your sister, and putting her weak leg near Orchid could increase her fear.
The doctor opens up the door and you stare out into a hallway that first has two doors opposite one another. Both leading into the observation rooms adjacent to the room you're currently in.
Doctor Gerste starts off down the hallway, leaving the door open behind her, and you trot off beside her with Orchid needing another moment before hurrying after you two.
The hallway looks like one could find in a hospital, but the walls are painted a two-tone orange/brown color instead of the usual beige, green or blue tones found in hospitals.
It doesn't take long before you pass by a short hallway on the left leading to two doors separated by a smaller hallway. The two observation rooms on either side are far enough apart that sound would not travel from one into the other, and there's a stretcher in the center of the small space between them.
There's also a guard standing in front of the small passageway in-between the rooms, holding a tranquilizer gun and wearing a strap across his chest on which several darts are found. He's looking as suspiciously at you as you would imagine yourself to be looking at him, but visibly relaxes as doctor Gerste continues to lead you on without stopping.
Doctor Gerste leads you to a larger hallway crossing the one you were walking through and turns a right, and you take a moment to look in all directions.
To the left you see what looks like a lobby in the distance, some elevators placed along the far wall, but also find two guards on this end of a set of double doors, and two more on the other side of them. Or is that just a reflection? You squint your eyes, but the distance makes it difficult to be sure of it.
If you would have continued going straight from where you had come from, you would have passed by another set of single rooms, and a double room like the one you and Orchid had occupied set against the back wall. It makes it look like the building was set up to be symmetrical in its layout.
To the right however, following doctor Gerste, you find yourselves suddenly bathing in light pouring in from windows on both sides of an elevated walkway. There's grass growing in the patio just one floor underneath you, and if you look up you see another walkway crossing yours two floors higher up in the building, and the blue sky mottled with white clouds drifting by past that.
It's enough to make Orchid stop and press her face against the glass, and you need to track back to start nudging her forward again while doctor Gerste shakes her head in mild amusement.
"Sorry. We haven't seen the sky since we were taken here," you explain, and your ears tilt down as you realize the sad tone in your voice.
"It ist ok," the doctor consoles, but then leads you on into the next part of the building and takes a right turn again at as the hallway gets crossed by another.
You stop at the crossroads to verify the building is mirrored on this side, and let out a soft sigh as you follow the doctor towards the single rooms on the left side.
The guard standing there looks far from happy as he watches you and Orchid being led into the observation area of the room on the right, and you let out a small sigh of relief as you hear doctor Gerste close the door behind you - effectively shutting him out. Those tranquilizer darts looked like they would hurt on impact. The less you see them, the better you feel.
The room you're led into is small, and made even smaller by the large table occupying the space in front of the window on the left. A pair of chairs is set up in front of it, and a lot of equipment that you only half recognize as sound and video recording equipment is set up along every wall. It looks a lot more high-tech than most observation rooms used by police in television series.
From the looks of things the machines are still indiscriminately recording everything that happens in the adjacent room, even when nobody's physically around to observe. And, judging from the lack of storage media in the room, these machines most likely send this information up over a network to wherever it's all stored for future review.
You suppress the feeling of nausea that rises up as you realize how a similar setup must have been keeping track of your and Orchid's every movement since you arrived here.
The doctor sighs as she leans a hand on the table, and you follow her gaze into the next room where a green-coated stallion with a yellow mane is pacing around. His eyes look like he hasn't had a decent night's rest in a while now, and his mane and tail are a total mess.
As you look sideways at Orchid however, you realize your own manes haven't been brushed in days either and probably look just as messy. You just didn't notice before now.
"Do you have a brush here, doctor Gerste?" you ask of the doctor, "It helps us calm down a lot when our manes get brushed out. Just look at him. His mane is a complete mess!"
The doctor frowns at your words, then shakes her head slowly. "No, we have kein brush here that ich know of. Maybe ich can bring one with from hause?"
"If you have one you could bring with next time, that would be wonderful!" you exclaim, then turn back to the stallion on the other end of the glass and just watch him pace in the same circle over and over...
"It looks like he's at his wits' end," you realize. "I don't think he knows what he's doing anymore. Maybe I should go in first? Calm him down?"
The doctor glances between you and the other pony, then looks over at Orchid. "She ist more gross like him. Maybe work better if Orchid goes first?"
You both turn to face Orchid, who inches back a bit with a quick shake of her head. "Nono, big sis is better," she comments, in a surprising display of sudden realization of what is asked of her.
You frown and sniff the air a moment. Something about Orchid's scent is off.
Looking at her antsy twitching and occasional glances toward the window and the pony beyond it, you slowly start to put one and two together.
"You're not..." you start, then shake your head and facehoof. "Really? The first stallion you see in a while and you're reacting like a filly during her first heat?"
Orchid casts you a glance that could melt lead and you back away in surprise at her sudden fury - straight into a tower of electronics.
The sound of the tower of machines collapsing around you is loud enough that you know the stallion in the other room must have heard it, even without having his ear to the glass, and his face is up against the glass wall in moments. His bloodshot eyes look around wildly, trying to see through the mirror on his end, and you find Orchid slowly licking around her muzzle at the sight.
"O... Orchid?" you try, but there's no stopping her from turning her tail on the two-way mirror and presenting her rear to it, her tail flicking up to reveal her wet snatch to the stallion.
"Orchid, it's... It's no use. He can't see you," you try to explain, but it doesn't reach your little sister's ears and you give a helpless look up at the human doctor.
Doctor Gerste, in turn, looks on with a raised eyebrow.
"I'm sorry for this, doctor," you start, shuffling closer while trying to ignore the pheromones your little sister spreads through the room.
"You have not seen ein male pferde since you were brought zu here, have you?" she smirks, and you shake your head.
"We've not seen a stallion since I was taken home by our Master, doctor Gerste," you reply with a similar smirk and awkward flick of your tail.
"Und that was ein half year ago, yes?"
You flick an ear and look away. "I'm not sure. Time goes by fast when you're a pony."
Doctor Gerste seems to ponder this for a moment, then motions for you to wait and leaves the room.
You stare at the door a moment, but then hear something behind you and turn to watch Orchid trying to clamber up on the table in front of the observation window, one of her hind legs up on one of the swivel chairs which is sliding away from under her.
You quickly move in to stop the chair from moving, putting your weight in against it, and shake your head as you feel the pressure shift as Orchid manages to get on the table properly.
You really don't want to move away from where you're standing now. The thud you hear is enough indication of what's happening up there. But you have to make sure your sister isn't doing something that may jeopardize the little amount of freedom you've gained since doctor Gerste took over from the first doctor you saw...
With some trepidation you walk away from the chair and move to stand near the center of the room, then turn to face the table again.
Your little sister is up on it, eyes showing the same kind of madness the stallion in the other room was showing before, and she doesn't appear to be consciously observing the room anymore. Her forelegs are bent, her muzzle basically resting on the table, but her rear is up high, with her tail draped over her back. She's pressing her crotch up against the glass, and you lean slightly to the right to look past her to see the stallion on the other side with his muzzle up against the glass on the other side, desperately trying to get a whiff of her scent.
This has quickly gotten out of control, and you rub a hoof up against the side of your head as you try to think of a way to help doctor Gerste get the situation back on track - preferably without using any tranquilizer darts...
It isn't helping any that Orchid's pheromones are causing a burning sensation to rise in your own crotch, and you're fighting to stay in control of your own instinctive need to find some release. You can't afford to give in to the madness that took hold of your little sister! You have to be the strong one, the smart one, the one who may find a way out of this place. Not only for Orchid, but for that stallion, and every other pony they're keeping captive in this place!
You need to be strong for them, and for your Master. Your Master who is kept captive somewhere else. Who is facing charges of slavery. You still need to figure out how to get those charges dropped.
Just as you're starting to lose grasp on yourself, doctor Gerste returns with a folder and pencil. She stops in the opening of the door as she spots Orchid rubbing her rear end up against the window, and that's just the thing Orchid seems to have been waiting for...
There's a sudden blur as Orchid sets in motion, quickly jumping off of the table and speeding past the doctor! Doctor Gerste spins around quickly in response, then shouts out something in German, and promptly closes the door again, leaving you alone with your confusion!